Tim Alberta gives Joe Biden faint praise even as he commends him for running a superb campaign. What I find interesting is how it comes as such a surprise to so many sharp political analysts to discover that Biden is a good fit for our times. This seemed obvious to me from the beginning.
Perhaps this is because I’m a Pennsylvanian and I always saw the 2020 election through the lens of what would help the Democrats recapture this critical and traditionally blue state from Donald Trump. Biden checked most of the boxes for me, and no one else came close. Obviously, it helps that Biden grew up in Scranton and that he’s represented a neighboring state that shares the Philadelphia media market. It also helps that he was Barack Obama’s partner in office rather than part of a political dynasty that Obama vanquished in 2008. He’s also a white man of a certain age, and an Irish Catholic with a certain gritty working man’s appeal. Just on pure self-identification grounds, he has a big advantage in Pennsylvania over Hillary Clinton. Obama loyalists see him as reliable, while white working class Democrats see him as one of their own. Older Americans recognize him as part of their generation. Biden’s main weakness is his disconnect from younger generations, who do not identify with him. Here, he was blessed with an opponent who has even less appeal to young folks, and that somewhat mitigates his inability to create organic excitement.
Both ideologically and by reputation, Biden also fits Pennsylvania. He’s completely acceptable to the suburban voters, especially the former Republicans who have steadily drifted into the blue column in this century. Yet, he accomplishes this without alienating the labor vote in the West or the inner city vote. Collectively, his broad yet shallow appeal more than offsets his blandness, especially because he alienates almost no one.
But it’s really more his ability to offer a contrast to Trump that makes him a good fit for 2020. As Alberta notes, the American people do not want more drama. They want calm and normalcy, or even just competency. They’d like to be able to ignore politics for weeks at a time, and Biden offers them that in a way that someone offering “revolution” would not.
What America wants and what it needs are not necessarily the same thing, which is why Biden wasn’t my first choice for the Democratic nomination. In fact, if not for his very predictable (in my mind) strengths against Trump, Biden wouldn’t have been in my top five. But for the same reasons I predicted he (or Sanders) would win the nomination before he even entered, I knew that he’d be the least risky choice against Trump, and that wasn’t something I could overlook.
The polls look about how I expected them to look, although COVID-19 has shifted things around a bit. I knew Biden would do well with older voters but not this well. I knew he’d make inroads with rural voters, but perhaps not as much as we’re seeing now. I also knew he’d struggle to turn out the youth vote and that this would turn up as well with young voters of color. His selection of Kamala Harris as his running mate is a sensible response to this one weakness.
In spite of Biden’s near-ideal fit for Pennsylvania, he still has to worry that rural areas will turn out in huge margins for Trump, as they did four years ago. But this would be even more of a concern if the nominee were more culturally distant or ideologically ill-suited to maintaining suburban support.
As far as I was concerned, all Biden had to do to beat Trump was be himself and not make any truly horrible gaffes. I was never sure any of the other candidates could defeat Trump in Pennsylvania no matter what they said or supported.
Unfortunately, identity currently plays more of a role than the issues in American politics, and this seems to be with the mutual consent of both parties and an assist from the media. An exhausted electorate was never going to want radical change in this election even if the country needs a lot of radical change.
Fortunately, Biden will be positioned, if he wins, to pass more progressive legislation than anyone since his buddy Barack in 2009. If he doesn’t win, I’m pretty sure no one else would have won either.
If Trump had handled COVID as well as any middling western country, he’d be cruising to re-election.
Clearly everything in this moment has got to be about beating Trump and the entire putrid Republican corpse that gave rise to him. Everything pales against that. Once in office, it will be important for progressives to operate in ways both smart and forceful, holding his feet to the fire, because Biden doesn’t share our instincts. I always felt that Obama in his heart wanted to go further than he could. I don’t have that sense of Biden. He seems like a moral and decent man but politically conventional in the extreme. I don’t see him as vehemently against progress but he’s not the kind of man who will lead the charge. Progressives will have to do their best to exert whatever influence they can, which is tough because we’re very much a minority voice in the nation. If we get 53 Senate seats, we’ll have a chance. If it’s 50/50, I don’t think much will be accomplished at the federal level. The focus will have to be more progressive states and influencing grass-roots public opinion. We need to remember this is a marathon and not lose heart if the slog continues to be long and hard.
