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" President Biden’s interview tonight could be even more important than the debate, says Frank Luntz "

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2024/07/05/president-bi...

President Biden’s interview tonight could be even more important than the debate, says Frank Luntz "

It’s an interesting piece; I didn’t get all the way to the end (I rarely do), but he seems more focused on “what to say”, when what viewers (many, many, many fewer) will be watching is “how he says it.”

If he stumbles, even once, it’s game over. If he is coherent, and most important STRONG, he has a chance for a partial recovery.

I’m amazed it took his advisors this long to get to someplace where a recovery is attempted. Heck, it’s been OVER A WEEK. I guess the debate performance was so shockingly bad that it stunned everyone, and Trump was brilliant for going silent (for once in his life) and letting the Democrats hang themselves.

Meanwhile a political interview on a Friday Holiday Weekend Night will be lucky to get 5-10 million viewers (optimistically) and the debate was on 9 channels, hyped for a month, and seen by 50 million live, and probably another 100 million via Facebook, Tik Tok, YouTube and elsewhere.

I don’t want to say this is a big mountain to climb, but the word “Everest” comes to mind.

I’m amazed it took his advisors this long to get to someplace where a recovery is attempted. Heck, it’s been OVER A WEEK. I guess the debate performance was so shockingly bad that it stunned everyone, and Trump was brilliant for going silent (for once in his life) and letting the Democrats hang themselves.

That's one possibility. The other possibility is that the debate performance didn't stun everyone. That his performance was something that his inner circle (who are guiding this response) knew was a possible outcome, because it wasn't a never-before-seen low for Biden. It may simply be that he does, in fact, now have times where that's what he's like because of his age. If that's the case, it makes sense that his advisors would try to see if they could get things under control without having to put Biden into too many public-facing scenarios. Because they know there's a chance that the Biden we saw last week might the Biden we see in those events.

I mean, there's an easy easy fix for this if Biden's performance truly was well outside his normal range of affect: town halls. Biden's never been the most agile of speakers (due to his stutter), and a town hall will never be his best format. But there's no better venue for clearing the super-low bar of demonstrating that a candidate is capable of talking to people in a live, unscripted environment. You can vet the participants eight ways from Sunday and make sure that's he's getting fieldable questions - heck, have single-issue town halls on favorable subjects so that he doesn't have to worry as much about the substantive preparations.

The fact that Biden's team didn't turn to a town hall format, and instead went to only a taped journo interview (so far), is a really bad sign. Yes, I know that it takes more time to set up a town hall than a one-on-one interview - logistically it's more complicated. But they could have announced he was doing a few town halls later in the month. The fact that they haven't, even after seeing that their initial plans to calm the waters have failed, is a troubling indication that his inner circle doesn't think he's up to the job of doing a town hall with any consistent expectation of performing well. Which is a crippling deficiency in a Presidential candidate.

Which is a crippling deficiency in a Presidential candidate.

One would think that 34 felony convictions would be a crippling deficiency in a Presidential candidate.

Yet Democrats seem to prefer talking about their own candidate’s deficiency instead of the other party’s.

How long are democrats going to keep shooting themselves in the foot?

—Peter

Yet Democrats seem to prefer talking about their own candidate’s deficiency instead of the other party’s.

Yes. Because their own candidate's deficiency is costing them the election right now.

If Biden were winning in the polls, this wouldn't be happening. If Biden weren't trailing other Democratic candidates in most states and congressional districts, this wouldn't be happening. If Biden's age wasn't such a huge and important issue even for Democrats, this wouldn't be happening.

But he's losing, and losing by a non-trivial margin. He's down 3.3 in the RCP poll (nationwide, head-to-head) - compared to up 8.7 this time in 2020. And one of the major things that voters consistently say they don't like about Biden is his age. So even though we think it shouldn't the the case, it is the case that Biden's deficiency is far more damaging to his performance among the voters than Trump's deficiency.

