The great untold story of this election may turn out to be the resilience and resurrection of Joe Biden.
The media and punditry have universally written him off.
Why? It goes beyond the defeats in the largely white contests of Iowa and New Hampshire.
Biden has been hamstrung in this election by the giant dirigible of the Bloomberg campaign, floating off to the side of Biden, siphoning off his levitating gas like a tormenting tick.
So Biden is portrayed in the preterite tense by nearly the entire media. Yet look at what is happening. Incredibly, Biden is still the only candidate with a yawning 8-point advantage in the swing states over the Dear Leader in the White House.
Why is that?
Well, I know it will come as shocking news to my fellow pundits here on this blog, and also to the brilliant prognosticators in the media, but the American people may just understand that Biden is the candidate who can beat Trump because they know Biden and they trust Biden.
How elegantly simple.
Although he also did poorly in IA and NH where Bloomberg was not competing, so I’m not sure we can blame the former NYC Mayor for that.
I think the story of the Joe Biden campaign is one of built up goodwill and name recognition helping in polling until actual voter attention is on the campaign. It’s how it played out in primary state polling and how it’s currently playing out in national polling. People have a good feeling about Joe Biden built up over years and then they see him in action in 2020 and it’s clear he doesn’t have the stuff.
I do not understand this idea that an experienced, popular white two-term VP SHOULD do poorly in white states. Why? It seems that popular candidates should be able to do well in almost all areas. Left leaning candidates did well in IA and so did moderate candidates. Biden was in first or second in polling almost up until the night before voting. What happened?
Joe Biden just demanded that Barr resign for intervening in the criminal case of GOP operative Roger Stone, calling it “the greatest abuse of power I have ever seen.”
Ok.
It’s not even in Trump’s Top 3 for “greatest abuses of power” though.
I suppose if Biden can survive the mixed metaphors in this post, anything is possible. But the tricky part of a resurrection isn’t the death part.
I think Joe Biden died again tonight. He struck me as outmatched and more than a few steps too slow.
Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and even Mike Bloomberg out-performed him tonight.
“We can’t become like them.”
“We need to heal this country.”
-Joe Biden, March 2, 2020
The resurrection has begun, as predicted here when all had written him off.