Let me start by saying that I would vote for anyone with a D after his or her name in the 2020 presidential race. I desperately want us to win. In future posts, I may not so preface, but it should always be assumed.
That being said, I tremble in fear at the thought of a Joe Biden presidency. Here, Atrios points out that Biden’s inability to attract crowds is a problem, either with the candidate himself or with his campaign staff.
His staff may be partly to blame, but I think it’s Biden. Perhaps there are people in this country who are actually enthusiastic about the prospects of a Biden presidency, but they are few and far between. He is up in the polls partly due to name recognition, and partly because people who don’t really think too deeply think he’s the guy to beat Trump. And the latter is partly because he’s been anointed by the same people who anointed Hillary, and they figure that when all is said and done, he’s what they’ll be getting. Can anyone even articulate what Biden would do as president, or what he would like to do, other than not be Trump? All the other candidates are not Trump too, but they also have (except for the Seth Moulton and Tim Ryan DINOs) policy objectives that they articulate. We need for people to come out and vote, and they will not be inspired to do so by Joe Biden.
As a candidate, he will be his own worst enemy At least Hillary grasped most of the realities of the political landscape in which she was operating. That is, she understood that Republicans would take no prisoners and give no quarter. Biden is delusional. It is inevitable that, if nominated, he will make a fool of himself time and again, and the press will do to him what it does to all Democratic candidates: concentrate fire on him while giving Trump a “Trump being Trump” pass (Remember Al Gore, the alleged liar, and John Kerry, the alleged flip-flopper, and Hillary’s emails?). They’ll do it to whoever gets the Democratic nomination, but they’ll have so much more to fire at with Biden. Or maybe I should say “fire with”, since he’ll be giving them the ammunition. If anyone with a reasonable shot at the nomination can depress Democratic leaning turnout, it’s Joe Biden.
I still believe, or want to believe, that he’ll fade, but the truth is that given the gigantic field out there, if he keeps his numbers in the high teens, and the good candidates split the informed vote, we could end up sleep walking toward a replay of that awful night in November, 2016.
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