Unless Biden Drops Out Fast, I'll Have to Withdraw My Prediction Of A Blue Wave

Not Being As Bad As Trump Won't Win Over Swing Voters In November

Liberal celebrity George Clooney, in a NY Times OpEd yesterday, wrote that last month he co-hosted the single largest fund-raiser supporting any Democratic candidate ever, for President Biden’s re-election… I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. Believe in his morals.” As anyone who has kicked around DWT for any length of time knows, I’m the opposite, I didn’t vote for Biden in any primary ever, nor in the general against Trump in 2020. I’ve always disliked him, especially as a senator who made common cause with Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond to derail integration. Obama picked him to be his running mate— a Black liberal-signaling presidential nominee and a conservative white Democrat— to balance the ticket. 

As for his morals and character… don’t make me laugh. If you’ve been paying attention, you know he runs a crime family of crooked lobbyists and the best thing you can say about him is that he’s not as bad as Trump; don’t kid yourself. As far as the “accomplishments” of his first term— primarily a bunch of spending bills Congress wrote and passed while he napped. Did he get a minimum wage increase? Did he codify a woman’s right to Choice? Did he raise taxes on billionaires? Did he cut back on fossil fuel use? Did he get us Medicare-for-All? Did he get comprehensive immigration reform passed? Did he get the PRO Act passed for his union allies? Did he ameliorate the affordable housing crisis? Did he do anything on campaign finance reform? Is Louis DeJoy still the postmaster general? Oh, yeah… and is Israel committing genocide with American weapons and Americans’ tax dollars?

After the compulsory bullshit, Clooney was right: “[A] battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe “big F-ing deal” Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate… [O]ur party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw. We’re all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign. The George Stephanopoulos interview only reinforced what we saw the week before. As Democrats, we collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, who we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question.”

That said, it’s important to acknowledge that Biden could do worse than cede the White House to Trump— he could cede the White House to Trump and lead the Democrats to electoral defeat in the House, in the Senate and in state legislatures across the country. This would be a good time to write to your Democratic Congress members and share your anxiety with them. And ask them if you’ve elected a leader or a follower. Speaking of leaders, here are 10 chiefs of staff you might want to contact:

• Mike Lynch (Chuck Schumer)- mike_lynch@schumer.senate.gov

• Pat Souders (Dick Durbin)- pat_souders@durbin.senate.gov

• Tasia Jackson (Hakeem Jeffries)- tasia.jackson@mail.house.gov

• Brooke Scannell (Katherine Clark)- brooke.scannell@mail.house.gov

• Terri McCullough (Nancy Pelosi)- terri.mccullough@mail.house.gov

• Boris Medzhibovsky (Pete Aguilar)- boris.medzhibovsky@mail.house.gov

• Brian Winseck (Chris Coons)- brian_winseck@coons.senate.gov

• Caitlyn Stephenson (Gary Peters)- caitlyn_stephenson@peters.senate.gov

• Kalina Thompson (Tammy Duckworth)- kalina_thompson@duckworth.senate.gov

• Aaron Schmidt (Suzan DelBene)- aaron.schmidt@mail.house.gov
  

Bronx-based AIPAC/crypto whore Ritchie Torres has been a total Biden booster— until, out of the blue, he stopped talking about how he can’t get a date because of his support for genocide and instead told CNN that “If we are going on a political suicide mission, then we should at least be honest about it… There must be a serious reckoning with the down-ballot effect of whomever we nominate.”

Yesterday, L.A. Times columnist Mark Barabak talked a bit how Biden’s selfish and unpatriotic intransigence could cost the Democrats Congress. Harry Reid’s former chief of staff told him that “What’s going on right now in no way, shape or form is going to help those running for reelection.” 

Nonpartisan election handicappers— those who make a living offering measured and judicious analyses of contests nationwide— agree. The existential angst surrounding Biden and his durability, both physical and political, isn’t helping his party or its candidates, they say (being measured and putting it very mildly).

