Our strikingly unpopular, 80-year-old president wants the American people to give him another four years in office, promising to "finish the job" that he started. Given the results so far, this sounds more like a threat than anything else. Joe Biden's campaign announced the re-election bid in a pre-produced video, meaning that Biden's delivery of his lines were presumably the best takes they had to work with. As many others noted, the message was heavy on anti-Republican attacks and chock full of now-familiar verbiage about 'America's soul,' or whatever. Conspicuously absent were any references to a successful record in office that might commend another term. The president's team could surely list off a handful of 'achievements,' but American voters aren't impressed. A fresh NBC News poll shows Biden's approval rating at 41 percent, with 54 percent disapproving. On the economy, he's underwater by 20 points (38/58). The latest Wall Street Journal poll pegs Biden's job approval rating at a weak (42/56). New numbers from CBS are even worse, at (41/59).
I could go on, but you get the picture. This is a very weak incumbent. Seven-in-ten voters do not him want to seek re-election (unchanged from another survey late last year), but that's precisely what he's now doing, apparently. Democrats are resigning themselves to this eventuality, but there's not a lot of enthusiasm coursing through their veins about it. The American people will be treated to more press-avoidance from the oldest president in US history, whose handlers know his slipping verbal and cognitive abilities present a red flag for much of the electorate. Another issue Biden has is a lifelong inability to tell the truth, habitually inventing stories and embellishing details of his personal life. He's lied and exaggerated everything from his own academic record to details about the deaths of his own immediate family members. As we've chronicled before, among other things, it's extremely weird. And there he goes again:
BIDEN: "My grandpop...died in the same hospital I was born in two weeks before I was born"
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 25, 2023
Except Biden's "grandpop" died in Baltimore, MD, in September 1941 — and Biden wasn't born until November 1942 in Scranton, PA. pic.twitter.com/Y1Zq36kLhd
It's such an easily-disproven, pointless lie. He was still months away from being conceived when his grandfather died. Why say this? The 'why' doesn't really matter. Biden is a serial fabricator and plagiarist, and always has been. Meanwhile, here is Biden's Vice President being, well, herself:
VP HARRIS: "I think it's very important [...] for us at every moment in time & certainly this one, to see the moment in time in which we exist & are present & to be able to contextualize it — to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment — as it relates not only… pic.twitter.com/rGukASSxgc
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) April 26, 2023
Based on the campaign launch video and this tweet (and the DNC declining to hold debates, and Bernie Sanders falling in line), it appears that Biden/Harris will be the 2024 ticket:
In this together. pic.twitter.com/VJ65GZRnuP
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 26, 2023
As I mentioned on television this week, Biden's age/capacity and the acceptability of Kamala Harris as a possible President of the United States are relevant, live issues for voters to consider:
2024 Watch: Karine Jean-Pierre was forced to correct herself after dodging questions about whether Biden plans to serve all eight years if re-elected@guypbenson reacts on @Varneyco #FoxBusiness #FoxNews #Biden pic.twitter.com/BN8WdYFAFx
— The Guy Benson Show (@GuyBensonShow) April 26, 2023
Conservatives don't have to be disrespectful about the age factor, but is so obviously pertinent that even the lefty New York Times editorial board is admitting it matters. All that being said, I've been warning fellow conservatives that simply pointing to these glaring vulnerabilities as proof that Biden will be easy to beat is a mistake. He ran a basement campaign in 2020, making Donald Trump the focus of attention, and he won. The midterms should have been a clean referendum on the incumbent and one-party rule, resulting in a sweeping rejection from voters. That didn't happen, largely because the Democrats sounded the themes in Biden's new video as their counter-message. So Biden's poor performance, unpopularity, and age-related issues -- while important -- will not be sufficient to chalk up a win for the GOP next year. Democrats would like to turn the upcoming election from a referendum on Biden into a choice between Biden and Donald Trump -- if not another referendum on Trump, the fourth in a row. Republican primary voters will have to decide whether they'll accommodatingly give the Democrats exactly what they're asking for. I'll leave you with this, for any Democrats or media types who decide to clutch pearls in faux-umbrage over age-related questions about Biden:
Linked in @KFILE's piece below: the AP reports on Biden's 1972 campaign win, “Biden stressed age to defeat Boggs.”
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) April 26, 2023
😬https://t.co/QEL9CN6kSu https://t.co/VzL1z3E9oz pic.twitter.com/P5trTRXIat
President Joe Biden, who at 80 has had to confront questions about his age and mental acuity as he launches a reelection campaign for president, once ran a campaign that sharply attacked his opponent’s age...In 1972, advertisements for Biden in local newspapers and on the radio hammered home a line, “he understands what’s happening today.” The ads targeted Boggs’ age by bringing up past historical topics from Bogg’s “generation,” like Joseph Stalin ruling Russia, jazz musicians using heroin, the development of the polio vaccine, and taxes from the 1940s. “Cale Boggs’ generation dreamed of conquering polio, Joe Biden’s generation dreams of conquering heroin,” read one newspaper ad. “To Cale Boggs an unfair tax was the 1948 poll tax. To Joe Biden an unfair tax is the 1972 income tax,” read another.
Biden's opponent at the time was nearly two decades younger than Biden is today.
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