John Brabender, a GOP strategist for Rick Santorum’s 2012 presidential run, said Joe Biden is too similar to Mitt Romney circa 2012 to be any more successful running for president.
Brabender wrote an op-ed published Monday in the Wall Street Journal warning Democrats that Biden is destined to lose either in the primary or the general election. The former Vice President is ahead in the polls but is crippled by low voter excitement and poor public showings.
Brabender compares Biden’s run to Utah Sen. Romney’s presidential run seven years ago against then-sitting President Barack Obama. Romney won the primary and lost to Obama in the general.
“Mr. Romney wasn’t loved by the Republican base; he was tolerated,” Brabender writes. “Mr. Biden, like Mr. Romney, is accepted by the Democratic base but certainly isn’t loved. Voters are skeptical of his newfound progressivism, which he wears as awkwardly as Mr. Romney did conservatism.”
Biden’s main campaign message has been one of electability. Many polls have placed Biden beating President Trump in a head-to-head contest by wider margins than other Democrats in the race, although a recent Monmouth poll placed the 76-year-old in third place nationally after a 13-point drop.
“Many of Mr. Romney’s supporters held their noses and voted for him simply because the media said he had the best chance of beating President Obama,” Brabender says. “As one voter said in a focus group, voting for Mr. Romney was like eating his vegetables.”
Biden’s three key flaws that will eventually sink his campaign, Brabender says, are his poor, gaff-prone public speaking performances; an inability to raise small-dollar donations, a proxy for voter excitement; and the low likelihood that voters will flock to him as a second and third choice as the Democratic field narrows.
