It’s official, maybe: Old Joe Biden has thrown his aviator sunglasses into the ring for the 2024 presidential election. The Independent reported Tuesday that “President Joe Biden has filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to establish himself as a candidate for re-election in 2024. A ‘Statement of Organization’ submitted to the FEC on Tuesday registered ‘Biden for President’ as the principal campaign committee for candidates Joseph R Biden Jr and Kamala Harris.” As with so very many things coming out of the Biden White House, however, this filing is shrouded in confusion and not nearly as straightforward as the Independent suggests.
Business Insider deputy editor Dave Levinthal said: “This is a change in paperwork — designating a new treasurer — for a presidential campaign committee that already exists. It alone doesn’t indicate anything about whether Biden will or will not run in 2024.” But Patsy Widakuswara, the White House Bureau Chief for VOA News, was definite: “It’s official, President Biden is running again in 2024.” Twitter is roughly evenly divided between those who are saying that Biden has made it official that he is running again in 2024 and those who insist that all he did was change the personnel list in his paperwork. As is so often with the Biden camp, we get botched messaging and mixed signals.
The larger picture, however, is not at all unclear. If Old Joe is at least semi-coherent (i.e., in about the condition he is now) and ambulatory, he will be running again in 2024. Few people seem excited about the prospect of Dumpster Fire II: Old Joe Fails Again, and that’s understandable. The only way the Democrats are going to be able to sell Old Joe again is by saying: “If you keep hitting yourself on the head with a mallet because it feels so good when you stop, just imagine how good it will feel if you stop after eight years instead of just four.”
A whopping 64% of Democrats would prefer someone else, anyone else, please, anyone but Old Joe to be the party’s nominee in 2024, but the party of Jefferson Davis is in a bind: Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong aren’t available, Kamala Harris is a cackling mess, and who else is there? Gavin Newsom, who seems to think “Let Me Ruin America The Way I’ve Ruined California” is a winning slogan? Supermodel Stacey Abrams?
Given the thinness of the Democrat bench, it’s not surprising that Old Joe, who will turn 82 just weeks after election day 2024, thinks he has a shot at reelection. After all, the FBI is solidly in his corner, and they delivered for him once — why can’t they do it again?
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Still, with a job approval rating that makes Jimmy Carter look like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, it’s easy to see why Democrat leaders aren’t greeting the prospect of Biden: Still More Malarkey in 2024 with enthusiasm. Even if the FBI does its level best, close elections are the easiest ones to manipulate, and Biden could end up on the short end of a historic blowout in 2024, one that is beyond the reach of even the most resourceful fed to salvage for The Big Guy.
That may be the reason for the ambiguity of today’s announcement, or whatever it is. Biden’s handlers may be treating his sort-of filing to run again in 2024 as a kind of trial balloon, hoping to gauge what kind of reaction it gets and maneuver accordingly. But if anyone was hoping for an outpouring of genuine enthusiasm from anyone beyond Rob Reiner over the prospect of another Biden basement summer campaign, they’re certain to be bitterly disappointed. No one was ever really excited about the prospect of a Biden presidency; he was just in the right place at the right time and took a nomination that the other Democrat heavyweights didn’t want against a president whose reelection prospects looked formidable until the COVID-19 hysteria kicked in.
Biden is, after all, the quintessential Washington insider, selling the same snake oil he has sold for fifty years now, with an ever-lengthening record of lies and failure to show for it. But he has one thing going for him: he appears to be willing to be led by whoever is pulling his strings, as he indicated yet again a few days ago when he said: “I took control. I shouldn’t do that. I’m not allowed to do that.” Other Democrat hopefuls may not be so sanguine about being puppets for the people who are really in charge. It is they who may decide to sign Joe on for another four years.
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