Joe Biden's withdrawal from the US presidential race on Sunday ended a weeks-long agonising struggle by Democrats to convince him to take one for the team after his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump on 27 June.

What a difference a day makes.

Those who had worked to see him gone are now showering Biden with praise for what all Democrats agree has been a transformative Presidency.

Biden's determination to hang on drove the New York Times editorial page to desperation. Star columnist and fellow Catholic, Maureen Dowd, writing her fourth major piece in as many weeks insisting that he step down, almost screamed in frustration on Sunday: Lord Almighty Joe, let it go!

Ironically, the architects of this unprecedented switch at such a late stage in the election cycle to the much younger candidate are two 84-year olds: Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker Emeritus whose great strength always was that she knew how to count the votes; and Jim Clyburn, the Congressman from South Carolina who saved Joe Biden's faltering campaign in 2020 by mobilising the black vote behind him, having figured out that the then leading candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders, was not the man to beat Trump.

Once again, this duo worked behind the scenes not just to get Biden out of the race in a dignified manner but to do it in a way that minimised damage, ensuring that the party would come...