And there's a meta-problem here. Typically, the most important way that a campaign emphasizes the opponent's deficiency and minimizes their own candidate's deficiency is by using the candidate to do that. But Biden's deficiency also affects his ability to convey the campaign's message and communicate with voters directly. That's not a hugely essential part of the job of being President, but it is a hugely essential part of being a candidate for President. If Biden can't do it - if he can't do a series of Town Halls and barnstorming tours and live events in the home stretch of the campaign - then that hurts him more than Trump's deficiency does.

Biden is far more likely to lose the election due to his age than Trump is to lose the election due to his felony convictions right now. And Biden's age might prevent the campaign from doing anything to change that dynamic, because it might affect his ability to campaign. Which is why Democrats are more focused at the moment on Biden's age problem than Trump's felony convictions.

<< How long are democrats going to keep shooting themselves in the foot?>>

I’m glad you’re not concerned, here’s a statistic. Dukakis led by 17 points and one question at a debate started him on the path to lose the election.

Of course Democrats are concerned. The amazing thing is people who think this will go away if we just stop ralking about it.

Because their own candidate's deficiency is costing them the election right now.

But the other candidate's deficiencies (yes, plural) are an order of magnitude worse. Yet democrats choose to focus on a newly discovered deficiency in their own candidate.

But he's losing, and losing by a non-trivial margin.

He's losing because both Democrats and Republicans are focused on his age issue. Republicans are never going to care about their candidate's deficiencies. They simply line up behind him. So no one is focusing on Trump's deficiencies.

But Biden's deficiency also affects his ability to convey the campaign's message and communicate with voters directly.

Only when he's in the wrong setting. You saw him at the rally in NC less than 24 hours after the debate. He conveyed his message directly and convincingly. Get him in that setting and he will do his job.

The problem everyone seems to be overlooking is that while Biden is losing at the moment, so is every other potential replacement. And by more or less the same margin.

This is part of why I have been a republican most of my life. Republicans are organized and know how to get things done. I like that. But in the last decade, they've lost their way and are highly organized to get the most un-American person possible elected, with a highly organized group behind him to make America more bigoted, more hateful, and more divided than at any time since the civil war. That's not the America I want for future generations.

The choice is really simple. And it has nothing to do with Biden. Nothing at all. As I've said before, Democrats should be able to get a half-eaten ham sandwich elected over Trump. So an old, half functioning, but still breathing and on the right side of history man shouldn't have any problems if Democrats would knuckle down and get focused on winning instead of blaming the candidate for everything that goes wrong.

So get to work on getting your candidate elected instead of whining and moaning about a problem everyone knew about 4 years ago. Otherwise you are going to lose and the entire country will suffer because your candidate wasn't perfect.

--Peter

He's losing because both Democrats and Republicans are focused on his age issue. Republicans are never going to care about their candidate's deficiencies. They simply line up behind him. So no one is focusing on Trump's deficiencies.

True. But whereas Biden's problem before the debate debacle was framed as being about age, it is now not age, but serious cognitive decline and perhaps dementia. That's the real issue now. There were inklings and whispers even among the faithful before, but now it's a stark reality.

In contrast, for example, Bernie Sanders is slightly older than Biden, but he looks, moves, acts and most importantly, communicates, much more effectively, coherently and cogently than Biden.

That doesn't mean you don't attack convict Trump's weaknesses. He also is old, he also is suffering cognitive decline, he rambles and sometimes becomes incoherent. The Dems are not doing themselves any favors by NOT pointing this out at every opportunity. Plus convict Trump is more bellicose and authoritarian in his rhetoric, threatening his "enemies list" and minorities "polluting the blood" of America, and crap like that.

It should be almost a trivial matter to scare independents with convict Trump more than Biden.

He's losing because both Democrats and Republicans are focused on his age issue. Republicans are never going to care about their candidate's deficiencies. They simply line up behind him. So no one is focusing on Trump's deficiencies.

There is no one, not a single person in the Republic who doesn’t know of his “deficiencies.” They have been written about and broadcast far and wide for YEARS. You are not going to convinced anybody that he is more horrible that he already is horrible.

