Maybe obsession for what I'm experiencing is too strong a word. But maybe it isn't.
Because I can't stop thinking about how much better it would be for the country, and also for Biden, as I argued in a recent post, if he withdrew from the presidential race.
My anxiety about Biden losing to Trump, which is looking increasingly likely, as I'll describe below, only increased after yesterday's Supreme Court ruling that basically said a president can't be held criminally liable for official acts during a presidency.
I have zero worries that Biden will get all gangster'ish. I have a whole lot of worries that Trump will.
After all, he's been promising to vastly expand the powers of the presidency if he gets another four years in the White House, including directing the Justice Department to indict his opponents and critics, regardless of the inconvenient truth that they haven't committed any crimes.
So now the only way to make sure that Trump doesn't throw our country into constitutional chaos is to have a Democrat defeat him this November. Until last Thursday's debate, I was fairly confident that Biden could do this. Now, I'm almost totally convinced that Biden can't.
Here's reasons why I feel this way. If you disagree with any or all of these points, I'm eager to learn why. Educate me via a comment on this post.
(1) Post-debate polling shows Biden even farther behind Trump. The Biden campaign asked for, and got, a very early debate because they recognized that Biden was trailing Trump and they wanted to shake up the race by what they expected would be a strong performance by Biden.
Instead, the horrendous way Biden acted at the debate has caused him to lose even more ground to Trump. Here's a X post about this.
This fits with Nate Silver's model of the odds that Trump or Biden will win this November. It's based on more than just polls, so Biden has slumped post-debate to a greater degree than the change in battleground states polling. (I'm a subscriber to Silver's site; the chance of winning figure below is only available to subscribers.)
And a Politico story, "Two new post-debate polls have bad news for Biden," says this:
Two new polls taken after President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate with Donald Trump offer discouraging news for Democrats.
A Suffolk University/USA TODAY poll published Tuesday found Trump beating Biden by 3 percent in a six-candidate presidential ballot — a post-debate reversal from a survey a month earlier that had the two candidates tied.
Another poll conducted for CNN by SSRS similarly found Trump holding a 6 percentage point lead over the president, unchanged from an earlier survey, but also this: Fifty-six percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning registered voters said their party has a better shot at winning with a candidate other than Biden.
(2) Kamala Harris is a stronger candidate than Biden against Trump. The CNN poll mentioned above found that voters believe someone other than Biden would fare better against Trump, with Harris showing more strength than Biden.
Three-quarters of US voters say the Democratic Party would have a better shot at holding the presidency in 2024 with someone other than President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS. His approval rating also has hit a new low following a shaky performance in the first debate of this year’s presidential campaign.
In a matchup between the presumptive major-party nominees, voters nationwide favor former President Donald Trump over Biden by 6 points, 49% to 43%, identical to the results of CNN’s national poll on the presidential race in April, and consistent with the lead Trump has held in CNN polling back to last fall.
...The poll also finds Vice President Kamala Harris within striking distance of Trump in a hypothetical matchup: 47% of registered voters support Trump, 45% Harris, a result within the margin of error that suggests there is no clear leader under such a scenario. Harris’ slightly stronger showing against Trump rests at least in part on broader support from women (50% of female voters back Harris over Trump vs. 44% for Biden against Trump) and independents (43% Harris vs. 34% Biden).
Several other Democrats have been mentioned as potential Biden replacements in recent days, and each trails Trump among registered voters, with their levels of support similar to Biden’s, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom (48% Trump to 43% Newsom), Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (47% Trump to 43% Buttigieg), and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (47% Trump to 42% Whitmer).
Keep in mind that the other Democrats polled as an alternative to Biden are much less familiar to voters than Biden, so they have a lot more upside potential than Biden.
(3) Biden and his campaign aren't being honest about the reason for his poor debate performance. Biden puts himself forward as a truth-teller. Indeed, he is hugely more honest than Trump, who lies constantly. But it bothers me that Biden and his campaign keep coming up with excuses for his very weak debate performance that don't make sense.
Midway through the debate panicked staffers started to say that Biden had a cold. But a cold doesn't take away someone's ability to speak in coherent sentences. And the next day, Biden was speaking much more clearly and strongly at a campaign rally -- where he spoke from a teleprompter, as he did at the State of the Union address.
Today Biden said that he was tired from two trips overseas. But a Politico story, "Biden's latest excuse: blame it on the travel," casts doubt on this theory.
President Joe Biden is now chalking up his fumbling debate performance to a heavy travel schedule ahead of the face-off with Donald Trump — the latest in a series of explanations for an episode that has caused some Democrats to call for him to drop his reelection bid.
The president told donors Tuesday that he was offering “not an excuse but an explanation” for his struggles during the debate.
...“I wasn’t very smart. I decided to travel around the world a couple of times … shortly before the debate,” Biden said at a fundraiser in McLean, Virginia. “I didn’t listen to my staff and I came back and then I almost fell asleep on stage.”
Biden went to France for the 80th anniversary of D-Day in early June, then to Italy for the G7 meeting on June 12. The president followed that up with a Los Angeles fundraiser on June 15. He returned to Washington on June 16, or 11 days before the debate. He and his team holed up at Camp David for prep for nearly a week prior to the event with Trump in Atlanta.
So actually Biden took no trips for 11 days before the debate. That doesn't fit with Biden saying he traveled around the world "shortly" before the debate. And reporting has said that Biden's team scheduled an afternoon nap time during the six days of debate preparation.
It's clear that Biden and his campaign staff are desperate to throw out excuses for his poor debate performance that avoid the most likely explanation: he's 81 years old and has been having increasing trouble with his mental focus.
Lastly, I can recommend a Vox story, "5 terrible reasons for Biden to stay in the race," if you're still convinced that he should do this.
Brian, if I may address you informally, I've been reading your blog recently and find it a very welcome addition to the rather lacking journalism here in Salem. The addition of Salem Reporter has helped greatly, though it is no Salem Weekly.
As to your request for feedback, I'm certain you are correct. But you seem to be ignoring history. No entity is more responsible for the first Trump presidency than the Democratic Party by hijacking the rightful primary win from Sanders in favor of the non-electable Hilary Clinton. And now they are doing it again. And not since the debate, but since the beginning of the primary season by blocking competent and electable hopefuls.
Posted by: Mark | July 02, 2024 at 11:25 PM