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Biden Nomination Keeps Interesting What Should’ve Been a Gimme for Democrats
News flash: the Democratic nomination for president has been won by a nearly 80-year-old man who’s spent the last two months puttering around his basement. With the US economy in flames, a divisive and broadly-unpopular incumbent president, and a viral pandemic ravaging the country’s most densely-populated areas, Democrats have somehow managed to turn what should’ve been a sure thing into a loser on the betting markets.
Whether he’s telling voters they’re full of [redacted], referring to God as “the thing,” or describing the impact of evaporating water on his blond leg hair during his halcyon days as a lifeguard, Biden’s increasingly erratic public pronouncements give American voters reason to stick with the relatively staid tweets of President Trump.
Biden, who voted against the hugely successful first Gulf War and for the catastrophic second one, reminds voters that some things are right even less often than a broken clock. A serial plagiarist, dumber than average, with a reputation for imposing unwelcome social intimacy on women even before our era of social distancing and the #MeToo movement, Democrats have to be wondering where it all went wrong.
Biden buyers are quick to point out that he’s merely a placeholder candidate; so long as he’s the not-Trump, he’ll win. After all, who better situated to pat a woman on the head for the bottom half of the ticket than a soon-to-be-octogenarian white male political lifer? That, after all, is practically the essence of what it means to be a Democrat.
But what if the next five-and-half months make voters in swing states long for a not-Biden candidate?
A political lifer’s political lifer, Biden continues to add to his impressive canon of surreal public pronouncements unrivaled in our national politics. With the legacy press and hundreds of progressive pundits working overtime to provide cover — the eight-year media holiday during the Obama era must seem to them like a very long time ago — it might be enough to pull the geriatric candidate over the finish line. But it’s safe to say that Biden could make an unscheduled campaign stop in his pantry to issue an apology for plagiarizing Bill Clinton’s denial of sexual assault allegations and it would be somehow be reduced to an innocuous “Biden being Biden” narrative.
An NFL coach once said of his mediocre kicker, “he puts the excitement back into the extra point.”
Democrats can relate.
Published in Elections
Oh, but he’s the normal one.
Theme song: “I’m Bidin’ My Time,” (‘cause that’s the kinda guy I’m)
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Reminds me of Bush-Kerry in 2004. Rush Limbaugh used to challenge someone to call in and tell them why they wanted to vote for John Kerry, not just against Bush. I don’t think anyone ever managed it – they would always wind up talking about Bush, not Kerry. In the end it wasn’t quite enough just being not-Bush, although he came close.
Those who take tweets from anyone seriously are mental midgets. Twitter is a playground. But the professional political class and the media prove time and again they are dumber than a bag of rocks. Is it any wonder Trump can set their hair on fire? That’s exactly why I like him.
David, I think it is insensitive of you to keep mentioning the fact that Joe Biden is “nearly eighty years old.”
I am eighty-two myself, and I can assure that we older persons are perfectly capable of… of… ….. I’m sorry, now what were we talking about?
You are a lying dog-faced pony soldier. Oh sorry, I’m cycling my inner Joe.
I have long thought that Biden, for whom the party powers greased the skids months ago, was seen as basically a sacrifice fly. Back in January I don’t think the Democrats honestly thought they could beat Trump – sure’s he’s a controversial loudmouth, but incumbency is incumbency, and Trump was, at worst, in the same spot as Clinton in 1996. Biden is to Trump, therefore, as Dole was to Clinton – OK, FINE, let the old coot have the damned nomination, and then he can finally lose definitively and be out of our way. Just like Dole.
Biden further served another end: Keep Bernie out of the driver’s seat. None of the other Dem candidates would fare any better against Trump, being not only way way too far to the left, but also younger, inexperienced, gaffe-prone, looney, or out and out hated and feared in ways that would bring out the bench warmers the same way Hillary did. Biden wouldn’t win either, but that was never the point. Biden would keep the party bosses and the party line at least in recognizable territory for the voters. Biden would lose, but lose respectably in an election they probably wouldn’t win anyway.
But that was before COVID, and that was before Biden’s past came roaring back, and that was before Biden’s fragility had gotten to the point where it was too noticeable to be denied.
There are growing rumors of replacing him at the convention, and we all know who is salivating at the opportunity…
Hillary?
She has been anything but coy on this.
Just ensuring we’re speaking of the same threat.
It sure isn’t AOC – she’d have trouble navigating her way out of a wet paper bag.
It’s hard to tell who would make a worse presidential candidate, Biden or AOC? I’m not sure Biden would beat her at this point.
He is more likely to sniff her, perhaps fondle her.
You’re creeping me out!
I’d like to see a Democrat slate of Biden and AOC. That would make an “interesting” campaign.
She’s only 30.
It makes me wonder if there’s some perverse law of the universe at work here. In 2016, Republicans were blessed with a field of young, smart, serious candidates and voters went for the aging reality show star. In 2020, Democrats had a field of “diverse” (that desideratum of progressive politics) and faux-diverse young candidates, and voters narrowed the selection to two old guys, one cranky and one goofy. They went with goofy.
Maybe the arc of history bends toward bewilderment.
Sorry about that. I guess I don’t follow AOC as closely as some.
You’re no Joe Biden.
This strikes me as a very astute comparison. In 1996, we could have gone for exciting but risky–Gingrich. Who we really wanted was Colin Powell, but he refused to run. Interestingly, the one Clinton was most concerned about was Lamar Alexander. But SkipSul is absolutely right; we took Dole as a sacrifice fly. Barring a miracle, he wasn’t going to win, but he would leave the GOP in good shape, ready for the next guy. Which he basically did.
To some degree, I’d argue that McCain in 2008 was (okay, to a lesser degree) also a sacrifice fly candidate. Like Dole, McCain had made an unsuccessful run eight years earlier, at a time when they actually still had the chops to win, if they’d gotten the nom. But both men were well past their prime by the time they did get it.
I keep reading that Biden will get chewed up in a debate with Trump. Well, your words to God’s ears, but…I’m not so dead sure. Biden was capable of pulling off a couple of halfway competent Dem debates towards the end of the struggle. If his handlers prop him up, he might be able to do it again. Maybe.
My concern is that Trump is not good in debate. Yeah, he was okay in 2016 against Hillary, but even against her he wasn’t dazzling. President Trump is the best at keeping a rally on its feet for hours. He’s developed a knack for formal addresses like the State of the Union; this year’s was superb. But Trump dislikes formats he doesn’t control, he gets bored easily, and he tires of debating quicker than we’d like to admit.
“So what?” Maybe. But remember GHWB checking his watch during the debate with Clinton and Perot in 1992? It wasn’t a vote winner.
OTOH, it did signal that he thought Perot was a tiresome looney.