By Chris Satullo

It’s time for unprecedented.

Some people still need to get their minds around the fact that Donald Trump long ago broke normal American politics. It’s not normal for a failed coup leader, convicted felon and adjudicated rapist to be allowed onto a presidential debate stage, then to be treated with deference as he spews wild falsehoods for 90 minutes.

Nor is it normal for an incumbent president to prove utterly unable to counter those falsehoods or to articulate his own policies – to sound mostly like that doddering, tipsy uncle whom you’ve learned to tolerate once a year at Thanksgiving.

All that was unprecedented. So this should be clear: to stave off the looming catastrophe for America that Joe Biden’s debate debacle portends, some unprecedented, hard-to-pull-off steps will be required of the Democratic party.

Joe has to go, and Kamala Harris probably shouldn’t be put in his place.

By some people, the ones who need to face reality, I’m referring to the Biden loyalists and party operatives who, since the moment Jake Tapper mercifully declared time Thursday night, have been lecturing the rest of us to stop wetting the bed and to saddle up to ride behind Joe until the bitter end, like Spanish knights behind the corpse of El Cid.

By some people, I also mean the veteran political pundits who lecture us that any thought of anyone other than the vice president replacing Biden at the top of the ticket is fanciful – or in the words of the usually excellent Philip Bump of the Washington Post, sophomoric.

Sorry, Philip, I’m going to indulge my inner 19-year-old a bit, because I think that sophomore is right and you’re wrong.

First off, I can’t – few Americans can – unsee what we saw Thursday. We saw a confused old man who cannot adequately press the case against his criminal opponent, nor properly describe his own considerable accomplishments. He certainly can’t articulate a fresh vision for America that might inspire millions of disillusioned young people, cynical Black Americans or ambivalent Trump-weary moderates to race to the polls on Nov. 5 to prevent a Republic-threatening calamity.

Look, I love Joe Biden. I’ve known and admired him a long time and I think he’s been a hell of a first-term president while playing a really tough hand. But by 9:15 p.m. Thursday my heart had sunk to my feet, and nothing could drag it back up.  

Even great runs have to end sometime. A lot of the great ones have hung around too long – Willie Mays, Joe Namath, Muhammad Ali. But for them, all that was at stake were their statistical bottom lines, not the fate of the nation, of NATO, of a broiling planet. That’s why a remarkable number of liberal media outlets and pundits have concluded in the last few days that Joe Biden should step aside and release his delegates.

I’ll keep praying that Biden and his tight inner circle will eventually recognize that both the patriotic and the legacy-saving step is for him to bow out. If he does that and Trump is defeated, he is an American hero forever: a successful senator, vice president and president who, in a moment of existential crisis, put aside ego to do the right thing for the country. If he stubbornly hangs on, then loses to Trump, he becomes the Dems’ Herbert Hoover, the klutz who dragged the nation into a dark age and exiled his party from the White House for decades.

But should Kamala Harris be next up?

Let me put that another way: Should Biden’s replacement in this vital matchup be a person whom polls say runs 4 to 6 percentage points behind him in favorability ratings and in head-to-head matchups with Trump? A person so closely tied to Biden that Trump would find it easy to unleash at her his favorite rants about immigration, inflation and why-didn’t-you-tell-us-he’d-lost-it?

Granted, polls are polls; they can change. But I’m from Philly, which means I hang out with a lot of staunch Democrats in perhaps the single most crucial American city to the hopes of any Democratic presidential candidate. I’ve never detected an iota of enthusiasm for Harris among any of them, while occasionally hearing some striking animosity. Sure, racism or misogyny might be behind some of that – but those are matters to discuss calmly once Trump has been defeated, not things that should prevent wise political decisions now.

What’s the wise decision? Her name is Gretchen Whitmer. She’s the governor of Michigan. She’s smart, tough, funny and accomplished, with demonstrated skill at getting things done with a half-crazy legislature. She endured a kidnapping and assassination plot against her with calm and grace. She’s ready for the gig. 

She’s only 52, which qualifies as refreshing youth after the geriatric tussle we’ve been enduring. She’s a governor, which gives her a solid record to cite while making it hard to pin inside-the-Beltway mistakes on her. She’s a strong woman, a type known to drive Trump crazy, which triggers more displays of the toxic nastiness that female swing voters dislike so much. And she won re-election by 10 points in a state that’s indispensable to any Democratic victory in the Electoral College.

Write her name into the top slot – in ink, please. That would, overnight, reset the campaign, creating a wholly new narrative that gives swing voters permission to reject Trump and young voters a reason to head to the polls.

The Democrats also have a strong bench, with a number of fine candidates to fill out the ticket.

Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania is also young (in this context, at least),savvy, accomplished and very popular in an essential swing state, but might reject second- fiddle status.

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia is a high-level orator who’s shown he can win in another must-have state. He’s Black, which might repair some of the enthusiasm deficit that’s now present in this core Democratic constituency. But picking him would risk a key Senate seat and Warnock’s coming out of a nasty divorce, which MAGA hypocrites would be happy to exploit.

Maryland’s governor, Wes Moore, is a charismatic rising star among Black politicians. Like Shapiro, he might have his sights set higher than veep.

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, an MSNBC darling, I dismiss for veep. California is in the blue bag anyway and Newsom is too easy to caricature as a Left-Coast elitist.

U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries has been splendid as minority leader in the House and is a big part of liberalism’s future. He’s also probably in the right spot for now.

Gina Raimondo is a solid Biden cabinet member who was, like Whitmer, a tough-minded, successful governor – but of a tiny, electorally trivial state, Rhode Island. 

Finally, remember a cabinet colleague of Raimondo’s who is my personal favorite for the No. 2 spot: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Not only has he been splendid coordinating Biden’s infrastructure agenda, he did a bang-up job getting Baltimore’s port open and functioning after the Key Bridge accident. No one has been better at crisply making the Biden Administration’s case while demolishing MAGA B.S. Again and again, he strides fearlessly into the belly of the beast – Fox News nighttime – and emerges triumphant. His presence would be unprecedented, welcome and inspiring – America’s first married gay on a presidential ticket.

With all those palate-cleansing, intriguing options (simple slogan: A Fresh Start for America), why settle for Kamala Harris?

No, it’s neither a small nor easy thing to nudge aside the first Blac, woman vice president. She deserves to be treated with respect, but she also needs to stare hard at the poll numbers. They would tell her she’s not so much being denied a chance to be president as much as being spared the lasting humiliation of losing to Trump.

I’ve written before that the best solution to the Harris conundrum might be to a) urge ailing Justice Sonia Sotomayor to retire from the Supreme Court and b) nominate the supremely qualified Harris in her place. But time is short for that maneuver, and the mechanics of Senate confirmation are tough without Harris’ potential tie-breaking vote. It would require someone like Mitt Romney to step up patriotically for the nation and to do the right thing, crossing party lines to approve a Democratic nominee.

What about an offer of the job of Attorney General in a Whitmer administration? That is, in fact, a far more consequential job than vice president, with more opportunity to do historic things.

Yes, all this would be awkward and tricky to pull off in an urgent time frame.

It would also be bold. It would be creative. 

It would be unprecedented.  

Which is exactly what these urgent times call for.

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Chris Satullo, a civic engagement consultant, is a former editorial page editor/columnist at The Philadelphia Inquirer, and a former vice president/news at WHYY public media in Philadelphia