[WSJ] How the Bet on an 81-Year-Old Joe Biden Turned Into an Epic Miscalculation

long read

link should work for everyone

https://www.wsj.com/politics/electi...ea1xwsfz53a&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

How the Bet on an 81-Year-Old Joe Biden Turned Into an Epic Miscalculation
Voters thought the faltering president was too old, but allies looked the other way, advisers defended his abilities and the Democratic Party boxed out other candidates

By Rebecca Ballhaus, Siobhan Hughes, Annie Linskey, Andrew Restuccia and Erich Schwartzel
July 21, 2024 at 9:39 pm ET

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President Biden had just finished trying to persuade a group of congressional Democrats to pass a $1 trillion infrastructure bill when Nancy Pelosi, then the House speaker, took the microphone.

In 30 minutes of remarks on Capitol Hill, Biden had spoken disjointedly and failed to make a concrete ask of lawmakers, according to Democrats in the room. After he left, a visibly frustrated Pelosi told the group she would articulate what Biden had been trying to say, one lawmaker said.

“It was the first time I remember people pretty jarred by what they had seen,” recalled Rep. Dean Phillips (D., Minn.), who would go on to mount an unsuccessful primary challenge against the president.

That was October 2021. That month was the last time Biden met with the House Democratic caucus on the Hill regarding legislation.

Nearly three years later, concerns about the 81-year-old president’s age and mental acuity have put an abrupt cap on his half-century political career. They had grown from a murmur among allies, who said they believed—or hoped—they were catching the president on a bad day, to a deafening roar, as many of those same allies called on him to step aside in the wake of his disastrous June 27 debate performance.

On Sunday, Biden announced he was withdrawing from the presidential race, an unparalleled step that leaves Democrats without a nominee less than four months before Election Day. Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place, but it remains to be seen if voters rally behind her.

How the Democratic Party came to the brink of nominating a candidate with an obvious flaw is a story of allies eager to look the other way, Biden advisers who worked to stamp out doubts about his vigor and a party apparatus that boxed out alternative candidates.

The result is an epic, yearslong miscalculation that has Democrats racing to mount an uncertain reboot of their campaign against former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee who is fresh off a unifying party convention that was galvanized by an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate him on July 13.

The drawbacks of Biden’s age were clear to voters, with polls showing that nearly three-quarters of them last year deemed him too old to seek another term. Yet inside the party’s uppermost ranks, revelations about the toll aging has taken on the president seemed to catch many people by surprise in recent months.

“I am really concerned about what we were not told during these months,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D., Texas) in an interview. “I remain concerned about that—that for whatever reasons, this overprotective, stage-managed kind of operation not only appears to have denied the American people broadly of an understanding of the president’s current situation, but also other elected officials.”

White House spokesman Andrew Bates said on Sunday, “President Biden has given over 50 interviews this year alone, recently held a one-hour, thorough press conference, done over 580 gaggles with the White House press corps in office, and travels the country speaking directly to the American people about his agenda for making their lives better.” He said Biden has built the most successful record in modern American history, and that the president “has always said that it is fair for reporters to ask about his age.”

Ron Klain, who attended the October 2021 meeting and was Biden’s chief of staff at the time, said the decision not to call for a vote at the time was a “brilliant” move by Biden that avoided strong-arming reluctant members of the Democratic caucus and that later paid dividends. Biden signed the infrastructure bill into law the next month, one of his biggest legislative achievements. Other Democrats in the room also said they were confused by how Biden handled the meeting.

This account is based on interviews with more than four dozen current and former administration officials, campaign aides, donors, lawmakers, congressional aides and foreign diplomats.
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much more at the link

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lol. lot of interest in this topic

 

@FranchiseBlade

 

not sure I follow you. but I guess if it makes sense to you . . .

 

still not following you.

 

wait a minute . . . NOW I get you.

These are the coverup and conspiracy threads. Those others are merely the Biden's-belated-dropout threads. Two different subjects.

 

I didn't start the Biden dropout thread . . . @ThatBoyNick did. With his girlie-man, curley-cue brackets. God I hate those.

https://bbs.clutchfans.net/threads/official-joe-biden-drops-out.323773/

 

nah. they deserve their own thread. I.D.I.O.T., as they say.