Doggett got some nerve; the old fart was one of the first congress members to call for President Biden to retire because of his age.
Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett calls on Biden to withdraw from presidential race
Doggett, 77, is the first Democratic member of Congress to call for Biden to withdraw from the ticket since his debate.
“President Biden has continued to run substantially behind Democratic senators in key states and in most polls has trailed Donald Trump,” Doggett said in a statement Tuesday. “I had hoped that the debate would provide some momentum to change that. It did not. Instead of reassuring voters, the President failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and expose Trump’s many lies.”
Doggett, 77, is the first Democratic member of Congress to call for Biden to withdraw from the ticketsince his debate. U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minnesota, ran a challenge against Biden in the Democratic primaries but has stayed muted since the debate.
Shortly after his statement, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro joined Doggett in calling for Biden to withdraw. Castro ran against Biden in the 2020 Democratic primaries and was quick to criticize his debate performance last week. Source
Lloyd Dogget wants to keep running, so he is asking a much younger, more energetic congressman to step aside so he, Dogget, can run in a safer Democratic Congressional District.
But just days later, that vow of solidarity began to splinter. Doggett, in an email to supporters, suggested that even though the Democrats’ fight to kill redistricting was ongoing, perhaps it was time to prepare for a Republican victory. To that effect, Doggett said, he was best suited to run in the new, safely-Democratic Austin district and Casar should shift his sights to a neighboring seat that will favor Republicans and does not include the state’s capital city.
… “Without discussing it with Greg or his team, Congressman Doggett sent an email to supporters saying that if the maps pass Greg should leave Austin to run in a south-Texas district that Trump won by nearly 10 points,” Trinh said in the email. “Other than the fact that Republicans arbitrarily assigned this seat the same number as Greg’s current one, there’s no reason it would make sense for Greg to run in that district – fewer than 10% of Greg’s constituents would be in it.”
With 30 years of service in the U.S. House under his belt, the 78-year-old Doggett stands to be among the top leaders in Congress if Democrats wrest control of the chamber next year.
Casar is in only his second term in Washington. But at 36, he appears to be on the fast track for leadership. Heading into the 2025 congressional session, he was elected to chair the House’s Progressive Caucus, and he used that platform to make appearances both in Texas and in other states to highlight the organization’s agenda.
All those old people in Congress and the Senate need to retire and let young people with maybe different ideas take over. There is nothing special about any of them; we are all heading to the same place, and years from now, no one will give a shite.
Added after posting:
The 2026 midterms are more than a year away, but some high-profile primary election battles in the Democratic Party are gaining national attention. Much of that attention is focused on the age of the candidates.
Thanks to Texas’ proposed mid-decade redistricting, a showdown is looming between two Democrats serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from that state: 36-year-old Rep. Greg Casar has made clear his intention to run against a colleague, Rep. Lloyd Doggett, despite Doggett’s public pressure on Casar to run in a different district. Doggett is 78 years old and has served in the House since 1994. Source
