do a variant of the “Basement Campaign”, a-holes
It would appear the old man is running. I largely prefer he not, but pride, stubbornness, and personal history drag him to this point, as too possibly a sober assessment on Kamala Harris’s electoral prospects and his further extrapolation on a thing I believe — he was the only guy beating Trump in 2020 — which leads him to a sense of “indispensable man” — even still, even now.
The totality is that the majority of the punditry has been wasting our time. At best we can glean some personal odds and ends out of a number of hand-wringers.
By most accounts, the polling remain just something of a deadlock. Biden ends up benefiting from being out and about, even as the internal political bickering and drags him down. He is losing polling support from upper middle class progressives, who will ultimately come back to him. And he is winning swing state independents. This gets ironic in a hurry. He has been out on the hustlings, visible, having to forcefully make a case. Trump has been borrowed in Mar a Lago, content to watch Biden supposedly self destruct right now.
And I actually overheard someone ask someone “Did you watch Biden’s big ABC interview last night?”. Of course they didn’t. The big take away appears to be that it was not enough to assuage concerns. Of course — how the Hell an it be? There is nothing that can dislodge the issue — dude’s old, he stumbled beyond what you can dismiss, he will be older still moving forward. Four years ago I thought he would be good for four years, but unfortunately The system is not really set up for a committed one termer. Less than partisans will have a worse assessment than I on that score. The effect should be somewhat liberating. That one about “affable old man” freeing him that one legal issue? Biden will have to win off that. That and the issues. Those and Trump. Cool mix of dark comedy, isn’t it?
On that score, the cries, calls, “we need to see more”. Some things unscripted. And no we don’t. Because the big media take-away from the ABC interview was Biden’s answer to the question, “what will you think of you lose?”. No winning answer answering that question. Ditto the one was effectively ” your approval rating sucks” –again, no real winning, even as the real answer is “hey! so does his!” . Off of these two moments, a chattering class with firmly fixed priors declare “see how out of touch he is.” Michael Moore tacks everything to his advisors. Sam Seder yells about Boomer Democrats clinging desperately to power. So, really, Biden needs to run around in highly scripted settings, not veering off of text, fumble his words mightily, toss in one of his incoherent stories for old time’s sake. Because, you know, if he springs through whatever the chattering class demand – – he will likely screw up.somewhat anyway, and even if he doesn’t — they will say he did.