I have now been sent the Ezra Klein podcast “Democrats Have a Better Option Than Joe Biden” twice and am wasting time calming down nervous friends and family who are in the throes of NYT concern trolling. I thought I would share some thoughts for anyone’s else who is dealing with this new pointless exercise.
Before I get started, anyone else sick of the NYT? :) I swear, after the election, I think we should band together and create a subscribers union and force the paper to stop this concern trolling and instead focus on good journalism. They are, after, completely dependent on the 10 million progressive subscribers they seem to view with disdain. After we get Joe Biden re-elected, we gotta get Joseph Kahn and the rest of the terrible, self serving, editorial staff out.
Ok, some suggested points to use in response:
1 . Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer are polling WORSE than Biden against Trump. There is no magic alternative. See: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/glutton-for-punishment-lets-look-at-some-poll-numbers
2. The politics of Biden stepping down in the summer would be a huge gift to Trump and the GOP. Also, they would spend the next 3 months swiftboating whoever is nominated. See: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/2/18/2224263/-What-Happens-if-the-Dems-Replace-Biden?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
3. We lose the value of the incumbency, and Biden’s record, in a booming economy if he steps down (Whitmer, Newsom can’t claim this).
4. The entire premise is flawed and is based on assuming the current polls are predicative. Ezra claims the polls are predictive for November but not for the special elections. Huh? Think about it, the polling “miss” he and Cohn claim around the specials -undercounting college educated turnout - is very damning for the predictive power of polling. College educated voters are the EASIEST voters to id and poll. And, the pollsters can’t seem to poll them right. So, clearly, the polls will be many time WORSE at finding and polling the infrequent voters (who are much, much harder to find and model). This means that - our wins and the failure of the polls to catch them - shows that the current polls are not predictive and there are very big issues (and we need to look at other data). And, more to this point, is the 11 point miss by pollsters on Trump’s actual numbers in NH (Trump was up by 23 and he won by 11 points). The polls are useful but not predictive (and certainly not a reason to take this huge, and very unwise, risk).
5. Finally, and the lead, Joe Biden is a good President (as Klein himself admits) and Trump is an incredibly flawed candidate who just said he backs a national abortion ban, was fined nearly $400 million for financial fraud (and had been deemed a rapist by a jury). We are going to win this thing by a lot. Time to, as Simon Rosenberg says, worry less and work more.
FWIW.