Has Team Biden put all of its eggs in one basket?
Granted, it’s only been a couple of days since Team Biden launched Grandpa’s reelection campaign, but it seems to me it’s placing all of its eggs in one basket.
The Biden campaign strategy is to frame the battle as the Great Rematch between Joe and Donald Trump.
Nine months away from a single voter casting a ballot in the primary election, it seems a bit premature for Team Biden to already zero in on a single Republican candidate.
But you can understand why the Biden campaign is doing it. They want Trump to be the Republican nominee since they know from experience that Trump is the one candidate Joe Biden can beat.
The same may not be true for any other Republican.
A recent NBC News poll found that 70% of respondents, including 51% of Democrats do not want Joe Biden to run again. It also found that Grandpa Joe was losing to a generic Republican by 4 points.
But when facing off against Trump, especially in key states including Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, Joe is polling ahead of Trump while trailing behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
The most recent Gallup poll shows Biden with the lowest approval of his presidency at 37% with 59% disapproving, placing Joe 22 points underwater.
Real Clear Politics polling average gives Joe a net favorability of negative 11, whereas Trump’s net favorability is in Kamala Harris Territory at negative 16.
By comparison, Ron DeSantis has a net favorability average of negative 0.5.
Team Biden has no doubt concluded that a Trump nomination gives their unpopular octogenarian president the best chance of reelection at a time when the country doesn’t particularly like him and doesn’t want him to run.
So they’re tossing all of their eggs into the Trump basket and tailoring Grandpa’s campaign accordingly.
There’s a reason Biden’s silly reelection launch video opened with images of the January 6 riot.
Team Biden needs Trump to be a fait accompli because if Trump is the nominee, Biden will very likely win a second term. The American corporate media is already pushing the “Trump has the nomination in the bag” narrative hoping that Republican primary voters will toss up their hands and accept it as reality.
The media, for which optics mean everything, knows that a Republican nominee who is 25 to 35 years younger than Grandpa would only call attention to the fact that Joe Biden is far too old to spend another four years in the White House.
Those guys can also see the polls. They know that even a majority of Democrats do not want Joe Biden to be the nominee, mostly because of his age.
Now, admittedly, there have been some attempts by Team Biden and the media to downplay Joe’s advancing age, with both the White House and reporters talking up how energetic and vibrant the daft old bugger is.
But on Friday, Axios threw a monkey wrench into the narrative by publishing an article by reporter Alex Thompson titled, “Biden’s age trap: Risks of running at 80.” Originally, the article was titled “How Biden is running against his age in 2024.” I imagine Axios revised the title after the White House and other news outlets kicked up a fuss.
In his article, Thompson notes that the White House avoids scheduling public or private events for the president in the early morning, evening, or on weekends, leaving them a window of weekdays between 10 am and 4 pm.
My favorite pull quote:
Some White House aides privately have compared Biden to an aging king: He has a tight-knit palace guard of longtime aides whose first instinct is to protect him, and not take chances.
Ouch.
The White House was quick to hit back against Thompson’s report, rushing to a highly sympathetic White House correspondent, Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher, who was more than happy to run defense for the old codger.
But there’s no hiding the fact that Joe Biden will be 82 years old on Election Day 2024.
The only way to neutralize that is to have Biden face off against another old man, namely Donald Trump, who, by Election Day 2024 will be four months older than Biden was on Election Day 2020.
Ron DeSantis, by comparison, is 36 years younger than Grandpa Joe.
And when his advancing age is why most voters do not want Joe Biden to serve a second term, you can see why the media and Team Biden will fight like hell to make sure Trump is the nominee.
However, there’s another big reason Team Biden wants to face off against Trump in 2024, and that’s the pending indictments.
By the time we get to the General Election, Trump will likely be facing charges in three separate investigations.
In addition to the ridiculous charges he already faces in New York, Trump could be charged for his election meddling in the 2020 Georgia election and in connection to the special counsel’s investigation into Trump’s attempt to “overturn” the 2020 election and his involvement in the January 6 riot.
