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Well, that was another week mostly wasted.
This isn't just our opinion, either. Here is what Biden campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon had to say in an all-staff call yesterday:
We had two very, very, very hard weeks, very bad weeks. I told you I'd level with you; they've been bad fucking weeks. This two-week window has really sucked, and it is hard, there is no doubt about it.
President Joe Biden just gave a solo press conference today. Before it took place, the media had a lot of time to kill, due to the presser being postponed multiple times (it finally began just before 7:30 Eastern, almost two hours after it was scheduled). The most cogent comment I heard from the pundits was someone essentially saying that it could be a "break" moment (if Biden did badly), but that it probably wouldn't be a "make" moment, since no matter how good Biden did the fears will not be completely put to rest -- we'll just be in a sort of endless cycle of every unscripted appearance by Biden becoming its own make-or-break moment on its own. That seemed about right, to me, and it still seems right after watching Biden's performance.
In all the speculation about what the Democratic "Plan B" could be (should President Joe Biden decide not to continue his run for re-election), so far there are really only two basic scenarios: an open convention, with multiple candidates vying for the nomination; or, conversely, Biden anointing Kamala Harris to stand in for him. But there are now two interesting developments which could be an indication of some possible party unity on the horizon. This is only a mere possibility right now -- it is in no way guaranteed -- but if it happened, it might be the best option possible for the Democratic Party.
President Joe Biden isn't going anywhere, he insists. He remains committed to his candidacy and is confident that he will indeed beat Donald Trump in November. And his strategy of toughing it out against all the critics calling for him to step away from the race appears to be paying off -- at least so far.
This week, the nation celebrated its 248th birthday. (Feel free to insert a "Biden's so old" joke here, if you wish....)
It's been a rather excruciating week, aside from enjoying the fireworks last night. The entire political media universe has been completely consumed with the question of whether President Joe Biden is the best candidate to take on Donald Trump, or whether he should instead gracefully step aside and allow the Democrats to nominate someone younger who might have a better chance at victory in November. We have to admit, we've never really seen anything like this (but then we are too young to remember Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968). The pressure on Biden seems to only be growing, day by day, as more and more people come to the conclusion that Democrats would be better served with a new nominee.
The Democratic Party is now in a full-blown crisis of confidence. Part of this is media-fed, since writing "Democrats In Disarray" columns comes so naturally to most pundits, but it really goes a lot deeper than that. There are real worries out there that President Joe Biden is not going to be up to the task of defeating Donald Trump. There were worries about that before the debate, actually, since his poll numbers have been so anemic for so long. But after America saw Biden stumble through a 90-minute debate with Trump, these worries have gotten a whole lot more acute and immediate.
Back in the early 1980s (before he was in his early 80s), the punk band The Clash put out a song asking what has now become Joe Biden's new existential question:
I cleared the decks for this column, preferring to spend today reviewing the first presidential debate of the 2024 cycle instead of writing a standard "Friday Talking Points" column. But if I had gone with my weekly format, President Joe Biden would easily have won my Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award, hands down. His debate performance last night was not just disappointing, it was downright abysmal.
The first 2024 presidential debate is now mere hours away. I am going to go out on a limb here and make a prediction for tonight: Donald Trump will announce his vice-presidential pick at some point during the debate. He could do so very early on, in an effort to rattle President Joe Biden and/or to distract from whatever question Trump had been asked (but didn't want to answer), or he could wait until his closing statement and go out with a bang. But my guess is that Trump's big reveal will happen at some point tonight.
Presidential debate announcements, Michael Cohen testifying, and The Jerry Springer Show breaking out in a House committee -- it's been an eventful political week all around, folks!
But we have to begin today with a very sobering piece of data, just to put everything in some perspective. We (rather obviously) personally live and breathe the political scene, and it is a fair assumption that anyone who regularly reads this column all the way to the end (a weekly marathon, 'tis true...) is also pretty plugged in to the follies of the everyday political landscape as well. We all pay attention, in other words. Not just to the large and meaningful events, but also to the small and amusing. But it cannot be repeated enough: this is not exactly normal. Most Americans just don't pay all that much attention to politics. Like, at all.