“The question is: How big of a hole is Biden digging for them at the top of the ticket that they need to climb out of in their own races?” said Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher of Inside Elections.

…For now at least, Democrats suddenly face a much steeper climb to prevent a complete GOP takeover of Washington, which includes a submissive, Trump-friendly Supreme Court.

…Democrats need a [net] gain of just four seats to win control. The Cook Report ranks 44 seats as competitive— 24 of them held by Democrats and 20 by Republicans. (Inside Elections sees a more expansive field, with 71 seats in play—39 Democratic and 32 Republican.)

The problem for Democrats is a distinct mood shift after Biden’s dreadful performance in Atlanta and his halting remediation efforts since.

“I think the debate has created a base problem,” said David Wasserman, who tracks House races for the Cook Report. By that he means the prospect of fatalistic Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters sitting out this November, sinking the party’s candidates.

All of that gloom and doom aside, there is the merest silver lining for beleaguered Democrats, regardless of whether Biden stays dug in and remains atop their ticket.

If defeat in November seems certain, independent voters may swing toward Democrats to keep Republicans from gaining control of the House and Senate and allowing a revivified Trump to run roughshod.

That checks-and-balance argument was employed by Republicans— subtly— in 1996, when it was obvious the GOP nominee, Bob Dole, was about to lose to President Clinton. Did it work? Hard to say. But Republicans did manage to gain two Senate seats and lose only two in the House, keeping control of both chambers even as Clinton rolled to reelection.

But that’s looking on the bright side for Democrats.

If that’s their best hope, the party is in real trouble.

The Senate’s a far worse situation. The Democratic establishment’s hand-picked Senate candidate in West Virginia, Glenn Elliott, a corporate-friendly shill has about as much chance of keeping the seat blue as you or I do. So count that one gone to former conservative Democrat-turned-MAGA Republican Jim Justice. That leaves a tie that will be broken by whomever is elected VP. Unless… the Democrats fail to hold Ohio (Sherrod Brown), Montana (Jon Tester) or one of the other seats in jeopardy. The flip side of that is progressive-minded independent Dan Osborn beating unpopular GOP hack Deb Fischer in Nebraska. In fact, Osborn told me that he thinks "it’s becoming obvious to every American that we can’t count on the presidency. It has become extremely important that we have strong, independent leadership in the Senate to weather whatever the next 4 years are going to look like.”  

Barabak wrote that “Surveys have consistently shown Democrats across the country outpolling the president— which shows how specific Biden’s problems are to the aged incumbent. Jessica Taylor, who analyzes Senate races for the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, says the question is: When does Biden become too big of a drag for Democratic candidates to overcome? ‘You can outrun the president by 5, 6, 7 points,’ Taylor said— but how much more? ‘Where,’ she asked, ‘does the gravitational pull overtake even a Democratic incumbent that runs a perfect race?’ Democrats talk optimistically about flipping Senate seats in Republican leaning Florida and Texas, offsetting possible losses elsewhere. But that would require not just fighting Biden’s downdraft, but also overcoming the country’s increasingly partisan voting habits.” It would also require having good candidates in both states, which, unfortunately do not exist. In Florida, particularly, there’s a joke candidate who will likely even lose her former congressional district. On top of which, the Florida Democratic Party is so dysfunctional that it might as well be working for the GOP.

11 Democrats who were looking like they would win House seats— but won’t with Biden at the top of the ticket:

• Janelle Bynum (OR-05)

• Laura Gillen (NY-04)

• Kirsten Engel (AZ-06)

• Mondaire Jones (NY-17)

• Dave Min (CA-47)

• Josh Riley (NY-19)

• Will Rollins (CA-41)

• Janelle Stelson (PA-10)

• Michelle Vallejo (TX-15)

• Tony Vargas (NE-02)

• George Whitesides (CA-27)