Joe Biden is clearly the frontrunner at this time to win the Democratic nomination for president. He’s way ahead in virtually all the polls. In fact, in the latest FOX poll, he’s beating President Trump by 10 points, 49% to 39%. Of course so are a number of other Democrats, but not by quite that much.
So Biden’s team has seemed to adopt the strategy of – keep the gaffe-prone candidate away from pesky reporters asking questions, and in fact keep him away from voters asking questions of any kind. Keep your appearances to a bare minimum. Since you have a hard time generating enthusiasm, keep the venues of your events small so that even a modest number of people showing up looks like you’ve filled the place. (Contrast this with Donald Trump, who just filled up the 25,000 seat arena in Orlando, Florida last night, and had thousands and thousands in overflow areas outside the arena watching him on big screen TVs.)
Biden’s strategy, at least early on, has seemed to be to position himself as the sort-of-moderate, alternative to the rest of the hard-left slate of candidates. The Bernie Sanders fringy positions of socialism, redistribution of wealth, Medicare for all, free college, free everything, etc. have now been pretty much adopted by all the other candidates, so Uncle Joe is going to be the reasonable guy who would be able to appeal to the broader electorate in the general election.
But appearing to be a moderate is becoming less and less credible for Joe Biden. For example, Joe Biden had always said he supported the Hyde Amendment, which in essence says we don’t make taxpayers pay for other people’s abortions. Biden confirmed that that was still his position recently. Then after getting grief from militant pro-abortion Democrats, he changed his position the very next day. His position now? Free abortion for everyone, paid for by other taxpayers. Shameful.
Another example of Biden’s rapid move to the left – he has adopted the radical, hare-brained “Green New Deal.” You know, no cars, no planes, no cows, no jobs. Trains to Hawaii. A $93 trillion price tag, paid for with crushing new taxes. AOC’s knuckleheaded contribution to America’s future. Now Joe Biden is on board. Hardly a moderate, commonsense move.
And the first Democratic presidential debates are next week, with one batch of 10 candidates on one night, and the other batch of ten (including Biden) the next night. I think it’s pretty likely that Biden will receive the bulk of attacks by the other candidates trying to diminish his lead and elevate their profiles. The nature of some of the criticism will be that he is insufficiently “progressive” and that will likely pull him even further to the left, which hopefully will make him an even less formidable challenger to President Trump in the general election.
Of course the presidential election isn’t the only one of significance to the future of our nation coming up in 2020. One third of the Senate, and all of the House is up for grabs. And as you may know, I was targeted by the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) last time, and I’m on their hit list again this time. In fact, of the 12 Republican-held Congressional seats in Ohio, mine is the only one being targeted (there are 32 across the country out of about 200.)
That means the Democrats will be dumping millions and millions of dollars into trying to defeat me this time. By the way, the reason Democrats believe I should be vulnerable is that, although Donald Trump won my district last time (2016), he won it by the narrowest margin of any of the 12 Republican held seats (5 points).
You know what’s coming – yes, I need your help. If you could make a contribution to my campaign, I would greatly appreciate it. Candidates have to report quarterly how much they’ve raised, and the second quarter (April, May, June) deadline is rapidly approaching (June 30th.)
You can click here to contribute, or you can mail a check to Chabot for Congress, 220 Findlay Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202. Thank you in advance for your generosity.
See you next week. I won’t bug you for money (for awhile.)