President Joe Biden faces a major obstacle in his path to re-election. And what obstacle? President Joe Biden.
The guy is his own worst enemy. He stumbles, he mumbles, he whispers, he shouts, he forgets names, he gets lost on the White House lawn, and generally seems to have little idea of ​​what is really going on around him. Not only does he leave policy decisions to his staff – who seem less capable than a one-legged man at a sack race – but he also makes it impossible for aged Joe to portray himself as a moderate average guy.
Speaking of which, Democratic strategist Liam Kerr has a brilliant plan on CNN to revive the ailing Biden campaign: They need to return to the center and ask some moderate Republicans across party lines for aid.
There’s only one problem with this advice: it’s nonsense.
The biggest obstacle to President Joe Biden’s re-election is not the polls showing a edged decline in support among key Democratic demographic groups from 2020 to today. It is the denial of that reality.
Biden’s executive order on Tuesday limiting asylum seekers at the border despite progressive opposition offers hope that he will take off his blinders and correct course. But much more needs to be done, and as with most changes, it’s vital to first admit there’s a problem.
Oh, there’s a problem, but it doesn’t require a course correction. The border move — and it was a crappy move full of loopholes, as my colleague Mike Miller points out in a VIP post — wasn’t the act of Joe suddenly realizing, “Oh, I let those young staffers pull me too far to the left.” It’s an act of desperation, almost certainly forced upon the increasingly confused president by staffers who want to keep their cushy jobs in the White House.
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Kerr continues:
There are early signs that Biden understands what needs to be done and that he is making a U-turn despite his hopeful assessment of the polls. Border action Trump repeats on an vital issue where Biden sunk deep under water. A Gallup poll In April found that immigration was the country’s biggest problem for the third month in a row, with only 37% of Americans satisfied with its performance at the border, while 61% disapproved.
Progressives expressed their frustration as expected with Biden’s approach to the border, but it would be a mistake for the Biden campaign to allow those votes to influence it. Biden beat a wide field for his party’s nomination in 2020 by building on a career in the political center and opposing the left wing of his party. Since then, win the nominationHowever, Biden has hugged to many guidelines At the left.
After three and a half years of parroting every progressive slogan, it’s a stretch to think that even the most credible voter could be swayed by this sudden about-face. This is the most left-leaning administration in living memory – a history that includes Barack Obama – and it’s not credible to think that Old Joe will suddenly walk through a magical enlightenment screen at this critical moment and emerge reborn as a reasonable, oh, damn it, moderate human being.
Moreover, it is doubtful whether any magical treatment could restore to him the intelligence and sagacity he had in his prime, which, to be truthful, was not very much.
Joe Biden’s worst enemy is himself – and his second worst is his advisers. But any change of course at this point will be seen as a selfish, desperate last-minute attempt rather than a fundamental change of position. And such things rarely win elections.
