Former Vice President Joe Biden has wisely stayed out of the headlines in the weeks leading up to the second round of Democratic presidential debates. While Biden hasn’t fully recovered to his sky-high polling from late May, the embattled front-runner has seen a small boost in his polling, indicating yet again that Biden’s best case for his candidacy is the chaos embroiling his own party.
In the weeks after the first debate, Biden saw a precipitous drop. It’s not just that Kamala Harris’ disingenuous busing attack worked, the septuagenarian Biden just finally seemed his age. Thanks to a healthy dose of bronzer and Biden’s persistent visage, he looked the part of a president, but he sounded unfocused at best and senile at worst. With the presidential pack and President Trump dominating the headlines, persona rather than policy took center stage, and Uncle Joe seemed more like a grandpa.
But then, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and “the squad” took center stage and started a civil war with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. All of the sudden, Biden is back up in the polls.
At his recent nadir, Biden’s RealClearPolitics polling average sunk to 26%. In the past 10 days alone, he’s risen nearly two full points even as runners-up Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren’s statistical deadlock remained mostly unchanged. Biden has reverted to his pre-debate polling in polls conducted by Politico and the Economist, and he’s nearly met his pre-debate polling in the Hill and Emerson.
What’s changed? Not anything Biden’s done, but the news.
“The squad” helps Trump so long as he has the diligence to avoid snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and tweeting racially tone-deaf drivel rather than allowing them to burn the House down, so to speak. But they help Biden nearly without condition.
When Rep. Ilhan Omar captures another headline, Biden’s experience stands in contrast. When Ocasio-Cortez’s whining garners another hundred-thousand retweets, Biden’s cool in the face of chaos stands in contrast. When Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s anti-Semitism becomes proposed House policy, Biden’s refusal to buck the Israeli status quo stands in contrast. And most importantly, when the electorate realizes that from the Green New Deal to so-called “Medicare for all,” “the squad” shares the exact same policy priorities as the overwhelming majority of the Democratic presidential field, Biden’s relative moderation stands in contrast.
Much like Trump, Biden’s worst enemy is his own mouth, and thus, their strategies for 2020 ought to be the same: Shut up, and let the socialist morons do all the talking.
