A strategist ponders on how Biden can convince voters he’s not too old
The Biden Campaign to Restore the Dream of the Nation: What he’s doing now to save the country from the fate of the incumbent president
The official declaration finally put an end to any remaining suspense over the intentions of Mr. Biden, and paved the way to another nomination for the president. While he had repeatedly and consistently said he intended to run, Mr. Biden stoked renewed speculation by delaying his kickoff for months. His team now has the ability to raise money to finance their campaign.
Mr. Biden decided to tap Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the granddaughter of Cesar Chavez, as his campaign manager. She will be a principal deputy, and will be led by Quentin Fulks, who ran Senator Raphael Warnock’s reelection campaign in Georgia. But the operation is expected to be overseen from the White House by top presidential aides.
Although he described himself as “a bridge” to the next generation during his 2020 campaign, a comment that some interpreted as a hint that he would serve only one term, Mr. Biden concluded that he was not in fact ready to hand over the torch yet. His decision was fueled in part, aides said, by his antipathy for Mr. Trump and his belief that he is the Democrat best positioned to keep the criminally indicted and twice-impeached former president from recapturing the White House.
Questions about Biden’s age are nothing new. His opponents used that against him when he ran in 2020, and continued to point to his on camera stumbles to imply he was suffering from brain issues, a line of attack that often backfires.
As Mr. Biden formally kicked off his campaign, he appeared at this point to be a virtual lock to win his party’s nomination. Many democrats hoped that he would cede the position to a younger candidate but no one has come forward to challenge him. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a son of the iconic assassinated senator and a vocal critic of vaccines, and Marianne Williamson, the self-help author whose 2020 campaign fizzled before the first votes were cast, have announced long-shot bids but pose little evident threat to the incumbent president.
He stated in his video that the fight to restore thesoul of the nation was still incomplete and at risk. He told the crowd his vows to protect the country and not anything that was positive for the future.
Cristbal Alex is a former aide to Mr. Biden and in his White House. The country is still on the cliff. Donald Trump’s election or that of a similar type would push the country over the edge.
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Some elements of the campaign were not completed until last weekend, and the re-election staff is still being built out. Veronica said that she got a call on Sunday from Mr. Biden asking her to be a co-chair.
After he won the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, his team was careful to answer any questions about his age or the rigor of his schedule because he was campaigning for months from his home in Delaware. The White House has compiled a chart tracking his travel so far in 2023, and it shows that his number of trips outpaced former President Barack Obama’s in the same time period in 2011.
With the widespread end of coronavirus precautions, Democrats are predicting a return to normalcy on the campaign trail. The 2020 race “will have turned out to be, I think, an atypical election,” said Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association.
But Mr. Biden’s campaign is hardly seeking to have him dominate the headlines. While he has traveled to the country to promote his legislative accomplishments, the attention of the nation has mostly been focused on other issues such as the legal drama surrounding his predecessor.
Biden works out five days a week and received a clean bill of health at his annual physical earlier this year, with his physician concluding that he “remains fit for duty, and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations.”
If you run a candidate who’s basically the same age, you can’t really exploit this vulnerability, because other people will make a similar argument about Trump’s age.
“When you look at polling, when you watch focus groups, it is the thing that people highlight first,” he says. We’ve never had a president this old.
Axelrod argues that Biden’s approach — particularly when it comes to things like being less reactive on social media — is part of why voters elected him in the first place, and that those qualities were what people wanted after the tenure of former President Donald Trump.
Being president is the most difficult job on the planet because of your endless hours and decisions. He says Biden’s staff would point to some of his high points as proof he can do it, such as his February State of the Union address, in which he made a pitch to “finish the job.”
“He stood on his feet for an hour, he engaged his hecklers and he was triumphant,” Axelrod says. “And that’s what they’re going to say is ‘just watch him.'”
“He often says ‘don’t judge me versus the almighty, judge me versus the alternative,'” he adds. “I think he’s hoping that this isn’t going to be a referendum on Joe Biden or anything, he’s hoping that this is going to be a choice.” Four years ago, we were faced with the exact same choice.
A rematch between the two is looking likely, with a recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll finding that two-thirds of Republicans would still vote for Trump even if he is found guilty of a crime.
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“They can make that argument and I think it’s going to land with a few voters,” he says. “And they’ll choose between that and those qualities I mentioned before: wisdom, experience and perspective.”