Democrats are not going to hate him less, Republicans are not going to like him less - indeed, they see most of his foibles as a feature, not a bug. After his conviction in the rape/molestation case, his polls went UP, and his donations soared. After he was convicted of 34 felonies his polls went UP and his donations soared again.

What’s amazing is that you can’t accept that broadcasting this truth is going to change anything. OF COURSE Democrats are concerned with this “new” revelation about their candidate. It does nothing to hurt the opponent, and is potentially crippling to theirs.

And you think if people just “stop talking about it” then everything will be fine, and Trump will lose. That is ABSOLUTELY not how it works.

You saw him at the rally in NC less than 24 hours after the debate. He conveyed his message directly and convincingly. Get him in that setting and he will do his job.

He was reading off a teleprompter. In front of a partisan rally. Seen by maybe 1/10th as many people. Do you not understand that this is not convincing in the slightest, nor is it how you bend the trend in a campaign?

The choice is really simple. And it has nothing to do with Biden. Nothing at all.

It has EVERYTHING to do with Biden - now. This is politics. If you want loyalty, get a dog. If you want to win an election then understand what the electorate is feeling and thinking and then address it. You are not going to assuage the “age/capability” issue with references to the past (we all know the condition gets worse) nor by ignoring it (because we all saw it) nor by carefully scripted and stage managed interviews.

Or, you know, you can ignore it and hope it goes away. But hope, as is famously said, is not a strategy.

The choice is really simple. And it has nothing to do with Biden. Nothing at all. As I've said before, Democrats should be able to get a half-eaten ham sandwich elected over Trump.

It doesn't matter how many times you say it - voters have not categorically rejected Trump. The voters won't vote for a half-eaten ham sandwich over Trump. Voters' choices do have something to do with Biden. Democrats have been trying for years to get votes to view Trump's many deficiencies as disqualifying, and it has not worked.

Again, if Biden were winning before the debate, none of this reaction would be happening. But he wasn't. Voters aren't indifferent to Biden's qualifications and characteristics. They're just not. As much as Democrats wish voters simply preferred any candidate - even a ham sandwich - to Trump, it's abundantly clear that this is not the case.

So Democrats go into the homestretch of the campaign needing someone to convince voters that Trump is not an acceptable option. And it's really hard to do that if the guy at the top of the ticket can't do the types of town halls (for example) that he did a few years ago. You keep talking about "Democrats" getting Biden elected, but an election is not a passive thing that the party does for a candidate. Candidates have to get themselves elected, and the concern is that Biden isn't mentally acute enough to perform the tasks a candidate has to be able to do for that to happen.

So get to work on getting your candidate elected instead of whining and moaning about a problem everyone knew about 4 years ago.

No one knew four years ago that Biden would be in the specific condition he's in right now - capable of turning in a debate performance like Thursday. People knew he would be old - but while 81 year-olds are never in as good of condition as they were in their 50's (for example), there's still a wide range of potential functionality at that age. Some 81 year-olds are fine; some are completely non compos mentis. You don't know what range of functionality a 77 year old person will have four years later.

That's one of the main reasons why people are reacting so strongly to his debate performance - this is new information for an awful lot of people. Even Trump's convictions - which dominated Democratic discussions and the news media in general last month when they happened - didn't reveal anything especially new about Trump. Which is one reason why they didn't affect the race all that much. But Biden's performance was worse than most people imagined he could be - which is why that has affected the race.

So do you think there is any path forward? A few months ago, you were telling conservatives on this board that the Dems can't change candidates at this late stage (and that was a few months ago...it's later now).

Or do we all need to apply for asylum in Canada before we go the way of the Weimar?

So do you think there is any path forward? A few months ago, you were telling conservatives on this board that the Dems can't change candidates at this late stage (and that was a few months ago...it's later now).

As I have been telling conservatives, "the Dems" can't change candidates. They still can't. There is no one in the Democratic party who gets to overrule the results of the primaries. No one can force Joe Biden not to be the nominee. It was wishful conspiracy thinking to believe that there existed some group of Democrats that "really" had the control over the nominee, not the primaries.

