Everything you’re hearing about Joe Biden right now is wrong
Because there’s a pandemic going on, and because Donald Trump is spending every day self destructing in front of the television cameras, the media isn’t going to give Joe Biden a lot of attention right now, no matter what he does. And that’s fine for now, because he’s currently winning.
Biden is making regular TV appearances in order to periodically remind everyone that he’s more presidential than Trump will ever be. He’s ahead of Trump by about seven points in the national polling averages, which is a great place for the non-incumbent to be at this point in the race. Biden raised $46 million last month. It’s all good news for Biden, but none of it’s particularly newsworthy. Yet some pundits feel like they’ve got to say something about him.
So what we’re seeing right now are a number of articles in the form of “Joe Biden will lose unless he does X.” In each instance, “X” is something different. I’ve read three articles this week about how Biden will lose unless he picks a specific person as his running mate, and each of the articles pointed to a different running mate. This a laughable notion. Biden can blow it by making a Sarah Palin type pick. But he’s up seven points. The idea that he’s going to lose because he picks one highly qualified running mate over another highly qualified running mate? Absurd.
There are also plenty of articles insisting that Biden will lose unless he finds a way to win over “young voters” or “progressives.” Again, Biden is already up seven points based on the voters he’s already won over. Should he try to win over even more voters? Absolutely. When running against a cheater like Trump, no lead is large enough to be safe. But these articles start with the false premise that Biden is currently behind Trump, so they can then point to their pet reason for why Biden is supposedly behind, while ignoring the fact that he’s currently ahead of Trump. Could Biden lose? Of course. Is he going to lose because of anything being mentioned in these articles? Absolutely not.
This pandemic won’t retain 100% control over the news cycle forever. The media goes wherever the ratings are. As we get closer to the general election cycle, and more people want to hear about the election on a daily basis, we’ll start to see that kind of coverage. That’s when Joe Biden will be able to actually make news, and give the pundits something to write about. For now, we’re just seeing a lot of hypothetical silliness being written about how Biden absolutely must do this or that. Ignore it. It’s of no consequence.
