| Last week’s disastrous debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump left many Democrats calling for Biden to step out of the race. We spoke with the staff writer Jill Lepore, who has written about the history of electoral Conventions for the magazine, about what we might expect when the Democrats convene to make their official nomination in August. Everyone is asking if Joe Biden can be replaced as the Presidential candidate. What does the history of Conventions suggest about the possibility? Conventions are a convention. They’re not constitutional. They’re a political practice invented by political parties in the eighteen-thirties, at a time when Americans met in all kinds of conventions, all the time, for all sorts of reasons. Temperance conventions, abolitionist conventions, state constitutional conventions, you name it. For a century and a half, nominating conventions were meaningful forms of political expression, where delegates cast ballots to decide a genuine contest. That stopped a half century ago, and they’ve been vestigial ever since, a throwback. Is there an example from history where a Convention was used to make a late change in candidates? Oh, Lord, yes. Franklin Pierce. James Garfield. Reagan nearly knocked out Ford in 1976. Abraham Lincoln was a dark horse at the Convention in 1860. He won only on the third ballot and only after his campaign printed up fake tickets to cram the seats with Lincoln supporters. I say, look up the verb “rucker.” How does the timing of the Convention, next month, affect the ways things might play out? Well, for those of us desperately hoping Mr. Biden will step down and even more desperately wishing he had abided by his pledge to serve a single term, it gives people a little more time to figure out what to do. I have three pieces of advice. First, go watch “The Best Man”: 1964, Henry Fonda, screenplay by Gore Vidal. Second, there is big money to be made by screen printing T-shirts that read “FREE THE DELEGATES.” Third, read up about bolts and rumps. Bolting is what it’s called when you just can’t in good conscience vote for the party’s nominee, and bolt from the convention. The party splits, and you start a bolting convention, leaving behind what’s called the rump. What kinds of obstacles are in the way of nominating a Presidential candidate other than Joe Biden before or at the Democratic Convention? As the great Will Rogers said, “I am not a member of any organized party—I am a Democrat.” Further reading: David Remnick on why Biden should step aside; Jay Caspian Kang on the case for Biden staying in the race; Evan Osnos on how Biden’s political instincts will shape what’s next. | 
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