However, Joe Biden has always had the ability to drop out of the race. He can always choose not to be the candidate (or, you know, if he got hit by a bus and killed, he obviously would be replaced).

Is there a path forward? Partially that depends on the reality of what Biden's acuity really is. If what we saw last week was actually a shocking, "that's never ever happened before" type of event, one that was really caused by cold medicine or the international travel that he had concluded eleven days earlier (cough!), then there's a path for Biden to reassure voters that he's fit as a fiddle and possibly beat Trump. But if Biden really has declined, if there's a 20% chance (or whatever) that if you have Biden do an unscripted event in the evening that that Biden is what you might get, then there's probably not a way for Biden to win the race. There are plenty of voters that would vote for a senescent ham sandwich instead of Trump....but not enough of them. If Biden actually can't perform candidate duties consistently enough to convince voters that he's all there, he's not going to win.

Could the Democrats win the Presidency with someone other than Biden? Possibly, but very unlikely. A brand new entrant to the race with no campaign infrastructure would be at an enormous disadvantage, and I continue to think that a contested convention would create disastrous and irreparable (within the relevant time frame) fractures in the Democratic party. The only way to avoid that would be if the party rallied around Harris well before the convention (she's the only potential candidate who has at least a colorable claim for being a settled emergency back-up, rather than throwing it to the convention). But Harris has her own issues as a candidate - so although she wouldn't be starting from scratch (she's already on the ticket and part of the campaign) and might avoid bloody infighting in Chicago, she's still not necessarily going to be a strong candidate.

I think there is a path forward to make things a little better for downballot candidates. Even if his replacement is doomed, if Biden's gone it will spare most downballot Democrats from having to defend the choice to stick with him - allowing them to focus entirely on how terrible the downballot Republicans are for sticking with Trump.

But I think the odds are really good that Trump will be elected in November.

" One would think that 34 felony convictions would be a crippling deficiency in a Presidential candidate."

Google Andrew Cuomo's resume, he might know New York law better than the usual suspects here. Then, read the Hur report. Good luck.


https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo...

It was wishful conspiracy thinking to believe that there existed some group of Democrats that "really" had the control over the nominee, not the primaries.

Sure. I wasn't thinking about that aspect, but you are certainly correct about that. I was more thinking about what you mentioned with "no campaign infrastructure", etc.

I'm still going to vote against convict Trump, no matter whom the opponent may be. But maybe I should start looking for someplace to emigrate while I have the chance.**




**Though, as a middle-class white guy, I'll probably be less affected than others in the country. I'm the target audience for all the right-wing rhetoric (though I don't buy their line of crap for a second).

I’m glad you’re not concerned,

I'm incredibly concerned. As I just posted, this election isn't about the candidates. It's about the people behind the candidates. The Heritage Foundation is organized and ready to run the country as a white nationalist, "Christian" fundamentalist hell hole. You don't really think Trump can actually govern, do you? All the Heritage Foundation has to do is feed his massive ego and he'll let them do whatever they want. And I don't think you or I or anyone who isn't white and straight and the right kind of Christian want to live in their vision of the future.

Dukakis led by 17 points and one question at a debate started him on the path to lose the election.

Dukakis had an awful lot more going against him than one debate question. He was running against the sitting VP of a very popular President, for one big hurdle. Other suggestions I've heard are a poorly organized campaign and a publicity photo he took in an Abrams tank.

Perhaps thinking about that campaign from the other side is important. Bush Sr. was DOWN by 17 points at about this time of year and came back from that deficit to win decisively. I think he ended up with close to 60% of the popular vote and around 400 electoral college votes. So look at that campaign and see what you can do right to overcome the current deficit instead of focusing on the single shortcoming of your candidate. Especially when the opposing candidate has at least half a dozen major issues you can attack - including the same shortcoming your candidate has.

--Peter

However, Joe Biden has always had the ability to drop out of the race.

Of course. But he's said multiple times that he's not going to.

I am not lining up behind Biden out of loyalty. I am lining up behind him because he is the candidate democrats have selected to run against Trump. So do you want to defeat Trump, or do you want to whine about the candidate you have already selected?

