A RARE GOOD POLL FOR BIDEN — Just in time for Presidents Day Weekend, the Presidential Greatness Project, a survey of historians and scholars, is out with the results of its latest ranking of the presidents.
President JOE BIDEN “makes his debut in our rankings at No. 14, putting him in the top third of American presidents,” Justin Vaughn and Brandon Rottinghaus, two academics who lead the project, write in the L.A. Times. “[DONALD] TRUMP, meanwhile, maintains the position he held six years ago: dead last.”
The authors note that this periodic survey “has seen a pronounced partisan dynamic emerge, arguably in response to the Trump presidency and the Trumpification of presidential politics.” In short: Recent Democratic presidents are moving up in the rankings, while their Republican contemporaries are sliding down. Full results
SNAP BACK TO REALITY — Unfortunately for the president, in the polls that actually matter — those of the American voting public — he continues to lag behind Trump in the 2024 race, with support that verges on anemic. It’s to the point now that concerns about his candidacy cannot be written off as Democratic “bedwetting.”
JON FAVREAU, the host of the influential “Pod Save America” podcast and former BARACK OBAMA speechwriter, hit this note in a thread on X yesterday:
“The challenge is, we just don’t know — and will likely never know — if nominating Biden is riskier than letting Democratic activists and insiders pick a lesser-known and potentially weaker general election candidate at the convention with three months to go,” Favreau wrote. “Would it be as risky as the campaign we’re most likely about to face? Again, it’s just too hard to know for sure.
“What Biden can do is take concerns about his age seriously, acknowledge that fears about his performance aren’t media creations or Democratic bedwetting, and focus single-mindedly on crisp, strong, energetic appearances, which we’ve seen he’s absolutely capable of (2023 SOTU, Jan 6th speeches, etc.),” Favreau concluded, linking to a sympathetic essay by NYT’s Ezra Klein, which has been making the rounds among Democratic insiders since being published Friday.
From Klein’s piece: “I cannot point you to a moment where Biden faltered in his presidency because his age had slowed him. But here’s the thing. I can now point you to moments when he is faltering in his campaign for the presidency because his age is slowing him. This distinction between the job of the presidency and the job of running for the presidency keeps getting muddied, including by Biden himself. …
“I was talking to JAMES CARVILLE, who’s one of the chief strategists behind BILL CLINTON’s 1992 campaign, and he put this really well to me. He said to me that a campaign has certain assets, but the most desirable asset is the candidate. And the Biden campaign does not deploy Biden like he is a desirable asset. Biden has done fewer interviews than any recent president, and it’s not close. By this point in their presidencies, Barack Obama had given more than 400 interviews and Trump had given more than 300. Biden has given fewer than 100. …
“This is a strategic adaptation to Biden’s perceived limits as a candidate. And what’s worse, it may be a wise one. … Biden, as painful as this is, should find his way to stepping down as a hero.”
There has been rising frustration among top Democratic operatives that nearly any recommendation to change course is met with a pat on the head and a response akin to “thanks for the advice, kiddo.” Within Biden’s inner circle, there is a self-assuredness that they’ve been doubted over and over again, and their approach will continue to work.
That assessment is not shared across the broader Democratic coalition.
But there are some people whose advice the inner circle will likely be unable to ignore — such as VP KAMALA HARRIS.
In a deep dive this morning, CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere cites more than two dozen sources in reporting that “Harris has been gathering information to help her penetrate what she sometimes refers to as the ‘bubble’ of Biden campaign thinking, telling people she’s aiming to use that intelligence to push for changes in strategy and tactics that she hopes will put the ticket in better shape to win.”
For her entire vice presidency, Harris has routinely met with clutches of advocates, operatives and constituency groups in her ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building or her home at the Naval Observatory. Those efforts have only increased in importance as the reelection effort has spurred into motion.
“Multiple leading Democrats, anxious about a campaign they fear might be stumbling past a point of no return, say their conversations with Harris have been a surprising and welcome change, after months of feeling sloughed off by the White House and Biden campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware.”
Harris is reportedly quick to defend the president in the conversations, and “often says in one-on-one conversations and smaller group gatherings … that she doesn’t worry Biden will lose to Trump — but she does worry about losing ‘to the couch.’”
The question for Biden now: What, if anything, can be done to boost enthusiasm for his own candidacy, rather than simply relying on the specter of Trump’s return to the White House to motivate voters?
