Leaks
First things first: the Trump campaign; the one defeated in the “Most Important Election in a Century” in 2020; publicly says they want to run against Joe Biden again. Think about that. The Trump campaign let that “secret” out to Tim Alberta, reporter for The Atlantic. Other reporters were amazed that the Trump campaign managers would “leak” such information. Unlike the “old days” of 2016 and 2020, when the campaign was a clown show, Trump 2024 campaign staff is smart, professional, and ruthless.
So why would they “leak” this to the press? Why would they tell the world, “We want to run against Biden”? Why would they lend their voice to the political melee surrounding the Biden candidacy? Maybe they were just being honest. Or, perhaps they wanted to set up a “fallback position”, an excuse if they would happen to lose to a different Democratic candidate. But neither of those positions fit the Machiavellian reputation of the new leaders of Trump world, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles.
They told Alberta that their entire campaign was premised on making Biden appear feeble, demented, and unable to govern. The Trump campaign has already spent millions of dollars to emphasize the current President’s flaws to the American people, on television, and perhaps more importantly, through social media. They’ve targeted this dark information to the critical swing states: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada. In a year were fully 90% of the vote, perhaps even more, is already “baked in” for one candidate or the other, it is in those few states that the electoral vote will make all the difference. Just like it did in 2020.
The Strategy
This election is about two things. The first is the battle for the few undecided voters left. And the Trump strategy for those voters makes sense. Persuade those few that the current President is unable to lead, versus their strong, domineering leader. Even if they don’t switch from Biden to Trump, maybe they chose a third-party candidate, or simply chose to not vote at all.
And the second is the battle of turnout. Trump voters are committed, they will turn out. But if Biden voters feel they don’t have a chance, or that Biden himself is a shell of the man they chose in 2020, the theory is that they won’t go to the polls. Add to that the Republican National Committee strategy of spending millions of dollars to make voting more difficult and dissuade Democrats from casting a ballot, and Trump wins the turnout campaign.
That way, Trump wins the undecided, and he wins on turnout. What was a narrow Biden victory in 2020 becomes a Trump “landslide” win in 2024 (though the definition of “landslide” in our current politics is a win of two percent).
Alberta tells a story of a Trump Campaign that acts like the Covid vaccine. Sure, it’s effective against one strain of the virus, but if a different iteration of the disease appears, the vaccine is useless. LaCivita and Wiles’ strategy against Biden falls short against another candidate, say Kamala Harris. But if that’s really true, why would the Trump campaign weigh-in about Biden’s fitness to continue? After all, their “thumb on the scale” has an obvious impact on the Democrats who are actually making the decision. It might not be the effect that the Trump campaign is hoping for.
Kryptonite
Let’s take the Trump managers’ reputation at face value. If they are so Machiavellian, then why would they lay out their strategy so clearly? Democrats are determining whether to “switch horses in mid-stream”, and the Trump folks are literally saying, we want Biden. Doesn’t that just become another “nail in the coffin” in the Biden candidacy? Wouldn’t that make Democrats more likely to say, let’s find another candidate, one that the Trump campaign isn’t prepared for?
Or is that exactly what the Trump team wants. Biden was Trump’s “kryptonite” in 2020, perhaps he is again. The exact nature of Biden’s “super-power” is clear: he appeals to all of the regular Democratic base (minorities and women) but also is able to cross-over to some of the white men that used to be part of the old Democratic fabric. They are the so-called “Reagan Democrats”; lost to the Democratic Party for a whole generation. Joe Biden is an “old white guy” and a staunch Union supporter. He runs better with older white men than any other Democratic candidate in a generation. And where does that marginal difference in white men have the most impact? The old “labor” states of the Midwest: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
So, is the Trump Campaign really convinced they can withstand Biden “kryptonite” this time? Or is the Alberta “leak” a whole subversive strategy, first to lend more chaos to the “Chaos Party” of 2024, the Democrats, and second, to find a candidate that Trump matches up better against. Are the Trump managers trying to get rid of Biden by saying he’s the one they’d rather run against?
Nailed It
The Democrats have a lot to think about in the next few days. The President, minus one name flub, gave an hour-long masters level course on foreign policy last night at his post-NATO summit press conference. He did just what you’d want an “agile” politician to do – he answered the questions he wanted to, and dodged the ones he didn’t want to answer. And he got in his political barbs: Trump cheating at golf instead of working, and the “2025 Project” horror show. He nailed the base Democratic point: Trump will take your freedom away.
Biden made it clear he was staying in the race; literally daring anyone who wanted him out to a floor fight at the Democratic convention. It’s a fight Biden will win, but a fight the entire Party might lose in November. Any way you think about that 1968-like disaster, it’s playing into the Trump Campaign’s hands. Democrats must avoid that catastrophe. So the decision is Biden versus the doubters, and it’s now.
And Joe Biden has already decided.