--Peter

Perhaps thinking about that campaign from the other side is important. Bush Sr. was DOWN by 17 points at about this time of year and came back from that deficit to win decisively. I think he ended up with close to 60% of the popular vote and around 400 electoral college votes. So look at that campaign and see what you can do right to overcome the current deficit instead of focusing on the single shortcoming of your candidate.

A good point. So here's what Bush's team did in 1988:

The campaign’s research showed that Mr. Dukakis’s record was not well known and that some of his liberal positions, in particular supporting prison furloughs and opposing the death penalty, could swamp him in a general election.

Using the plan laid out in that room, the Bush campaign proceeded, as Lee Atwater, the campaign manager, put it, “to strip the bark off the little bastard,” beginning in force with Mr. Bush’s hammer of a speech at the Republican National Convention in August through Election Day.
Mr. Bush not only overcame Mr. Dukakis’s summer polling advantage, but defeated him handily: by 53 percent to 46 percent. He won 40 states.

In many ways, with Mr. Atwater as its dark prince of strategy, the Bush campaign of 1988 marked the birth of the modern-day negative campaign. Most memorably, Republicans plastered Mr. Dukakis, then the governor of Massachusetts, with the case of Willie Horton, an African-American man who raped a white Maryland woman and stabbed her boyfriend while on a Massachusetts prison furlough program.

https://archive.ph/NUBAb#selection-839.212-881.50

But, of course, that strategy almost certainly isn't available to Biden's campaign. Trump almost certainly doesn't have any more "unknowns" that can be newly-introduced to voters to change their perception of the candidate. There's no "Willie Horton" in his record that voters don't already know about, so there's nothing for Biden's campaign research to uncover that can result in a game-changing negative campaign. Oh, and Biden doesn't have a time machine to go back to an era where voters were less polarized and more willing to switch parties based on new information about a candidate.

If anything, Biden's the Dukakis of the 1988 election right now - at least, more than Trump is. A significant piece of negative information has newly come to prominence in the summer of the campaign....about Biden. Which opens the door to a torrent of potential negative advertising and a new theme in the stump speech that can change public perception....against Biden.

So do you want to defeat Trump, or do you want to whine about the candidate you have already selected?

I can do two things.

And there's a good argument that a clear-eyed examination of the new information about Joe Biden's current mental condition, rather than simply ignoring it, will help defeat Trump - for some definition of "defeat." If Biden's performance at the debate is reflective of his current mental capabilities, then he can't defeat Trump, and he will be an anchor on downballot Democrats.

So "whining" about the candidate can force him and his inner circle to open the kimono a bit and let people form an accurate assessment of his capabilities today (not two years ago or three and a half years ago or thirty years ago). Which can enable donors and downballot candidates to make better decisions about: i) how to beat Trump in the Presidential election; and ii) how to possibly win the House. Because if Biden can't beat Trump in the Presidential election, the only remaining path to "defeat" Trump is to win the House - which gets ridiculously harder if frontline Democratic house candidates have to defend the choice of Biden as the party nominee.

I wasn't thinking about that aspect, but you are certainly correct about that. I was more thinking about what you mentioned with "no campaign infrastructure", etc.

Yep. That's part of the problem with thinking that a Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro can come into the race at this late date and run effectively. Those guys don't have a national campaign team put together that can run a national race, much less field offices in Nevada or Arizona. Staffing that up takes time. The advantage of a Presidential primary (for a non-incumbent) is that the race for the nomination gives them many months, nearly a year in some cases, to build up campaign teams in most states around the country.

Harris' advantage is that she's already on the Biden ticket - so many (most?) of the people in the campaign right now have already worked with and for her already to some extent, and many (most?) would be willing to stay on the campaign if she moved spots on the ticket. Not all - but the expectation would be that the Biden-Harris campaign organization would mostly continue in its current form, just with Harris switching in for Biden.

That doesn't work as well - or at all - if there's a six week "shadow" primary among different Democratic rivals jockeying ahead of the DNC convention. The current campaign would basically stop, and whoever won the contest would end up formulating their own national campaign organization from mostly scratch - with only three months to the election.

