This is a two-part post, with two related but very distinct topics.
It looks like there’s a really good chance we’re going to get a change at the top of the ticket. Big, unprecedented, historic development. This isn’t to advocate a point or change anyone’s mind. I simply think it’s important to say this so everyone understands it. We have a lot of assumptions about the November election, we have a lot of gut instincts, certainly, since the debate. But the only thing we have that is somewhat objective is polling data. I think a lot of people have this idea that Biden is dead in the water and basically can’t win and that is the backdrop for their thinking about changing candidates. That may be true. But by the data there’s really little to no evidence for that. Biden’s behind, but not by much. He’s the underdog, certainly. But the most decisive part of the election season hasn’t even happened yet. When Adam Schiff or some backbencher in the House says they’ve determined Biden has no path to the presidency or cannot win, that is their hunch and they have no more insight into the matter than you, a close follower of politics, does. That is a fact.
It seems very possible that Biden is about to be replaced by another candidate, Kamala Harris, who seems to poll about the same as he does. Her favorability numbers are about the same as his. Meanwhile replacing the incumbent president on the ticket right now violates very, very basic rules that history says are how you get elected president, the most central of which is that you run the incumbent president.
Biden also has a superpower. He’s governed as a very progressive president. But he’s an old, white guy. He’s a church-attending Catholic. He reads as a very traditional guy. And that gives him access to certain voters that others do not have. We can wish we didn’t live in that world. But we do live in that world.
Now the very good counter to all of this is that we are facing an extraordinary set of circumstances, which afford little-to-no historical points of comparison. Also, as I’ve defined the decision above, there’s really nothing that could be considered secret data. It’s just people’s very strong assumption that an 81 year old president, who appears to have undergone a significant and recent physical decline, cannot inspire confidence or robustly campaign to win. Certainly not when he’s already a bit behind.
The simple fact is that it’s a tough call. We’re not remotely going to have enough evidence to make the decision in any kind of educated way. Both choices are very risky. But here we are.
My only real point here is to say this is all based on assumptions and gut instincts. And the truth is that’s kind of all we have. That isn’t a reason not to do it. But I think it’s worth being clear that that is what we’re going on. I’m totally ready to get on board behind Kamala Harris. I’m excited. She can win. But we should all be clear on these realities.
Here’s the second topic. Like many others, I was surprised by Joe Biden’s performance and I’ve wondered a lot about just what happened. I’ve spoken to a lot of people over the last couple weeks. And I have the strong impression that President Biden’s physical condition declined marked and quite recently.
That fundraiser out in Los Angeles has gotten a lot of public attention because of George Clooney’s entry into the discussion. I’ve spoken to a lot of people about this. And there were a lot of people at that fundraiser who see Biden often. They’re people who know people who see him constantly. Apparently quite a few people saw Biden then and thought he had physically deteriorated a lot since they’d seen him last. I say “physically” because I get the sense that people weren’t really focused on cognitive issues. It’s was physical. That he had aged a lot, even in the estimation of people who had seen him very recently. Most people seem to have at least partly brushed the concerns aside because Biden had just returned from a whirlwind trip through Europe which included commemorations of D-Day followed by the G7 Summit in Italy. Those trips are grueling for anyone, especially a guy over 80.
This is something I’d been thinking about even before the debate. On April 26th, Biden sat for an interview with Howard Stern. Go listen to it. It’s very different from the recent interviews. He’s still old, like the post-2019 Biden has always been old, and he’s gotten older since then. But it’s different. That interview was the basis of a lot of my confidence going into the debate. That interview was April 26th. The fundraiser was June 15th. The debate was June 27th. These are very tight dates. A short period of time.
I’m not sure this really matters. It doesn’t change where we are now. I just wanted to get a sense of what was going on. And that’s what I’ve been able to figure out.
