If The New York Times had called me and asked if I wanted Joe Biden to run again for President, I’d have said “no.”

Then again, if they asked me if was upset about his policies, or blamed him for “the country heading in wrong direction” or the price of gas, I’d also have said, “no.” And if they asked who I’d vote for if Biden ran against The Orange God King in 2024, I’d have said something along the lines of, “I’d vote for Beelzebub himself before Trump, only because the cloven-hoof guy smarter, less embarrassing and more honest.”

Columns and podcasts are clogging with pundits arguing that Joe Biden is simply too old to run again … unless he runs against Trump. And I’m on board with that. Unlike Fox and whatever passes for a deep thinking at Breitbart, the Gateway Pundit and InfoWars, I don’t see Biden as senile or “out of it.” Far from it. He’s clearly more rational and in control of a wider and deeper set of facts than the former casino bankrupter.

But no, Biden needs to begin the process of the hand-off. By the summer of 2023 at the latest.

Among the central personal qualities essential to success in our 2022 political world are personal energy and a sustained, crowd-pleasing ferocity in the face of shameless stupidity and bad faith. And those are virtues born in a younger generation than a pre-Boomer.

Whenever anyone asks about Trump 2024, I say I doubt he’s serious about another campaign, because he knows he’d lose even worse than 2020, but that the grift is just too sweet and easy to rule it out until the very last moment. Hell, if he can raise/steal $250 million from his delusional rubes for a legal defense that never existed, there’s got to be another quarter billion to rake in before declaring “everything’s rigged” and bailing out an hour before the New Hampshire primary.

But where do the Democrats go for a candidate with the chops to destroy a truly villainous slime like Florida governor Ron DeSantis?

A couple days ago Politico (aka “Tiger Beat on the Potomac”, thank you, Charlie Pierce), suggested Jon Stewart was the (kind of) guy Democrats need in a world where venomous pricks like DeSantis are regarded as anointed saviors of our white Christian nationhood. And given the performance of a smart, quick-witted, disciplined ex-comedian leading Ukraine in its fight against Trump supporter Vladimir Putin, I can follow their thinking. But the next guy/gal has to want the job, and Stewart doesn’t.

Part of the argument for a Jon Stewart candidacy, or an Oprah candidacy or any fill-in-the-blank-personality candidacy is that the low-information “persuadable” voters who can tip North Carolina, Florida, Arizona and Pennsylvania safely into a Democrat’s hands feel a child-like relationship with famous faces they see on TV. (Trump would never have gotten where he did if simpletons didn’t actually believe he was the business genius they saw on “The Apprentice.”) It’s a sad reality of human nature/modern life, but try convincing me or anyone it isn’t … a fact.

Which leads us to people like California governor, Gavin Newsom, a Hollywood-savvy glamor-puss who lately has been enjoying sticking it to … Ron DeSantis … with mocking comparisons of California v. Florida quality of life, including nuances like privacy and women’s right to choose. Newsom — tall, with ridiculously good hair and a gravelly, manly voice — is like something out of Central Casting and easily ridiculed for looking it. But as I and others weighing his chances have to concede, he pulls it off … and he likes the fight.

Glamor-aside, I’ve always been a fan of Pete Buttigieg. He was my pick in 2020 and with moments like this — on Fox no less — he’s shown time after time that he has the focus and composure for the relentless brawl with misinformation-spewing stooges. But Pete, clearly the smartest candidate in either party in 2020, doesn’t deliver the ineffable “matinee idol” ju-ju that someone like Newsom does.

Either way, Joe Biden will be much too old were he reelected in ’24. The modern world needs someone deeply, and when it comes to negotiating absolutely critical issues like climate change, I do mean “deeply” versed in the technologies and rhetorical warfare of this era.

I await the Times’ next call.