MESSAGE: I TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE:
During @JoeBiden’s call with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the president said his staff passed him a note to “stay positive you are sounding defensive.” Biden read the note aloud to participants on the call.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) July 13, 2024
As the late Charles Krauthammer wrote in 2012:
George H. W. Bush, Romney-like in aloofness, was once famously handed a staff cue card that read: “Message: I care.” That was supposed to be speech guidance. Bush read the card. Out loud.
Not surprisingly, he lost to Bill Clinton, a man who lives to care, who feels your pain better than you do — or at least makes you think so. In politics, that’s a trivial distinction.
Watching George H.W. Bush’s reelection campaign in 1992, there were many moments where it seemed like Papa Bush was just phoning it in; that he didn’t even want to be out on the hustings, let alone win a second term as president. But that failed reelection bid was a well-oiled machine compared to where the (p)resident is at today. Or as Ed Morrissey writes: ‘It’s Over’: Dem Panic Over 2024 Curdles Into Despair.
Left unsaid: It might get worse if they try to replace Biden, too. He all but endorsed Kamala Harris at the press conference on Thursday as his successor, and Democrats know all too well that she’d be a disaster as the nominee. A three-week campaign among convention delegates would be just enough time to rip open the rifts between factions within the party and not nearly enough time to heal them in the race for power. Like it or not, Biden’s the only available-if-imperfect figure of unity in this cycle.
The time to have that debate was during the primaries, but … Democrats thought they could gaslight voters and avoid it. FAFO. And so …
Inside the Capitol, Democrats who fear Biden can’t win make up a majority of the party and a growing number are willing to say so publicly.
“It’s over,” one aide to a battleground Democrat said of the fight to flip the House. “It doesn’t matter if they’re outperforming him by 35 fucking points. The math doesn’t work.”
The jig is up, that’s for sure. But if Biden refuses to leave, expect the gaslighting to resume, this time as a comeback narrative that will last until the next aphasiac performance or “President Putin” gaffe. Just don’t expect voters to buy it.
Still though, think of the upside after Biden’s latest Ron Burgandy-esque moment!
All Kamala has to do is slip Joe a note during a call that says “I am resigning” and after he reads it aloud the job is hers https://t.co/a8uNehH3Ye
— Magills (@magills_) July 13, 2024