Democrats are hiding behind Covid 19
Don Surber
Thursday, September 24, 2020
donsurber.blogspot.com
Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times tried to assure readers that Biden not having campaign workers take the campaign door to door is a good thing. Her headline said, "The Biden Campaign Isn’t Door-Knocking. Don’t Freak Out."
But her column said the opposite.
Biden's campaign has tried to phone it in, calling infrequent Democrat voters. Apparently no one told Biden and his staff about caller ID.
If you don't get an answer on the phone, you could leave a message or make the next call.
If you don't get an answer walking door-to-door, you leave a door hanger on the doorknob.
Phone messages from strangers are a nuisance. Candidate flyers show at least someone tried. I always feel guilty about missing a candidate of either party. But then I am a frequent voter and they are not trying to reach me.
Goldberg talked to Adam Barbanel-Fried, director of Changing the Conversation Together, which contacts people to get them to vote for Biden.
She wrote, "Walking the streets, Barbanel-Fried sees little sign of Joe Biden’s campaign, and that terrifies him. Democrats have historically prided themselves on their so-called ground game, but because of Covid, the Biden campaign has very few rallies and no canvassing operation. Barbanel-Fried worries that Democrats 'are running basically a giant experiment,' trying to win a presidential race with almost no physical presence."
Democrats are hiding behind Covid 19, rather than admit they nominated the fifth-place loser in the 2008 Iowa Caucus and the Sorta Black Hillary who dropped out 2 months before the 2020 Iowa Caucus. There is too little enthusiasm for this ticket to attract people willing to walk door to door on behalf of Biden and Harris.
Goldberg said she was worried.
Then she added, "But after I called a few Democrats who know a lot about grass-roots organizing, I started to feel more sanguine. Some of the state leaders who helped rebuild the party after 2016 say Biden’s campaign is far more responsive than Clinton’s was. They’d like to be talking to voters in person but think what’s happening on the phone and online is enough, even if it’s not visible to outside observers."
Lavora Barnes, who tried to warn Hillary about Michigan in 2016 is now that state's Democrat chairwoman.
Barnes told her, "We feel very good about where we are. Yes, we would love a world where we could be out on the doors, unmasked, the way we would have been in 2016 had we had an operation like the one we have right now. But we can’t, because of this pandemic. So we are doing everything we can do and more."
But Charlotte Alter of Time magazine wrote, "Joe Biden is Running an Invisible Digital Campaign in All-Important Michigan. That's Making Some Democrats Nervous."
She pointed out that on top of a lack of door-to-door campaigning, there are no rallies.
She wrote, "All this means there are no young volunteers in Biden shirts pounding the pavement for their candidate, no clusters of posters marking the Biden field offices in various precincts, few bumper stickers on the highways. There are more Biden signs than Hillary Clinton had in 2016, locals say, but not enough to give the impression of an enthusiastic presidential campaign in a crucial swing state. When Biden visited Michigan last week, only a handful of supporters came to see him; his campaign didn’t disclose the location of the event in advance, even to the local Democratic county chair, because it didn’t want to attract a crowd that could spread Covid 19 or violate Michigan’s prohibition on gatherings of more than 100 people."
Ah yes, the Good Old Covid 19 excuse.
The reason there are no rallies is they would attract Trump supporters who would mock the pathetically small Biden campaign.
The reason for these visits is to get TV coverage. Biden believes that soft TV coverage and ads will keep him from blowing the election. Given that he is the worst presidential nominee that I can recall, that makes sense.
Atler reported, "In short, in one of the most important swing states in the country, Biden’s campaign is all but invisible to the naked eye. His lack of a physical footprint is all the more striking because Trump flags festoon everything from pickup trucks to massive airplane parts being transported down the highway. Roughly 30 Trump supporters gathered to protest outside the Biden event last week, waving their flags and cheering as passing cars honked. (Roughly eight Biden supporters showed up.) After driving around some of the state’s swing districts for the past week, talking to dozens of voters, the only reason you’d think Biden was up in Michigan is because the polls have consistently said so.
"Trying to evaluate the strength of the Biden campaign in Michigan is like trying to determine whether the Emperor has no clothes or is actually wearing an elaborate invisible suit. The Biden campaign says it’s swarming the state; you just can’t see it."
Spoiler alert: the emperor is naked.
And the media is beginning to notice. Goldberg ended her column, "It’s hard to trust what you can’t see. But in the end there may be no way to run a campaign in 2020 that’s not a giant experiment."
Republicans are not experimenting. They are campaigning, knocking on doors, holding rallies, and having a jolly good time. |
