“He doesn’t think you need a revolution here,” said Anita Dunn, a Democratic media strategist working for the Biden campaign. His enterprise is built more on a strategic bet: that given the possibility of another four years of Mr. Trump, Democrats will gravitate to the familiar and reach for this stitched-up old teddy bear of a candidate.
“There is a situation where the electability argument within the context of this primary becomes self-perpetuating,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a Democratic strategist who served as a top campaign and White House aide to Barack Obama. “Everyone thinks Biden’s the most electable, therefore voters tell pollsters that he is more electable — and therefore more people think that, and it sort of all goes around the circle.”
"Clearly, other candidates have far more identifiable “whys” attached to their enterprises. Supporters of Ms. Warren would readily point to her fight against a corrupt political system rigged in favor of moneyed interests. Supporters of Mr. Sanders have been hearing his protest against the scourge of economic inequality in America for decades. Supporters of Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year old mayor of South Bend, Ind., would extol him — as he does himself — as a force for the generational change that Washington begs for.
"Those are the rallying cries with which Mr. Biden’s “play it safe” selling point is competing. And as strong as that point might be, his superpower of perceived electability coexists with a lingering question about why, exactly, he has decided to jump back into this delirium pen.
"Asked another way: Would he be doing this if a more conventional Republican (a Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush) were in the White House?
“ 'Um, I’m not sure, to be quite honest with you,” Mr. Biden said. “I hadn’t planned on running again.' ” . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment