This essential reading Politico story is historic (and hilarious and sad) for many reasons.
The piece should have been written -- COULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN! — by Politico and every other major news organization in the country for around two years. Or more.
As I’ve said before, the conspiracy of silence between Team Biden and the Dominant Media about the acuity decline will be a remarkable story in the history books if Donald Trump wins (and, really, even if Biden wins, but in a very different way).
Politico, belatedly, gets much of what has happened right. But still only about 8%.
And/but they act like they couldn’t have written the piece well before the debate.
Consider these two separate sentences in tandem:
“[I]nside the White House, Biden’s growing limitations were becoming apparent long before his meltdown in last week’s debate.”
“That the president’s cognitive difficulties came as such a shock was largely the result of how effectively his top aides and the White House on the whole has, for three and a half years, kept him in a cocoon — far away from cameras, questions and more intense public scrutiny.”
Juxtaposed like that: WTF!!???? (emphasis above added)
If you are member of Wide World of News Concierge Coverage, you have already received earlier today my faux memo from Anita Dunn to the president laying out where things stand.
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Here are the big picture items:
1. Joe Biden has no intention of leaving the race and no one with sway plans to tell him to do so.
2. If Joe Biden could do the stuff the donors and electeds want him to do now to prove he is up to the task (do a big interview, do an event without a teleprompter, conduct a town hall, talk to members of Congress one-on-one), he would have done them long ago, before the debate; the very things they want to see, he can’t do.
3. Team Biden has to only get through five weeks, before the extraordinary early virtual roll call — and there are built in distractions before then (Trump sentencing, Trump VP pick, Trump convention).
4. You can’t beat something with nothing and there is no consensus about what to do or what would happen if Biden quit — Harris is at least 60% likely but maybe more. Whitmer remains the flavor of the day but that is seen by many smart people as a mirage.
5. What could change all this: If Biden is behind by more than six points in the Great Lakes battleground states in the next round of polling or he does public event or interview without a prompter and is Atlanta-like. Keep watching for more talk about Biden quitting AFTER the convention.
To be continued….
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