Presidential hopefuls face a stubborn problem: how to bump Biden

[highplainsdem]

https://beta.washingtonpost.com/politics/presidential-hopefuls-face-a-stubborn-problem-how-to-bump-biden/2019/09/01/e8089b30-cc1d-11e9-a1fe-ca46e8d573c0_story.html

It remains unclear, however, whether his rivals will repeat the direct assaults on Biden of the first two contests. At several points since he entered the race in April, such efforts against Biden have rewarded his attackers with attention, fundraising bumps and fleeting polling shifts. But they have also sometimes backfired.

In the first Democratic debate in June, Rep. Eric Swalwell (Calif.) staked his campaign on demanding Biden “pass the torch” to younger candidates, only to abandon his presidential effort days later. In the last big moment of her campaign, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) launched an assault on Biden at the July debate, arguing that a 1981 opinion piece he had written showed disrespect for women who work outside the home. She dropped out last week after failing to qualify for the September debate.

The most successful challenge came from Sen. Kamala D. Harris (Calif.), who denounced Biden’s opposition to school busing with a well-delivered personal story of her own childhood at a recently desegregated school. But she was unable to turn the moment into anything more than a temporary bump in fundraising and polling support.

Her advisers remain convinced that the confrontation will help her campaign down the road, though since then she has not made Biden a major part of her message.

-snip-

“Anytime you are in a multicandidate primary, the aggressor is not the direct beneficiary of an attack,” said Jeff Link, an Iowa Democratic strategist, who has worked for the presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Obama. “Typically someone else benefits because nobody likes an attack.”

That happened in 2004, when Rep. Dick Gephardt (Mo.) unleashed a blistering attack on Vermont Gov. Howard Dean days before the Iowa caucuses, calling him a “weather-vane Democrat” with “false conviction.” The attack helped sink polling support for Gephardt and Dean, allowing Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) to win the state.

-snip-

The attacks on Biden usually just make me like him more.

NOT because I'm blindly loyal, but because each of these attacks makes me review why I think Biden is the strongest potential nominee and why he would be the best president, compared to all the other candidates.

I'll vote for whoever wins the nomination.

But I think Biden is the best candidate, the best leader for our party and our country.

And IMO attacks on him will almost always backfire.

[BeyondGeography]

1. Why attack him? Sounds like he doesn't really want to be out there half the time per today's NYT.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/02/us/politics/joe-biden-2020.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

[highplainsdem]

4. LOL. Another anti-Biden hit piece from the NYT. This one from a journalist who asked

back in June if any of the Democrats know what they're doing

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/magazine/democratic-primary-candidates-iowa-caucus.html

and who did a "Pete Buttigieg Is Still Figuring This Out" piece back in July.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/18/magazine/pete-buttigieg-2020.html

Leibovich sounds like the person most likely to write a "Did the Newly Elected Democratic President Really Want to Be in the White House?" piece in January 2021, if the Democratic nominee wins.

[Thekaspervote]

5. So a WaPo piece points out it hasn't worked well to go on the attack, so you post a NYT piece that

Attacks? You think those that support Biden and read your link are going to feel differently? I’m just asking.... seriously

[highplainsdem]

7. See my reply 4 for the other pieces about our candidates written by that NYT journalist recently.

[Thekaspervote]

10. I did see those thank you!

[BeyondGeography]

8. That's a characterization, not an attack

[highplainsdem]

9. It's a mischaracterization, which makes it an attack.

[Thekaspervote]

12. Agree it has the same effect, as you mentioned. Those that support mr. Biden aren't blindly loyal

They see a leader... one that can best dislodge the illicit squatter inthe WH

[George II]

6. We're still five months away from the first caucus, and we don't even know for sure yet if....

...it's going to be a caucus or primary.

I don't think I've ever seen the frenzy this early for campaigning all over the place. Will something one candidate says today in Iowa be remembered in February? Will all others be ignored for the next five months because one candidate was there first?

It's a whole new world out there with the internet, emails, Facebook (which I don't use), twitter, etc. It's not as important now as it was years ago, but even back then there wasn't the perceived urgency to get out this early and campaign.

[BeyondGeography]

14. That's also a good argument for why direct attacks at this point are inane

This is still story time; who am I, why am I here. Most people are just tuning in. If the first thing they see you do is attack another Democrat who they probably like, good luck.

[George II]

15. Right, I wish all this negative campaigning by candidates' surrogates and "media" people...

...on a mission would just stop.

Don't know about anyone else, but it just makes me less interested in the candidates' people who do it.

I may be wrong, but of the five or six front runners, I think Biden has been running the "cleanest" campaign so far.

[Thekaspervote]

16. Me too! I get that the others are trying without much luck to catch mr. Biden which must be

Frustrating... as for Sanders he should have figured out it didn’t work in 2016.

As far as the others, are they learning anything from those that have gone negative?

I wonder too if the 24/7 negative crap thrown our way by dotard and his ilk have further soured people on negativity.

[Thekaspervote]

2. Thx for posting highplainsdem ... I too am not blindly loyal as some would say, but rather review

My reasoning and come to the same conclusion

[treestar]

3. I wonder at calling Harris' "the most successful" - in

the end it did her no good at all.

[Peacetrain]

11. Just back from an extended vacation in the midwest...and what I keep hearing

from people who are not as much a politico as I am is that they have a comfort level with VP Biden, a trust level, knowing what he has done.. that they just do not have for the other candidates..And even after they have looked at other people, they come back to VP Biden.. after all the craziness of the last 2 1/2 years people are not looking for the shiny new penny, but the reliable person they know can get us back to some kind of normalcy.. as one person said.. they know if VP Biden is elected they can sleep at night... and that is about as good a recommendation that anyone can get..

[Thekaspervote]

13. You nailed it!! We absolutely have to have those MW states, thx for sharing

[peggysue2]

17. Just read a quote from Michael Nutter, former mayor of Philly

This was from another thread this morning. In explaining Joe Biden's support in the AA community, Nutter said that voters know who Joe Biden is, what he's made of, where he's coming from. There's power in that, he said. There's loyalty in that.

Think that pretty much sums up Biden's support overall. And yes, the attacks have royally backfired.