The Brokered Convention That Could Break the Democrats

On a debate stage in 2019, former Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro went there: suggesting that fellow presidential contender Joe Biden, who was 76 years old at the time, suffered from memory issues. “Are you forgetting what you said two minutes ago?” Castro needled. “Are you forgetting already what you said just two minutes ago?” Democratic elites were quick to swoop, lambasting Castro for his incivility. “That was a disqualifier, the way he handled it,” Rahm Emanuel said in the ABC spin room shortly afterward.

During that election cycle, Democrats seemed bent on eating their young; all but Pete Buttigieg were ground up in the gears even as the party changed its debate rules to allow Republican dowager Michael Bloomberg to briefly live out his youthful fantasy of running for president. By party acclimation, the septuagenarian Biden was anointed champion after the South Carolina primary. All thoughts of his age were set aside—until this year, when those same party elites were blindsided by the fact that time only moves forward. Biden had in fact gotten quite old. Then they were rocked anew by the Hur Report, which made Castro look prescient.