Yet, Biden still didn’t cut me off. When he became vice president, he invited me to his St Patrick’s Day breakfasts and Christmas parties. He was so un-vengeful, I doubted he was Irish.

Loading

Having elevated Biden to a height many thought he would never reach, the hoity-toity Obama team proceeded to treat their vice president with scarcely veiled disdain. Barack Obama’s aides would trash Biden to reporters, a betrayal an angry Hunter told me was like “friendly fire”.

Biden was a good and loyal vice president, and I thought it was a mistake on Obama’s part to pass him over for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Hillary was an elitist, status-quo candidate, and the mood of the electorate was anti-elitist and anti-status quo. Biden had his Scranton Joe vibe going for him.

The Obama crew peddled the idea that Biden was too distraught over his son Beau’s death to campaign, but Biden is the one person on Earth who could have used his grief to fuel an empathetic candidacy. Biden told people that Beau had wanted him in the White House, not a Clinton restoration.

If Biden had been the nominee, he would have beaten the immoral Alley Cat and he would now be ending his second term, ready for a golden retirement in his plastic beach chair at his beloved Rehoboth Beach.

Loading

Instead, he started his presidency too late. He has clearly been declining for the past couple of years – a dangerous development in a volatile world, with artificial intelligence revolutionising the country and with a Supreme Court full of religious fanatics reshaping American life.

That’s why almost two years ago I wrote a column, “Hey, Joe, Don’t Give It a Go”, suggesting he take the win for the good things he accomplished and let the younger stars of the party have their shot.

“The timing of your exit can determine your place in the history books,” I advised.

But, partly because he had been pushed aside by the Ivy League crowd, he got his Irish up; the working-class chip on his shoulder grew. He was driven to prove he could be a better president than the one who sidelined him.

Loading

Jill Biden, lacking the detachment of a Melania and enjoying the role of first lady more, has been pushing — and shielding — her husband, beyond a reasonable point. After Thursday’s embarrassing debate performance, she exhorted the crowd and played teacher to a prized student: “You did a great job! You answered every question! You knew all the facts!” This, to the guy who controls the nuclear codes.

After Democrats – even the ordinarily fawning MSNBC anchors – commiserated about the debate in a cloud of gloom, Nancy Pelosi, Jim Clyburn, Bill and Hillary, and Obama pushed back and circled the wagons. After a reassuring Friday rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, where the crowd yelled “Four More Years!” and “Lock Him Up!”, presidential historian Doug Brinkley called Biden “the Rebound Kid” on CNN.

Democratic strategist Paul Begala, who deemed the debate “a catastrophe”, explained on CNN: “The first Democratic politician to call on Biden to step down, it’s going to end their career.” He added: “None of them are going to say, ‘Hey, let me step forward and knife Julius Caesar.’ Biden is a beloved man in the Democratic Party.”

It is because Biden is beloved, and because he has real accomplishments as president, that he needs to stop this nerve-racking, maddening tightrope walk to the Oval Office. He will have sprightly moments, like Raleigh. But he will also have sepulchral ones, as he did in the debate, dubbed “the Infirm vs the Unstable” by CNN’s Audie Cornish.

Loading

He didn’t just have an off night, like Obama had when he acted huffy in his first debate with Mitt Romney. Biden looked ghostly, with that trepidatious gait; he couldn’t remember his rehearsed lines or numbers. He has age-related issues, and those go in only one direction. It was heart-wrenching to watch the president’s childhood stammer return.

His wife and staff will build their protective wall ever higher and shoo away reporters, pressing on the age spiral, ever more vigorously. But Biden, Jill and Democratic leaders have to face the fact that this is an extraordinarily risky bet, with – as they drum into us – democracy on the line.

James Carville, who also said a while back that the president should renounce a second term, told me Biden should call former presidents Clinton and Obama to the White House and decide on five Democratic stars to address their convention in August.

“You know what the ratings for that would be?” he asked. “The whole world would watch and people would go, ‘Oh god, they have real talent!’”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter.