Joe Biden Needs to Campaign If He Wants to Win in 2024. What Is He Doing? – If Joe Biden’s strategy is keeping low and out of the line of fire to win a second term the way he won a first term by sitting on the sidelines sniping at Donald Trump in 2020, he will need to do better.
So far, that seems to be the strategy for the Biden campaign.
Unlike in 2020, Biden has a governing record to defend in 2024. And if Biden’s cognitive issues become more pronounced he could give Trump a handhold to remind voters of how they were better off when he was president.
Will Joe Biden Campaign?
Biden seems to be living up to Trump’s nickname of “Sleepy Joe,” given due to the then vice president’s seeming lack of a vigorous campaign schedule. Joe Concha reports at “The Hill” that Biden works a 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. schedule.
“But the president’s campaign, if it can be called that, appears to be banking on the same strategy it used in 2020: lay low. Take Biden off the radar and allow Donald Trump’s various antics and legal troubles be the media’s focus. If Biden held a rally or a major news conference, that would put him back front and center, which seems to be the last thing his campaign wants,” Concha wrote.
He never holds events before 10 a.m. He has spent 13 full weekends at his Delaware home.
No major press conferences are upcoming. He has had the least number of press conferences of any president in the past 40 years. He has held 21 press conferences in his first 27 months in office. Barack Obama held 53 in the same time period.
This Might Not Work…
He may have a harder time hiding his aloofness this time around, particularly now that mainstream reporters openly are talking about it. Last Friday, CNN, a usual stalwart for pro-Democratic Party coverage, reported that the president confused a scheduled interview with a major press conference.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do and I’m doing a major press conference this afternoon, but I love y’all but I’d like to ask you to leave so we can get down to business,” Biden said as he was leaving a press availability in the Roosevelt Room at the White House.
Biden Support Weakens
Democrats seem to be waking up to the fact their candidate may not be up to the office he currently holds. The president’s aloofness and frequent misstatements have many Democrats wishing he had chosen retirement over running for a second term.
Only 37% approved of his job performance in the latest Gallup Poll.
The Biden team is confident that voters do not notice the president’s foibles of age. They are banking on the voters preferring what he stands for to that of Trump and the Republicans.
“When the president ran last time, I think we got asked that question, whether he was too old, about as much as any other question,” Biden senior adviser Anita Dunn told Vanity Fair. “And at the end of the day, voters made their decisions based on other things.”
Biden Looks to Avoid Scrutiny on His Record
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) says it has no plans to hold debates that would place Biden’s policies under scrutiny by Democratic primary opponents Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Marianne Williamson.
“It’s very clear that it’s really hard to run a country, and most people aren’t very good at it. It’s just how it goes, and it’s very clear that this country is being run by a bunch of people other than just the president. I don’t know how much say he has, but it’s a lot of other people who are involved. And they are not doing such a great job,” talk show host Joe Rogan said.
Rogan continued: “There are lots of mistakes that have been made that didn’t have to be made, and that’s just how it is. You have to ask yourself who could do it better. Could it be a Republican? And if it’s not a Republican, could it be a better Democrat? And if it’s not a better Democrat, how are we going to get a better Democrat if you don’t let the president debate?”
Rogan mocked the DNC saying its effort to protect the president from scrutiny was “not that democratic.”
MORE: Could Donald Trump Be Disqualified from Becoming President Again?
MORE: Could Donald Trump Quit the GOP?
