Biden is winning. Although I think that Real Clear Politics is trying to hide the magnitude of the trouble that the president is in, it is becoming clear that the turf upon which the election will be fought is the wrong turf for an incumbent president. All the swing states are right-leaning states, and Biden is winning them. This is not exactly damaging my "Hillary Sucks" theory of the 2016 election. Trump is going to have to win back some actual moderates, in order to prevail.
There are two problems with this: firstly, the electorate does not generally like President Trump. Secondly, they do generally like Joe Biden. He had a lot of goodwill before he was Obama's vice president, and a good deal of that remains, or has even increased. The middle of the electorate does not believe that Joe Biden is a radical. The only way that Trump prevails is to convince the electorate that only he stands between the country's certain destruction. I wish him more than a bit of sarcastic good luck on this point. His two saving graces would have been the economy, and the power of incumbency. Without these things, he is in real trouble. The power of incumbency is somewhat of a tiebreaker in a tight race. The country was not overly fond of George W. Bush in 2004. In the end, however, the election became a question of the wisdom of switching horses in the middle of a war. John Kerry did not demonstrate the sort of competence and confidence that a challenger needs to override the power of incumbency.
Joe Biden was always going to be the biggest threat to Trump, because his fundamental likability and collegial nature is the antithesis of Trump, and the Age of Trump. In this way, Trump furnishes Biden with a natural message: restoring the civility and decency of America. This is why the president must try to tie Biden to the most radical elements of the Black Lives Matter movement. I would also expect a lot more mentions of Antifa, and other radical groups. It probably won't work, but he can't run on himself. All of this would be much easier to pull off, if the candidate had any semblance of discipline, or impulse control. Biden is known for saying silly things; a more disciplined candidate would stay quiet, letting others do his dirty work, and wait for Biden to mess up. The problem is that the president believes in his own cult of personality. It does not appear that he can sit on the sidelines and stay quiet, even in his own interest, for very long.
I would expect Biden to keep his sentences and speeches short, and I would recommend this as well. I would also expect the younger Democrats to be out front carrying the message of Joe Biden to the electorate. The implied message will be that although the symbol of the Democratic Party right now is an old white guy, the future of the party belongs to others. I don't expect that Biden has to do too much more in the way of placating the progressives who supported Bernie Sanders, because their willingness to show up and vote for the Democratic nominee was always an open question. When nearly 1/5 of Sanders supporters would defect to Trump anyway, it's a fool's errand to pursue their support, at the expense of moderates, which Biden still needs. A victory in the state of Arizona for example, would be a stunning repudiation of the GOP, since Mitt Romney won that state by over 9% in a losing effort. It's a Republican state; the postmortem after this crushing loss will be brutal, and not at all collegial or friendly.
You'll forgive me, if I fail to shed tears at Trump's incompetence. I have spoken consistently and vociferously since the summer of 2015. At no point did I intend to make my peace with Donald Trump. Many others have, presumably in response to what they fear in the platform and personalities of the Democratic Party. I have lodged every reasonable objection to the social policies of the Democratic Party; there is no longer anything I fear to lose, which would cause me to run into the arms of an incompetent bumbler, not even well-regarded in his area of hotels and casinos. Sooner or later, the luck runs out.
There are two problems with this: firstly, the electorate does not generally like President Trump. Secondly, they do generally like Joe Biden. He had a lot of goodwill before he was Obama's vice president, and a good deal of that remains, or has even increased. The middle of the electorate does not believe that Joe Biden is a radical. The only way that Trump prevails is to convince the electorate that only he stands between the country's certain destruction. I wish him more than a bit of sarcastic good luck on this point. His two saving graces would have been the economy, and the power of incumbency. Without these things, he is in real trouble. The power of incumbency is somewhat of a tiebreaker in a tight race. The country was not overly fond of George W. Bush in 2004. In the end, however, the election became a question of the wisdom of switching horses in the middle of a war. John Kerry did not demonstrate the sort of competence and confidence that a challenger needs to override the power of incumbency.
Joe Biden was always going to be the biggest threat to Trump, because his fundamental likability and collegial nature is the antithesis of Trump, and the Age of Trump. In this way, Trump furnishes Biden with a natural message: restoring the civility and decency of America. This is why the president must try to tie Biden to the most radical elements of the Black Lives Matter movement. I would also expect a lot more mentions of Antifa, and other radical groups. It probably won't work, but he can't run on himself. All of this would be much easier to pull off, if the candidate had any semblance of discipline, or impulse control. Biden is known for saying silly things; a more disciplined candidate would stay quiet, letting others do his dirty work, and wait for Biden to mess up. The problem is that the president believes in his own cult of personality. It does not appear that he can sit on the sidelines and stay quiet, even in his own interest, for very long.
I would expect Biden to keep his sentences and speeches short, and I would recommend this as well. I would also expect the younger Democrats to be out front carrying the message of Joe Biden to the electorate. The implied message will be that although the symbol of the Democratic Party right now is an old white guy, the future of the party belongs to others. I don't expect that Biden has to do too much more in the way of placating the progressives who supported Bernie Sanders, because their willingness to show up and vote for the Democratic nominee was always an open question. When nearly 1/5 of Sanders supporters would defect to Trump anyway, it's a fool's errand to pursue their support, at the expense of moderates, which Biden still needs. A victory in the state of Arizona for example, would be a stunning repudiation of the GOP, since Mitt Romney won that state by over 9% in a losing effort. It's a Republican state; the postmortem after this crushing loss will be brutal, and not at all collegial or friendly.
You'll forgive me, if I fail to shed tears at Trump's incompetence. I have spoken consistently and vociferously since the summer of 2015. At no point did I intend to make my peace with Donald Trump. Many others have, presumably in response to what they fear in the platform and personalities of the Democratic Party. I have lodged every reasonable objection to the social policies of the Democratic Party; there is no longer anything I fear to lose, which would cause me to run into the arms of an incompetent bumbler, not even well-regarded in his area of hotels and casinos. Sooner or later, the luck runs out.
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