Biden liked to cultivate an Uncle Joe image that he's largely given up on because of all the fondling of his young "nieces." And he's so senile and out of it that "Grandpa Joe" is far more appropriate now anyway. I'm not commenting on his age-- just his condition. And Biden's condition-- mental deterioration is what Fox and Hate Talk Radio focus on nonstop. It's their antidote to all the talk in main stream media about Trump's dementia and rapidly increasing mental deterioration. Amie Parnes looked at the who's more senile controversy for The Hill yesterday, a couple of days after Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH) told reporters he feels Biden's mental state is declining and that he would lose to Trump if he's the candidate. "I just think Biden is declining. I don’t think he has the energy. You see it almost daily. And I love the guy." This is what Obama was talking about when he warned Biden not to run because of how badly would hurt his reputation. Yesterday, at a New Hampshire forum, he accidentally called Trump "Donald Hump."
Biden will turn 77 this fall, and the issue of his age has repeatedly resurfaced since he entered the presidential race.President Trump, who is just four years younger than Biden, already has made a number of allusions to Biden’s age, accusing the former vice president just last month of “not playing with a full deck.”Democrats and Republicans alike say they expect Trump to continue to play the age card, particularly whenever Biden makes a gaffe.“They’re going to make it all about him not being physically fit for the job,” said Shermichael Singleton, a Republican strategist who briefly worked for the Trump administration. “Republicans will use it to point out that he’s not ready for the job on day one.”The Drudge Report this week made a banner headline out of a story from the conservative Washington Examiner about a broken blood vessel in Biden’s left eye.Mainstream media outlets barely mentioned the incident, and the blood in Biden’s eye was hardly noticeable for many people watching the climate summit hosted live by CNN.But right-wing outlets played Biden’s eye as a major piece of news, foreshadowing attacks likely to come next summer and fall if Biden, the Democratic front-runner, wins his party’s nomination.The effort would be familiar to anyone who remembered attacks on Hillary Clinton’s age and physical stamina in 2016.
It's worth emphasizing that while people say Bernie and Elizabeth Warren are also old, both are in top mental condition and neither-- unlike Trump and Biden (both of whom are face-lift sufferers)-- is suffering from dementia. And grassroots Democrats have a lot more to worry about than "just" Biden's senility. Let's move from the old and feeble to the young and vibrant. Yesterday Axios did a story on AOC's perspective on the 2020 candidates. While Pew;osi is threatening to punish members of Congress who endorse Bernie, AOC (29) told Vogue that she doesn't think Biden would be a "pragmatic" choice. She told them if Biden is the nominee "the cost will make you lose because you will depress turnout as well. And that’s exactly what happened to 2016. We picked the logically fitting candidate, but that candidate did not inspire the turnout that we needed."Meanwhile, AOC, a former 2016 Bernie volunteer, has worked with Bernie on legislation. She has also been recruited to co-sponsor bills with Elizabeth Warren and the cunning Kamala Harris. Except for Big Money pawns Biden and Mayo Beto-- and the clownish dunce, John Delaney-- she's had encouraging words for all the candidates, including Beto, Booker and Castro.As Anthony Fisher reminded Democrats Saturday, Biden's return to normalcy bullshit campaign will be seen by many voters as an "it's my turn" campaign and Democratic voters-- unlike Republicans, hate that perspective. The superficial familiarity thing has helped Biden in the pools-- especially with elder and uneducated voters-- but the more people get to know him for real, the less they like him. He started with a 41.4% lead in May and he's now down to 30.1%. "But," wrote Fisher, "there's a danger in running as a continuation of a previous administration, because in the past half-century of presidential elections, the change candidate has beaten the 'familiar' candidate almost every time.
Incumbent presidents are largely immune from this phenomenon. They get to enjoy the constant visibility and bully pulpit of the most powerful person in the world, and only sagging economies (Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush) or disastrous wars (Lyndon Johnson) seem to fell them in their bids for re-election.In fact, each of these elections was won by a candidate promising to take the country in a radically different direction, as opposed to hearkening back to a previous administration's path or the unfulfilled promise of a failed primary campaign.But whether it's a former vice president or the runner-up in the previous election cycle's primary, the candidate who is perceived as running for president because it's "their turn" tends to flame out against a fresher face. It's hard to quantify just why widely-recognized presidential candidates have so much trouble sealing the deal come the general election.Maybe losing the previous cycle's primary carries an unconscious stigma for voters. Maybe being a vice president brands them "second banana" for the rest of their careers. Maybe too much familiarity is a drag on voter enthusiasm.Whatever the reasons might be, the results are clear: the "next in line" candidates pretty much always lose against the fresher faced candidate promising to shake up the system.
The "My turn" candidates who lost-- from 1968 on:
• Hubert Humphrey (LBJ's VP)• Jerry Ford (Nixon's VP)• Walter Mondale (Carter's VP)• Bob Dole (Ford's running mate)• Al Gore (Bill Clinton's VP)• John McCain (familiar as toilet paper)• Mitt Romney (familiar as McCain)• Hillary (familiar as McCain and Romney combined).
Fisher closed his essay by telling readers that "Biden's long career in government is as much a drag on him as a boon. The sharpest jabs against him by members of his own party include his vote for the Iraq War, his staunch support for the 1994 crime bill and other punitive criminal justice policies, and his opposition to busing in the 1970s."
