Politico Headline: "Democrats in full-blown 'freak-out' over Biden"

Obviously, the Robert DeNiro stunt is motivated by this "freak-out." Democrats need a momentum shift. They had been counting on the four (FOUR!) lawfare trials to provide this shift. But Fani Willis reduced her effort to low comedy and the Supreme Court is examining issues (such as presidential immunity) which may delay the two federal cases.

And this current trial has been a complete disaster. Even if a rigged jury delivers a guilty verdict, the country has heard enough details about Stormy Daniels' and Michael Cohen's absurd testimony to discount the entire case.

So professional make-up wearer Robert DeNiro tries doing something he's failed at in his last ten movies, injecting drama and drawing an audience.

The article notes that donors keep asking insiders what their sense of the election is. That is, they want reassurance that they are not just wasting their money backing a sure loser.

DeNiro's stunt is probably more about giving donors a plausible comeback story than winning actual votes.

I don't think this is going to be enough, with Biden's own bagman son going on trial in June.

(During Pride Month?! DURING PRIDE MONTH?!!)

A pervasive sense of fear has settled in at the highest levels of the Democratic Party over President Joe Biden's reelection prospects, even among officeholders and strategists who had previously expressed confidence about the coming battle with Donald Trump.

Keep talkin' that sexy talk, baby.

All year, Democrats had been on a joyless and exhausting grind through the 2024 election. But now, nearly five months from the election, anxiety has morphed into palpable trepidation, according to more than a dozen party leaders and operatives. And the gap between what Democrats will say on TV or in print, and what they'll text their friends, has only grown as worries have surged about Biden's prospects.

"You don't want to be that guy who is on the record saying we're doomed, or the campaign's bad or Biden's making mistakes. Nobody wants to be that guy," said a Democratic operative in close touch with the White House and granted anonymity to speak freely.

But Biden's stubbornly poor polling and the stakes of the election "are creating the freakout," he said.

"This isn't, 'Oh my God, Mitt Romney might become president.' It's 'Oh my God, the democracy might end.'"

BRB, batin'

... Democratic critics of the campaign's approach -- while agreeing that abortion should be a winning issue -- said they're challenged when pressed by friends to make the case for why Biden will win.

"There's still a path to win this, but they don't look like a campaign that's embarking on that path right now," said Pete Giangreco, a longtime Democratic strategist who's worked on multiple presidential campaigns. "If the frame of this race is, 'What was better, the 3.5 years under Biden or four years under Trump,' we lose that every day of the week and twice on Sunday."

In the swing state of Michigan, Democratic state Rep. Laurie Pohutsky suggested Biden's standing is so tenuous that down-ballot Democrats can't rely in November "on the top of the ticket to pull us along."

...

Whatever the Biden campaign has been doing over the past two months -- and it's a lot of activity, including $25 million in swing-state ad spending, according to AdImpact -- it has had only a limited effect. According to FiveThirtyEight, Biden's average job-approval rating on March 7, the date of his State of the Union Address, was 38.1 percent. As of Friday, it's 38.4 percent.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:55 PM

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