I think there were a lot of complacent Democrats in 2016. And I’m willing to bet there were some that were so complacent that they didn’t make it to the polls that year, just because they figured she had it locked up, so why bother.
So, no matter how good the polling ends up looking for Biden, I’m not letting myself get too optimistic. Optimism leads to complacency.
I’ve been picking up on a lot of things anecdotally that make me think that Biden can beat Trump. My good old boy financial advisor that excitedly told me that he thought Biden would be unstoppable with the right VP. My distant cousins in rural KY that gave me some surprising “likes” on an anti-Trump FB post. Plus I don’t think anyone I know that voted for Trump in 2016 will vote for him this year.
And the fact that I don’t see Trump moderating his message in any way that might broaden his base.
I don’t see evidence that he’s going any where at all- or doing anything at all -which is maddening. I haven’t seen any Biden ads on TV since the primary at all. I know we’re in the middle of a national crisis and all, but everyone’s at home captive to their TV screens, and Trump’s holding a two hour rally every day. He needs to show up.
Interestingly, I have seen a couple of really harsh anti-Trump commercials run by super-PAC’s - and when I look up the PAC’s they are Republican never-Trump groups. I don’t really get it, but at least someone’s running the ads that should be running.
Yeah, it really needs to be seen. Too bad they haven’t actually run it on TV anywhere, it’s noted in your cite that they haven’t put any money behind it yet, but may start ad buys for it soon. The Biden campaign needs to wake up.
Thing is, Trump’s numbers continue to slide, and polls continue to show Biden up. And not just up nationally, but up in very specific, important states like Florida (sorry, can’t link right now on my phone). Why waste money attacking when Trump’s slitting his own throat?
Exactly. Those wonderful ads are currently targeted only in swing states. Not needed elsewhere at the moment.
Biden now has the best strategists in the country working on his behalf. Both Democrats and Republicans. That super-PAC comprised of never-Trumpers? It includes Rick Wilson and Steve Schmidt, both top former Republican strategists. I wouldn’t presume to second guess them on how/where those ads are best targeted.
I admit I don’t have a cite for this, but I have a strong hunch that the best way to get maximum turnout is not pessimism but cautious and determined optimism. People like to rally behind someone they think can win, and jump on the bandwagon.
It’s a great opinion piece. He mentions the work of two of his colleagues about the GOP plan to try to portray Biden as China’s stooge—a plan that took a hit today with the news that Trump is in hock in a major way to the Chinese state bank*.
But the bit that stood out to me–though Bruni moved away from it quickly into a list of Trump’s current weaknesses–was this:
This urge to prepare for disappointment is a tremendous temptation. We don’t want to be seen as being foolishly, naively optimistic–so we over-correct into cynicism. And as Bruni says, we want to fend off the wrenching pain of the potential event of Trump remaining in the White House for months or years to come. “We prepare for despair.”
He’s right, I think. And we need to try to stop doing this. We don’t need to consider an endless Trumpian future to be inevitable.
Of course. I think this has been evident all along.
But Trump’s campaigners know that margin could be surpassed by a strong Democratic turnout, so they are going to take advantage of his incumbency to do every thing they can to distort the election, probably doing something that is illegal. It won’t be exposed until after he’s back in office so no one will do anything about it.
Are the Secret Service presidential protection detail vetted to screen out any with COVID-infected family? Such may be unreliable protectors. If Sis or Dad injected bleach because POTUS said to, the guard may feel disaffected. Can’t have disaffected guards around, can we?
Isn’t the “President’s Daily Brief” that document that his staff had to keep dumbing down until it was just one page and even then he STILL couldn’t be bothered to read it?
It’s pretty much axiomatic that whatever accusations Trump makes are precisely what he himself is doing or has done. It’s his first line of knee-jerk bullshit cover-up. He does it automatically–robotically and utterly transparently.