Joe Biden's Disastrous Iowa Results - Is He 2020's Bob Dole?

I was still a Republican back in 1996 when Bob Dole was the Republican presidential candidate.  Despite all his past accomplishments and distinguished service in WWII, many found it difficult to get excited and enthusiastic over Dole's presidential campaign.  Tellingly, when Dole accepted the GOP nomination, he stated, "Let me be the bridge to an America that only the unknowing call myth. Let me be the bridge to a time of tranquility, faith, and confidence in action."  Then president Bill Clinton's response was "We do not need to build a bridge to the past, we need to build a bridge to the future." Joe Biden's campaign for the Democrat 2020 nomination, to me, bears an uncanny similarity to Dole's failed venture in 1996.  The results from Iowa's disorganized caucuses would appear to bear this out as Biden finds himself in 4th place - 38 year old Pete Buttigieg is the apparent first winner - and suffering from a huge enthusiasm and excitement deficit. All of which get to the electability issue which will require excitement and enthusiasm if Donald Trump is to be defeated and America's nightmare ended. A piece in the New York Times looks at Biden's situation and growing fears among numerous Democrats.  Here are excerpts:

“I am not going to sugarcoat it,” Mr. Biden said Wednesday as he campaigned in New Hampshire. “We took a gut punch in Iowa.”

Certainly over the past year, Mr. Biden has proved far more resilient than many expected. He has led national polls for months despite verbal gaffes, scrutiny of his long and sometimes controversial record in Washington, and a relentless assault from Republicans over his son’s dealings in Ukraine. The slow drip of vote totals in Iowa — and a swirl of other major news events — may blunt the attention on Mr. Biden’s challenges. And Iowa is an overwhelmingly white state, while Mr. Biden’s biggest political strength is with black voters, whom he is counting on for support in later-voting, more diverse states.

But he now faces jittery donors, an uncertain landscape in upcoming Democratic contests and a sharp challenge to the central argument of his campaign message: that he is the party’s strongest candidate to win a general election.

Interviews with more than a dozen advisers, allies and Iowa strategists show that Mr. Biden was late in focusing on Iowa, put together an organization there that fell well short of his top rivals’ and that his core pitch about electability and experience wasn’t enough to persuade voters who wanted a fresh face or more boldly progressive ideas.

Mr. Biden was also a less-than-inspiring presence on the trail, according to some voters, struggling at times in the homestretch to deliver crisp, energetic, on-message performances.

When Mr. Biden announced his candidacy on April 25, some of his chief rivals had already been running for months. . . . . When he did get to the state over the summer and into the fall, Mr. Biden’s team produced carefully managed events. He traveled with a phalanx of staff, sometimes used teleprompters and typically spoke from behind rope lines. None of that prevented a spree of verbal stumbles in Iowa in August — but according to some of his allies, it did keep Mr. Biden from showing off his biggest strength: his retail politicking skills.

Yet no amount of glad-handing could remedy an organization that even his supporters here found frustrating.  “His campaign is not a good campaign,” Roxanna Moritz, the Scott County auditor and a Biden supporter, said late last month. “They’re not embedding loyalty to the organization, he doesn’t do groundwork.”  She said that the campaign was “not returning phone calls, no follow through.”

Mr. Biden spent the next weeks grappling with the best way to respond to the Ukraine controversy. And party officials continued to describe his Iowa organization as scattershot, an issue thrown into sharp relief at the party dinner in November, the Liberty and Justice Celebration.

Mr. Biden’s team said that it had around 1,200 people in the arena, many of whom went on to become precinct captains and dedicated volunteers. But the empty seats and the smaller and less boisterous Biden sections spread throughout the arena cut a sharp contrast with the loud, unified crowds of Ms. Warren and Mr. Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., in a major test of organizational strength.

More damaging than the evident differences in crowd strength was what many Iowa Democrats were seeing for the first time in person: a once-fiery candidate who was looking his age compared with a number of his younger rivals.

A New York Times/Siena College poll released late last month found that even in eastern Iowa — home to many white working-class voters with whom Mr. Biden expected to be strong — he was struggling.

Ahead of the 2016 campaign, David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s former campaign manager, had warned Mr. Biden, according to an article in The Atlantic, “Do you really want it to end in a hotel room in Des Moines, coming in third to Bernie Sanders?”

In the final weeks before the 2020 Iowa caucuses, Mr. Plouffe’s warning was starting to sound prescient.

