The massive risk Joe Biden has to take to beat Donald Trump

Time to gamble.

(Joe Biden)

Two things are are absolutely true about Joe Biden’s presidential campaign to date:

1. His advisers — led by his wife, Jill Biden, have actively worked to limit his exposure to the public, fearing a fall or verbal slip that would reveal his age (and affirm voters’ concerns about it).

2. This has to change if Biden wants to beat Donald Trump in November.

Let’s deal with the first thing, um, first.

It is beyond dispute that this White House believes — or, at least, has believed to this point — that the best way to combat concerns with Biden’s age (he’s 81) and overall competence is to, largely, shield him from the public eye.

It’s not immediately clear to me when this decision was made — although I suspect the fall Biden had at an Air Force Academy commencement speech last summer (and the resultant press coverage) played a major role.

The thinking, my guess, went like this: We cannot have another incident like this. We cannot have him look old or infirm. And the best way to do that is to drastically limit how much time he spends in the public eye.

Which they have done — assiduously. The best, most recent example is Biden turning down the traditional presidential Super Bowl interview at this year’s game.

Biden’s team insisted that the decision was part of a broader strategy not to overwhelm people with politics on a day reserved for sports (and eating).

“We hope viewers enjoy watching what they tuned in for — the game,” said spokesman Ben LaBolt.

That explanation is, to put a fine point on it, bullshit. You do NOT willingly pass up the opportunity to talk to 100+ million people ever but especially when you are running for reelection.

“That’s kind of a sign that the staff or yourself doesn't have much confidence in you,” said longtime Democratic strategist James Carville. “There's no other way to read this.”

Correct.

And, it’s not just the Super Bowl.

Biden is doing FAR fewer news conferences than his predecessors too. This, from The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson, is instructive:

Again, this is by DESIGN. The belief within the White House appears to be that the negative attention Biden receives for dodging the press is far better than the storylines that would be launched (or reinforced) if he did press availabilities and screwed up.

Which, I get! In fact, Biden’s decision to hold a press conference last Thursday — in the wake of special counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s handling of classified documents (and memory issues) — was not a good one.

Biden was angry and combative — seemingly unaware (still!) that concerns about his age are a real thing in the electorate and not a media creation. Mixing up the presidents of Egypt and Mexico was the cherry on top.

But, here’s the thing — and this gets me to my second point — hiding or shielding Biden isn’t, hasn’t and won’t work.

In a new NBC poll, three quarters of respondents say they have concerns about Biden’s mental and physical health. More than 8 in 10(!) independents express those concerns and a majority of Democrats (54%) do too.

This poll is the rule, not the exception. Over and over again in the last two years, voters have told pollsters that they have major worries about Biden’s age and his ability to do the job.

This is not going away. Which means that Biden and his team have to confront it head on.

Last fall, Joel Benenson, the lead pollster for Barack Obama’s presidential bids and one of the smartest people I know in politics, was already counseling the Biden team to stop hiding the ball on the president’s age. Wrote Benenson in a New York Times op-ed:

The fact is, he’s old. A failure to confront the issue risks reinforcing that impression rather than overcoming it. Americans will be watching him closely in big moments, like his trip to Israel this week to deal with one of the most significant crises of his presidency. The Biden team needs to get the president out in front of the public more, finding opportunities for him to talk about age with a directness and confidence that convinces people it isn’t the core issue. Talk about it now so you aren’t talking about it next summer, then use the fall debates in 2024 to deliver a Reaganesque line that puts the topic to bed.

Yup. That’s right.

Times columnist Maureen Dowd, I thought, also put it well over the weekend, writing:

Biden is not just in a bubble — he’s in bubble wrap. Cosseting and closeting Uncle Joe all the way to the end — eschewing town halls and the Super Bowl interview — are just not going to work. Going on defense, when Trump is on offense, is not going to work. Counting on Trump’s vileness to secure the win, as Hillary did, is not going to work.

Now, make no mistake: Adopting this strategy is a CLEAR risk for Biden and his chances of winning.

The fact is that he is old. He shuffles. He speaks, at times, haltingly. The more he appears in public, the more obvious that becomes.

And, of course, exposing Biden to the public more means that the chances that he commits a verbal gaffe (or lots of verbal gaffes) or even falls over again is higher. It’s a tight rope walk for sure.

But, it’s my belief that voters already KNOW Biden is old. (Polls keep telling us that.). What Biden needs to do is show and prove that while he is, at 81, the oldest person to ever hold the office, he is not — as Donald Trump and Republicans like to suggest — infirm.

The ONLY way Biden can do that is to get out his bubble (to borrow MoDo’s word). He has to start campaigning more actively. He has to engage with the press more. He has to, as Derek Thompson notes above, RUN for the office he wants.

Successful politicians deal with the world as it is, not as they would wish it to be. I know that Biden and his team believe the media is making far too much of his age (and not talking enough about the age of Trump, who is just four years younger.)

But, the reality is that large majorities of Americans have regularly expressed concern about Biden’s age since it became clear he would run for a 2nd term in 2024. Whether that is a media creation or not (it isn’t), that is the reality of this election.

To win, Biden can’t simply say that the other guy is Trump (and point to his various indictments and charges). He has to make an affirmative and persuasive case to voters that he is able to do the job. Absent that case, voters have made clear that they don’t believe he is. And that they may be willing to turn to a man who tried to overturn democracy just four years ago.

Those are the facts — whether Biden and his inner circle want to acknowledge them or not.

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