FINISH HIM
In politics it’s often said that you should treat an election like your guy is five points down, even if he’s five points up. You never know what might happen, so you’ve got to work as hard as possible to drive voter registration and turnout and pick up every last vote possible, just in case. This is solid advice and should always be followed. But in this unique election, I think there’s also a different angle that we’ve got to focus on.
The reality right now is that Joe Biden is winning. He’s ahead nationally. He’s ahead in every swing state. This is despite the fact that he’s stuck in his basement due to a pandemic, unable to campaign in person, even as the media gives nearly all of its focus to his increasingly disastrous opponent. Here’s the thing. For now at least, I think we need to play up the fact that Biden is winning.
We’re in an exceedingly weird election cycle, for too many obvious reasons to list. It raises the question of how many Americans even know that Joe Biden is currently winning. During the democratic primary race, the anti-democrats of the left kept repeating the nonsensical mantra that “Biden can’t beat Trump.” We’ve never really pushed back against it, because we’re trained to believe that we shouldn’t get too cocky about our candidate being ahead. And because there’s no pushback, the media keeps doing ridiculous stories about “What Biden needs to do to win” when in reality he’s currently winning. It all creates the false perception that Biden is somehow behind.
There are people out there who hate Donald Trump and would prefer that he lose, but who don’t want to invest time or effort on what they fear might be a lost cause. Why would they want to invest their time in Joe Biden when they keep incorrectly hearing that he’s losing? Maybe it’s time to start promoting the fact that our guy is, in fact, you know, winning.
In this election cycle, I don’t think that admitting to ourselves that our guy is ahead is somehow going to make us complacent. We know better than anyone that this can all go horribly wrong for us if we don’t keep putting in the work. We’re not suddenly going to slack off. But with our guy currently winning despite literally being locked in his house, it couldn’t hurt to beat our chest about it. No one ever won an election by nervously fretting. You want to finish Trump off? Make sure everyone knows Joe Biden is winning. Watch even more people get on board with Biden. It’ll have the added bonus of driving Trump even more bonkers for all to see.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report