Joe Biden’s explanation for his misstating nearly every detail of the “war story” he has repeatedly told on the campaign trail was jaw-dropping. Even if he got them wrong, said Biden, “the details are irrelevant.” He added: “[My gaffes have] nothing to do with judgment of whether or not you send troops to war, the judgment of whether you bring someone home, the judgment of whether you decide on a healthcare policy.”
According to the latest polls, the people are buying the canard. Recently it appeared that the revelations and exposure of his failings and faults, his lies, his family corruption, his flip-flops on national policy matters, and his creepy invasions of women’s personal spaces, were beginning to make a dent in his double-digit lead over his Democrat rivals in the race for their party’s nomination. It now appears that the few polls showing the gap closing, or disappearing altogether, were outliers. Biden retains a healthy double-digit lead over his nearest rival.
The Washington Post’s Michael Scherer expressed his frustration that those revelations aren’t having any impact, writing that “there is little evidence that any of it has stuck.” He added: “Most August polls showed Biden with the support of nearly one in three Democratic voters nationally, far ahead of his nearest presidential opponent and basically unchanged from polling before he announced his campaign.”
That also frustrates his rivals, who have used all manner of strategies to pick away at Biden’s lead: personal attacks (he’s old, white, stale, creepy, etc.) to attacks on his policy decisions in the past (abortion, the war in Iraq, etc.). Conservative media, including The New American, have taken pains to uncover and expose his history of lying, family corruption, plagiarism, and unconstitutional votes while he was a senator, yet all to no apparent avail.
Why? Dr. John Tantillo thinks he has the answer: People like him. Tantillo, a marketing and branding expert, told Newsmax:
Let’s face it. Joe Biden is the most likeable Democrat the party has to offer the American people for 2020. His warmth, humanity and personal signature are all reminders of a bygone period in our politics.… The reason he’s ahead in the polls is because of his appeal … to voters who simply like the guy despite his intermittent missteps that they perceive simply as Joe Biden being Joe Biden.
On the other hand, his rivals aren’t resonating the same way with the most important bloc of voters: Independents. “What the Democrats are selling is not resonating with most non-Democrats.” Biden, wrote Tantillo, is a “venerable political brand” that his rivals cannot match.
When they attack Biden, they are tarnished with the same brush, according to Jeff Link, an Iowa Democrat political strategist. Because most voters are put off by personal attacks, they tend to dislike the attacker instead of his target: “The aggressor is not the direct beneficiary of an attack … because nobody likes an attack.”
When new facts come to light about Biden’s past that are unfavorable, “Voters,” wrote Scherer, “shrug them off … because they have watched him for so long in public life.”
Biden’s personal magnetism could cause problems for the president as well. In every poll pitting Biden against Trump taken since the end March — all 41 of them! — Biden leads the president by as many as 18 points. If Biden is nominated to be his party’s candidate in the presidential contest, Trump’s direct attack approach could do as much damage to himself as to Biden, more out of sympathy for his opponent than anything the president might launch against him.
The independent voter — the bloc that each candidate will need to capture to win the presidency next November — must remember the words of Hamlet: “One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.” If they don’t look past the smile, Biden might then just have a shot at being elected president.
Photo: AP Images
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American, writing primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
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Biden’s War Story Brought Audience to Silence. Too Bad it Didn’t Happen.
