Post Biden, elder Trump faces tougher fight

(I wrote this column a day before President Joe Biden announced he is stepping aside as a candidate for a second term and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.)

As someone who is turning 87 this month, I know close up and personal that you are fully baked by the time you are 70.

IMHO, both President Biden, 81, and former president Donald Trump, 78, our unfortunate duo of choices for president Nov. 5, are fully baked. They are who they are. They are what our non-lying eyes have seen during their single terms in the Oval Office.

Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law and chair of the Republican National Committee, labeled the GOP nominee’s acceptance speech in Milwaukee as “a softer version” of him. The reality, of course, is that there is no other version than the one whom we have come to know well.

He is who he has always been, a certifiable psychopath without an ounce of real empathy for other people. His words of love, unity and compassion are just words – fake words.

As a Marine, I will never forget or forgive his real un-fake words when looking over a French burial ground for Marines and soldiers killed in the pivotal WWI Battle of Belleau Wood: “suckers” and “losers.” No one in the Trump family has ever served in the U.S. military.

He regarded traditional Republican John McCain as a loser because he spent five 1/2 years in a Viet Cong prison. The force of the ejection from his falling bomber broke his right leg and both arms and knocked him unconscious. McCain came to as he landed in a lake, but burdened by heavy equipment, he sank straight to the bottom. Able to kick to the surface momentarily for air, he somehow managed to activate his life preserver with his teeth. His captors bashed and shattered his right shoulder, then bayoneted his abdomen and foot.

The Donald dodged the Vietnam draft with bone spurs.

Joe Biden, who would be almost my current age at the end of his second term, is also who he has always been – a chip-on-a-shoulder, stubborn man. He always shown real empathy and, unlike Trump, has many friends. His against-all-odds personality, has prevented him from stepping aside.

In far lesser circumstances, when I turned 70, I thought I still had my marbles and good energy. No one told me otherwise. But I stepped aside from my CEO job for a well-prepared successor.

Many companies have mandatory retirement policies at 65 or 70.

Most company CEOs regard the development of a successor as a priority. They often have several candidates in the running, whose preparation usually involves more education and a rotation through pivotal jobs in different sections of the company.

So I ask this question: Why don’t our political parties of today insist on similar succession rigor for the big job in the White House?

In days of old in American politics, leaders of the party got together in smoke-filled, closed-door rooms and surfaced a party-endorsed candidate. That endorsement usually carried the day to a nomination for president.

Not so today when candidates have to work their way through a gauntlet of state primaries. Campaign war chests and navigation of the madhouse of social media are dominant factors in winning state delegates.

In the end, a narrow segment of primary voters decide each state’s delegates.

Sadly, big donors can play a disproportionate role there. JD Vance was bankrolled by billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel for an Ohio senate seat and to a candidacy for vice president. Because Trump is an old man whose rambling language has become mega-sloppy, no one knows how long he would last. So Vance could have a shot at the Oval Office.

Note that Vance once called Trump “America’s Hitler,” but still sucked up to him for the vice presidency. Does anyone see backbone or integrity in that power-hungry young man?

My gut says Joe Biden will do the right thing in the end and bow out gracefully to give Vice President Kamala Harris the opportunity to take on Trump. Because Trump disrespects women, it will be a telling contest for America.

Harris, 59, will play the age card that was a monumental negative for Biden.

If Biden does exit with grace and wisdom, he will go down in history as a patriot who got the country back on track in his four – year term and put personal ambitions aside for the good of the country.

Biden got more game-changing legislation passed than any president except Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson. LBJ had the humility to step aside at age 59 for the good of the country.

On a micro-level, I always worried that if I didn’t make a clear-headed decision to step down ahead of the outright need to do so, I could still be in office past when I had lost the mental acuity to make a necessary exit. I’ve seen that happen in business.

Here’s a sequel to the original column:

Donald Trump is going to have a much tougher time running against Harris than Biden. The majority of the nation doesn’t want to see a second Trump term. That majority will coalesce in the ballot boxes across the nation Nov. 5, even in the face of fierce Trumpian attacks on her.

Harris would be smart to sound a more centrist line in the next four months — that would make her a more acceptable alternative and a default from four years of chaos under Trump.