The 2024 Democratic Campaign for the White House is back in the news. Oh joy.
David Plouffe has written a self-serving book to justify why his assistance to Vice President Kamala Harris' bid for the White House failed. Anticipating the release of the book, President Biden blamed sexism on Harris' loss, implying that she never really had a chance and that he would have won had he just stayed in the race.
Here's the thing everyone needs to understand about all of this: you shouldn't care, nor should you pay attention to any of this and you shouldn't buy Plouffe's book.
Why? Because the point of looking back at a race is to see what went wrong (or right) so future runs for office can learn from them. What is there to learn from President Biden's decision to stay in too long and then to bow out too late going forward for either party? The incumbent was the oldest incumbent in history and his challenger was the oldest challenger in history. Neither man will be running in 2028 and there will be no incumbent in the White House, unless the 47th Administration doesn't last until 2028, for one reason or another.
Yet, initially President Biden's self serving defensive, wrong headed comments (I disagree with the linked author's analysis of Biden's chances, I totally agree with everything else the author says) made headlines and trended near the top of stories until the early reviews of Plouffe's book came out and took over the top trending stories in several media outfits.
Both men, David Plouffe and President Biden, are trying to cover their asses and the debate about what happened is not helpful going forward. Why do we need to watch a couple of dudes cover their asses? There are so many other things we can do.
Granted, it is a distraction from other distressing things, but I'd suggest it isn't a healthy distraction, unless you enjoy watching men cover their asses and point fingers at everyone but themselves in a pointless display of ego. And, of course, watching the Democrats rip each other a part instead of, you know, doing their jobs.
Besides, they're both wrong. A rabid squirrel in a suit should have beaten the Republican candidate, and if it weren't for massive voter suppression and illegal assists from hostile foreign countries, likely would have.
That's not to say that millions didn't vote for the 45th President, that racism and sexism didn't play a huge role (not to mention transphobia--I mean, can we please just talk about the transphobia once in a while?), or that disillusioned younger voters staying home didn't leave a mark.
The point is, Harris didn't lose; voter suppression and foreign propaganda won. Yes, that contradicts the Rolling Stone piece I just linked to, and yes, generally, I love Rolling Stone's work. If you take away the rampant voter suppression and the foreign agents prowling social media trying to tip the scale towards chaos (in this case the Republicans), not as many Democrats stay home--Harris wins.
The general consensus among self flagellating Democrats is that by waiting to drop out until the Summer of 2024 Biden doomed Harris' chances. This implies that at some point in early 2024 or maybe late 2023, if Biden had just done the right thing and dropped out everything would be different today. While this has truth to it, the reality is, by the time January of 2023 rolled around and President Biden was still the presumptive nominee, that ship had already sailed.
Lee Drutman
Despite all of the hand wringing about how incumbency no longer matters, the stark reality is incumbency does still matter, even if the degree to which it matters is in flux. Lee Drutman, in the article posted above, talks about the conventional wisdom of incumbent advantages and how that played out in 20th Century American politics:
The long-standing reasons political scientists gave for a presidential incumbency advantage included: 1) political inertia and status quo bias (most people will support an incumbent they voted for the last time); 2) experience campaigning; 3) the power to influence events (such as well-timed economic stimulus); 4) the stature of being a proven leader; 5) the ability to command media attention in a “constant campaign” environment; and 6) a united party with no bruising primary challenges.
These reasons are a reasonably solid list that Drutman dismisses as from a bygone era, "Today, these advantages seem less clear. Instead, growing disadvantages have supplanted them: Unrelenting media scrutiny; a bruising political environment; pervasive anti-politician bias; and above all, a spiraling hyper-partisan doom loop of animosity and demonization that imposes a harsh starting ceiling on any president’s approval."
While there is truth to what Drutman argues, Drutman sets this up as a zero sum game: incumbency either matters or it doesn't. The reasoning is, if incumbency matters less than it used to, or in a different way than it used to, then it no longer matters at all. This overly simplistic thinking makes for an interesting and easy to understand read that meets the popular thinking today.
