When Biden announced for 2020, I reluctantly stated that I liked Biden best because I felt the experience of being a Senator forever, as well as a member of the House for a short time, and VP for eight years, equipped him to play against the nut-cases representing themselves as Republicans these days.
This is ice on polished granite.
I trust he’s proven my case, even beyond my expectations. Those pundits who’ve felt they need to present a balanced view, if only to keep their paying jobs, have really had to stretch to find a way to that mythical land. And I have little pity for those pundits who cater to the far-right sensibilities, such as my favorite, poor ol’ Erick Erickson – here’s his latest on the unidentified object shootdowns (UFOs, or UAPs to use more modern jargon), but you’ll have to read a bit before finding the part that leads to this:
Team Biden is showing itself to be dithering and weak.
I’ve been scanning his public blog posts for weeks with little commentary, but it’s telling that Erickson is having to critique the far-right for their indulgence in conspiracy theories of all stripes, and their willingness to frantically defend churches of dubious reputation, nearly as much as he attacks the Democrats – and has to rush to his own judgment on them. His task of keeping the far-right together enough to keep voting for chosen candidates and not indulge in self-cannibalism is not nearly as easy as it ought to be, and he has to be careful not to alienate those he tries to call back to reasonability.
Me? I’m gonna wait out these reports, ignore and/or laugh at these biased analyses, and see how much information is released to the public.
But in the meanwhile, Biden’s biggest burden remains what I talked about six years ago: his age. He seems sharp as a tack, but he’s reaching that age (currently 80) where he might not wake up tomorrow morning, and it’s not clear to me who, if not VP Harris, will replace him on the 2024 ticket.
It’s a matter that should concern Democrats, but it’s also worth remembering that Presidential contenders are not always nationally prominent when they run and win. Carter was an obscure Georgia governor when he ran and won. Clinton was less obscure, but still a governor from Arkansas. Obama? An obscure, half-term Senator. On the other hand, Mondale, Gore, Kerry, and Hillary Clinton were prominent politicians – and lost. The Democrats’ next Presidential candidate may be an obscure governor who I’ve never heard of.
But here’s an important difference between the 2024 election and previous elections. I think, deny it as they might, that the Republican members of Congress, and consequently – yes, I mean that, consequently – the Republican candidate for President, are such a pack of mediocrities or worse, third- and fourth- and even a few fifth- raters sprinkled among them, that, unlike earlier elections, Biden’s sophisticated attack strategy, and the competence that he continues to demonstrate, may cause permanent and crippling damage to what currently constitutes the Republican Party.
Contingent on continued competency, and perhaps what worries Andrew Sullivan (paywall),
But Biden’s party is far further left than Clinton’s, and although Biden’s talk has changed quite a lot, he has yet to do anything that would provide a clear clash with the far left. Maybe he fears he would break his party. Maybe he just doesn’t want to go there.
But if he can avoid letting the far-left propositions, those that justifiably alarm independent voters, become part of his narrative, there’s a chance that not only will the Democrats retain the Presidency, which I rate as a very good chance, but they may beat the odds in the Senate and retain control as well, and take back the House. That’s how badly Republicans are coming off so far.
How can I make these guesses, which I shan’t dignify with the term predictions, without madly giggling at myself? I’ve discussed special elections before, that they are highly vulnerable to low turnouts, local politics, bad weather, & etc. And those that I’m about to cite are early in the cycle and were for state legislature seats that lean Democratic. But it’s still worth taking a look at the margins in comparison to how Biden did. This is from Daily Kos:
What these say is that the Democrats greatly exceeded predicted margins in these three races. Is this predictive of anything? Yes – for three local districts in Pennsylvania, a state that endured not one, but two state-wide races between Democrats and rabid Republicans.
But it may mean that the Republicans’ bleeding, which began in 2018 with the loss of the House in a shocker, continued in 2020 with the loss of both houses of Congress and the Presidency, and continued in 2022 when they just barely won the House in the face of a predicted “red wave”, while horrendously losing a seat in the Senate, is set to continue. Every moment the House is in Republican control means it’s in danger of being lost in 2022. There are enough loose Republican lips and egos, nurtured in their epistemological bubble, to suggest that voters who get a snoot full of them won’t even consider voting for the current crop of power-grabbers.
And, in that case, if Biden were to change his mind and not run, it may not matter much. Put anyone competent up and the Republicans may end up spinning their bald tires like mad, burn out their engines, and leave their wreck of an ideology smoking on the highway.
But we’ll just have to see. I now see questions being raised about the veracity of Rep Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL). If these questions pan out, she may join Rep Santos (R-NY) on the gangplank to obscurity – and her district is thought to be not so safe.
And the House won’t be in 2024.
I still back Biden, but I won’t be surprised if he opts out, and a Democrat I haven’t considered, haven’t even heard of, comes out of nowhere to win the Presidency. The Republicans have surrendered to the barstool occupants, full of opinion and bluster – but neither expertise or, frankly, the ability to think.
Leaving only the question: can the Democrats, beyond Biden, out think them?
