I was dubious about Joe Biden’s candidacy from its inception, actually since the seemingly manufactured crescendo by friendly media leading up to his formal announcement. The touting of him by the “serious” beltway crowd as the front runner and pointing to the polls showing his overwhelming lead left me puzzled so early in this election cycle since so few Americans are paying attention to the nascent campaign. His current lead is based on name recognition and I’d add the general good feelings many have for Obama — Biden’s cloaking himself with a popular, cerebral, well tempered President, in contrast to what we have now, accounts for some bump in the early polling too, when a large majority of people know little about the other candidates. However fondly people recall the last President, choosing our 2020 candidate with an eye on restoring the past, as seems to be the message Biden is sending, is a fool’s errand for these times and, while I will certainly vote for him should he claim the nomination, the Democratic party nominating him at this juncture in our history would be a grievous mistake.
Biden’s stumbles in trying to account for some of his problematic positions in his more than four decade career, and rhapsodizing Strom Thurmond (as execrable a human being as ever walked the Senate’s halls) in the funeral eulogy Biden delivered, struck me as puzzling for a candidate our party should embrace for the most consequential election of our collective lifetimes. Longing for and trying to recapture what I see as the mythical, persuadable white middle class (majority male) voters that many pundits pine for is not a recipe for success in ‘20. I just don’t see them forsaking the current 1600 occupant — his scapegoating, grievances and contempt for the “others” matches what many who voted for the occupant feel. He validates and gives voice to what they wrongly perceive as the reasons for their cultural and economic insecurity. They’re threatened by changes happening all around them and the occupant reassures them that America with him will be great again. As the authoritarian he is proclaimed, “only he can fix it.” They’ve been seduced by the charlatan and they’re not coming back to vote Democratic in ‘20.
We need a candidate that will energize the party, bring in volunteers to do the hard work of getting out the vote and driving turnout of our voters. The momentum that was palpable in the 2018 midterms needs to be built upon. Millions of voters stay at home because they don’t feel that the candidates speak to them, or genuinely address their concerns, whether it’s crushing medical expenses, even for those who have insurance, onerous student debt, racial or gender injustice, or the host of other issues they feel the parties ignore, or merely pay lip service to at election time. Instead of engaging in the Sisyphean task of appealing to voters who won’t return to the fold in ‘20 (and could be gone from the fold forever), appealing to and turning out as many people as possible who routinely eschew voting because, whether correctly or not, they don’t see a real difference either party will make in their everyday lives, is what gives us the best chance at victory.
Joe Biden cannot make the case that needs to be made. This is not the time to proclaim the ability to work with “friends on the other side of the aisle” when those “friends” are on a mission to subvert our democracy — something made even easier with this week’s partisan gerrymander case that the Supreme Court decided with the deciding fifth vote cast by a justice stolen by McConnell and his ilk. Rethugs are not going to play nice and think that D.C. has become Valhalla and magically become “bipartisan” simply because Biden is friendly with some of them.
One who has lost two previous runs for President in relatively resounding fashion cannot be deemed the most “electable” whatever that means. I saw several candidates over two nights that are electable. Biden’s comment at the debate, “my time is up” is a metaphor for his campaign — it’s time is up.