Democrats Say Hi — and Bye — to President Biden

When he was campaigning for the presidency in 2020, President Biden said he would be a “bridge” to a new generation of leaders.

When he speaks tonight in Chicago after his tumultuous summer, he might feel a little more like a drawbridge about to be pulled up.

Biden, who secured nearly all of his party’s delegates before he withdrew from the presidential race late last month, is set to take the stage at the Democratic National Convention late tonight, when he will make the case for Vice President Kamala Harris — and then swiftly leave town as his party prepares to face former President Donald Trump without him.

It will be an unusual moment, since the last president to withdraw from his re-election campaign, Lyndon Johnson, did not attend his party’s convention.

And it means that, for all the fanfare and excitement that alighted on Chicago as Democrats poured into the city over the weekend, this convention is starting off with a touch of awkwardness.

A man who spent a lifetime trying to become president will tonight face a party that made it impossible for him to remain so, forcing him to keep his promise about passing the torch well before he really wanted to.