Recognizing the need to win new supporters, Mr. Biden’s Iowa director, Jake Braun, floated a deal over dinner in Des Moines with an adviser to Ms. Klobuchar of Minnesota. The two moderate Democrats should form an alliance, Mr. Braun suggested a week before the vote, and urge their supporters to back the other if one of them did not advance to the final round in a precinct.

Ms. Klobuchar’s camp quickly shot down the prospect when the story leaked, and Mr. Braun, who had already been marginalized by Mr. Biden’s national campaign, found himself isolated by his enraged superiors, who had warned him not to freelance, according to a person familiar with internal discussions.

Sue Dvorsky, a former Iowa Democratic chair, . . . was appalled at the state of Mr. Biden’s organization, which was lacking precinct captains even in her own heavily Democratic community. Last week she endorsed Ms. Warren.

“This has been a sloppy effort that was always aimed at a general election,” she said of Mr. Biden’s organization, deeming it worse than his first two Iowa campaigns. “Right now, they’re bringing in hundreds of people from out of state — not to be canvassers but to be precinct captains.”

On the Saturday before the caucuses, Ms. Judkins had an uneasy feeling about the decision her state was about to make. . . . “I said to my husband, ‘I feel like all of these people from around the country are coming in to try to save us from ourselves,’” she said when they went out that evening. “Here we are, going out dancing. Kind of like the Titanic, the ship going down.”

As I said, I feel the same vibe as what happened with Bob Dole. I do not think Biden can take out Trump.

Joe Biden Doesn’t Look So Electable in Person

A column in the New York Times sets out some of my own misgivings about Joe Biden as the potential 2020 Democrat standard bearer.  Part of my concerns comes from remembering Biden's gaffe laden past runs for the the nomination and his seeming inability to ignite true enthusiasm.  Indeed, he reminds me of Bob Dole's ill-fated presidential run from back in 1996 during my days in the Republican Party. Despite a long, positive record, Dole simply never had the ability to spark enthusiasm.  As a result, he lost his election bid. Joe Biden is, to me, the Democratic version of Bob Dole and even faced with a widely loathed opponent in Donald Trump, the enthusiasm gap could be fatal much as it was with Hillary Clinton in 2016.  At this point, I admit, I do not know who the best candidate is to defeat Trump, other than my gut and years in politics suggest that it is not Joe Biden despite the bloviating of talking heads and others.  Here are highlights from the Times column:

On Saturday, Joe Biden was one of 20 presidential candidates to speak at a Planned Parenthood forum in Columbia, S.C., held right next door to the state’s Democratic convention. It was just a couple of weeks after he’d reversed his longtime support for the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding for abortion. One of the moderators asked him what he’d say to pro-choice voters who have concerns about his mixed record on the issue.

This was part of his answer: “The fact of the matter is that we’re in a situation where mortality rate for poor women and black women, here in this state, 26.5 percent of the, 24, 25.6 people, who of 100,000 who need, who end up dying as a consequence of birth, it’s absolutely absurd.” (He was referring to South Carolina’s maternal mortality rate, which is 26.5 maternal deaths per 100,000 births.)

Seeing Biden on the stump often feels like watching an actor who can’t quite remember his lines. Even if you don’t support him, it’s hard not to feel anxious on his behalf.

I had the chance to watch Biden campaign three times over the weekend, when almost the entire Democratic field descended on Columbia.

His performance was unnerving. I don’t want Biden to be the nominee for ideological reasons, but polls show him far ahead, and if he’s going to be the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer against Donald Trump, I want him to be a strong one. He didn’t seem strong in South Carolina.

Donald Trump, of course, also speaks in gibberish, but with a bombastic unearned confidence; rather than flailing around for the right figure he makes one up. Biden, by contrast, was just shaky. And while there’s great affection for him on the ground, there’s little excitement. You can see why his campaign has been limiting his public events and why he’s been avoiding the press.

It’s true that ordinary voters don’t seem to care about the gaffes that obsess cable TV commentators. No one I spoke to in Columbia was bothered by Biden waxing nostalgic about his civil relations with segregationist senators; most people hadn’t even heard about it. And his ability to forge personal connections remains impressive.

That’s Biden at his best — undisciplined, but with a big heart. But personal warmth won’t be enough without the ability to inspire masses of people. An ability to draw crowds isn’t everything — a tepid vote counts the same as a passionate one. Biden’s supporters are older than those of other Democrats, which gives his campaign less visible energy but a more reliable voting base. Still, as recent elections have shown, enthusiasm matters. Anyone convinced that Biden is the safe choice should go see him for themselves.