{{ Yep. That's part of the problem with thinking that a Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro can come into the race at this late date and run effectively. Those guys don't have a national campaign team put together that can run a national race, much less field offices in Nevada or Arizona. Staffing that up takes time. }}

Is it really a "national campaign"? The election will be decided by about 100,000 voters spread across 5 or 6 swing states. Big money Democratic donors will surely be able to get enough money and resources to whichever candidate replaces Biden.

intercst

Yep. That's part of the problem with thinking that a Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro can come into the race at this late date and run effectively

And I've been coming around to this thinking after letting it settle in that Biden is likely to lose, and anyone else too( so make it Harris), and if we work on down ballot and get a showing, we may be able to elect Newsom or the like after Trump. I doubt if we'll be able to repair all the damage - not likely - but we can slow it down. If we are very lucky Trump does something absolutely horrible, that even repels MAGAts - hope springs eternal, eh? :)

Yep. That's part of the problem with thinking that a Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro can come into the race at this late date and run effectively. Those guys don't have a national campaign team put together that can run a national race, much less field offices in Nevada or Arizona. Staffing that up takes time. The advantage of a Presidential primary (for a non-incumbent) is that the race for the nomination gives them many months, nearly a year in some cases, to build up campaign teams in most states around the country.

Yes, this is an issue, but I don’t see it as insurmountable as you do. There are a precious few advisors who are vital to a campaign, may be half a dozen. Strategy, media, personal, etc. For the most part the campaign is staffed by people who are semi-fungible. They work on multiple campaigns; if they weren’t on this one they would be on another one; they were last year and they will be next year. Running a field office is important so you know who the local pols and power brokers are, but Phoenix or Houston is going to have a different person next year anyway.

I can see if someone strong came in and took over the reigns, they need to 1) assess the candidate and the race 2) pick and articulate a strategy, and 3) make sure it’s followed, in personal appearances, in media, in *everything*. Fewer people is probably better than many in this situation.

Would there be some who would have worked. Better for Biden than Harris or Newsom or Buttegeig? Sure. This is not going to be a team carefully assembled over years with loving craftsmanship, and there are going to be conflicts between whoever that “new” person is and the existing power structure around Biden, but tough. Sometimes you don’t get a pony when you wish for it.

Of course it’s a big risk. It’s a big risk to do nothing and whistle through the graveyard, too.

Is it really a "national campaign"? The election will be decided by about 100,000 voters spread across 5 or 6 swing states. Big money Democratic donors will surely be able to get enough money and resources to whichever candidate replaces Biden.

I mean "national campaign" in the sense that the campaign has to cover a lot more than a single state. Someone like Whitmer or Shapiro would have a very solid organization in their home states - but they've never had occasion or need to hire a campaign staff in Arizona or Nevada or Georgia or what have you. There's only 5 or 6 swing states, it's true - but there are also a bunch of "leans blue" states that the Democrats still have to staff up and run a competent campaign to make sure that the state ends up where it's likely to end up. So while the Democratic nominee probably isn't going to lose Minnesota or Colorado or New Mexico, they still need to run a campaign there.

So if Biden were to drop out in the next week or so and the party coalesced around Harris, she'd probably just end up using the existing campaign staff in Nevada and Arizona and Georgia and Michigan or what have you. The organization would remain in place, no need to build anything new - so the campaign manager and other national staff can concentrate on running the campaign rather than taking a few weeks to hire people all around the country.

That's not likely if there's a free-for-all convention. Not only does the choosing of the nominee get delayed for another month or so (so those staff members might find other things to do rather than wait around), but the various individuals jockeying for the nod will be competing in all those states for delegates and staff. Deals for support will be cut, alliances will be formed, egos bruised and oxen gored. Making it less likely that the local politicos that are making up the current Biden-Harris campaign will necessarily be the ones that the Newsom-Pritzger or Whitmer-Shapiro tickets can live with (and vice versa).