In short, there’s a good chance that if Trump is the nominee, he will be going into the November election as the thrice-indicted candidate facing jail time.
And if that’s the case, it won’t matter how many votes Trump got in 2020. Carrying that kind of baggage into the General Election will mean none but the most fervently loyal Trump supporters will vote for him.
Why wouldn’t Team Biden and its compliant activists in the media do everything possible to ensure that Trump is the GOP nominee?
This is the only scenario in which Grandpa Joe comes out the winner.
And if Republican primary voters see through the scheme and decide to send Trump packing back to Mar-a-Lago, Team Biden will have to recycle and repurpose the Trump strategy to fit another Republican nominee.
But I don’t know if that will work since much of Team Biden’s strategy depends on Trump’s particular baggage. And no other Republican running in 2024 has as much baggage as Donald Trump. A Samsonite store doesn’t have as much baggage as Trump.
How do you pretend that a generic Republican has the same weaknesses as the guy you’re going all-in on?
Team Biden will be left screeching about fighting extremism and protecting democracy, and that’s about it.
Meanwhile, a baggage-free Republican nominee can hit back at Biden using more lines of attack than the CTA has train lines.
Against any other Republican candidate, Joe Biden is extremely vulnerable since he will be the one hauling around a lot of baggage.
Trump is Team Biden’s only hope.
The Democrats know it.
The activists in the media know it.
And I think deep down, most Republicans know it too.
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The issue is as despised as Sleepy Joe is, the media have made Trump even more hated. Since the day he announced his campaign for president as a republican he has been attacked mercilessly, even up until today. The media knows they have made him into a pariah and will do everything they can to make sure they can make him the target again.
For me, the question for 2024 is ‘Who can best lead our country in domestic and foreign affairs?’ In my opinion, there is no one on either side who has demonstrated the ability to lead as Trump has — no one. His four years in the WH were the best four years for the US since Reagan. He had the attention and respect of foreign leaders around the world. His domestic policies brought prosperity, energy independence, etc., to all of us. He exposed the wretched Uniparty (politicians of both sides, media, big corporations) that has spoiled our Republic for so long. “Oh, but Biden beat him,” you retort. Well, there’s nothing I can say if you truly believe “administrative and clerical errors” caused the wild vote counts in key battleground states (and only those states) in 2020. In my state of WA, “administrative and clerical errors” is a euphemism for calculating and manufacturing the number of votes needed to overcome the voters to get the Dem elected (from our first election in 1890 to present days: e.g., 3 recounts with a car trunk full of lost ballots — administrative and clerical errors — for Gregoire-D to defeat Rossi-R in 2004 for Governor). Furthermore, if you believe in the legitimacy of any polls including those depicting a Biden victory over Trump but a Biden loss to Joe the Plumber, then there’s nothing you won’t believe.
It’s clear to everyone on both sides who are free of TDS that Trump is the only viable GOP candidate. The Dems are right to concentrate all their efforts on him. As any psychologist will affirm, masses are moved by sentiment, not reason; sentiment is the lowest common denominator. The Dems play on sentiment, on images, on feelings (it doesn’t really matter the absurdity of some of them), while the GOP runs its uninspired, nerdy playbook of facts. I’m sorry, but sentiment is never vanquished by reason (“qui vincit non est victor nisi victus fatebur”). Ideally, I prefer a candidate who can deliver both reason and sentiment: I only see one on the GOP side, and that’s Trump. I’m as far away from Florida as one can be in CONUS, and while it appears DeSantis has done well as Governor he strikes me as having all the passion of a dead fish: an easy target for the Dems who would chew him up and spit him out. In my opinion, he’s unprepared, unseasoned, not ready for the fight. His recent failed trip to the UK — what ought to have been an easy success to our most favored ally — is an obvious red flag. He also needs to cease being a GOP psittaciser and instead speak passionately, truthfully from his heart. No passion, no truth – no vote. The other candidates are too remote to consider.