The fantastic spectacle of former Vice President Joe Biden attempting to run as an outsider who can reform the Washington, D.C. system would be comical if the Democratic Party were not demanding that the voting public take the idea seriously.
Biden has been a Washington, D.C. insider and fixture since he won a Delaware Senate race in 1972, almost 48 years ago. Barack Obama’s former vice president is now an increasingly fragile-looking 77, and attempts by the media to avoid discussing his age-related issues have backfired and ended up calling even more attention to them.
This is simply astonishing.
I’ve been following presidential campaigns since the George H. W. Bush/Michael Dukakis contest of 1988, and I can’t recall ever seeing a national campaign waiting this long to fill key staff positions in states they need to win. Waiting until just four months before the election is like letting your opponent get two-thirds of the way to the finish line in a 100-yard dash before you begin running yourself.
What’s Going On Here?
The question must be asked: How much do you really want to win if you’re running a campaign this way?From what I’ve seen, the strategy appears to be to run a bare-bones campaign and, after losing spectacularly, loudly claim President Donald Trump must have stolen the election. We’ll be told that it’s manifestly impossible for the irascible old white supremacist to have won by such a large margin while the country is right in the middle of undergoing a cultural shift away from its systemic racist past.
While Republicans have been setting fundraising and primary voting records this campaign season, the Democrats are seriously lagging on fundraising, on voter enthusiasm, and everywhere else except in the national media polls.
Right now all Democrats can do is point to news media polls giving Biden huge leads over Trump, some as high as 15 points.
Eventually Biden will have to visit various states and hold press conferences where he takes unscripted questions from reporters and citizens. He’s going to have to debate Donald Trump at least three times.
Biden’s continued delay in naming a vice presidential candidate to run alongside him is understandable. Once he taps someone such as Stacey Abrams or Kamala Harris, most of the interest in his campaign will dissipate.
Due to the current national climate fostered by the corporate gaslighting about the “vast cultural shift” the nation is supposedly currently undergoing away from its systemic racist founding, Biden is almost sure to nominate a female of color when he finally does pick a running mate.
There’s even rampant speculation that Biden is going to be replaced, either before or at the Democratic National Convention in mid-August. The rumor goes that once Biden picks his running mate, he'll quickly step down for “health reasons” and the vice president pick will assume the frontrunner position.
Whatever happens, I don’t put much faith in the media polls. I believe Biden faces a huge challenge in replacing Donald Trump in the White House.
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