Top Democrats and fundraisers are continuing to reach out to those who are being considered as potential substitute presidential candidates, and these conversations are taking place in hushed tones on the periphery of gatherings, over text messages and emails, and in discreet phone calls.
According to AWN’s sources, in private conversations between numerous participants, Vice President Joe Biden has been urged to prepare for the possibility that he will not be seeking reelection.
They worry that time is running out and that he doesn’t truly care about the campaign because of his lack of more vigorous involvement.
It’s a feeling that keeps coming back, even if the president’s closest advisors and some of the few staffers hired for his reelection campaign think it’s ridiculous. Everyone assumes he is fleeing, they say. Naturally, they’re giving the preparations their whole attention. And of course, the so-called party elders and commentators who still don’t take him seriously have written them off again, what with the Biden chip always being on their shoulder.
Among the people quietly encouraging Biden’s staff to ramp up gradually is Jim Messina, who managed former president Barack Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012. “They are so underestimated, and they keep getting it right,” Messina said.
The declaration of money for the first few months of his campaign – which must be submitted by Saturday – will serve as the latest Rorschach test for the Democrats’ anxiety, grievances, and apocalyptic thinking that have often defined them during the Biden years.
Nearly two dozen current Biden aides, top Democratic operatives, donors, and alums of other recent campaigns described their frustration and worry to AWN over the slow pace of building out a campaign structure and how it will be compared to the $86 million Barack Obama raised in the first few months after announcing his own reelection campaign in 2011.
Multiple large donors are not locking in, and this much is obviously apparent. Sometimes only a few thousand dollars are raised through grassroots email campaigns.
The naysayers contend that voters will see that Biden’s age is a legitimate concern if he doesn’t spend every waking moment of every waking hour of every waking hour of every waking hour of every waking hour on the campaign trail. Or that the president and his advisors aren’t taking the possibility of losing to Donald Trump or another Republican seriously, and are instead preparing for a repeat of Election Night, 2016.
If Trump wins in November, and everyone wonders how that could have happened, one question that will be asked is, “What was the Biden campaign doing in the summer of 2023?” remarked a top member of Biden’s 2020 campaign team.
Longtime Democratic fundraiser remarked, “I don’t know which is harder: getting people to focus on the campaign, or getting people excited about it,” on condition of anonymity to avoid offending a sensitive White House.
People close to Biden are more worried about losing to Obama’s former vice president than they let on, as they believe Trump’s extended lead in the GOP primary polls sets up a stark contrast that will be advantageous for the president. His campaign strategy is kept secret and is still largely managed from the West Wing, to the point that the president has requested meetings with the candidates for top positions. Advisors for Biden have assured supporters that they are adopting a strict, deliberate strategy that takes into account the weaknesses of their candidate, the virtues of his record, and the unique circumstances of the United States in the year 2024.
They worry that putting the president on the campaign trail too soon will waste millions of dollars and make him look less like the moderate he wants to be in contrast to the extreme Republicans. The current strategy of Biden and his Cabinet holding events across the country at taxpayer expense to discuss infrastructure and “Bidenomics” — an attempt to proactively tackle the complaints about the economy that remain a top political concern internally — would be complicated.
Building up fundraising is crucial, according to David Axelrod, a senior political commentator for AWN and one of Obama’s chief strategists in 2008 and 2012. Voters may look to whoever wins the Republican nomination as a new option if the economy suffers or some other crisis occurs.
Although “Trump is fully known,” Axelrod told AWN, “you still want to dictate the terms of the debate,” adding that doing so next spring would need “having the resources to do so.”
The Biden campaign has declared a “strong start.”
Campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said, “Democrats are unified around his historically successful agenda,” and he pointed to the early endorsements the campaign has received as evidence. Contrast that with the MAGA Republican presidential candidates, who are at one other’s throats for a programme that has been roundly rejected by Americans. The difference is clear as day.
