“People are scared to say anything about it,” CNN analyst Van Jones declared yesterday, “but I think it’s important to have this conversation now.” Actually, it would have been better to have this conversation among Democrats three and a half years ago, when their choices boiled down to Grandpa Fabulist and his older brother Uncle Socialist, but … better late than never?

Jones sounds worried that it may be too late already after looking at the results of CNN’s latest poll. And Jones clearly doesn’t think Jim Messina’s “bedwetters” comment applies when Democrat voters think the next step for the current president might be Depends:

Transcript via CNN, with Jones’ full remarks:

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: If Jim Messina says that we’re bedwetters, invest in Pampers and Depends because a lot of people are terrified that Joe Biden is in real trouble and that you can’t talk about it. So, that’s what’s going on.

Listen, Jim is right, anybody who wants to argue against Jim Messina is going to waste their time. He’s got to have the right numbers, the right data. And it may, in fact, be true that a year from now things look very different because there’s been a year of a real campaign and all this kind of stuff.

But right now, today, I think a lot of Democrats look at these numbers and say, the whispers are finally showing up in this data. People are talking behind their hand. They worry about Joe Biden. Joe Biden’s like that grandpa that you love, that you believe in, you owe a lot, but you start to wonder, you know, would you give this grandpa a high- stress job for six more years or would you want something else for him? That’s what’s being talked about. And people are scared to come out and talk – and say anything about it.

But I think it’s important for us to have this conversation now. I think this may be the bottom for Joe Biden. He may go up as the economy improves. But right now the economy is getting better and fears about the economy are getting worse.

“A lot of Democrats” is an understatement. As I wrote yesterday in my analysis of this CNN poll, 49% of Democrat voters cited Biden’s age as their top concern, but that’s not the whole story either. Their next-cited concern was “mental competence” at 7%, “health” at 7%, and “ability to handle the job” also at 7%. Put that together, and a whopping seventy percent of Democrat voters think that Grandpa may already checked out, let alone have any compos mentis left for six more years in the office.

Seven out of ten Biden voters think Biden’s unable to handle the job now. That isn’t just “a lot of Democrats,” it’s damned near all of them. If that’s “bedwetting,” then Messina had better follow Jones’ advice and start bulk orders of Pampers and Depends.

Democrats almost certainly won’t move off from Biden, because to try it instantly creates The Kamala Problem. But this discussion of Biden’s aphasiac and fabulist performance on CNN will ramp up the pressure on Democrats nonetheless. One can chalk this up as a necessary adjunct to promoting their poll, but why did CNN’s pollster decide to do such a deep dive on the topic of Biden’s fitness for office in the first place? They are worried that Biden can’t make it across another finish line, and contra Jones, they’re now afraid not to have that conversation. And with Grandpa No-Home providing “senior moments” on a weekly if not daily basis, Messina will need a lot bigger supply chains for incontinence undergarments, even in the Protection Racket Media.