The Genius, Ray Charles, released Born To Lose back in 1962, which was a cover of a 1943 Ted Daffan song. It was from the first record Charles recorded that showed he could shift seamlessly from R&B to Country and Western.
If you haven’t heard the song before, it’s an ode of lament about a life that is seemingly predestined for failure, and that self-prophecy coming true with the end of a romantic relationship.
Born to lose, it seems so hard to bear
When I wake, and find that you’re not there
You’ve grown tired and now you say we’re through
Born to lose and now I’m losing you
It was a minor hit for Charles, but a song that has lasted in the chronology of his greatest hits. Who knew it was actually going to be the theme song for the Biden/Harris ’24 campaign? And what’s more, who knew the Washington Post would write about the inevitability of failure creeping across Team Biden in April?
While the President and his crackerjack communications shop at the White House spent a week turning the Easter Bunny into a transgendered hare hopping around in leather and saying the safe word “Palomino”, The Post ran a profile piece in their Style section on Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the campaign manager of Biden-Harris ’24.
The Post’s Jesus Rodriguez sat down with the other Rodriguez during Joe Biden’s Western state swing to Nevada and Arizona a week and a half ago. If you’ll recall, this was the trip where in the space of 48 hours, the President claimed he reduced the deficit and/or debt by $1 trillion, $2 trillion, $160 billion, and back to $1 trillion in four different appearances. Chavez Rodriguez also presides over the brain trust that surmised that the way for Joe Biden to reach out to disaffected Latino voters and bring them back home to the Democratic Party, voters that Biden’s been hemorrhaging in recent polling, was to show up to a Mexican restaurant. I’m sure the campaign has drawn up plans to close the deal with Asian-Americans by dropping into a Panda Express very soon.
Julie Chavez Rodriguez is the granddaughter of Latino labor activist Cesar Chavez. Joe Biden, at one of the events out west, recognized her to the crowd of tens, saying, “It’s in her blood,” whatever ‘it’ is. Why she was along for the ride in the first place is because Team Biden knows they’re in trouble with not only the Latino piece of the Democratic Party amalgam of constituency groups, but the African-American bloc as well. This trip was supposed to be the great outreach and relaunch of the Biden campaign to minority groups. But included in the Post’s reporting is how much decay Biden has seen with these two groups between 2020 and now.
Chavez Rodriguez is here in part because Black and Brown voters are essential ingredients in the victory recipe, and they’ve been souring on Biden. In 2020, Black voters chose Biden by 81 percentage points, according to an average of exit polls and other voter surveys; in a Washington Post average of recent polls, Biden was up by 49 points among Black registered voters. Biden won Latino voters by 29 points, but recent polls find Trump running about even with Biden among this group, though there are fewer high-quality polls of Latino voters.
Those are brutal numbers, if the polling is remotely accurate. If Biden-Harris has lost 32% of Latino votes, and 29% of Black voters, this election is over before Joe Biden can avoid his first debate with Donald Trump.
Much of the piece, being it’s in the Style section, deals with Chavez Rodriguez’ bio and political background. It’s fluff. But there are some notes and quotes included that are eye-popping, like her attempt to reach out to the Muslim-American community, which seems to be steering Biden’s foreign policy decisions in the Middle East.
In January, she traveled to Dearborn, Mich., for a planned meeting with some 10 to 15 Arab American leaders amid a major backlash in that battleground state against the Biden administration’s support of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. But Arab American leaders canceled the meeting after community members urged participants to skip it. The feelings of personal connection to the war among some members of that community were “deeper than I could fully understand,” Chavez Rodriguez said.
“We want to continue to work with and engage these communities, if and when they’re ready,” she added, noting that she met with other Arab American leaders during that Michigan trip. The campaign is seeing some “important openings,” she said: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), one of two Muslim women in Congress, “has really started to outline what’s at stake in this election.”
Maybe it’s just me, but hanging your hat on the outreach capabilities offered by Ilhan Omar, or her ex-husband/brother, doesn’t seem to be a recipe for success.
The Post story, though, buries the true lede. Included as background besides the profile of the campaign manager is the fretting about the 2024 prospects of Biden-Harris among the Democratic donor class, embodied in the story by John Morgan.
Morgan is a Florida attorney and long-time Democratic fundraiser. He helped raise money for Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, as well as Joe Biden. He flew Biden’s corrupt brother, Frank, to Biden’s inauguration on his private plane. He’s flirted with an independent run for governor of Florida in 2017, and is toying with the idea again for 2026. He’s very worried that Biden’s lost too much ground, and described the difference in feeling between losing with Hillary Clinton in 2016 to what he’s prepared for this time around. The Post buried this quote literally as deep into the story as you possibly can – the 35th of 35 paragraphs.
“We all know this is a jump ball,” he continued. “In 2016, we were reading Nate Silver, and we weren’t worried at all. When we woke up, we realized we’ve never been to Wisconsin and we’ve never been to Michigan and then all the Monday-morning quarterbacks are out. That won’t be the case for Julie,” he said. “Because we all are prepared to lose.”
We are all prepared to lose. Huh. I wonder if Joe Biden is prepared to lose? Actually, I’m curious whether Joe Biden is even awake, yet, if he’s had time to rub the CPAP stretch marks out of his face and changed out of his jammies to read the latest Gallup poll, where on the question of whether Biden is capable of running the government, he’s 13 points off where he was at this time in 2020 when the same question was asked.
GALLUP: does the following apply to Biden or Trump? (+/- shift since September 2020)
Can manage the government effectively
🟥 Trump 49% (+1)
🟦 Biden 39% (-13)Is likable
🟦 Biden 57% (-9)
🟥 Trump 37% (+1)Displays good judgement in crisis
🟥 Trump 45% (+1)
🟦 Biden 40% (-9)… pic.twitter.com/YtRLGlxowc— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) April 3, 2024
That first line – the competency to run government question? If you’ve lost a third of your Black voters, roughly another third of your Latino voters, and 13% more of the country than four years ago think you just can’t do the job, that’s dead candidate walking time.
I’m curious if Kamala Harris is prepared to lose or has pondered life beyond politics, whether she can see what can be, unburdened by what has been? I’m really curious if Democratic delegates at the DNC convention in Chicago this August, when they have to replace Biden, will see what can be, unburdened by the albatross that is Vice President Harris.
But mostly, I’m deeply concerned whether Dr. Jill Dr. Biden, EdD, full-time one class a week professor of English at a junior college in Virginia, is prepared to lose?
Apparently, Baghdad Jill is not prepared to lose. Pity.