Good comment, thanks. It’s worth noting that Biden, like Obama, has throughout his career positioned himself towards the center of the Democratic party’s center-left coalition. As that coalition has moved left (e.g., on health care, on climate change), so has Biden. So, no “Medicare for All” but “ACA + public option (i.e., Medicare for those who want it)”. No “Green New Deal” but a massive shift on “Standards, Investment & Justice” (to use the language of Vox’s David Roberts).
Springsteen channels what I’m saying here.
Another great piece from you, and like Springsteen’s observation, just another sign from god/universe/whoever that we really have to dump Trump and stop electing Republicans.
What gives me real hope today is the increase in the number of young people voting early. According to MSNBC – Florida 257,720 [2016 – 44,107] NC 204,186 [’16 25,150] Michigan 145,201 [’16 7,572]
Can you get a readout if the same is going on in PA?
Yeah the youth turnout could upend the polling consensus. There are three levels of polling: national, state and district level. The national polling has been bad for Trump, the states less so, but the district level has been horrendous. Hillary was doing poorly in district level polling at the close of the 16 race, but people ignored it. Much of it is not reported but what we see is even in reliably red districts Trump is down 10-20 points from his 2016 numbers (e.g. see some districts in Arkansas or Oklahoma etc.). Nate silver reckons the district polling would be indicative of a 13-14 point national lead. I have thought about how this is possible, but a huge youth turnout is one way it could, because the pollsters at state and national level weight by age group, and maybe they don’t do that for district level stuff. Texas might have more voters this time early than in the full election in 16. Newer voters who are younger and most people of color sounds like a blue tsunami to me.
Also, senior citizens. If they’re really voting +10 for Biden, that’s huge. (This century they’ve typically been +5 to +10 for Republicans.)
Early in the primaries Joe didn’t seem to have either the focus or energy to make it, but boy has he turned that around. I have been impressed with him in every appearance, scripted and off-the-cuff. That has been a very pleasant surprise. Joe and Warren did a rally for Hillary in Pittsburg that I saw when I was volunteering there in 2016. In that event, I was not at all impressed with Joe; he gave a rambling, entirely unfocused speech. Warren was far better. So what I am seeing now reassures me greatly. Also, his campaign is running on all cylinders, with the kind of professionalism and coherence that was a hallmark for Obama’s campaigns.
If nothing else, the pure bloody dogshit spewing from Trump 24/7 has made Biden gaffes almost charming.
Here we go again. Trump is plus 3 in Michigan, Arizona and Florida this morning. Biden leads in Wisconsin and Pa.
Don’t let Trafalgar polls throw you.
So i just checked The Economist’s current projections. They have Biden currently as a 95% likely winner. That’s up 4% from just yesterday. I have never seen it that high nor did I think it would ever go that high. It must have been a really good day of polls for Biden today because I’ve never seen it jump 4 points in one day. I mean 95%? That’s insane. Don’t go nuts over any one poll. Look at the whole picture.
If any of us have looked at some of the projections and saw Donald Trump being projected as a 95% likely winner what do you think the reaction of all of us would be? We would declare the race over. We would say Trump is going to win and there’s absolutely nothing we can do to change that. Yet when our guy is projected as a 95% winner most of us are still curled up in the fetal position panicking that we’re going to lose. Yes he can still win. Anything can happen. Nothing is a Sure thing. But when legitimate pollsters have your guy as a 95% likely winner it’s okay to actually feel a little good and maybe even a little confident.
I just heard someone on MSNBC say the key to this is still Pennsylvania. I’d always thought that but Biden now seems ahead in the polls there. Funny how tight the polls are now. I know there are projections out there that give it all to Biden but I remain heart sick from 2016 and I won’t buy it. The other day Biden was the projected winner at 87% and I see volagsrule here has him at 95%. I’ll buy the beers if Biden wins but not until he is declared winner. 2016 was too much for all of us here.
