We shouldn't get too cocky with a little less than a year before the election, but the landscape doesn't look all that great for Joe Biden. And don't think that mainstream media outlets haven't noticed.
Jonathan Martin at Politico has offered some advice of his own for the struggling campaign on how to "turn it around." The reporter said he "spoke with dozens of Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans about what the president can do on personnel, presentation, and strategy to improve his prospects." So we know from the start what kind of article this is going to be.
Why is Martin cooking up advice for Biden with Democrats and NeverTrumpers? It's because the stakes have never been higher, of course.
Martin points out that "this election will be exceptional because of the threat Trump poses. The former president is an exiled strongman who’s taken over a traditional political party and is attempting to reclaim office to consolidate power and punish his enemies with little regard for the Constitution. Just ask him."
"With the increasingly likely possibility that this will be a multi-candidate election, and Biden at risk of being denied the nose-holding votes he needs from independents and pre-Trump Republicans, the president’s margin for error is nil," Martin continues, and you can almost picture the sweat on his brow as he adds, "If Biden thinks the country is on the line, he should act like it."
Martin pours cold water on the Democrats' fever dream that Biden could give way to Kamala Harris or that the Obamas could convince the president to hang up his spurs. At the same time, he also tries to convince his readers that the Condescender-in-Chief doesn't have his fingerprints all over the current administration.
"And if the right-wing fever swamps want to think Barack Obama is secretly in charge, well, let them," Martin writes, presumably keeping as much of a straight face as he can. "The country likes the former president and his ability to break through on the campaign stump is unparalleled."
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What's most clear is that Martin is ready for the Biden team to get to work — and that includes trying to force Biden to change some of his foundational characteristics.
"Enough with the bravado and denialism. His aides are under no illusion about their challenge. Even some of his most committed loyalists told me he needs to make changes," Martin writes. "Yet the president often displays his resentments in ways that do nothing to move public opinion and only delay needed adjustments."
The problem with that is that everybody knows that Biden is a vindictive and grudge-holding SOB, so is it realistic to expect him to change? Old habits die hard, and when one gets into one's 80s, those habits have calcified.
Martin also has some other ideas that would be laughable if he weren't so sincere about them. He suggests that Biden cozy up to Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney to court the squishy RINO vote, and he says that the president should dispatch Bill and Hillary Clinton to negotiate a peace plan between Israel and Hamas. No, seriously.
Other suggestions that Martin makes include urging Biden to feature more of the young leading lights in the Democrat party in his campaign and pandering to black voters by highlighting members of the Congressional Black Caucus. In other words, Martin doesn't have any ideas that Democrats haven't tried before.
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But at one point in his lengthy column, Martin says the quiet part out loud about the biggest problem that a Biden reelection campaign poses. In a passage about how "extraordinary" the upcoming election will be, he writes:
That’s in part for reasons Biden refuses to accept: his capacity to do the job. The oldest president in history when he first took the oath, Biden will not be able to govern and campaign in the manner of previous incumbents. He simply does not have the capacity to do it, and his staff doesn’t trust him to even try, as they make clear by blocking him from the press. Biden’s bid will give new meaning to a Rose Garden campaign, and it requires accommodation to that unavoidable fact of life.
So Martin admits that Joe Biden can't hack it at his age and that it's up to Biden's staff to run the country. It's an understatement to say that's a problem. National Review's Charles C. W. Cooke puts it this way:
Joe Biden is the president of the United States; Joe Biden’s staff works for him. If, because Joe Biden “does not have the capacity” to be president, Joe Biden’s staff is in charge of Joe Biden, then Joe Biden is not the president of the United States, and we have a foundational problem of democratic accountability. Were Biden to win again, the considerable powers laid out in Article II would be granted to Joe Biden, not to his staff. It would be Joe Biden, not his staff, who would take the oath of office. It would be Joe Biden, not his staff, who would be expected to sign or veto legislation, issue pardons, and nominate officers and judges. It would be Joe Biden, not his staff, who would enjoy the position as sole commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States. In our partisan era, it can be tempting to think that control of the White House flits between “Republicans” and “Democrats.” But it does not. It moves between people. If, indeed, Joe Biden cannot handle the job, then he is ineligible to be among those people.
None of this matters to people like Martin and plenty of others in the mainstream media. The "urgent urgency" (to swipe the line from "Twister") is that Donald Trump loses, and don't fool yourself: things would be just as urgent if Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, or any other candidate became the GOP nominee.
For the left, the end justifies the means every time, and it doesn't matter how foolish the administration looks with a staff running it. It also doesn't matter what ruin befalls the country as long as Democrats are in power.
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