It’s only March, but things are not going so well for Joe Biden in the presidential election cycle. Polls continue to show Donald Trump with a national lead, a result he rarely received in 2016 or 2020. The former president is also leading in various battleground states.
That’s got the White House in full panic mode despite the defiance and arrogance its members are showing publicly. The economy isn’t in a full-scale collapse, but it’s hurting people where it matters most, i.e. with ever-increasing prices and interest rates. On a security front, Biden has overseen the worst illegal immigration crisis in American history and things are just as chaotic overseas. Where does the president go from here?
Democrats have a plan, albeit one that may not work as well as they hope: Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
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According to NBC News, they are coming out of “active retirement” to save the addled Biden from himself.
Barack Obama and Bill Clinton will suspend their active retirements to try to provide a political jolt to the campaign of their successor Joe Biden with a rare joint appearance for a campaign fundraiser in New York. https://t.co/3L1WY5kK4f
— NBC News (@NBCNews) March 28, 2024
On Thursday, both former presidents — now 77 and 62 years old, respectively — will suspend their active retirements to try to provide a political jolt to the campaign of their successor Joe Biden, 81, with a rare joint appearance for a campaign fundraiser in New York.
The rare and highly anticipated gathering of three Democratic presidents will raise over $25 million, according to a release by the Biden campaign, which is characterizing it as the most successful political fundraiser in American history.
But it also may serve to highlight Biden’s main vulnerability this year, one that his campaign has increasingly taken steps to overcome.
Amidst all the hero worship by the press, are Obama and Clinton even a draw anymore? No doubt, they’ll get the kinds of people who would attend a Biden fundraiser excited to write fat checks, but I’m talking about the broader public. Is Barack Obama any more of an effective spokesperson in today’s political environment than George W. Bush is?
I’d suspect the former is more popular among the Democratic Party base than the younger Bush is with Republicans. Still, things just feel different today in terms of how people view politics. Obama and Clinton may still be MSNBC heartthrobs, but does the average person who is worried about grocery prices care what they think? Both men feel stale, like an old classic rock band trying to stay relevant. Yeah, there’s a market for that (I love old rock music), but are they winning new converts?
Further, I could see this move backfiring because it looks desperate. Does a president who is in a good position for re-election need to rely so heavily on others to message for him? When Trump does a fundraiser, he is the draw. When Biden does one, Obama and Clinton are the draw. That’s a dynamic that is being highlighted by having the former two Democrat presidents ride in to prop up the senile, aging current president who can’t even campaign in any real way.
Obama and Clinton just feel like old news. I’m sure they’ll help raise cash, but I don’t see a groundswell of support for a return to 1996 or 2012 from either side of the aisle. Sure, your upper-class, wine-sipping liberal women who never have to look at a credit card bill will eat this stuff up. The average worker? Probably not so much.
