The Sundowner Chronicles: Biden Has Revealed His Campaign Plans, And It's Basement Biden 2.0, Reports the NYT and Axios

NORMZZZ! Have the normzzz been restored to your most delicate of satisfactions, NeverTrump cvcks?

The "president" won't stand for a press conference, won't take questions in a "gaggle" unless the reporter tells him what to say in advance, and now won't even campaign.

Are these the "Norms of Democracy" that NeverTrump promised us?

NYT:

President Biden has formally moved from a campaign-in-waiting to a campaign of waiting.

Despite his heavily anticipated re-election announcement on Tuesday, Mr. Biden has no immediate plans to barnstorm the key battlegrounds. Decorative bunting is nowhere to be found, and large rallies will come later.

Instead, Mr. Biden's next steps look much like his recent ones: leveraging the White House to burnish his record with ribbon-cuttings, and willingly ceding the stage to a Republican presidential primary that is already descending into a dogfight between Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, even before he has entered the race.

The first 24 hours, a heavily scripted period in any campaign, serve as a Biden road map for the months to come: a video announcement and an array of text messages to spur online donations; the behind-the-scenes hiring of his campaign team; an official White House event that doubled as a campaign opportunity; and a rally focused on abortion rights, headlined by the vice president, at a historically Black university.

Axios actually reports some real news and quotes White House insiders and Democrats about having to limit Biden's schedule due to his declining energy and reduced periods of wakefulness.

Polls show that most voters of most ages wonder the same thing: Can President Biden really win the White House again at nearly 82 -- and run it competently into age 86?

Why it matters: It's a line of questioning the White House hates, and tries to brush off. But there are so many unknowns to rolling into your mid-80s with more power than anyone on Earth.

It's already an issue in the 2024 campaign, with some Republicans bluntly saying Biden might not live through a second term.
"[T]he idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely," GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley told Fox News on Wednesday.

Zoom in: The White House rarely puts Biden in improvisational settings -- or in front of hostile questions from reporters. So it's tough for anyone outside his tight bubble to truly appraise the reality of Biden being the oldest president in U.S. history.

Behind the scenes: Biden's close advisers say he's mentally sharp. But even some of them concede his age has diminished his energy, significantly limiting his schedule.

Many White House officials say they're amazed at Biden's stamina -- often adding the caveat: "for his age."

Some White House officials say it's difficult to schedule public or private events with the president in the morning, in the evening, or on weekends: The vast majority of Biden's public events happen on weekdays, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.

In other words, Axios just confirmed that Sundowner is Sundowning.

...

By the numbers: A breakdown of Biden's schedule so far in 2023 reveals how his staff tries to ensure he's at his best:

Only four public events before 10 a.m.

Just a dozen public events after 6 p.m. -- mostly dinners and receptions with foreign leaders or fundraisers.

12 full weekends with no public events.

Axios attempts a "But Trump," and points out that if Trump were to win the 2024 election, he'd enter the White House... just a few months younger than Biden was in 2020. I guess that's useful context but I don't think they'd be making excuses in the other direction.

The bottom line: This likely will be the most Rose Garden-centered presidential campaign in nearly half a century -- since President Ford in 1976.

For those of you younger than Almost 29, the Rose Garden strategy is a form of non-campaigning campaigning, where you do not actually visit the country you intend to lead, and do not stand before reporters and answer questions. You just go out to the White House Rose Garden and read statements to reporters who have been summoned to video your statement and then deliver it out to the voters, but who cannot ask you questions.

Well, they can just shout them as Sundowner shuffles back to the White House, his handlers saying "Turn left" and "Turn the knob of the door" in his ear-piece. But he'll ignore those questions. The Rose Garden strategy is designed to insulate an unpopular and in this case incapable president from ever having to meet the voters or even the very-friendly leftwing press.

Axios reported this, but of course, this is no heroism; they don't want the frail, demented Biden to win the nomination. White House insiders are probably telling them worse, and telling them, "We can't let this man be the nominee, you have to do something!"

And of course they're trying to create the opening for Gavin Newsom or, horror of horrors, Michele Obama.

Meanwhile, Democrats line up to vouch for the energy, vitality, and razor-keen acumen of the Living Breathing Fountain of Youth that is Joe Biden.

Meanwhile: "Fireball Joe Biden" doesn't exactly have this thing wrapped up, and no major candidate has declared against him yet.

That song kind of slaps, in a low-key MOR way.

posted by Ace at 01:12 PM

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