After last night’s Joe Biden press conference, Dave Leonhardt of The New York Times praised Biden’s “detailed, complex answers about world affairs” but also complained that the president “rarely looked vigorous.” That was a pretty typical response from the media, and from professional Democrats, who keep on moving the goalposts for Biden. In the space of a couple of weeks — less than that, really — we’ve gone from “Biden must prove he is not in cognitive decline,” to, “His speaking style isn’t thrilling enough.”
But this relentless campaign by Democrats to hack the legs off their own candidate continues. The former Obama staffers who have become celebrities with their Pod Save America podcast have been among the worst offenders. And after the press conference, they now feel compelled, apparently, to grant interviews attempting to make excuses for their untenable and damaging position. Here’s an idea, fellas — change your position!
To be clear, I do not buy the silly conspiracy theory that the PSA dudes are somehow part of a nefarious plot by Obama and a cabal of his former staffers to push Biden out. That’s nuts. At the same time, I may not be a campaign consultant or expert like those guys but I do know one thing: this is politics. It’s a bloodsport. Never show weakness.
And definitely never admit weakness to the predator who’s hunting you. Donald Trump may be a blithering idiot and a degenerate criminal lunatic, but he’s good at a few things. One of them is searching and destroying his prey. Why this crew of campaign pros — extremely good ones! — turned podcasters feel that publicly opening their own veins and bleeding all over the carpet is a sound strategy for defeating Donald Trump, well, it’s beyond me. They look weak.
But Biden is not weak. Looking at his standing realistically, he is nowhere near the position that I and, I expect, many others would like him to be in — but this is a winnable election for him. Now more than ever.
Far from the gloomy predictions of a Trump “landslide,” today’s FiveThirtyEight.com election model favors Biden to win — for the first time (that I’ve seen). He’s an extremely narrow favorite, winning in 51 of FiveThirtyEight’s simulations compared to 48 for Trump, but Trump was previously only a very narrow favorite as well.
Of course, that model applies only to today. It could and very well may change tomorrow. It definitely does not mean that Biden will win and we all can relax. Biden still trails in FiveThirtyEight’s national polling average, albeit by a narrow 1.9 points, 42.3 to 40.4 (with 9.1 going to RFK Jr.). It does mean, however, that this election is on the table for the taking by Joe Biden.
But it won’t be as long as his own party and supporters devote all of their energy to defeating their own nominee, rather than tearing down the other guy. This is a team effort. Democrats need to start playing like a team.
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