I would note that we’ve had a lot of “How Kamala Harris got her groove back” profile pieces and coverage over the last three years, with no discernable change in public opinion of her. But with that said, if Biden announced he wasn’t seeking another term, the glowing coverage of Harris would reach saturation levels.

And if 2024 is going to be a pure base-turnout election — certainly neither party seems all that interested in appealing to independents and centrists anymore — Harris’s loopy, off-the-cuff, Hallmark-card, haiku speaking style won’t matter as much. She raises money, pounds the podium on abortion, and presses the buttons for progressives in a way that Joe Biden can’t or won’t. Recast her as Obama, cast Trump in the role of Mitt Romney or John McCain — an erratic billionaire businessman who’s too old for the job — and roll the dice.

The alternative for Democrats is to argue with that 86 percent of Americans that Biden’s age isn’t a legitimate reason for concern, and to emulate Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Rob Flaherty, and complain that the New York Times is demonstrating a pro-Trump bias when it editorializes, “The president raised more questions about his cognitive sharpness and temperament, as he delivered emotional and snappish retorts in a moment when people were looking for steady, even and capable responses to fair questions about his fitness.” Right, right, I’m sure you get a lot of tough guys in red caps strutting through the hallways of 620 Eighth Avenue shouting, “This is MAGA country!”