The Harris-Walz Campaign team’s recent appearance on ‘Pod Save America’ shows how operatives who have spent their entire careers cycling through campaigns, corporate boardrooms, and consulting firms produced a campaign that failed to inspire or connect with voters.

From the Article:

For weeks following Joe Biden’s disastrous performance, his campaign publicly maintained the illusion that he was still well-positioned to defeat Donald Trump. Privately, they knew otherwise. As Pod Save America co-host Jon Favreau revealed days after the election:

After the debate, the Biden people told us that the polls were fine, and Biden was still the strongest candidate. They were privately telling reporters, at the time, that Kamala Harris couldn’t win. […] Then we find out, when the Biden campaign becomes the Harris campaign, that the Biden campaign’s own internal polling, at the time when they were telling us he was the strongest candidate, showed that Donald Trump was going to win 400 electoral votes.

The implications of this are staggering, and it should be treated as a massive scandal.

  • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
    17·
    3 days ago

    It’s hard to truly know what went on behind the scenes, but there was a large amount of common disdain for Biden staying in the race after “we beat Medicare” - anyone who hadn’t already been clued into his cognitive decline was suddenly confronted with that reality, and people knew he was a clear loser at that point.

    For Biden the floor only fell out beneath him after Nancy Pelosi and the donor class publicly announced they wanted Joe out NOW that the DNC/Biden camp realized the gig was up.

    • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      8·
      3 days ago

      anyone who hadn’t already been clued into his cognitive decline was suddenly confronted with that reality

      I remember when I said Biden was making more speeches like Trump, I was downvoted on Reddit for wanting someone younger than retirement age for president, even if I was going to vote for Biden.

      • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
        5·
        3 days ago

        Yeah. I understood the (good faith) arguments that the presidency is a high tempo, stressful, 24/7 job and that Biden was wiped out in interviews or public appearances - but that’s an excuse not an exoneration.

        If he couldn’t make it through the work each day without being cooked, every single day, then he should have stood aside for someone younger/sharper who could. I voted for Jimmy Carter 2.0 in 2020, not for Biden - the downslope was apparent even before then if you cared to look beyond the news headlines. He never should have ran again in 2024.