I did not have ‘Pelosi takes on the gerontocracy’ on my 2024 bingo card
One Pelosi ally said it was possible she would press Biden publicly to give up his spot atop the Democratic ticket.
“The speaker does not want to call on him to resign, but she will do everything in her power to make sure it happens,” this person said, referring to Biden quitting the race.
[Edit] changed the title to Politico’s after reading this community’s sidebar
Deeper than that. Obama inherited the party infrastructure Howard Dean built as DNC chair that was effective at state and local levels. That infrastructure completely fell apart after Obama loyalists took over the party after 2008. Dean ran a 50 state strategy and had built the party to support lower level candidates and contest elections Democrats had traditionally ignored. Post Obama the party shifted back to a focus on marquee races that didn’t really provide support to state parties and startup candidates.
That’s genuinely the single biggest Obama fuckup that doesn’t really get talked about much because it’s very insider baseball. But it’s had very real effects on how Democrats have failed in lower level elections in the years since, which has percolated up into everything else since.