I may not be able to buy beers at this time, but I do have a 2012 vintage Merlot (admittedly not exactly an expensive bottle) that I plan on opening in the event of a Biden victory. Been saving it for a good while now. Like you, Jonf, I am awaiting a declared victor. Also have a 2013 vintage Pinot Noir that I hope to open assuming Biden is inaugurated. Those bottles are symbolic to me. That period between the election of 2012 and the inauguration of 2013 was the last time we had as a nation some hold on the hope and change that was ushered in during 2008-2009. We desperately need this moment.
Michael Steele just said Pennsylvania is the key. I thought that for a long time. Polls are changing. And at the moment the polls have changed— again. I can’t take another 2016. So here we go again.
What dirgekeeper said. In fact, don’t let any individual poll throw you. Even the conservative-leaning RCP aggregate poll #s have Biden +1.5 in AZ, + 2.4 in FL, and +7.8 in MI. Worry all you want in your head, but use it as fuel to do your part in making this election a rout. (See Stuart Stevens’
for Democrats.)
Here’s the link:
https://thebulwark.com/victory-is-near/
Biden has the golden opportunity to rival FDR in terms of reshaping the role of government in positively influencing American life. The conditions are largely the same: a destroyed economy for most of the people, and an ongoing slow rolling environmental/humanitarian catastrophe that needs radical action to address.
It’s our job to keep his feet to the fire and make progressive changes happen. And every other Democrat’s as well.
He does indeed.
No offense, but the main point is almost irrelevant, given the scale of the demented conman’s lawbreaking and corruption. 24 (or so) Dems offered themselves up for consideration; a great many were highly qualified, and ten thousand leagues better than the unqualified scoundrel. It would surely speak volumes for the total breakdown of the failed American electorate if we conclude that only the aged Biden could (or could best) defeat this anti-democratic while nationalist, backed by his electoral college mechanism. The general theory in late 2019 seemed to be that basically anyone was a good enough candidate to defeat an impeached electoral college president. Trump’s Covid calamity should have been the final nail on the coffin in any serious democracy. Unfortunately, it was not.
We had best hope that PA is not the critical linchpin to a Biden victory, because every article one wants to read from the election law gurus are flashing DefCon4, due to the creaking election machinery there, as well as the fact that we can now see that Trumpolini and DeJoy’s USPS sabotage has first class mail taking longer than 6 DAYS to arrive in 28 of 29 states that are depending on mail-in ballots. So if a resident of any of these states has not mailed in their ballot by TODAY, there’s an excellent chance that it won’t be received by election day, and the Trumpified courts have basically ruled nationwide that the precise rules of a state’s election law must be followed, pandemic and (manufactured) postage service failure be damned. (PA does happen to be an exception here: the short-handed Trump Court incredibly split 4-4 on whether to overrule the PA Supreme Court’s ruling that ballots mailed before election day could be counted if received 3 days after Nov 3).
So what are we looking at for Repub voter suppression schemes this time around? Long lines, naturally, with possible voter intimidation by white male nationalists, and no effort by white nationalist police forces to enforce voter protection laws. (It appears that the more “digital” the voting process, the longer the line, the more “paper” the process, the shorter.) Purged voter lists in FL and GA. Possibly hundreds of thousands of mailed-in ballots in battleground states arriving “too late” (by even a day) and thus not counted, per the “conservatized” judiciary. This was a critical element of the Trumpolini plan, and all the “legal” elements are in place for it.
If Trump wins his (second) electoral college victory (he and his cultists admit he cannot possibly win the popular vote) with hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots going uncounted in “battleground” states due to “late” arrival, then the election is democratically illegitimate and the House should not accept the Trump electors from those states, no matter what the illegitimate majority of Justice Amy B and the Boyz may rule. It will be Rutherford B Hayes and 1876 all over again. It is 2020; one must prepare for the worst.