It\u2019s Election Day \u2013 2023. There\u2019s important contested races in Virginia, Kentucky, and even in Mississippi (a Democrat has a shot at Governor??). And then there\u2019s Issue One in Ohio, where women\u2019s rights are on the line, again. By the way, Ohio Democrats, don\u2019t get too excited even if Issue One passes by a landslide. It doesn\u2019t mean that the Ohio Democratic Party can figure out how to win a statewide seat, or deliver the Buckeye State for a Democratic Presidential candidate in 2024. That doesn\u2019t seem to be \u201ctheir thing\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What\u2019s not so surprising in our ADHD, \u201cWhat have you done for me in the last sixty seconds,\u201d media environment; is that the talk is all about November of 2024. A few recent polls show Donald Trump leading Joe Biden in several of the critical swing states, and some Democrats are prematurely, positively, panicking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, before we commence with handwringing and begging California Governor Gavin Newsom to come save the Party, let\u2019s talk a little bit about polls. Do we really believe in the sanctity of polling anymore; after the last four election cycles? The entire process of polling is suspect, now that everyone has personal phones and can screen every call. Sure, pollsters still swear by their methodology; if they can get a big enough sample to fit their \u201cmodel\u201d, they claim \u201caccurate\u201d results. But the proof is in the real outcomes. Polls have been wrong over and over again the last seven years. They aren\u2019t dependable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the other issue, proven time and time again, is that Joe Biden never, ever, polls well. But somehow, he still manages to win at the ballot box. In fact, isn\u2019t that part of the foundation of the Trumpian \u201cStolen Election\u201d theory, that Biden never wins in polls but somehow people still vote for him? \u201cThe election must be rigged\u201d; all the pollsters, particularly Rasmussen of the most Republican \u201cmodel\u201d in history, can\u2019t be wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So here are the facts. The one thing that Donald Trump is right about is that any publicity, any media attention of him, is better than none. And the media is back to \u201cAll Trump, All the Time\u201d again. Hell, I have MSNBC on TV eight hours a day, and at least a third of that time, it\u2019s about Donald Trump. He\u2019s in court, he\u2019s not going to the debate, he yelled at a judge, he\u2019s losing his company \u2013 we hear it all. So Trump gets to play his favorite role, victim. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile Biden is trying to handle a world gone off the rails. Russia is still getting pushed back in Ukraine (that\u2019s old-old news, past our sixty second attention span). And Israel has somehow managed to turn a brutal terror attack on their own civilians, killing 1400, into something that looks like genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza. No wonder no one likes Netanyahu. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
All Trump, all victim; all Biden, all world turmoil: no wonder flawed polling shows Trump ahead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then there are the \u201cwise sages\u201d of the Democratic Party, acting all \u201ccourageous\u201d by saying Biden should withdraw for 2024. James Carville, the master politician behind Bill Clinton (\u201cit\u2019s the economy, stupid\u201d) and David Axelrod, Obama\u2019s strategic genius, both are hinting that Democrats should move on. Even former Republican \u201csage\u201d Steve Schmidt, McCain\u2019s chief strategist and a Founder of the Lincoln Project, is behind Biden\u2019s only Democratic challenger, Congressman Dean Phillips of Minnesota.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In short \u2013 Trump gets to play his favorite part \u2013 victim, while Biden grapples with all of the problems of the US and the World.\u00a0\u00a0Trump has nothing else to do \u2013 ninety-one felony counts take up a lot of time.\u00a0\u00a0Surprise; Biden isn\u2019t running for President right now.\u00a0\u00a0He\u2019s BEING President, making really tough decisions.\u00a0\u00a0Some of those have political ramifications: Palestinian\/American voters are Democrats, now who knows where they\u2019ll go.\u00a0\u00a0Certainly not to Trump.\u00a0\u00a0And Jewish Democrats aren\u2019t all that happy with what Israel is doing in Gaza either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Young people think Biden is too old, and old people can\u2019t figure out how Biden even gets up in the morning. They know that they can\u2019t. So what if Trump is afraid of the coming \u201cWorld War II\u201d, or thinks he beat \u201cObama\u201d in 2016. Trump gets a pass on dementia. But Biden stutters a couple of times, and that\u2019s obvious proof he\u2019s \u201cgone\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what about Robert Kennedy Junior, and Cornell West, and \u201cNo Labels\u201d and other \u201cthird party\u201d candidates? Well, I\u2019m not so worried about Kennedy, he\u2019s a kook, and he\u2019s drawing as much support away from Trump as he is Biden. And while I admire a lot of what Cornell West did, he\u2019s just not going to draw a lot of votes \u2013 nothing like Ralph Nader in 2000. And \u201cNo Labels\u201d is revealing itself as a ploy to assure a Trump re-election, something most Americans will see through. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the end it\u2019s just going to be two that matter: two familiar, octogenarian, white men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong \u2013 I think Joe Biden is old too. So, I suspect, does Joe Biden. But Biden achieved something no other Democrat, not even Carville\u2019s Hillary, could achieve. He beat Donald Trump, unseating a serving President. And he did it in the middle of a pandemic, where it was even tougher to reach the American people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden has a great phrase: \u201cDon\u2019t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to my opponent\u201d. Republicans seem dead set on nominating a man who is likely to be convicted of Federal felonies even before the nominating convention (\u201c\u2026 (W)hen you\u2019re a star, they let you do it. Grab them by the p\u2014y. You can do anything\u201d). Ten months from now, it\u2019s not going to be Gavin Newsom, or Gretchen Whitmer, or Wes Moore against Ron DeSantis or Nicky Haley, or even Vivek Ramaswamy. It\u2019s going to be Trump and Biden, focused down to just two old men; a rerun of 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s when I\u2019ll start sweating the \u201cpolls\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0And even then, I\u2019ll take them with a whole box of salt.\u00a0\u00a0I think that contest will work just fine for Democrats, just like it did in 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"