Dems want Biden to start swinging at Republicans. Allies aren’t sure he can.
Inside the White House a debate rages over how hard the president should attack Republicans heading into the midterms.
www.politico.com
Dems want Biden to start swinging at Republicans. Allies aren’t sure he can.
- Thread starter Charlemagne
- Start date
www.politico.com
There's so much entertainment here it's hard to know where to start. A few obvious points:Dems want Biden to start swinging at Republicans. Allies aren’t sure he can.
Inside the White House a debate rages over how hard the president should attack Republicans heading into the midterms.
- Joe Biden is increasingly incoherent and bizarre (eg., his imaginary meeting with Golda Meir). It's becoming very difficult to separate his love for B.S. from possible signs of dementia. It's hard to imagine him delivering an effective attack, even if he wanted to.
- His administration's attempts to blame Republicans are usually divorced from reality and/or hypocritical. Everyone knows it wasn't the Republicans who wanted to defund the police. The proposal that he tag the Republicans as the friends of big oil will only provoke laughter (Biden begging OPEC+ to pump more oil, the Nord Stream 2 decision, the release from the strategic reserve, etc.).
Biden's real problem is most Americans oppose his agenda.
He was elected as a moderate who claimed he could get things done. He has governed as a radical who creates one disaster after another.
That's the problem. Going on a feeble and certain-to-be-incoherent attack won't help.
It only gets worse. Now, they've got a sympathetic columnist who's been playing with algorithms to try to claim the press have been harder on Biden than they were on Trump.
Sure. I guess those hardhitting questions about Biden's favourite flavour of ice cream were just beyond the pale.
Sure. I guess those hardhitting questions about Biden's favourite flavour of ice cream were just beyond the pale.
That Dana fucking Milbank is pointing this out is kind of amazing.
His colleagues really don't like him pointing it out, either.
The sad part is he mopped the floor with captain combover last year and best him handily at the voting booths. The only one in thr gop that could best Biden is dr deathsantis
The problem is it doesn't work that way.
Clinton was happy to go after Trump and was therefore accused of making her campaign all about Trump and not about issues. (Which was nonsense.)
In Virginia this year they were accused of trying to link the GOP to Trump.
The media will not let Democrats use the same tactics as Republicans.
They can swing some, but it isn't going to be taken up and amplified the same way.
But this is also politico - the whole debate is framed as "what is the exact mix" of negative to go with.
The great thing about a story like that is no matter what mix gets used, you can always say they did it wrong because some slightly different mix would have been better.
I remember at a debate, Trump said "Nobody has abused women more than Bill Clinton" and then started naming them...Hilliary stood there and just took it when she could have responded the same way against Trump with plenty of ammo...sometimes you have to play dirty, lots of voters play into it.
And lots of voters hate it.
People need to stop mistaking "I would like it" with "The voters would like it".
Those things rarely line up.
She herself wondered in her book whether getting more in his face would have played better, but it is hard to say.
Given she would have been attacked for getting in the mud with him and being a bitch, I don't think it would have worked.
We may never know.
Lotta what ifs. What if there were no antiquated EC - Trump got fewer votes than either of his Presidential opponents - this is not in dispute except by the most intensely lunatic fringe. What if the voting rights act had been rigidly enforced and gerrymandering had been prevented somehow? Even with the EC it's possible the Donald and Fux News would have lost anyway? Would Al Gore have been POTUS if that stain on Monica's blue dress had turned out to be tartar sauce? There's plenty of alternative fiction out there. Even Newt Gingrich co-wrote one or two pretty good books in that vein
Wrong...what cost Hillary the election was Hillary and who she's associated with...Biden wasn't aggressive with Trump and he won...IMO Dems aren't 100% on Biden...they just know he's the only candidate that has the best chance of beating Trump...unfortunately, he can't get a 2nd term...
There's lots of reason on why Hillary lost...Biden didn't have to go crazy on Trump because everyone else did, Trump's character/personality lost for him in 2020 but won for him in 2016.
Trump lost because of COVID...CNN pounded him on it...that was enough for Biden to eek out a victory...If covid never happened, they won't have enough ammo to hit Trump...
COVID probably did cost Trump the election...but I'm not going to go100% on that, he was an unpopular guy and I'm not sure those swing states wouldn't have gone Biden anyway.
I guess the big point I'm trying to make is the Democrats are pussies, they could hammer away at the Republicans with their crazy stories on QAnon, Hugo Chavez, Bamboo in the ballots, etc etc etc, there is so much crazy to unpack but they don't...they'll say they take the high road.
The thing about the Dems is that, they fight among themselves more than the GOP...some Dem supporters hasn't moved on from what they did to Bernie at 2016...
I think Trump lost because of Trump. 4 years and only 1 major bill passed. Only 50 yards built of the "Wall". Gibberish interviews. Bizarre announcements about COVID. At a certain point, it becomes about the lack of positive record from someone who has had the job for 4 years and done little.
The press didn't hate Biden the way they hated Clinton, and also people had 4 years of Trump as a reality and not a potential.
Lots of people couldn't believe what Clinton was saying about Trump.
After 4 years, they thought differently.
