If former Vice President Joe Biden did as poorly in the Iowa caucuses as anecdotal evidence suggests, then he should exit the race.
Biden, at age 77, is too old, is too inept at organizing, has never proved to be a big vote earner, and is ethically and politically damaged goods for a fall campaign against President Trump. If Biden really wants his party to have an electable nominee, he will drop out now and invite into the race a new entrant representing old-style, Hubert Humphrey liberalism, as opposed to the left-progressivism most of the 2020 Democratic candidates espouse.
Biden had every advantage in Iowa. He began with the best and most positive name recognition. He had run before, so he should have had a head start (on everybody except Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders) on the nuts-and-bolts of a campaign, with at least the remnants of an organization in place. He is running when voters cite “electability” against Trump as a key concern, and polls (rightly or wrongly) showed him as the Democrats’ most electable choice. Finally, he had the state almost all to himself for the final two weeks, with the Senate impeachment trial keeping three of the other top contestants in the nation’s capital.
If he couldn’t make Iowa at least close, he evinces a politically hollow campaign.
All those indices suggest Biden won’t win the Democratic nomination. Even if he does, he’ll be mincemeat for Trump in the fall.
Trump has won the public relations battle about the Ukraine-related actions of Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. The reality is bad enough: Hunter Biden obviously should not have accepted the board position with the energy company Burisma, and Joe Biden should have recused himself from Ukrainian policy once Hunter took it.
Yet a key segment of the voting public seems to have been convinced by Trump that the Bidens’ bad behavior was even worse than that: possibly criminal on Hunter’s part, and massively corrupt by Joe. In a political world dominated by Trump, it matters little that there is precisely zero evidence that Joe Biden interfered in any investigation targeting his son, because the narrative has been set that he did exactly that.
Thus, Biden would give Trump a perfect trifecta of attributes where Trump is politically weak, but Biden is even weaker. Biden is older than the old Trump, less verbally fluent than the sometimes stumbling president, and now seen by much of the public as more corrupt than the highly sketchy Trump is.
One big problem, though, is that the other leading Democratic contenders also would make weak general-election candidates. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is a serial fabulist. Sanders is ancient and a socialist. Pete Buttigieg is a failed mayor of a small city, elected by fewer voters than some college class presidents. And Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar is a staple-throwing tyrant to her staff, way too tightly wound in ways Trump will effectively pillory.
If Biden gets out now, there is still time for another, non-radical candidate to enter about 10 state contests. Obviously, such a late entrant could not win a first-ballot convention nomination, but with a strong showing in late-voting states, he could enter the party convention on a wave of momentum. With “superdelegates” eligible to vote on subsequent ballots, such a candidate still could gain the party’s nod.
All this should be sketched out in future columns, but two names of possible late entrants come to mind: former New Orleans, Louisiana, Mayor Mitch Landrieu and Sen. Chris Coons from Biden’s own Delaware.
Either way, Biden is a politically dead man walking. His presidential campaign should give up the ghost.
