A spectre is haunting Democrats -- the spectre of Ruth Bader Ginzburg.
Democratic strategist James Carville is saying Democrats desperately need a candidate other than Joe Biden.
Ruth Bader Ginzburg stood as an example of people who held on to a position too long and thereby let a political opponent to take their place. Carville is saying it on podcasts, in news shows, and most recently on Bill Maher's "Overtime."
Carville said Biden is a weak candidate because he looks and acts feeble and everyone can see it. Democrats are holding our breaths, he said, waiting for the fatal gaffe or error that sinks his candidacy. Carville says the polls are unmistakable that Democrats want an alternative.
"If we have somebody under 60 and ran against Trump, we’d get 55 percent.”
The swing voters who decide close elections are generally unengaged with politics and poorly informed. I analogize to my own lack of attention to NFL football. I watch the Super Bowl but know almost nothing about the teams until the day of the game, then I pick one to cheer for. I don't condemn unengaged voters. They are my fellow Americans and different people are interested in different things.
Lightly-engaged voters act on the branding of the two major parties. Even supposedly-independent, un-affiliated voters have made a weak choice of which party is the better fit. Democrats vote for Democrats; Republicans vote for Republicans. Then, on the margin voters pick one of the two major-party candidates. Policy details are subsumed into the amorphous brand of each of them. In 2020 it was a choice between normal versus crazy. Biden represented a return to normal politics. Trump represented more high-drama. A majority of Americans were tired of the Trump show. That pretty much explains it.
Republicans appear ready to nominate Trump in 2024. Since 2020 Trump got more crazy, more extreme, more wild in his tweets and accusations. He orchestrated a plot to overturn an election, was found by a jury to have sexually assaulted a woman, he committed business fraud, and he faces felony charges for crimes against the nation. Plus his closest aides say publicly that he is dangerous, dishonest, and utterly unfit for office. Trump is a flawed choice.
So any Democrat could beat Trump, right? Not quite. In a choice between a normal middle-of-the road competent Democrat versus the deeply flawed Trump, yes indeed. The Democrat wins and has down-ballot coattails because Republicans are stuck defending the indefensible. But Biden is different. Democrats who praise Biden for competent handling of the infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act, and for being right on Ukraine, and for reducing inflation are correct, but this is irrelevant. The lightly informed swing voter doesn't know that these bills passed with bi-partisan support and credit Biden, or that some Republicans are now taking credit for programs that they voted against. They don't follow the news any more than I follow who plays quarterback on the Super Bowl teams. Swing voters make a simple choice based on a simple narrative, and they see what they see: Dangerously feeble versus dangerously crazy. It's a bad choice that could go either way.
The fact that so many Republicans appear to think that Trump isn't really crazy, just an outspoken hell-raiser and a victim of Democratic prosecutors, can make the poorly-informed think maybe Trump isn't thoroughly bad. But Biden is who he is. People can see him, reflect on grandparents or friends of the family as they age, and each of us have different experiences. Everyone has seen people age out and fail at some point. Anyone watching Biden will entertain some doubts. He is already marginal. We wonder and worry about what is ahead.
James Carville is right. Democrats are on the verge of nominating the one person who could lose to Trump.
How about sending this to the President ?
Who actually studies and regularly polls only the nonaffiliated ("independent") to make a reasoned opinion?