The president’s subsequent almost daily pronouncements indicated without doubt his determination to stay the course. In sports terminology, it was a choice between what the tough do when the going gets tough and (if you consider poker a sport) knowing whether to hold ‘em or fold ‘em. But through all of that, this old-timer could see a retreat coming. It was like – to continue the sports metaphor – the first few moments of a large tug-of-war, when you sense the immense strength of your opponents and can tell intuitively whether you can win this or are about to get your clock cleaned. President Biden was going to withdraw. I’d’ve bet fifty bucks on it. This from a man who swore off any more betting on politics after listening to Ann Richards’ blistering of candidate Bush in 1988. It turned out, however, that Dukakis just couldn’t cut the mustard that year. He owes me ten bucks and a ride in an army tank, sans helmet.

I’ve been at this guessing game a long time. Like Tom Selleck, I’ve been in a few rodeos. I can recall clearly the schools of Syracuse, my home town, closing for the day so we students could take the city bus way out Erie Boulevard to the train station to listen to the stump speech of the next president of the United States, Thomas E. Dewey, a little fellow who looked like the tuxedo-clad man on a wedding cake. He stood on the train platform high above the traffic, too far away to hear, but it must have been good, because people clapped. We took the bus home. Then, in a stunning upset, he lost the election. Our staunchly Republican household mourned, but Harry Truman’s feisty optimism planted a seed that bloomed when John Kennedy appeared.

So it was no great surprise to me that the president withdrew his nomination. What was a surprise was the immense sigh of relief in the Democratic Party and the outpouring of financial support that followed Ms. Harris’ accession to the delegates and their votes even before the beginning of the party convention. The president would quietly finish his term in the good graces of his party and would be the subject of multiple encomiums by his relieved former associates.

None of this was ground-breaking. President Coolidge said it before the nominating caucuses of 1928: “I do not choose to run.” (I once had a snowmobile that in memory of that famous statement was named the Calvin Coolidge.) Lyndon Johnson, too, sick and tired of the Vietnam War and anticipating massive protests of his candidacy, declared that he would neither seek nor accept the nomination of his party. Bobby Kennedy, who likely would have defeated him, was assassinated; and all of us old enough to remember that turbulent year, recall the Chicago convention and Hubert Horatio Humphrey’s subsequent loss to Richard Nixon. Which led to the bombing of Cambodia, the Kent State shootings, and eventually the creation of CREEP, the notorious Watergate tapes, and the departure of the ex-president on Marine One.

What I’m getting at is that little of this, in spite of Wolf Blitzer’s breathless comments, is either historic or unprecedented. Its main effect has been to pep things up in a campaign that I’d feared was destined for almost terminal boredom. Here we had two slightly doddering geriatrics going at each other about as effectively as the old-time German celebrants of Fasching, beating each other with inflated pig bladders tied to sticks. Very few, if any, minds were changed by the drama. Now, suddenly, the campaign was going to be fun.

Ms. Harris is still a relatively unknown character in this. Her opponent is all too familiar. Those if us who’ve become Donald-watchers are pretty familiar with his views on and treatment of women; we know that the more he feels threatened, the more he goes off script and the meaner he gets; and we can hardly wait. It is, as he promised a few days ago, about to get dirty. Those of us who’ve watched political campaigns since the Roosevelt days, can at last look forward to another good one. The prospect hasn’t been so exciting since at least the second Adams-Jackson campaign. We all hope the violence is behind us, but I for one hope some verbal fur flies and some mud gets slung. Fur grows back and mud washes off. Bring it on!