A. B. Stoddard: “A new standard-bearer is required to decisively beat Trump next year. It has nothing to do with the president’s record or Joe Biden the man. This is purely strategic, and solely about his chance of winning, as well as Kamala Harris’s. The vice president’s persistently low approval rating, part of the calculation for a second Biden campaign, is comparable to Trump’s when he was in office.”
“All of this may be unfair—successful first terms for incumbent presidents are usually rewarded by second terms, after all—but a determination made repeatedly by a majority of voters that Biden lacks the capacity to serve as commander in chief on account of his age isn’t going to fade away. If anything, the issue will get worse for the president as he continues to get older…”
“If Trump chooses Nikki Haley or Sen. Tim Scott to be his running mate, the race may not even be close. Throw in Cornel West’s third-party candidacy, a No Labels spoiler unity ticket—and perhaps an independent run from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., backed by Steve Bannon & Friends—and a second term of Trump starts to look like all but a sure thing.”
