The question for Joe Biden is no longer whether he can save his candidacy, but how long it takes to admit it’s over.

And the truth is, of course, that there’s not a lot of time left. 

A few Democratic politicians have already called for him to step aside. Many more are inching toward a public declaration. You can’t turn on your TV without seeing another Democrat saying, when asked about the president’s future, that it’s up to Biden to decide — with the implicit message, of course, that there is a decision to be made.

The Washington Post is reporting that Sen. Mark Warner is working to gather a group of senators to call on Biden to withdraw. Meanwhile, 168 donors and business executives have delivered a letter to Biden asking him to withdraw, with the advice that dropping out is the best way to “cement his legacy.” 

The momentum keeps growing, and it’s hard to see how it could be stopped. For a week now, this has been a full-blown crisis, and it’s impossible to ignore how slowly Biden has moved to address it. 

On Friday, he finally made his case in a campaign appearance in Wisconsin and in an interview with George Stephanopoulos. He made no serious flubs, but I doubt he did much to allay voter fears either. Showing up — and that’s most of what he accomplished — doesn’t seem quite enough.

For most of the day and night, Biden insisted there was no crisis and that he wouldn’t be persuaded by fellow Democrats, or by the media, to step aside. When pressed by Stephanopoulos, he said only “the Lord Almighty” could talk him into it.

Maybe. But you could almost hear the sound of more than a few Democratic strategists suddenly deep in prayer.

We know how hard it would be for Biden to give up the job. But delay is helping only one person — and that’s Donald Trump.

In any case, it is well past time to let go of the notion that Biden simply had a rough 90 minutes on a bad night or that, as he now says, without further explanation, that he “screwed up” during the debate. It’s not that he screwed up. And I doubt that his problems could be explained by lack of sleep or a cold or jet lag.

We saw him stumble, and, metaphorically at least, fall on his face. That’s not screwing up. That’s tumbling down, just like his poll numbers.

And since the debate, there have been numerous reports about recent Biden mental lapses and how they seem to be growing worse. Remarkably, in response, Biden told a gathering of Democratic governors that he required more sleep and that he would not schedule work events past 8 p.m.

It’s as if he is embracing the Sleepy Joe meme. How does that help?

The debate was painful to watch. And now it’s painful to see Biden, with encouragement from his family, determined to deny reality. 

A week after the fact, he finally went to Wisconsin for a rally, at which he insisted he was not dropping out. He was energetic in making his case to an audience of supporters — but for 17 minutes, using a teleprompter, in a high school gym.

That night, Biden stuck with the one-bad-night theory of the case.  When Stephanopoulos pressed on whether Biden was fit to run again, Biden pressed back. When he was asked whether he’d take a cognitive exam, Biden said didn’t need to because every day of his presidency was just such a test.

Biden is right about the test of his job. And he may be right that he has passed the test for much of his time in the White House. But is he passing it now? Can he pass it for the next four years?  And is Biden, who seems to be in denial, the best judge?  

The best argument for staying the course, as they used to say, is that whoever might take Biden’s place at the top of the ticket would lack sufficient name recognition, would not have the organization in place to run a presidential campaign, would need buy-in from voters, from donors, from the convention delegates needed to win the nomination.

Nobody should think it would be easy to make this change, only that it’s necessary. But it may not be as difficult as some imagine.

In an Atlantic article, Anne Applebaum makes the salient point that the just-completed election campaign in Britain took six weeks and that the current round of campaigning in France needed only three weeks.

So, there is still time — six weeks until the Democratic National Convention convenes on Aug. 22 — she says for Democrats not to “sleepwalk into a catastrophe.”

If Biden does step aside, I would hope that he doesn’t attempt to pass the baton directly to Vice President Kamala Harris. It’s not that I necessarily agree with those who think Harris couldn’t be an effective candidate. I think she might be underrated at this point.

It’s just that there’s a much better way to find the best candidate.

There would be a mini-primary. We’ve seen the names of potential nominees — Whitmer, Newsom, Pritzker, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Harris of course, and others — and now picture some group of them in a race to a late-August finish.

There could be once-a-week debates. Or twice a week. Town halls. Forums. All televised. It would be reality TV — except it would really be real — and ratings gold.  Media attention would be focused almost exclusively on the candidates and, just as important, away from Trump, who would be seething. He wouldn’t know which candidate to attack — which candidate to call a choking dog — and would have to listen to nonstop attacks on him from every direction.

The winner would be decided, of course, by the convention delegates, once they were released by Biden. But not simply by them, or by the polls — which keep telling us that Biden’s chances are slipping away — or by a media- or money-driven coronation.

You could see something very close, in the best case, to a fair fight.

Of course, for that to happen, Biden has to first step away. Whatever interviews he does, the imprint of that debate — as Biden likes to say of himself — is not going anywhere.

There are stories from several sources about Biden using a teleprompter at living room fundraisers. There are stories citing foreign leaders saying Biden has slipped over the past year.

In the past week, Biden did a few radio interviews with friendly hosts. And still he made several gaffes. At any other time, they probably would have been overlooked. After all, Trump is a gaffe machine, too, although his gaffes are often overwhelmed by his ugly rhetoric.

But when Biden gives a four-minute Fourth of July speech and stops in the middle of an anecdote about Trump — whom he calls “one of our colleagues, the former president” — everyone notices. That may not be fair. But that is reality.

I’ve been asked a few times why I’m not demanding that Trump — whose debate performance was a litany of lies and misinformation — withdraw. I’ve been asked why we should ignore — as most Republicans do — his recent felony conviction or the fact that he has been adjudicated to be a fraud and a rapist. 

It’s a reasonable question. In just the past week, Trump has repeated calls to carry out mass deportations. He believes the military should be used to carry them out. He reposted the notion that Liz Cheney should be brought before a military tribunal for crimes against, well, Trump.

There’s an easy answer, though. Everyone knows he wouldn’t drop out and that the Republican leaders, who should know better, wouldn’t demand it. That has been the story of Trump’s capture of the GOP and its complicit leaders.

As for the rest of America, there must be a way to stop Trump. It must start with Biden. And, with time being of the essence, it must end with him, too.

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom.Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.

Follow Colorado Sun Opinion on Facebook.