There is no sharper, more energetic, clearer-speaking Joe Biden hiding behind the curtain waiting to emerge.
Milwaukee – How often do you see Trump-era Republicans unified — or at least with only sotto voce grumbling — while Democrats are at each other’s throats about who their nominee should be?
Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison is going at it, hammer and tongs, with independent analyst Nate Silver on whether the DNC needs to formally nominate Joe Biden as its candidate before the convention, with “plans to hold virtual roll call as early as July 21.” That’s this coming Sunday; the Democratic convention starts in Chicago August 19. Harrison insists the much earlier start is necessary to ensure Joe Biden’s name appears on the ballot in Ohio; Silver insists the law has been changed, that any GOP legal challenge would go nowhere, and that Harrison is gaslighting the rest of the party.
There is something almost comical about the frantic effort to ensure the Democratic Party nominates Biden as soon as possible, after he’s turned in a catastrophically bad debate performance and spent much of the past two weeks flailing in interviews with George Stephanopoulos and Lester Holt. It is as sterling an example of rewarding failure as you’re going to find in this country.
The debate wasn’t just a “bad night.” There is no sharper, more energetic, clearer-speaking Joe Biden hiding behind the curtain waiting to emerge.
The Joe Biden who addressed the NAACP in Las Vegas on Tuesday is the same guy we saw on the debate stage. Biden pledged to limit rent increases to 55 dollars when he meant to say 5 percent, claimed he “got my start” at historically black Delaware State (Biden graduated from the University of Delaware), and offered jumbled word salad like, “And guess what? Save billions of tons of because of, of pollution, because people, uhwhenuhh, all the studies show, when you get from point A to point B in a train or a vehicle at the same distance you take the train.”
He’s old, tired, mumbles a lot, offers thought and sentence fragments, and apparently can’t read off the teleprompter as well as he used to. He looks lost, even doing a routine meet-and-greet in a supermarket.
In a conference call with House Democrats Saturday, Biden reportedly lost his temper with Representative Jason Crow of Colorado:
“First of all, I think you’re dead wrong on national security,” Biden told Crow, according to a report from Puck News. “You saw what happened recently in terms of the meeting we had with NATO. I put NATO together. Name me a foreign leader who thinks I’m not the most effective leader in the world on foreign policy.”
“Tell me!” Biden insisted during the outburst, according to the report. “Tell me who the hell that is! Tell me who put NATO back together! Tell me who enlarged NATO, tell me who did the Pacific basin.”
At one point in the transcript, it appears Biden references Crow having received a Bronze Star as an Army Ranger in Iraq, comparing Crow to his deceased son, Beau Biden.
“Tell me who did something that you’ve never done with your Bronze Star like my son — and I’m proud of your leadership, but guess what, what’s happening, we’ve got Korea and Japan working together, I put Aukus together, anyway!” Biden reportedly told Crow.
Crow reportedly pushed back on Biden, telling him that his pitch “isn’t breaking through to voters.”
“You oughta talk about it!” Biden responded, according to Puck. “On national security, nobody has been a better president than I’ve been. Name me one. Name me one! So I don’t want to hear that crap!”
For those not familiar with Congressman Crow, he served in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, “leading a platoon of paratroopers during the invasion of Iraq and earned the Bronze Star for his combat actions during the invasion. Shortly after returning from Iraq, he joined the Army’s elite 75th Ranger Regiment, serving two additional tours – this time in Afghanistan, as part of the Joint Special Operations Task Force, where Jason served along the Pakistan border.”
There’s no shortage of reasons for Democrats to panic. Biden’s taking advice only from his family and closest advisers. He’s losing his ability to communicate, and still looks old and doddering.
Biden is trailing, though he keeps insisting “it’s essentially a toss-up race.” It really isn’t. Trump consistently enjoys a small lead in the national polls, with or without the minor-party candidates. In the RealClearPolitics average, Trump leads, 43 percent to 38.9 percent, with the minor-party candidates included, and leads 47.4 percent to 44.7 percent without them.
In the RealClearPolitics archives of surveys, Biden hasn’t led a poll in Arizona since April 2023. He hasn’t led a poll in Georgia since last November. He hasn’t led a poll in Nevada since October. He hasn’t led a poll in North Carolina since March 2023.
As for the “blue wall” states, Biden hasn’t led a poll in Pennsylvania since March. He has led just one of the last ten polls conducted in Wisconsin. He has led just two of the last ten polls in Michigan.
Oh, and Virginia is tied.
This presidential race is not “essentially a toss-up,” and Biden saying so doesn’t make it so.
No, what should really panic the Democrats is that the Biden campaign’s plan is to keep doing what they’re doing.