Where’s Joe Biden? There are no
rallies where he can stir the crowd. All those talk and interview shows have
been either cancelled or have been pushed aside as telecasters deal with the
CV-19 outbreak. Guest appearances? Where? Social media? Everybody’s focused on
the outbreak, the medical risks, Congressional stimulus package as well as the
short and long-term consequences. Election in… November…??? Really, there’s an
election coming? So far off… so very far off…
And even as the facts suggest Donald
Trump has only made things much worse by his hold-back, vacillating and overly
optimistic inconsistencies, his unwillingness to take the necessary steps to
order the manufacturing of needed supplies, you will note that his name is
everywhere. On most CV-19 news coverage. Good, bad or indifferent, he is the
only national leader who is doing and can do anything to minimize the damage.
Being in the public eye all the time
gives Donald Trump a distinct advantage over Candidate Joe, who just cannot
find a public platform that thinks the election is worthy of more coverage.
Donald Trump, pretty much by himself, is the headlines! Trump’s “rally
substitute”? Daily White House CV-19 press briefings, where his “experts”
always start out giving Trump credit for everything, even though he is really
the problem and even though they will later have to reconfigure Trump’s
contradictory misstatements. Press conferences for Biden? Zero. Trump got
another photo op on March 27th when he signed the stimulus bill at
an Oval Office ceremony.
Take a good look at the recent
polling. Almost across the board, Trump’s approval ratings on how he is
managing the outbreak are in the 40%+ range, many really close to 50% as the
above March 24th Gallup poll reflects (60% of those polled
approved of Trump’s handling of the CV-19 crisis!)… even as medical experts are
making it rather unambiguously clear that he is part of the problem, not
willing to be a meaningful part of the solution. Even as Trump refuses to
invoke the mandatory manufacturing of needed medical supplies and equipment
under the Defense Production Act (except as revenge against General Motors by
reason of a personal feud with its CEO) – claiming that voluntary corporate
manufacturing and allowing the free market to set prices are his preferred path
– states are literally bidding against each other, jacking up prices, for basic
medical supplies. A mask which used to cost about 80 cents is now somewhere
around $7. Taxpayers will be forced to pay for those price-gouging profits,
either by state taxes or from their share of the stimulus grants to government.
But that’s slipping from the public mind.
Where’s Joe Biden in all this? Trying
to get noticed. But social and traditional media simply don’t care. His
explosion of emails and social media posts seem to slide into the ether,
drowned out by Trump, Trump, Trump… everywhere, all the time. For those
Democrats who believe that the President’s incompetence, his denial of what
everyone should know (but won’t acknowledge) is truth, should be enough to
defeat him in November, that smugness should be forever erased from their
faces. Even the bipartisan stimulus package, which Trump himself had very
little to do with and which will distort our political and economic choices for
a very long time, is being credited to Donald Trump. If those benefits start to
fade, you can bet that the master of blame-directing, The Donald, will make
sure that the “China Virus” does not become the “Trump Virus,” that Democrats
(particularly blue state governors) are targeted as the incompetent ones and
that he will be cast as that “wartime” savior president.
Some Dems are circulating a scary study: “Moody's Analytics has three different
models for projecting the results this November – and they ALL show an easy GOP
win. This is extremely alarming news from one of the most accurate predictors
of presidential election results, because their models have only been
wrong once in
the past forty years.” That once was in 2016, and they have explained that they
had not sufficiently polled that new batch of Trump populist voters who, in
past elections, simply did not vote. Some experts point out that if the Dems
cannot get a massive turnout in November, they are toast.
Russian
interference is already pushing against minority voters, who lean Democratic,
not to vote in November. Red states are avoiding forcing “vote by mail”
alternatives. For a detailed look at how Republicans are making it difficult
for minorities to vote, how they are reining in Democratic districts, please
read my March 24th blog by guest contributor, VoteRiders cofounder,
Kathleen Unger: Coronavirus,
2020 Election and the New ID Laws Are Brewing a Perfect Storm. Are We Prepared? God knows, Biden
is trying. VoteRiders is just pro-voting and will not take a partisan position.
“Even as President Trump fumbles his
way through the outbreak, there are risks for Biden if he remains in the
background of this ever-changing public crisis. Fresh polling this week [third
week in March] shows a diminished lead for Democrats in November, and Trump’s
approval rating mostly stable despite heavy criticism of his early efforts to
downplay the significance of the pandemic… That leaves Biden in uncharted
territory, a candidate awkwardly adjusting to the new reality of virtual
campaigning and struggling to find a message that gets him back on voters’
radar.
