Daily Herald opinion: Biden’s departure opens the way for a more meaningful campaign

Whoever winds up on stage Aug. 22 to accept the Democratic nomination for president in place of Joe Biden, the incumbent’s withdrawal from the 2024 campaign offers more than an improved opportunity for his party to keep the White House. It offers an improved opportunity for an engaging and meaningful examination of the outlook for America.

Until Sunday, the likely themes of this year’s presidential race would have found Democrats portraying Donald Trump as a narcissistic felon congenitally unfit to lead the nation and Republicans ridiculing Biden as a frail and senile dotard bereft of the faculties needed to run the country. Now, both campaigns have the potential to be more oriented toward policy than personality.

Will they be? One can hope, though the picture is distressingly vague and suspect from all sides.

Republicans have opened the bidding with a convention declaring their standard-bearer the victim of an unruly “woke” culture and praising his administration for what they see as restoring economic vitality, controlling illegal immigration, avoiding wars overseas, limiting abortion rights and rebuilding America’s image oversees.

Democrats are still four weeks from the start of their convention, but their themes are emerging with some consistency, regardless of whether Vice President Kamala Harris remains the presumptive nominee or some other individual from a shortlist of potential contenders gains footing. Biden rebuilt a faltering economy with historic gains in employment and economic activity. He engineered an immigration compromise that resulted in a dramatic reduction of illegal entries into the United States. He has defended abortion rights, played key roles in supporting allies overseas and elevated America’s image overseas.

Yes, those are diametrically opposite interpretations of the same sets of facts and events. And we cannot expect to get much more than ambiguous and unreliable repetitions of them from the campaigns themselves.

As long as the race focused on personalities, the party faithful could have satisfied themselves with perfunctory gloss on the issues, then filled in gaps with endless fear mongering about their opponents. Now, if there is fear mongering to be done, it can be expected to focus less on the personalities at the top of the ticket and more on what the details of what the ticket stands for. That, at least, is what voters should demand from candidates and what they should expect from the information outlets they turn to.

Personalities and personal qualifications will still come into play, and they certainly are not irrelevant. We have seen what the makeup of Donald Trump has to offer, and even those who like policies he presumes to profess acknowledge concerns about that. If Kamala Harris is the nominee, the public barely knows enough about her personal makeup to form opinions. That alone is a shortcoming, and it applies at least as much to any candidate who might emerge to replace her.

But in the end, it is policy, not personality, that shapes the future of the country and the quality of life available to all of us. We do not feel unreserved glee at the departure of Joe Biden from the top of the Democratic ticket, but we are comforted that his absence presents the opportunity for a more meaningful debate and more reasoned discussion about the issues we will face over the next four years.