As a historian, I must pull out my, "Well, it's complicated," card. First, I wish I could inspect that list based on the source that Drutman supplies for his list, but the link goes to a book so we're forced to take his word that the list is complete or to spend hours reading a book. I'll note that I suspect the book actually mentions the massive fundraising and organizing advantages an incumbent enjoys as well as these six items.
If the book doesn't mention fundraising and organizing advantages, then its not worth the paper it is printed on.
There are tunnels under Washington DC (no conspiracy theory, they're there, they have trains running from the Capitol to these buildings--besides, there's an entire mall under the National Mall) that connect Senators and Representatives to their official offices.
But these aren't the only buildings where these folks have offices, they also have offices for their party. Why? To fundraise.
I was told in 2016 in Indiana that the average Indiana House member, that is, the people working in Indianapolis, not Washington DC, needed to spend more than 20% of their day making fundraising calls. That's for incumbents at the state level. For a national office its closer to 50% of the day that is dedicated to fundraising. Both parties do this and as the party provides contact lists, party campaign offices both in Washington DC and in almost every county of the home state, the elected officials share a percentage of their fundraising haul with their party.
This is the reason why Bernie Sanders isn't a Democrat. He doesn't want to share his fundraising haul. Don't bother telling me there is some higher purpose to his refusal to be a Democrat. If there was, he would have run as an Independent for the White House.
"Philip, the Two Party System is rigged against independents." Indeed. How exactly is that? Y'all know that the two party system is an organic thing brought about by the winner takes all American electoral system (which Drutman is actually trying to take down in his piece), not a legal thing, right? The Democrats share their haul with one another--that's exactly how they stay one of the two major parties. Bernie doesn't want to share. Period.
Anyway...
Now, you're sitting at home reading this and your phone rings. It is Senator XYZ from your state calling to ask you for money. While you're talking to your Senator, Jane Q. Challenger calls you too, forcing you to put the sitting US Senator on hold. While you've got Senator XYZ on hold and you're talking to Jane Q. Challenger, you see you've got an email from Challenger Johns, another candidate to displace your sitting Senator.
Let's say you hate Senator XYZ with every fiber of your being. Let's say you love Senator XYZ. Let's say you're indifferent. In each scenario, you're probably going to tell your friends and family, whoever will listen that a sitting US Senator called you. Likewise, you're much less likely to mention that Jane Q. Challenger or Challenger Johns called. That's an advantage of incumbency.
Drutman talked about it by acknowledging name recognition, but that really doesn't drill down deep enough to talk about why it matters.
And that's just the phone call. The reality is, Senator XYZ has access to many more resources than the challengers. I've seen the national party databases for one of the parties, it has your address, your registration, your past registration status, what elections you've voted in and how much you've donated and to whom. I saw that as the lowest ranking person imaginable. Now, think about what a US Senator can access. Now think about what a US President can access.
And I'm not talking about doing this from the Oval Office, I saying this is what they have in their party fundraising building.
"Yeah, but Kamala Harris was the Vice President, she had access to all of that too," you say.
Faris Tanyos News Editor
True, but she also didn't know she was running for President until the same day you and me found out. I'm sure she had plans in the works for that contingency, but having plans and having been executing those plans for several years are two entirely different things.
She had been making fundraising calls as the person who "doesn't have a real job anyway," as Hamilton (the musical character, not the real person) said. And, she hadn't been the person who the entire party listened to whenever she picked up the phone as a campaigner--that would be President Joe Biden.
This would be the unity of party that Drutman mentions and says no longer really exists, suggesting this day in age created that, not the fact that there was a substantial portion of the Democratic Party that never really liked Biden in the first place (including me, by the way). To suggest that this is a new phenomena completely ignores the reality that intraparty animosity towards Jimmy Carter was nearly as high in 1980 and likely did impact his ability to fend off Ronald Reagan.
It's hard to remember now, but Reagan didn't beat Carter so much as Carter lost the race because he wasn't liked. Exit polls are conclusive on this point--Americans didn't really like or trust Reagan, they just were mad at Carter. One reason he wasn't liked? Robert F. Kennedy Junior's uncle, Ted Kennedy, tried to primary him (there were many other reasons, LOL, but those reasons are pretty much the ones mentioned in Drutman's list).
