There was supposed to be some big new wave of Congressional Dems declaring publicly today through the weekend that President Biden should drop out.
By my count, just five or six new since last night’s press conference. Total of 20 D House Reps at this point. Now, granted, that ain’t good… but it is still just 20 out of 210 House Dems. Ok so there was that Rep on the Hispanic Caucus virtual meeting who told Biden directly, confrontationally, to drop out. But he stood alone on the call, saying that. And there was some mention of Rosie O’Donnell, an ex-famous comedian and TV show host, joining George Clooney’s take on things.
But a tidal wave it was not.
Meanwhile, new polling has come in suggesting that Biden is not doing so badly against Trump after all, maybe. Neck and neck, not at all a hopeless case. About the same as pre-debate.
Biden is out there in Michigan today serving up some good Campaign Rally. And he did pretty well with the open mic press conference last evening, by most objective assessments. Kos said Biden messed up with the debate, and that it was on Biden to fix it. I’ve been impressed on the whole, gotta say, and last week I was a doubter. I’ve pivoted over to the need for Democratic unity ASAP and the reality that this is Biden’s rightful nomination and his decision to stay; and electorally the other options don’t look like they would improve our chances, based on incoming data and based on the application of “game theory” to the messy reality of what would likely go down if Biden were pressured more forcefully to withdraw against his will and against the wishes of his millions of loyal supporters.
So, today. There seem to be… .. crickets, mostly … ... where I thought all the news sources would be reporting a worsening situation for Biden’s nomination, heading into the weekend. And there’s the New York Times, putting up pro-Biden headlines (what??) about him rebuffing critics, rallying in Michigan and getting more views last night than the Oscars. (Yes they’re still saying he has a problem with some Dems calling for him to quit, but that’s no longer the NYT’s OMG front-and-center story today.)
It all just feels noticeably a bit different than 24 hours ago.
Dare we hope?