“He is making a concerted effort this
week to raise his public profile, holding daily media events from a television
studio newly installed in his home in Wilmington, Del., where he is housebound
due to the pandemic. After days of being all but invisible, he gave interviews
to ‘The View,’ CNN and MSNBC, and Wednesday [3/25] he held his first news
conference via Zoom. Also on Wednesday [3/25], Biden launched a campaign
newsletter and in its first edition announced he would soon start producing a
podcast…
“‘Everybody is navigating a new
world,’ said Steve Schale, an advisor to Unite the Country, a super PAC
supporting Biden that just launched a fresh ad attacking Trump’s response to
COVID-19. ‘There is no easy answer to this. There is nothing normal about this
moment. Yet the political calendar doesn’t take a break.’
“Another multimillion-dollar
political committee supporting Biden, Priorities USA, recently launched its own
new $6-million ad campaign aimed at helping Biden elbow his way back into
public debate about COVID- 19, including a one spot that contrasts the chaos of
Trump’s actions with clips of a resolute and confident Biden vowing to ‘lead
with science.’
“The marketing blitz, though, is
undermined by a Biden campaign that still seems unprepared for this moment. The
jury-rigged television studio in the rec room of Biden’s house projects more
like a home-movie production than a high-tech presidential campaign… He gave
his first speech — about COVID-19, of course — on Monday [3/23], amid confusion
about when the remarks would start. Biden got out of sync with the teleprompter
and lost his place. He called the governor of Massachusetts ‘Charlie Parker’
(his last name is Baker).
“That was the bad news. The good news
was that viewership was limited; none of the major television stations carried
it live, which both relieved and frustrated many backers of the former vice
president. The operational glitches of the campaign right now make them cringe.
“Still, Biden supporters believe that
the public health emergency wracking the nation cries out for a serious,
experienced, stable leader — the qualities that Biden has been selling himself
on since the day he launched his campaign.
“‘His experience and persona are made
for this moment. People watch him and hear him and think, ‘It would be nice if
he was president,’ ’ said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist who was deputy
campaign manager to Sen. John F. Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. ‘The
downside is people are not paying attention.’…
“However he handles this awkward
interregnum publicly, many Democrats are hoping that Biden uses this time well
to ramp up his campaign operation so it will be ready when the battle resumes
in full force… ‘He has 12 people working on his digital platform,’ said Michael
Meehan, who also advised the Kerry campaign. ‘He needs 1,200.… It is hard to
knock off an incumbent in times of trouble. You don’t win presidential
campaigns in the spring, but you can lose them there if you don’t prepare
right.’… On Tuesday [3/24] morning, a new Monmouth University poll showed
Biden’s lead over Trump in a fall matchup had shrunk to a scant 3 points,
putting it inside the margin of error.” Los Angeles Times, March 26th.
Rumors are that Biden’s “technical glitch” for his virtual press conference
included the suggestion that his home internet connection lacked the bandwidth
most everyone else already has. Seriously?
All those donor dinners… living room
fund-raisers, group meetings… rallies… not available right now. Sorry Joe!
Bloomberg’s around… But folks willing to go hear you speak? Forgetaboutit!
Trump has one of the most sophisticated social media systems on earth! Wake up!
If elderly Trump could do it… And Bernie Sanders…
“Even before the pandemic hit,
Democrats worried about being able to match the Trump re-election campaign’s financial
war chest. Biden, throughout the primary campaign, has been out-raised by his
rivals. Campaigning from afar during a pandemic isn’t going to make raising
cash any easier – especially with a team not noted for its digital prowess… The
Trump campaign has pivoted from taunting Biden over his absence on the national
stage to mocking his re-emergence. An email blast from the Republican National
Committee accused the former vice-president of attempting a ‘sorry
interpretation of a president.’” The Guardian (U.K.), March 28th.
“‘[Biden] is going to have to change
quickly,’ said Shomik Dutta, a veteran of Barack Obama’s two campaigns and
partner at Higher Ground Labs, an incubator for progressive political
technology. ‘Joe Biden now has to wheel 180 degrees and prosecute a very
different campaign than the one he was running.’” LA Times. Man the phone lines!
Blow out the social media reach! Exactly what is Bernie Sanders waiting for? Biden needs Bernie Sander’s massive
network of young and savvy social media connectors, all quite content to sit
alone at home and spread the word digitally. Now. If Bernie isn’t going to
concede until the “convention,” double advantage Trump.
And one more thing. Where is the
Democratic Party? Where’re Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Corey
Booker, etc., etc, all those folks who endorsed Biden? By the way, is anyone
concerned that the two expected major party Presidential candidates are in the
most vulnerable age group at risk should they contract CV-19? Shouldn’t Biden
at least name his running mate now?
I’m
Peter Dekom, and for fact-freaks like me, we know that keeping Trump in office
will wreak permanent damage, much irreparable, to the viability of the United
States as a functioning unified nation and as an influential world power.
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