Don’t shoot the messenger! Have you ever wondered where that saying came from? Certainly, shooting the bringer of bad tidings keeps awareness of them away, but the happenings, not so much.
There are few things more deadly in any competitive organization than the combination of qualities highlighted in a stunning account of the inner workings of the Biden campaign from Axios’ Alex Thompson, a great political reporter.
The story is distressing, depressing and deeply worrying. What Thompson describes is a confluence of cloistered arrogance, insularity and smallness that are fatal qualities in presidential campaigns.
Here is how Howard Wolfson, the former Hillary Clinton and Mike Bloomberg consiglière, put it in his typically blunt way:
If the election were today, we would lose. Can that change? Yes. Is it on the path to do so? I don't see that yet.
Me either.
Let’s talk about that.
Before beginning, let me make three points:
1. One hundred and thirty-eight days is an eternity in a presidential campaign, and President Biden can win.
2. Mike Donilon is correct with regard to his core belief that the election is about the American way of life, and democracy being at the core of the American character. I have written about the urgency of connecting concepts to realities in relatable terms. FDR was a master of this. It is urgent that someone around President Biden make him read FDR’s 1936 Democratic Convention Address. President Biden is only making half the argument.
3. The Axios story quotes Mike Donilon as saying, “Joe Biden is a great president and great presidents get reelected,” while pointing out the president’s current approval levels are abysmal. The question of whether Joe Biden is a great president is besides the point. What matters is whether he is popular enough to be reelected, and he’s not — even against Trump. Also, whether Biden is remembered as great is not something that will be decided or settled until decades from now. The question of presidential greatness is most certainly not on the ballot.
Here is how Axios describes one democratic kitty who, unlike Howard Wolfson, is afraid to speak truth to power:
It is unclear to many of us watching from the outside whether the president and his core team realize how dire the situation is right now, and whether they even have a plan to fix it. That is scary.
Apparently the problem is that no dissent about the current course — or lack thereof — is permitted. Here are a few more gems from the bunker:
People close to the president told Axios they worry about raising concerns in meetings because Biden's group of longtime loyal aides can exile dissenters.
"Even for those close to the center, there is a hesitance to raise skepticism or doubt about the current path, for fear of being viewed as disloyal," a person in Biden's orbit told Axios, speaking on condition of anonymity because of those dynamics.
"There is not a discussion that a change of course is needed."
Biden's inner circle is cohesive but insular: Aides joke that there's an unofficial "no new friends rule."
This is unfortunate because the Biden campaign needs some friends who will tell it the truth.
The campaign’s advertising effort has failed. There is no connection between the paid ads and daily events, and thus no energy. Every penny spent has been effectively wasted like bombs falling in the jungle.
There is no conversation taking place in America outside of the West Wing about presidential greatness and Joe Biden.
The president is being swift-boated, as we speak. Each public appearance is a new generation point for a 130-foot wave of lies, images and smears that will come crashing down without any response except for complaints about fairness. There is no plan and no offense visible. The ads are flat, and the race is increasingly about the president’s age and feebleness.
The debate ahead is a make or break moment for President Biden. This is the most dramatic political showdown of my lifetime — bar none — and it is occurring 68 days before the start of the Democratic National Convention.
A great president would have people around him who challenged him.
President Biden needs to be told it is all on the line now. He will not get a second chance that matters.
He is the president of the United States, standing face-to-face with a fascist and a man who burned his oath and nearly the country down. Facing this man is an existential and moral test and a duty of the highest importance. Joe Biden must measure up in this moment.
The country is more important than the president’s ambitions. Defeating Trump matters more than anything else. It is the North Star. The danger is very real.
I believe the Gaza situation has affected Biden's support more than anyone realizes.
Bibi has betrayed Biden, and Biden needs to face him down--and very publicly.
We need to know Biden is strong enough to take on a monster like Bibi.
Defeating REPUBLICANS matters more than anything else.
I’m not wasting another minute despising trump. He can’t help the fact he’s been a practicing malignant narcissist his entire pathetic life. It’s the Republicans with absolutely no sense of shame or irony that have truly earned our disdain. Here they are demanding the Ten Commandments be posted in all public classrooms in Louisiana while nominating and worshipping a sick man who openly and repeatedly violates all ten. Trump is no longer the problem…it’s his Republican minions including the criminal, duplicitous “justices” on the no longer supreme court.