That doesn't work as well - or at all - if there's a six week "shadow" primary among different Democratic rivals jockeying ahead of the DNC convention. The current campaign would basically stop, and whoever won the contest would end up formulating their own national campaign organization from mostly scratch - with only three months to the election.

So you are basically arguing to continue the Biden campaign, unless he steps aside and anoints Harris?

--Peter

Yes, this is an issue, but I don’t see it as insurmountable as you do. There are a precious few advisors who are vital to a campaign, may be half a dozen. Strategy, media, personal, etc. For the most part the campaign is staffed by people who are semi-fungible.

Sure. There's a team of a half a dozen or so folks that make up the core of your campaign staff, and their skills and talents and particular strategies will be vital to how your campaign performs.

But you still need a campaign organization in every state, and it takes time to set all that up. It takes time to hire your state-level campaign chairs and campaign managers and communications directors, and all the people that have to work with them. To attend to the more prosaic things like getting them offices and secretaries and phones and the like.

Not a ton of time, to be sure - but you don't have a ton of time, either. It is literally eleven weeks from the DNC convention to election day. Less before the first ballots are cast in early voting.

So if it's someone other than Harris, some of your core people are going to have to spend some of that five to eleven weeks (depending on the state) getting the state level teams hired and running. It will take some amount of time - a couple of weeks at least - to build a multi-state campaign organization. So in a hyper-abbreviated campaign window, your core staff has to spend a non-trivial amount of time building the campaign organization instead of actually running the campaign.

The Biden-Harris team hired their Virginia campaign staff in April. Gretchen Whitmer doesn't have a state chair for Virginia. If she gets the nomination on August 22, she might have the top people in place to start setting up the state offices by the following Monday, and maybe they have got their offices staffed up and running to actually start the work of actual campaigning by Friday, August 30th.

Voting in Virginia starts on September 20th. Three weeks later.

So yes, it matters. There's a million moving parts and decision points and little events that affect how campaigns go, and the campaign is the sum of all of those little things - good and bad. Starting from scratch in late August is going to put a campaign at a disadvantage.

Of course it’s a big risk. It’s a big risk to do nothing and whistle through the graveyard, too.

I'm going to take this opportunity to stick my neck out with a prediction, then back out of the conversation. I've made my position clear, and more words won't help that. So here goes.

If Biden is replaced, the replacement will lose - in the electoral college AND the popular vote.

EXCEPT for Harris. She will still lose the EC, but might eke out a majority of the popular vote.

Why do I predict that for Harris? She could easily pick up a bunch of votes in the already true blue states, which won't affect the EC tally.

--Peter

So you are basically arguing to continue the Biden campaign, unless he steps aside and anoints Harris?

It all depends on how bad he is. And we don't know how bad he is. I rank the options as follows:

Best option - Sharp Biden continues
Second best - Slow Biden yields to Harris
Third Best - Slow Biden continues on
Bad choice - Slow Biden yields to wide open convention
Worst choice - Completely shot Biden continues and drags every Democrat down with him

If he's actually in really good shape, and the debate was really just a completely-out-of-nowhere "worst cold on earth" one-off anomaly, then the Biden campaign is easily fixable and he's vastly better than any replacement Democrat. In that scenario, "Keep Going, Joe!"

If he's in mediocre shape, then maybe the Democrats are better off keeping him if the alternative is to go to an open convention. Because while a Harris candidacy has an underdog chance of winning the Presidency, and probably a better shot than a "slow" Biden, an open convention has only a moonshot chance of winning the convention.

But if he's in really bad shape, then even the convention is better than him sh!tting the bed at the September debate and avoiding any campaign event where he's not reading from a teleprompter. Because that tanks all the frontline House candidates in purple districts who are needed in order to keep a Trump-led GOP from trifecta control of the federal government.

I'm going to take this opportunity to stick my neck out with a prediction, then back out of the conversation. I've made my position clear, and more words won't help that. So here goes.

Respecting that you want to back out of the discussion, there's one option you didn't make a prediction about.

What do you predict will happen if Biden stays in? Does he win the popular vote or the EC?

What do you predict will happen if Biden stays in? Does he win the popular vote or the EC?

