Joe Biden, the lovable grandpa.
That won't be enough. The GOP media approach has congealed: Joe is senile.
Joe needs a message of change.
There were young, sharp alternatives (Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Booker, Harris, Bennet, and more) but Democratic voters settled on the archetypal grand-dad. The sentimental guy. The guy who want unity. The guy they knew.
Joe Biden's brand is almost entirely message-free, as regards policy, beyond a vague sense that he is moderate liberal, sort of like Obama presumably. Biden is defined by a mood and a personae.
Joe Biden is no Bernie Sanders. Sanders is extraordinarily articulate and decisive in presenting a message of current disfunction, and a direction for change. He asserts his positions clearly and persuasively. He is a strong advocate.
He has two problems. One is that he has not sold his message of change to enough of the people who actually turn out to vote. He frightens them. Too much, too extreme. The other problem is mood; Sanders is sharp and fearless and can face objections head on, and does. He is harsh in his condemnations of corporate and political opponents. Sanders is a fighter. That turned out to be a problem.
He has two problems. One is that he has not sold his message of change to enough of the people who actually turn out to vote. He frightens them. Too much, too extreme. The other problem is mood; Sanders is sharp and fearless and can face objections head on, and does. He is harsh in his condemnations of corporate and political opponents. Sanders is a fighter. That turned out to be a problem.
Voters wanted a nice guy, a peace maker.
 |
| Fox |
Joe Biden provides an asymmetric matchup. Biden makes this a referendum on chaos. Trump represents conflict and drama. Joe and his muddled message represent peace, comity, a retreat from warfare itself.
"This is America!," he says. "We can do anything!" He wants to represent the whole of America, not a partisan half of it.
Joe Biden does not give voters a clear policy reason to support him, some set of benefits of actual change that would result from his election. The message of tangible benefit sustains voters in case the messenger himself looks weak. You aren't voting for him, but for his message and what he can deliver. We saw this: Trump gave evangelical Christians assurance of anti-abortion judges, reason to continue to support him notwithstanding the Access Hollywood revelation.
 |
| Even supporters agree: this is weird |
Joe's current message is Joe himself. Granddad. That is a problem because the GOP attack on him is focusing on his person. The conservative media has a message of Biden senility and frailty. Joe Biden gives them ammunition. The weird "lying dog-face pony soldier" comment. His verbal stumble introducing his sister and wife. Yesterday, an argument with a questioner regarding guns. This morning jibes about teeth and loose dentures.
Brit Hume understands the game. Let Hannity condemn Biden. Let Tucker Carlson give his blank wide-eyed stare of "can you believe this." Hume takes a tone of faux compassion and concern, praising Biden for how sharp and effective he was way back in the day, but look how this giant has fallen, how sad, the dear demented man, lost in his fog. Sympathy.
It is an effective approach. It sells the idea that granddad is too old, so we better stick with
Trump.
It is an effective approach. It sells the idea that granddad is too old, so we better stick with
Trump.
My own observation is that Joe Biden is, indeed, frail. He is demonstrably older and less sharp than Sanders. And Trump, too. It is an issue. Every verbal stumble will be deemed dementia, every throat clearing could be late stage congestive heart failure.
 |
| Old Joe, poor old, old Joe |
The solution is for Biden to have a message or two or three. Vote Biden, get $15 minimum wage. Vote Biden get tax cuts for working people. Vote Biden get student loans refinanced at treasury bill rates. Vote Biden get lower drug prices and low price health insurance for everyone.
Give voters who like Sanders a reason to vote for Biden. More important, give voters who are voting for Biden right now a reason to keep liking him, notwithstanding their fear that maybe Joe is way, way past his prime.
6 comments:
Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson Tonight, network senior political analyst Brit Hume said there is no doubt that former Vice President Joe Biden, the 2020 Democrat frontrunner, is “losing his memory and is getting senile.”
TUCKER CARLSON: I don’t want to be unfair to Biden, sincerely, I don’t want to pull one clip out of context. But, there have been a number of them recently, where the former vice president explodes in aggression. It’s noticeable. I don’t remember him doing that in years past. What do you think this is?
BRIT HUME: I’ve known him a long time. He can sometimes work himself up into a passion in speeches and so on when he’s arguing about issues in a debate. I don’t remember him exploding at voters, like he did [in Michigan] today and hurling profanity like he did, telling the guy he’s full of spit, expect he didn’t say spit…
I always liked him on a personal basis, very much. More recently, however, he’s begun to forget things. He didn’t know what state he is in. He couldn’t remember exactly where he was when he met with the Parkland students, when he said it was in the White House and it was long after he had been out of the White House. That sort of thing. Suggesting that he, like so many people his age, is losing his memory and is getting senile. I don’t think there is any doubt about it.
I have traces of this myself. I know what it feels like. Sometimes you get confused and sometimes you can’t remember what you’re supposed to do the next morning. I’m not running for president, and it’s probably a good thing I’m not. And I think that over time, the danger for him and for his party is that he may say something that is so outlandish and so suggestive, that his cognitive faculties have failed him, that the Democratic voters will say, “Oh, my lord, what do we got here?”
At the moment, they are so eager to deny Bernie Sanders the nomination and to press forward with someone more familiar that I think this step is lost on Democratic voters. But over time, under the pressures of a campaign, who knows what will happen.
I think it's important for progressives to work to get Trump out, but the day after the election they need to abandon the party en masse. The Democrat Party has made it very clear that there is absolutely no room for progressives or their ideals within its tent.
Much like Trump, Biden has a Brand! His brand is family and kitchen table economics. He is compassionate to a fault. Sanders is 4 years too late. We're in a global pandemic and have a global recession beginning. The problems facing the incoming POTUS are far-ranging and have interconnected links, meaning they must all be attacked simultaneously. Sanders appears to lack the ability to form coalitions, while Biden's strength is assembling consensus. Whether we have a debate between Trump and Biden or even hold Republican and Democratic Conventions this year is problematic. So Biden doesn't need to articulate policy and specifics it's baked into the minds of voters already. Regarding attacks dogs on Fox News, the simple retort is "look, Trump was impeached trying to smear Joe Biden and his son Hunter." Why do you think he did that? Trump is smart enough to see a rival brand (Biden) is stronger then Trump.
Nailed it, Peter.
How about a discussion of the 23rd Amendment?
"Anonymous" above should note that the 23rd Amendment relates to the granting of the District of Columbia three electoral votes.
Peter Sage
Our present system of electing a leader is thoroughly dysfunctional, still
suffering from anachronisms like the electoral college. An example of this dysfunction are the three old white men presently vying for the presidency. If Joe Biden were to win the November election he would enter the White House shortly after his 78th birthday. Unfortunately, the average life expectancy (2019) of American males is 78.7 years. The same actuarial data applies to the now 78 year old Bernie Sanders should he manage to wrest the nomination from Old White Joe. Suddenly the importance of the person tabbed for the vice-presidency soars dramatically and the Democrats are fortunate in having not one but several talented young people to fill the spot. Pete Buttigieg, 37, Amy Klobucher, 59, Steve Bullock, 53 and Corey Booker, 50. Having a relatively young person on the ticket might provide a bonus effect of
attracting the attention of a segment of eligible voters who have notably
absent from the polls: Young people, the 18 to 30 years of age group. Perhaps they have heretofore been signaling their disenchantment with a system of education that sends them out in the world burdened with huge amounts of student debts. I believe the nation is eager to consider some new faces on the political scene. It seems as though the current group has been there forever. Time for a change!
Bob Warren
Post a Comment