The podcast episode below goes into the role Ted Kennedy played in this.
As for the organizing element: Senator Barak Obama started his successful 2008 Presidential run in 2006, by training thousands of neighborhood level organizers to knock on doors. Thousands. Two years before the election. I know I ragged on Drutman for pointing to a book, but I'm going to a book, if you're interested in understanding Obama's ground breaking campaign you should read Groundbreakers by Liz McKenna. The thousands trained in 2006 led to 2.2 million volunteers shaking the Earth with their canvassing in 2008 and 2012.
citation
You know who absolutely has Groundbreakers on his nightstand? David Plouffe, the guy I mentioned in the first sentence who has his own book now that I claim is a cover-your-ass book. You know know why I know he's got Groundbreakers right there? Because it's about his campaign to elect Barak Obama. So, while he blames President Biden for not dropping out earlier in 2024, he knows damn well that President Biden dropping out in 2023 wouldn't have given Harris enough time. Plouffe and President Obama gathered 2.2 million volunteers over the course of two years, while Senator Obama wasn't running a country or first in line to the Presidency.
And, the reality is, the 2024 election in January of 2024 was essentially between two incumbents. Once President Biden dropped out, it became a race of an incumbent versus a challenger and the incumbent was the opposition party at that point.
Do I think President Biden should not have dropped out? When I found out that President Biden was dropping out I nearly threw up and I cried. I knew Harris would lose at that point. I do not think he should have dropped out in 2024.
I do think that incumbent President Joe Biden would have likely beaten his challenger. That's a hunch, but I do think he would have performed better than anyone handed the reigns that late.
Before you give the standard line about the debate "debacle" do me a favor and watch half an hour of the debate. No, not the first half an hour. The last half an hour. If you were only watching the last half of the debate, or even the last half an hour, you'd think that it was President Biden who wiped the floor with a wildly disconnected old man. The first half an hour of the debate was bad. Very bad. A disaster. But the hyper focus on it, I would argue, was based on as much the Ted Kennedy syndrome– people wanting a different candidate under any circumstances– rather than President Biden's age. I honestly believe Biden could have recovered.
Yes, even at the end of the debate, Biden sounded, well, sick. You can say, "Oh, he was just old." Well, he is old, but he was also sick and sick people tend to sound...sick. The podcast towards the middle of this post opens with Lilliana Mason, who graduated with her BA in 2000, so is probably 47, noting that her allergies are driving her nuts and she feels terrible. She almost sounds like Biden did in the debate. Is that because she's 47? Probably not. It's probably because she was sick from allergies.
Yes, the debate was a big disaster for President Biden, but the people pouring the fuel on the conflagration were literally the same people who "swift boated" John Kerry, including Chris LaCivita. Oh, and Ezra Klein, desperate to sound like he wasn't a liberal and political superstar analyst George Clooney.
Wait, George Clooney is an actor with a big mouth, not a politico of any sort. Why did anyone listen to George Clooney about this?
Before I conclude, a word about Lee Drutman and why he may have left out some important components of incumbency: Lee Drutman's entire jam is building a new political system that is multiparty. He hates the two party system (for good reason) but the real purpose of his arguing incumbency is dead is likely because he was trying to show that his multiparty system would be better.
That said, I also honestly believe that if President Joe Biden really had holding on to the White House as his top priority, he would have resigned in 2022 after the November election. At the very minimum he would have dropped out of the 2024 race at that point. This would have given Vice President Kamala Harris and incumbent's advantage that would almost certainly have been enough.
So, no President Biden, sexism didn't cost Vice President Harris the White House, you did. But you probably stayed in too long because, unlike hacks like Ezra Klein, people trying to Green Lantern a rebuild our entire political system like Lee Drutman, and Hollywood actors who think just because they don't have to buy a beer in any town their political opinion is worth a used pint of Budweiser, you understood that incumbency matters.
As for David Plouffe, what are you doing, man? Do you need the money, is that why you're trying to restart a fire that can only hurt your party? Are you so insecure you think that the guy who helped an unknown, junior, one term Senator from Illinois win the White House is unemployable because he couldn't do the impossible and win a 100 day campaign for the White House?
Give me a break and get over yourself.