Olympia Snowe: Bob Dole is Right About Today's GOP

As noted before, some of my former GOP colleagues continue to give me a ration of shit as they guzzle the Christofascist/Tea Party Koo-Aid and close their eyes to what the GOP has become since it was taken over at the grassroots level by spittle flecked Christofascists and ignorance embracing Tea Party Neanderthals.   What's fun is that Bob Dole - a former GOP presidential candidate and former GOP Senate majority leader - agrees with me.  Now, Olympia Snowe has joined in and supports Dole's assessment.  I can only wonder when some of my former GOP colleagues wean themselves off of the Kool-Aid and open their eyes.  Yes, Karen I DO mean you!  Here are highlights from a piece in Politico:

Former Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) said Tuesday she agrees with former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole’s critique of the modern GOP and said Republicans need to “rethink their approach as a political party.”

“I certainly do agree with the former majority leader, Bob Dole, with whom I worked when I first entered the Senate and who was a consensus builder and understood what was essential and important for the Republican Party and what was important for America,” she said on MSNBC. “And that, unfortunately, has been lost today on Capitol Hill.”

“Yes, Republicans do bear responsibility and do the Democrats,” Snowe continued. “You have to work together and obviously, the Republican party is undergoing some, you know, significant and serious changes and they are going to have to rethink their approach as a political party and how they are going to regroup and become a governing majority party that appeals to a broader group of Americans than they do today.”

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday” this weekend, Dole, who led Senate Republicans for more than a decade, said the modern Senate was “bent pretty badly” and said, “I doubt it” when asked whether he could have thrived in today’s Republican party.

“It seems almost unreal that we can’t get together on budget or legislation,” Dole said. “I mean, we weren’t perfect, but at least we got the work done.”

As the party’s onetime presidential nominee and longtime leader in the upper chamber, Dole’s words could sting for today’s Republicans. He and Snowe both belonged to a moderate, consensus-seeking wing of the GOP that seems endangered in the Senate.

If the GOP wants to become a mainstream majority party, the first thing that needs to be done is to yank the grassroots back from the hate and bigotry filled Christofascist.  After that, the most ignorant and Neanderthal elements of the Tea Party need to likewise be cast into the political wilderness where they belong.  Will the GOP rank and file - not to mention elected officials - have the backbone to do this?  Probably not.  Cowardice is a Republican trait and value nowadays.

Quote of the Day: Bob Dole On His Inability to Make It in Today's GOP

As a kid, I remembered being proud of my father's involvement in the New York State GOP and knowing that he had met then Governor Nelson Rockefeller.  Nowadays, neither my dad nor Rockefeller could be Republicans.  They were not spittle flecked extremists pandering to Christofascists and openly embracing ignorance.  Another Republican who admits that he could not make it in today's GOP is Bob Dole, former Senate majority leader and presidential candidate.    Most telling in Dole's view is that sad reality that today's GOP rejects intelligence and ideas.  Think Progress looks at Dole's assessment of today's GOP controlled by the Christofascists and Tea Party.  Here are highlights:

Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-KS) told Fox News Sunday this week that the Senate Republicans are abusing the filibuster and that he doubts he, Richard Nixon, or Ronald Reagan could make it in today’s Republican Party. 

Asked his thoughts on the modern GOP, Dole — a former Republican national chairman, the 1976 GOP vice presidential pick, and the 1996 Republican presidential nominee — suggested, to host Chris Wallace, that the party lacks any positive ideas and is no longer a place for even conservative Republicans like himself:

WALLACE: What do you think of your party, the Republicans today?

DOLE: I think they ought to put a sign on the national committee doors that says “closed for repairs” until New Year’s Day next year — and spend that time going over ideas and positive agendas.

WALLACE: You describe the GOP of your generation as Eisenhower Republicans, moderate Republicans. Could people like you, even Ronald Reagan — could you make it in today’s Republican Party.

DOLE: I doubt it. Reagan couldn’t have made it. Certainly Nixon couldn’t have made it, cause he had ideas. We might have made it, but I doubt it.

Dole, now 89, also took his own party to task for abuse of the Senate’s cloture rules. Wallace noted that “In your first two years as a Senator, there were 7 motions filed — cloture motions to end debate. In the last two years, there were 115 cloture motions,” and asked the five-term Senator whether it is inappropriate that due to minority obstruction it now takes a 60-vote super-majority to pass any legislation or confirm any nominees.

“No doubt about it,” Dole told him, “There are some cases where you could probably justify if, but not many.”

Some of my former GOP colleagues criticize me for maligning the GOP.  Based on Dole's comments, I have it right.  It's my former colleagues who need to stop drinking the tainted Kool-Aid and open their eyes to the ugly reality that is today's Republican Party.  I did not change, the party changed.