Axios reports that Biden donors are getting worried about his stamina and mental competence.
No s**t, Sherlock. I am sure they have been worried about that for quite a while now.
Biden’s cheat sheets at fundraisers worry donors https://t.co/1dId0kWNZM
— HansNichols (@HansNichols) February 23, 2024
Biden has been carrying around cards with prepared questions and answers for the press for quite a while now, and the photographs have been sort of an insider scandal. Reporters really aren’t generally allowed to prep their subjects before asking questions because they are guaranteed to get nothing but carefully scripted spin.
In this case, the reporters shouldn’t even be asking the question. Everybody knows exactly what is going to be said. It’s Soviet-style journalism.
Again, big surprise.
But a candidate not even being able to carry on a conversation in private with donors, where they are supposed to let their hair down a bit, is something of a no-no. The donors are getting to meet with the president because they dropped some big bucks, and politicians are supposed to treat their big donors as something special.
It may be an act, but it’s important. The better a politician does it, the better a politician does. Remembering somebody’s name is even better, swelling their ego.
But Biden can’t do that anymore.
President Biden has been using notecards in closed-door fundraisers, calling on prescreened donors and then consulting his notes to provide detailed answers, according to people familiar with the routine.
Why it matters: Biden’s reliance on notecards to help explain his own policy positions — on questions he knows are coming — is raising concerns among some donors about Biden’s age.
- The president is 81 but claims he feels younger.
- The staged Q&A sessions have left some donors wondering whether Biden can withstand the rigors of a presidential campaign, let alone potential debates with former President Trump, 77.
Biden advisers say the president is given notecards only for very detailed and technical questions, and say he frequently does spontaneous Q&As.
- Most recent presidents — including Trump, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — have carried crib notes, or used teleprompters, to help guide them through various public events and meetings.
- In Biden’s case, donors have noticed he’s also using notecards in private events.
Biden’s campaign dismissed such concerns.
That Biden’s brain is failing is no big surprise; what is a surprise is that Axios is writing about it and has at least some donors whispering some very-not-sweet nothings about the president.
So, what does it mean that this is leaking out into the media? Or, for that matter, that The New York Times is whacking Biden upside the head in a brutal fact check?
Does it mean the Democrats are looking to dump Biden? It sure looks that way.
Jumping to that conclusion is premature, though. It is more accurate to say that SOME Democrats want Biden off the ticket, and are engaged in a campaign to make that happen. The poll numbers are brutal, public sentiment has solidified against Biden, his base is fractured, and his agenda is stalling out.
People don’t like Biden. That some Democrats want him gone is no shock.
But if you look at the response to the article on Twitter, you also see a coordinated campaign to slime the reporter, noting that he uses notes sometimes too.
The word went out to Biden supporters, and there are now tens or hundreds of attacks back on the author, all looking like this:
Obviously, the campaign is coordinated and intended to intimidate the reporter. Getting ratioed like that is not fun for the terminally online.
So what is likely happening is jockeying within the Democrat Party for position and not some top-down preparation for dumping Biden. The grumbling from the Obama camp has been loud, and Obama is the real leader of the Party.
But Biden is president, and being president gives you power and options that few others have, especially within your own party.
If Biden wants to stay, he stays. No Axios or Times article will take him out unless it is a genuine scandal.
Democrats are likely stuck with Biden, barring a health crisis. And if Biden has one of those the nightmare gets worse: Kamala in charge.