Nate Silver is right
About Joe Biden, that is.
I make it a habit to read people smarter than me who think and write about politics. Nate Silver is one of those people.
Which brings me to something he wrote on his (terrific!) Substack on Monday about President Joe Biden and the age question.
Nate was reacting to a piece by Politico’s Jonathan Martin headlined “Here’s How Joe Biden Can Turn It Around.” And to this paragraph in the piece in particular (bolding is mine):
That’s in part for reasons Biden refuses to accept: his capacity to do the job. The oldest president in history when he first took the oath, Biden will not be able to govern and campaign in the manner of previous incumbents. He simply does not have the capacity to do it, and his staff doesn’t trust him to even try, as they make clear by blocking him from the press. Biden’s bid will give new meaning to a Rose Garden campaign, and it requires accommodation to that unavoidable fact of life.
To which Nate wrote this: “It would be extremely foolish to nominate an 80-year-old man who is not up to the rigors of a modern presidential campaign — even more foolish than replacing him, which just to be clear is also an extremely foolish thing to do.”
He took some amount of shit for this view. (Nate has become a lightning rod for criticism, particularly from Democrats, over the last few years.)
But, I think he’s — in the main — right.
The way I have taken to thinking about Biden running for president in 2024 is this: Democrats are making a MASSIVE gamble, with the direction of the country on the line.
Consider the following two FACTS:
Joe Biden is 80 years old, the oldest person ever to seek a second term
A majority of the country — including close to a majority of Democrats — express deep concerns about Biden’s age and what it means for his ability to do the job he is running for.
Then remember this: The 2020 campaign was unlike any in modern history. Due to Covid, the campaign effectively shut down in early March. It never, really, resumed. Large events were out. Even gatherings with a handful of people were seen as a health risk.
As the Times wrote in April 2020 of the Biden campaign:
With the coronavirus outbreak freezing the country’s public life, Mr. Biden has been forced to adapt to a cloistered mode of campaigning never before seen in modern American politics. He was unable to embark on a victory tour after the Democratic primaries or hold unity rallies with onetime rivals like Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Instead, the former vice president is in a distinctive kind of lockdown, walled off from voters, separated from his top strategists and yet leading in the polls.
The caricature pushed by Republicans that Biden was campaigning from his basement was never entirely accurate, however. In the general election, Biden campaigned — sort of. He did outside rallies, heeding the health warnings at the time.
But there is no question that he campaigned less than Trump (who largely ignored health warnings) and that the people around him were very cognizant of keeping him healthy. (Biden eventually got Covid in the summer of 2022.)
In short: 2020 was NOT a normal campaign. Which was not Biden’s fault! But, he clearly benefited from the fact that the expectations for what a candidate could and would do were vastly different than any other modern campaign.
What do we know about Biden’s aging process in the intervening three years? Again, the Times comes in handy.
But [aides] acknowledged Mr. Biden looks older than just a few years ago, a political liability that cannot be solved by traditional White House stratagems like staff shake-ups or new communications plans. His energy level, while impressive for a man of his age, is not what it was, and some aides quietly watch out for him. He often shuffles when he walks, and aides worry he will trip on a wire. He stumbles over words during public events, and they hold their breath to see if he makes it to the end without a gaffe.
And this is from June of this year:
The portrait that emerges from months of interviews with dozens of current and former officials and others who have spent time with him lies somewhere between the partisan cartoon of an addled and easily manipulated fogy promoted by Republicans and the image spread by his staff of a president in aviator shades commanding the world stage and governing with vigor.
It is one of a man who has slowed with age in ways that are more pronounced than just the graying hair common to most recent presidents during their time in office. Mr. Biden sometimes mangles his words and looks older than he used to because of his stiff gait and thinning voice.
There is NO question — based solely on the eye test — that Biden has slowed measurably over the past three years in office. (The presidency — its pressures and stresses — age anyone who holds the office.)
And there is also NO question that Biden’s aides are deeply concerned about the age issue and, as a result, have largely shielded the president from the press.
As the Washington Post noted in a story last month:
In his first two-and-a-half years as president, Biden has held fewer news conferences than his predecessors. He has given fewer interviews to major news organizations, despite his promise to restore traditional press relations after the Trump era.
In case you need a visualization of those numbers, Nate helpfully provides one:
Now, as the Biden defenders will note, talking to the media is not the sole measure of a president’s spryness (for lack of a better word) in office. And Nate notes that Biden’s foreign travel is generally commensurate with his predecessors in office to this point in his presidency.
Which, fair enough!
To be clear: What I am arguing is NOT that Joe Biden is too old to be president. Instead I am simply saying that by insisting that he is in fact perfectly capable of being president at his age — despite widespread doubts in the electorate — his allies and defenders are taking a MAJOR gamble.
Why? Because Biden will be expected to campaign far more than he did in 2020. That means considerable travel, late nights, multiple events in a single day (especially in the final months of the race.)
There is absolutely no way of knowing if Biden can hold up under that sort of rigorous schedule. We’ve never had a president this old! We are through the looking glass here, people!
The stakes couldn’t be higher either. Because Donald Trump is a) the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination and b) laying out a series of policy proposals and actions he will take if elected that could fundamentally reshape the country.
Imagine a Biden stumble on the campaign trail ala his fall (over a sandbag) at the Air Force Academy over the summer. Or a senior moment where he loses his train of thought or, even worse, freezes up like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has done twice this year.
(Sidebar: Yes, of course, any of us at any age could have a health episode. But it is WAY more likely to happen to an 80 year old man than someone twenty or thirty years younger.)
Given the concerns about Biden’s age already streaming through the electorate, such an incident would have a potentially catastrophic impact on the arc of the race — a race, I would note, where Biden is running behind Trump as of today.
I personally think — and have said and written — that, at this point, Biden is the best candidate that Democrats can field against Trump. I think replacing him now would reek of panic. And there’s no guarantee that whichever Democrat emerged as the nominee wouldn’t be weaker in a general election matchup against Trump.
But, none of that changes the fact that in nominating Biden (and beating back even whispers that it might be smart to think about replacing him on the ballot earlier this year) Democrats have gambled in a huge way.
It may be that Biden makes it through the entire campaign without a hitch — and beats Trump. I could absolutely see that happening.
But if there is a slip or fall or gaffe or freeze up, I think Democrats will look back and wonder why they were so sanguine about the prospect of handing the nomination over to Biden without a fight.
All this angst whipped up in the press, and no one angsts in any real way over the 77 year old four time indicted 91 counts facing disgraced former president, who is both a mere three years younger and in poorer health. But do go on.
Yes, Biden is old. Biden is also wise, and is presiding over the most robust economy in the world. He’s the most progressive president since FDR. Would that any of the press would give him his due credit. It’s telling that people’s opinions of him immediately and positively shift when informed of his actual accomplishments.
Please stop writing in such a negative way about Biden. He would govern more ethically and effectively from a hospital bed than Trump is even capable of doing. Let’s focus on the positives and give the “average, normal” voter something to look forward to in 2024. Biden and the Democrats will win and Trump will fade into obscurity, remembered only for his lies and cheating. A fitting epitaph for such a despicable human being.