The Chorus Against Joe Biden Running for President Gets Louder
The polls say one thing, but Democratic voters and operatives willing to go on the record say something different. So will Biden run or won’t he?
Former VP Joe Biden hasn’t announced yet whether or not he’ll jump in as a 2020 presidential candidate, but a growing number of voices are giving him some unsolicited advice: Don’t.
About a month ago, we learned via the McClatchy news outlet about over two dozen Democratic strategists whose opinions on a possible Biden run weren’t exactly glowing. “Not his time” was a common theme among those interviewed.
And just this week, a CNN focus group of Democratic voters echoed the sentiment expressed by the strategists:
The Democrats gathered by CNN, however, said they weren’t interested in Biden. Some said they wanted a candidate who was further to the left.
“I think we need a bold, strong leadership, and you’ll find that in the progressives,” Democratic voter Carol Evans said.
“We had the standard-bearer for the kind of pragmatic centrist candidate in Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Donald Trump is now president. He is not your average political candidate, so we really need to try to think outside the box because, you know, it seems like the dude is made of rubber. Anything you throw at him just bounces off, there’s nothing that sticks,” said focus group member Michael Milisits.
Another Democratic voter in the group, Russell Banks, said Biden “really comes from kinda the good ol’ boy politics from the past.”
Watch the voters talk about a potential Biden candidacy in the video clip below:
Alisyn Camerota asked a panel of six Democrats, "How many of you would like to see Joe Biden get in? Show of hands."
No one raised their hands.
"His time is done," said one panelist. https://t.co/WlCE8xj0mJ pic.twitter.com/e55IFCYF8b
— New Day (@NewDay) March 5, 2019
Interestingly enough, that same panel of Hillary Clinton voters said they also weren’t enthused about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) running again, and encouraged twice-failed candidate Hillary Clinton to “stay away” from the 2020 presidential race. They did, however, shower praise on Democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
Other liberal voices are throwing cold water in Biden’s direction, too.
The Huffington Post‘s Jack Carter did an in-depth piece Tuesday explaining how, in his view, Biden was his own worst enemy because the modern Democratic voter “has moved on from his brand of politics.”
Actress Cynthia Nixon, who ran a losing campaign against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo last year, slammed Biden in an opinion piece published by the Washington Post Saturday. Specifically, she took issue with recent remarks made by Biden about the “decency” of Vice President Mike Pence, who gay and lesbian progressives like Nixon vigorously oppose.
She didn’t mention in her piece that Biden endorsed Cuomo over her in that bruising 2018 Democratic primary battle, which may have something to do with how she feels about the former veep now.
In spite of all the “will he or won’t he” speculation, and the negative feedback we’ve been reading from other Democrats about him taking another shot at the Oval Office, Joe Biden’s Real Clear Politics polling averages remain high. He currently leads the pack of Democrats who have either already declared their candidacies or who are expected to (like Beto O’Rourke).
Biden said recently that his family was on board with him running. He’s also rumored to be signing on some pretty big names in anticipation of making a formal announcement soon.
If he does, from the perspective of a conservative outsider looking in it will be fascinating to watch the battle for the future of the Democratic party play out in real time between the party’s establishment liberals and their emerging socialist wing.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Meanwhile I have to agree with this commentary over at The Last Refuge.
“…..The timing here is very interesting. The odds on three of the top-tier politicos randomly announcing their lack of intent within 24 hours of each-other is very small. Therefore, it would appear a decision on DNC club’s ‘Chosen One‘ has been cemented and dispatches distributed to the executive offices.
With Clinton, Bloomberg and Holder removed, the remaining potential party and donor supported candidates include: Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Stacy Abrams or some other, perhaps an outsider. Who could it be?”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/03/05/hillary-clinton-michael-bloomberg-and-eric-holder-announce-they-will-not-be-running-for-president-in-2020/
I got a chuckle when you mentioned Holder as a contender for anything other than a jail term.
With all respect, you have left out the two dem governors who have announced, plus the other dozen or so crazy people, such as harris, warren, et al, not to mention sanders and Schultz. The up-coming debates should boost the stock prices of popcorn companies. MAGA.
Let him get the nomination and pull off the disgraceful antics against Trump as he did with Ryan in the VP debate. He’d get his hat handed to him and shown t the door, as the saying goes.
I’m trying to imagine what a michelle obama candidacy would look like. I’d expect her to win four states, but I don’t think many people have the desire to elect another angry candidate who fundamentally dislikes America. If she runs and gets shellacked, TDS is going to drive leftists completely over the edge. Better to stick beta o’rourke up there, like we did with mitt romney. If he gets shellacked, which he would, TDS levels will remain about the same.
I think your understanding of the left needs an update. The entire left HATES America. They want to totally change it as Bernie just said the other day. Look at the freshman class of the House. Most were talking impeachment on their first day in office. Pelosi and Perez both hate the America we all know and live in. Look at the top tier candidates in their party. Harris, Spartacus, Beano, Sanders and the arm’s long list, all want to change us into a Soviet style country. Michelle has a unique style of hate and it is aimed mostly at whites but nonetheless, she is a hater of the first water.
Adoplh Omar/Crooked Cortez in 2020!
Joe Biden is the !Jeb of the Democrat party.
Nobody with a brain actually thinks he’s going to be the nominee, the only reason he has higher polling relative to the rest of the field is a decent number of people actually know who the hell he is.
The thing that Biden has in his favor is that he is not a flaming weirdo. He’s not a socialist, like Bernie Sanders, nor a Communist like Occasional Cortex, nor an out-and-out proven incompetent like Hillary, nor an ethnic fake like O-Rourke or Warren.
Michelle Obama strikes me as a better candidate for the Democrats than any of them, due to her name recognition and general popularity on the Left. However, I would think the Democrats would have already learned that the time for running President’s wives for President is past. There was a time when a politician’s wife could and did take over his position, but that idea seems a little, ummm, retro, now. It raises the question of why they don’t have any women who can run on their own qualifications.
I think the Dems will run a burner candidate this time around. The idea will not be to win, but to throw as many verbal molotov cocktails as possible. The name that comes to mind for that purpose is Kamala Harris.
It almost seems like a Kamakazi style campaign. Throw as many as you can against the target simply to see what defenses are mounted against them. If I were Trump, I would put in an absolute minimal response at this point, just enough to stay above water. The best response would also be to just ahead with what was planned. If they take time to respond to the dems, then they lose time in achieving their objectives. The only power that the dems have at the moment is to act like drag, so like a person holding onto a chain on the back of a car on a gravel road, keep driving and let them take the beating that they are asking for. Or to really mess with them, keep leaking that you are most worried about the person currently at the bottom of the pile. Churn and burn, churn and burn.
And they had only praise for AOC
How freaking insane are these people?
Really!
This just might be the most glaring example of how disconnected Dems are from reality:
“…it seems like the dude is made of rubber. Anything you throw at him just bounces off, there’s nothing that sticks.”
If nothing you throw at him sticks, shouldn’t that tell you something? And shouldn’t THAT tell you that trying to throw those very things in the first place is when your rationality leaped out the window?
I have a hard time trusting a CNN compiled focus group, given their past history of stacking audiences to achieve their goals. Perhaps if each of the Focii were given a FBI background check…ooops, wait one…that’s not going to work either, is it.
The DNC will decide who can win based upon how much money they can raise. They don’t want to pick anyone yet because the candidates will not share those campaign funds.Still there is never any shortage of campaign funds.