Abandon Ship

Imagine being aboard a sinking ocean liner on a cold April evening.

When the iceberg sliced into the hull and severed the water-tight compartments there was barely a shudder. After that short moment, no more damage would be inflicted on the ship.

The collision happened approximately 20 minutes before midnight, and the ship would reach the bottom of the frigid North Atlantic Ocean two hours and 45 minutes later. Time matters in situations like this. Every second counts.

Time is the great equalizer in life. It moves forward relentlessly. Each moment that passes is gone forever, while the next unwritten one offers infinite possibilities. Time is the glacier that carves the future. The use of time is highly personal. Its apportionment is foundational to happiness, and the decisions around who to spend it with are keystones of life. Basic human agency and liberty are deeply linked to time because time is the playing field upon which the great decisions of life are made. Murder is a crime above all others because, at the core of the act, is the stealing of time. Life and time are inexorably linked. Great purpose and meaning can be found in short lives, while many long lives appear to be barren deserts where wasted time and emptiness make their deposits.

Aboard the ship that marketers and media celebrated and proclaimed “God himself could not sink,” a great drama would play out on a stage of two hours and 45 minutes. Time was invariable, while the consequences built into a frantic and chaotic conclusion that was inevitable from the moment of the barely-noted collision. The Titanic lost electricity, snapped in half and went to the bottom of the ocean in 14 minutes. The dramatic conclusion is always the locus of the story when it is inevitably memorialized and documented. When the moments of chaos, agony and death are remembered, it is the ending that gets the most time.

It is the beginning though that matters. It is at the beginning, where the outcome was certain but where decisions and actions could still determine who lived and died.

There was no urgency when the mostly empty first lifeboat was lowered into the frigid and placid North Atlantic 50 minutes after impact. The ship’s designer was aboard and knew the ship was doomed – as did her Captain, who plowed it at full speed into an ice field on the orders of the CEO of the White Star Line, who was also aboard. Predictably, it was the CEO who was the sole survivor among the three.

One-hundred minutes would pass between the lowering of the first boat and the chaotic moment when the electricity ceased. There were no lifeboats left for the terrified passengers, who prayed for salvation that was theirs an hour and a half earlier. Why didn’t they get in the lifeboat then? That is an obvious question, but an unfair one because it is asked in hindsight and in a context where time and its use are disassociated from the urgency that comes from emotions. Loss of life, property, a loved one or even an elected office tend to focus attention more acutely when the event is at hand, even if the outcome was never in question.

Here is the place where my friend and former colleague Stuart Stevens have different views.

In my “Biden’s Choice” article, I stated that President Biden should announce now that he will not seek re-election. Why? He should embrace a one-term presidency and lay the foundation for American renewal by framing the hard decisions ahead and on strengthening the security alliances that will be key to this nation’s freedom and prosperity for the next 100 years. Stuart, on the other hand, suggests that Democrats should rally around Biden.

Democratic candidates need to make clear that they’re running to build a better America, which is a different proposition than defending the Biden Presidency. If the Biden Administration cannot effectively communicate its successes, that burden should not fall to Democratic candidates to make in a race that has become a referendum on Biden’s failures.

Imagine being aboard the ship at 12:35 am – an hour after the collision and exactly two hours before the ship was at permanent rest on the bottom, 14,000 ft below.

Imagine looking at the first lifeboat lowering and wondering if you should get in the next one.

Fundamentally, this is the question before Democratic candidates, who are substantially yoked to the Biden administration around which the midterm election has turned into a referendum. There are only three occasions in the last 120 years during which the incumbent presidential party has picked up seats in the first midterm. 2022 will not join the list, that is for sure. The question at hand isn’t the inevitable outcome. Rather, it is this: who will choose to save themselves while there are still seats available on half empty lifeboats? When the end comes, it is always dramatic, messy and chaotic. There are no options at the end and only terrible choices at the near end. The good news is that Democrats stand at 12:35 am. There is still time to get into the lifeboats.

That decision is dependent on how you see the world. I have often joked with my friend Stuart about his innate optimism and my entrenched pessimism. Knowing Stuart is a happy experience because his good cheer, easy manner and hopefulness can bend even the most committed pessimist towards the rainbow.

So it is. Stuart and I are on the deck of a proverbial and imaginary Titanic on a cold April night. The passengers are Congressional candidates, and there is an unhappy decision at hand. Neither Stuart nor any of the passengers, including me, had anything to do with the reckless decisions and communications failures that led to the moment where the listing ship, with its engines idled, was a raft on the North Atlantic.

Staying with Biden, the way Stuart describes, makes sense. Staying with the ship made sense. It wasn’t sunk at 12:35 am. It wasn’t supposed to sink. In fact, the media said it couldn’t sink. Why would anyone in their right mind lower themselves off the deck of a ship that could not sink into the blackness of the frigid ocean on a moonless night in a wooden boat?

Each candidate will assess their circumstances differently, and no two House districts are alike. In the end, there is still time for House Democrats to stand as individuals. They can make an honest case to voters that they aren’t on opposite sides of a delusional coin, albeit one with less malice and no insurrection.

Running in 2022 as Team Joe is a mistake. It will be lethal. My friend Stuart and I see that differently.

It’s 12:35 am on the deck of the Titanic, but there is still time.

There is a lesser-known part of the Titanic story. There was another ship that almost certainly saw the flares and distress signals. That ship could have saved every human life on the Titanic. Her name was California. She ignored the flares and kept going.

Politics is a rare business. It is an individual game within a quasi-team sport. The team is a selfish one. That will never change. Politics is a decision business and it’s important to know when to cut the chord. Making excuses for the failures of communication within the Administration isn’t a campaign strategy. It’s a retirement strategy. The good news is Washington, D.C. is America’s only recession-proof city.

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