However, Democrats will have to start thinking about whether they can run Joe Biden again in 2024 within the next few months. Jazz wrote about all of the ways in which this would be a bad idea on Saturday, keying off a New York Times report about the rising discontent over a second Biden run in Democrat ranks. Biden himself (or at least his team) appear determined to run again for the presidency; to decline would be to spend half of his only term as a lame duck.

If Biden runs again, it complicates Democrats’ strategy to replace him in the primary, which itself would be all but unprecedented. Most of the media’s roster of the Democrats’ bench either work for Biden or are linked to the same agenda Biden has used in office. The Hill’s Amie Parnes and Hanna Trudo ran down their list of alternatives a month ago, but few of these make sense, especially if Biden’s running too:

• Kamala Harris: She’s Biden’s VP, which makes a hostile bid impossible. Even if Biden bows out, Harris has been every bit as incompetent as Biden, especially at media engagement.
• Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren: Biden’s gotten into the 30s by running their agenda, plus they’re almost as old as Biden himself.
• Pete Buttigieg: Biden’s mostly MIA Secretary of Transportation is not only too tied to Biden, he’s slept through a supply chain crisis and turned into a spectator with the baby-formula shortage.
• Cory Booker: All mouth, no substance, takes no leadership on anything despite finally having his party in nominal control of the Senate. However, Booker’s the only one on this list who can actually campaign, so don’t count him entirely out.
• Amy Klobuchar: No charisma, no dynamism, and after a couple of years of Joe Biden’s version of “calm,” no one wants another bloodless bureaucrat out of the Senate.

With a bench like that, small wonder Democrats are hoping they can prop up Biden for another few years. But is the Democrat bench really that thin? I’d argue no, as long as they’re willing to moderate and step outside the Acela corridor for their next generation of candidates. Over the last decade, Democrats have lost a lot of ground in their gubernatorial ranks, but they still have a few red-state governors who would make sense as a fresh, outside-the-Beltway change of pace.

Let’s look at a few of them, in state alphabetical order:

• Jared Polis, CO: Even in purple-state Colorado, Polis has at least been somewhat moderate on policy, even if he’s more progressive in rhetoric. He’s likely to cruise to a re-election this year unless Biden really screws up the midterm turnout. At 47, he’s thirty years younger than Biden and Donald Trump, if Republicans nominate him again. (He’s four years older than Ron DeSantis, though.)
• Andy Beshear, KY: Beshear managed to muscle his way into a red-state gubernatorial seat in part because of his father, former governor Steve Beshear. However, Beshear fils has to work with a strong Republican Party in Kentucky to get things done. He may not have enough charisma to run nationwide, but then again, neither does Biden anymore or any of the presumed Beltway bench either (save Booker).
• John Bel Edwards, LA: He’ll run out of term-limited time in 2024 anyway, so Bel Edwards won’t have anything else to do. He’s been relatively moderate while governor and is at least nominally pro-life, although he’s been pushing back against the anti-abortion measures passed in Louisiana. Either he might look good to both sides, or both sides might end up hating him. He’s also 55 years old, a good age to start a presidential primary. Downside: Any party that stakes its fortunes on products of Louisiana politics probably deserves what they get.
• Roy Cooper, NC: At 65 now, he’s a bit too old, plus North Carolina seems likely to take a sharp right turn in the midterms, which would take a little of the gloss off of Cooper for Democrats. Still, he’s also term limited and therefore is in need of a new project. And at least he’s younger than Biden, Warren, Sanders, etc.
• Steve Bullock, MT (ret): Bullock’s out of office now, thanks to term limits, and he’s the only one on this list who ran in the 2020 cycle. Bullock would have made a lot more sense for Democrats than Biden, but Bullock got in too late and with too little financial backing, plus — like every other person on this list — was a white male in a cycle where Dems insisted they wanted a diversity candidate. And then they picked Biden anyway; go figure. Bullock’s status has been tainted somewhat by the ass-kicking Steve Daines delivered in the 2020 Senate campaign, but at 56, Bullock’s young enough for a comeback.

There are a couple of others that could arguably be included, but have some contradictory factors. Gov. Laura Kelly in Kansas would make a good candidate but she’s already 72 years old, and she may not hold her seat in this year’s red wave anyway. Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer is too polarizing already, and she might have trouble winning a second term this year. Even if one was to consider Pennsylvania a red or purple state, Tom Wolf is both too old and too much to the Left to make it worth a run.

If Democrats want to pull off the biggest presidential political maneuver in history by replacing Biden on the ticket and winning, they need this kind of sea change. The Academia-Acela bubble has been thoroughly popped by Joe Biden. They need to look to those few Democrats left with proven track records of engaging Republican voters and officeholders if they want to pull out of their tailspin. If they attempt to replace Biden with the same old list of Beltway boobs and bumblers, they may as well stick with the bumbling Beltway boob they foisted on us in 2020.