There goes Joe Biden's legacy, said Isaac Chotiner in The New Yorker. Had Kamala Harris won last week's election, the president might have been remembered for some of his achievements in office. As it is, he'll now just be known as the man who beat Donald Trump, and then let him straight back into the White House through his own stubborn refusal to cede power.
It was clear long before this year that Biden was too old to stand for re-election. Yet having originally presented himself as a transition candidate, he decided to run again anyway, only pulling out in July after his disastrous debate performance. Biden should have resigned a year ago, said Holman W. Jenkins Jr in The Wall Street Journal. Harris could then have been tested as a president, and in a proper Democratic primary. Republican voters might have "taken the cue that Mr Trump's era was over too".
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