I thought we were done with this. Apparently not. Pelosi, Schumer and Jeffries have had private conversations with Biden, telling him he can't win. I have no idea what crystal ball they are using. Now Adam Schiff has come out publicly urging Biden to drop out. It's clearly all being orchestrated. It's painful to watch the Democrats self-immolate, as the party elite tosses out the democratic process that they claim to represent and protect. It reminds me of what they did to Bernie Sanders in 2016 in favour of Hillary Clinton during the primaries with so-called 'super delegates', and we know how that ended.
Here's why I think the Democrats need to rally around their incumbent ASAP:
1. Biden is Biden, still is, just older and more so. He was never a good speaker. He always stuttered. He's been making gaffes his whole career. He never had charisma. People didn't elect him for his magnetic appeal in 2020, or for his rousing inspiring speeches. They supported him for his decency and experience. They supported him because he wasn't trump. Nothing about that has changed, except that trump has become an indicted and convicted felon, and Biden has had a successful 4-year term as president by most accounts. Oh yeah, and they are both 4 years older.
2. About the terrible debate. Debates have never mattered in any political campaign, except maybe the first televised debate between JFK and Richard Nixon in 1960. Polls mean nothing, especially not 4 months before an election. Polls have proven to be incredibly unreliable, especially in recent years. Of course the best example of this was in 2016, when Hillary Clinton was given a 99% chance of winning the election by the much lauded Princeton Election Consortium, and just 3 days before the election they had her at 312 electoral college votes (270 is needed to win). Another recent example was the 'red wave' predicted in the 2022 midterm elections which never materialized. At best, polls are snap shots of a moment in time. But as worthless as polls are this far out from an election, Biden has just had the worst month of any politician in memory and the most recent polls show that the race remains even or within the margin of error. Anyway, as I say polls mean nothing, and the Democrats don't get it.
3. While some political strategists look at 'unfavourables' and others look at various polls, the only historically reliable systematic method of predicting success in presidential elections with a near-perfect track record over the last 40 years has been Allan Lichtman's 13 Keys to the White House. They make a lot of sense. Two important keys are incumbency and no primary contest ie. party unity. If Biden decides to step away, the Democrats risk losing these two important advantages. A successor to Biden is unsure (remember when Hillary was a guaranteed winner?) and the process would likely be chaotic. That's a huge risk. But what Lichtman's method actually points out in general is that candidates really don't matter as much as people think they do, unless the candidate is a once-in-a-generation uniquely charismatic figure, like Obama, JFK or Reagan. Trump doesn't count because people are united as much against him as behind him. Lichtman's method favours governance over personality when understanding election dynamics. And as it stands, the Democrats have most of those keys in their favour, if they can hold it together and get behind the incumbent. Instead, they seem to be falling for 'personality politics' which is a construction of the media, because every good story is obsessed with a protagonist. It's trump-style politics, focus on an individual, and its why he has lost every election since 2016. The Democrats have lost the more important narrative, the one that actually impacts election outcomes.
4. The coming election will be like all others in recent memory. The result will be determined by turnout. The Republicans have a core advantage in enthusiasm for their candidate, slavishly so, but their maximum number is too low to win a majority. The Democrats have majority numbers but turnout has always been structurally challenging because they are a bottom-up coalition party, not top-down like the Republicans. Party in-fighting and fragmentation takes a much heavier toll on the Democrat's side. This election cycle the Democrats have spent a lot of time and resources building an organization to buttress turnout in the swing states. This, of course, is not reflected in any polls. But the more time and energy the Democrats spend fighting each other and fragmenting their coalition the more difficult it will be to turn out their vote. It's essentially what happened in 2016 with Bernie-Hillary and why Hillary ultimately lost against an unpopular opponent. The most shocking result of that election was the number of Bernie supporters who voted for trump, or stayed home. It cost her the presidency. Bottom line, the organizational pieces are currently in place, if the Democrats can get their act together.
The stakes are too high for this kind of political malpractice. Will the Democrats figure it out in time? We'll know soon.
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