To win on the first ballot, a candidate for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination needs 1,991 delegates. As of earlier this week, Joe Biden has 1,435 delegates. Poor Bernie Sanders had only 984.
But candidate Biden has a problem, and it's not coronavirus. That's working to "Fairly Honest Joe's" advantage.
The problem is that Joe Biden is a walking gaffe machine. He didn't know Super-Tuesday from Super-Thursday. He doesn't know what state he's in. He's in favor of banning "AR-14s." He introduces his wife as his sister. Worse than that, he has snapped at voters, telling them they are "dog-faced pony soldiers", and "full of sh ..."
To protect Biden, the swamp-dwellers who run the Democratic Party have now convinced Sanders to take a hike. Commit political seppuku! But why?
It's simple. They can't afford to have candidate Biden "lose it" in a nationally televised debate. They were entirely aware that Sanders had the ability to run a verbal shiv deep between "Fairly Honest Joe's" ribs.
U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-South Carolina, a key Biden supporter, has led the movement. In March, ahead of a half dozen primary contests, he said, "... if the night ends the way it has begun, I think it is time for us to shut this primary down, it is time for us to cancel the rest of these debates, because you don’t do anything but get yourself in trouble if you continue in this contest when it’s obvious that the numbers will not shake out for you."
Mr. Clyburn's message: Old Joe, you're only "going to get yourself in trouble."
Party strategist and former Clinton operative James Carville echoed Clyburn: "These voters want to shut this thing down ... I mean, you can just look all across the spectrum of the Democratic Party and people are saying, 'We've made our decision, this is who we're going with.' ... Let's shut this puppy down ... and worry about November. This thing is decided. There's no reason to keep it going not even a day longer. ... We've got to bring this party together; we've got to stop this. ...."
But there's a problem with this strategy. Are you also going to cancel the presidential debates with President Trump for fear of a Biden gaffe? If you were worried about Bernie administering the coup de grâce to old Joe, what's going to happen when Biden comes under Trump's cruise missile barrage?
Between now and the November election, will Joe's handlers continue to limit "old Joe" to seven-minute reads from teleprompters? Or is he going to be locked away in a safe house — or his basement — while his surrogates do his stump-speaking for him?
Impossible you say? If you haven't haven't heard it on CNN and MSNBC, "Fairly Honest Joe" has now been accused of sexual assault by Tara Reade, a former staffer in Biden's Senate office. And what are his surrogates doing? Take a guess.
Of course, there is the 1896 precedent for a candidate hunkering down at home and making all his sanitized speeches from his "front porch", tailored to the true-believers coming to worship at his shrine. Margaret Leech in her book, "In the Days of McKinley", tells how the Republican Party arranged for railroad excursions at reduced rates to Canton, Ohio, so the McKinley true-believers could travel to hear their beloved candidate's brief, scripted speeches.
"President William McKinley's conception of his candidacy was so passive that he at first gave the impression of intending to make no campaign at all. He had decided to stay at home and address only the people who cared to visit him there. Before his nomination, he had made only two speaking engagements, both nonpolitical. Except for three days absence to keep these appointments and one weekend of rest in August, McKinley remained in Canton from the date of his nomination until the election, available at all hours to the public on every day but Sunday.
"McKinley was no match for his younger opponent [William Jennings Bryan] in dramatic presence and oratorical power, and he refused ... to enter the competition. .... The idea of a 'front-porch campaign' seems to have been the natural outgrowth [of McKinley's preference] of ... desiring election without the need to seek it."
"In his campaign speeches [from his front porch], McKinley made no mistakes. He could ill have afforded to do so. A careless word or misplaced allusion would not only have alienated the prideful delegation on his lawn, but would have been spread before the newspaper readers of the country. Though McKinley's addresses seemed unstudied and spontaneous, they had been carefully prepared for him ... with material on background for each group. ..."
So there seems to be a precedent, the model, for the Democrats' campaign plan: Stuff a sock in "old Joe's" mouth.
John Donald O'Shea is a retired circuit court judge and a regular columnist.
This piece was published originally in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on May 8, 2020
Copyright 2020, John Donald O'Shea
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