As Democrat power brokers survey the constantly shifting ground in the lead-up to the national election, it is not hard to guess the candidate strategy discussions going on in their super-secret supervillain lairs.

Plan A: Hide a Biden

The first strategy is to run nobody at all, which is another way of saying they stick with Joe Biden.  The idea here is to use the current COVID-19 environment to keep Joe Biden safely tucked away and quiet while the media and surrogates do the heavy reinvention.

This is not an altogether bad strategy and probably the best one they have if Biden remains the candidate since it is becoming obvious to everyone not named Joe Biden that Biden's sharpest days are long behind him.  Let's be honest: he was never that sharp even in his glory days, but he was certainly a lot more lucid when he helped spearhead the despicable character assassination of Robert Bork.

What commends this strategy is that national presidential elections tend to be referenda on the incumbent.  With that in mind, there are worse ideas than sticking a muzzle on ole Joe and hiding him under a rock, or in a bunker full of rubber toys.

This is not to say candidates don't matter.  Elections are fought on the margin for a small percentage of votes that can be shifted.  A strong or weak candidate can shift a small percentage of votes in either direction or change the turnout model.  In a closely divided country, small shifts are deadly.

Still, more people will vote based upon their perception of President Donald Trump than any thought about Joe Biden if the media-Democrat battle station can keep the latter shielded from scrutiny.

Biden is a historically weak candidate.  He has no core beliefs, is corrupt down to his last cell, flip-flops worse than a Kerry, and can't get through two sentences without saying something provably false or utterly ridiculous.

He also has a long history of bad behavior, from plagiarism to "put them back in chains" offensive language to deplorable conduct toward women.  The media-built public perception of Biden as the good-natured favorite uncle is every bit the lie as the latest historic revisionism that sprang forth from Biden's mouth.  The current sexual assault allegations should surprise nobody (although I suppose they would surprise the majority of media-sheltered Democrats).

Ideally, a party would want its candidate to explain to the public how he would do better while prosecuting a case against the current administration.  Biden is not that guy.  So the Democrats' best choice is to hide him, assuming he is willing to play ball.  Sure, they will pop him out for the occasional cameo to remind people he is alive, but that's about it.

Under this scenario, the convention becomes a coronation, and we get to the November elections with no national debates between the president and Biden.  Debates are normally friendly ground for Democrats, who generally go in with a four-on-one advantage.  All the questions are framed in the most advantageous way for the Democrat candidate.  The three Crowleys asking questions serve as the Democrats' debate team, fully prepared to drown the Republican in "how much do you enjoy beating your wife" questions.

It is hard for even the most unlikable and obtuse Democrats to fail under these circumstances.  But Biden is so plagued by contradictions, lies, and misstatements that Democrat power brokers won't want to risk it.

In the meantime, the Democrats will continue to investigate the president nonstop, champion lax and nonexistent voting standards, and count on the media to drive down his approval while doing their part to ensure that Biden is not scrutinized outside conservative media.

Plan B: The Cuomo Shuffle

The problem for Democrats is that, even at that, Biden might actually be worse than an empty chair.  Despite their best efforts, far too many people are catching on to the fact that Biden is a walking punch line and not the kind of person you would want leading Liechtenstein, let alone the United States.

If the real polls (vice the ones put out for public consumption) start to show that he can't win, Democrats will flip the plan B switch.

The two most important steps to seeding the ground for Plan B is to clear the field and to identify and build up the replacement candidate.  This is clearly underway.

For the Democrats, it is vital to drive Bernie Sanders from the race.  Otherwise, he will have a compelling argument to inherit the candidate mantle when Biden is forced to drop out.  This is why Democrats are Whooping like banshees for him to get out.  Even today, the media are giving off a pungent odor of desperation as they fill the airwaves, screeching that it is time for Sanders to drop out of the race.

This has far less to do with his presence harming Biden than with setting the ground for the Cuomo shuffle.  Driving out Sanders is practically a prerequisite before completing Plan B.

While nobody should doubt that Democrat power brokers lack the ruthlessness to replace Biden with whoever they want, it would be far messier if Sanders was still sticking around.  So the man of the people and three homes will drop out.  The only question is the favorable terms of the surrender.

The other part of Plan B is picking the chosen one and marshaling all the forces of leftist cultural power to drive up that person's approval rating.  That candidate is clearly Andrew Cuomo, which is why the media are lavishing praise on him for saying the same things they jump to criticize the president for saying.  It's working.  His approval rating is north of 70%, a massive jump from where it was pre-COVID.  This for being the governor of a state that was in no way prepared for the current crisis, the state that helped drive the entire nation into an economy-crushing overreaction.

Cuomo is not a likely vice president candidate, despite some chatter to that effect. That runs smack in the face of the Democrat commitment to identity politics.  Regardless of who is at the top of the ticket, the vice president candidate will be a female, and probably a minority.  My bet is on Kamala Harris for the simple reason that her likeliest competitor, Stacey Abrams, has the singular talent of making the awful Harris look stellar by comparison.

But the vice president sweepstakes has little to do with the real decision that will be made.  Either Cuomo will be shuffled in as the lead candidate or the Democrats will stick with the empty chair.

You'll know that Democrats have decided to go with Plan B when either Biden drops out due to health reasons or the media uniformly shift from blacking out all negative news on Biden to attacking him ruthlessly.  Without the media shield, he would fold almost overnight.

So which will it be?  It's a tough call, but I look for Democrats to try to make the switch after finally deciding that old electable Joe is actually an albatross in confused clothing.  Biden's real problem is that the Democrats would run Lucifer if they thought he was the candidate most likely to win.  A canceled convention will make the chicanery all the easier.  Look for Biden to drop out and Cuomo to be drafted into the race by August, if not sooner.

Fletch Daniels can be found on Twitter at @fletchdaniels.

Image: Kelly Kline via Flickr.