You're right. I should make a prediction there as well.

The backbiting talk stops in the next week or so with people lining up firmly behind him and Biden stays in: He will win the popular vote. It's a coin toss on the EC.

The backbiting continues for more than a month and Biden stays in: Popular vote about 50/50, but he'll lose the EC.


So I only have one possibility for Democrats to win the White House, and that one is slim at best. But all the other options are certain losers in the White House.

In terms of my overall strategy, I'd rather the Democrats win the White House. With the progress the Heritage Foundation has made this week on their work towards a Unitary Executive, I'd rather keep control of the White House than lose the WH and gain both houses of Congress. Congress will have a hard time being a check and balance against the President, and the Judiciary has completely abandoned that role.

--Peter

You're right. I should make a prediction there as well.

The backbiting talk stops in the next week or so with people lining up firmly behind him and Biden stays in: He will win the popular vote. It's a coin toss on the EC.

The backbiting continues for more than a month and Biden stays in: Popular vote about 50/50, but he'll lose the EC.

Thanks. This is, I think, the core disagreement. For me, whether Biden does well or not if he stays in is not a function of whether the backbiting talk stops. It depends on whether he actually is in as bad of shape as he appeared last Thursday.

If he isn't in bad shape - if he genuinely is in much better condition than reports indicate - then he's got a shot at winning. Not a great shot, because that debate performance was as destructive as a photo of Mike Dukakis in a tank. But then the campaign could just put him out there more, silence the concerns, and he can just run to the end.

If he is in bad shape, he's going to lose and lose badly whether the backbiting stops or not.

That's why everyone in the Democratic party is so rattled by this. Their fortunes rest on Joe Biden's condition, and they don't believe that he or his inner circle is being forthright about that condition. And all of the indirect information about his condition points to Biden being in bad shape, not good shape.

This is, I think, the core disagreement.

I agree, this is the core disagreement. To put it in terms similar to your statement, I don't think his actual condition is as important as the backbiting talk. Sufficient backbiting will tank his chances no matter what his condition. If the backbiting stops, he has a chance even if his condition isn't great. We know he can hold it together for some periods of time, and that might be enough. As a supporter, I can't change his condition. But I can try to stop the backbiting.

--Peter

But if he's in really bad shape, then even the convention is better than him sh!tting the bed at the September debate and avoiding any campaign event where he's not reading from a teleprompter. Because that tanks all the frontline House candidates in purple districts who are needed in order to keep a Trump-led GOP from trifecta control of the federal government

To Pthe: We need to avoid the trif#ckta because this kicks many of the guard rails to the side. The DOJ will be all lackeys. Believe me there are wacko Generals that *WILL* follow orders. (I grew up in the military.) If Trump sees he's got the House and the Senate, and he's just been telegraphed he's got the USSC - well, let's just say we don't want him to see that.

To put it in terms similar to your statement, I don't think his actual condition is as important as the backbiting talk. Sufficient backbiting will tank his chances no matter what his condition. If the backbiting stops, he has a chance even if his condition isn't great. We know he can hold it together for some periods of time, and that might be enough. As a supporter, I can't change his condition. But I can try to stop the backbiting.

They're not unrelated.

The "backbiting" stems from his condition. A major reason that party leaders and elected Democrats are so upset is because they believe the campaign isn't being candid with them. That they're trying to rely on the fact that Biden can "hold it together for some period of time" to create the impression that Biden's in better shape than he is.

They don't think that's fair to them. They're being asked to go to their constituents and rally them for Biden. Because of the debate performance, they're now on notice (in the eyes of their constituents) that Biden might have some problems. So now, when these electeds and party leaders vouch for Biden to their constituents (an important part of campaigning) it puts their necks on the line. Because if Biden goes out and sh!ts the bed in the September debate, or during some campaign stop, it's going to destroy their campaigns and election prospects and credibility with their voters.

So they don't want Biden and his inner circle to hide his condition. That's no longer a feasible alternative for anyone other than Biden. They want them to be candid about what it is. And they're not going to risk a huge swath of the party without knowing what that risk is.

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