Will Joe Biden be a Truman, a McGovern, or a Nixon?
As the Republican convention rolled out in Milwaukee, the now-MAGA GOP was presenting a united front in its battle to defeat President Joe Biden. But the perhaps biggest drama was over at the Democratic Party where Biden was under increasing pressure to pull out of his presidential re-election campaign after his disastrous televised debate with […]
The post Will Joe Biden be a Truman, a McGovern, or a Nixon? appeared first on The Moderate Voice.
As the Republican convention rolled out in Milwaukee, the now-MAGA GOP was presenting a united front in its battle to defeat President Joe Biden. But the perhaps biggest drama was over at the Democratic Party where Biden was under increasing pressure to pull out of his presidential re-election campaign after his disastrous televised debate with Trump and tepid polling numbers.
Meanwhile, a new dramatic strand has been added: Biden has Covid.
The drama around Biden’s candidacy has been moving at break-new speed. Top Democrats have been warning Biden that not only will he likely lose to Trump but he could decimate the party’s hopes for the House and Senate. Biden had an “intense” call with some House Democrats who want him to exit the race. The “dump Biden” sentiment is seemingly snowballing among Democrats: a new poll finds 65% of Democrats want him to withdraw from the race.
So the question becomes: in what many consider an existential election for the survival of American democracy, will Biden prove to be a Harry Truman, a George McGovern or a Richard Nixon?
It was the stuff of legend.
Everyone counted President Franklin Roosevelt’s Vice President and successor out when he ran for election in 1948 against purported shoo-in Republican New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey. His campaign manager urged him to talk personally to the American people, and he did just that: often not using notes as he embarked upon a 21,928-mile train “whistle stop” campaign across the country.’
Truman shocked everyone and won. Trump gleefully held up a copy of the Chicago Tribune saying Dewey won. He also brutally imitated NBC chief newsman H.V. Kaletnborn:
Can Biden pull a Truman? Can he win and also help his party win? Clearly there are many things that aren’t the same. Truman was 64 when he won that campaign. Even in his 80s he was still doing his famous power walks where reporters had to struggle to keep up. He had no issues with losing his train of thought. No senior moments as President. He spoke with a strong voice until the day he died.
If Biden wins (and his party does well) he’ll be a 21st century Truman.
If not, history will likely portray him as a vain man unwilling to see the handwriting on the wall and damaging his party (and democracy).
The South Dakota historian, and anti-Vietnam War senator had a great grass-roots campaign. the McGovern–Shriver ticket lost 61 percent to 37 percent to Nixon – at the time, the second biggest landslide in American history. McGovern won 17 electoral votes to Nixon’s 520. It took years for the Democrats to work their way out of the political wilderness and regain power with a notably more centrist Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton.
McGovern will forever be the politician who lost to Nixon by a huge landslide. What happened?
Many factors. 1) Nixon had a strong of foreign policy successes and limited his campaigning. 2) The Democrats seemed too left-wing to many Americans who were sharply divided during the Vietnam War amid accentuated generational cultural differences. 3)Democrats seemed inept, particularly after McGovern had to dump his Vice Presidential pick Missouri Senator Thomas Eagleton after it came out that Eagleton had gotten electroshock treatments during the 1960s for depression and nervous exhaustion. McGovern first said he was behind Eagleton “1000 percent” – a percentage that evaporated as the controversy grew. Towards the end of the campaign a resigned-to-defeat McGovern told a heckler: “Kiss my ass.”
If Biden sticks to his plan to run despite what Democratic Party leaders and some polls say, will he prove to be another McGovern? Will the Democrats lose the Presidency, lose the Senate and lose the House? And will it take the Democrats years to work themselves out of the political wilderness – this time facing new obstacles to regain power from an all-powerful authoritarian MAGA Republican Party?
The 37th President of the United States had many accomplishments but will forever go down in history for his resignation in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Nixon was holding steady until top Republicans leaders went to the White House to tell him it was his time to go and if he didn’t he’d be impeached (and probably removed).
Now top Democrats are going to see Joe Biden, urging him to step aside. Lower level Democrats have reportedly told Biden he needs to end his campaign and Biden has reportedly reacted with anger.
So far Biden says he’s firmly committed to running even as he has been told that donors’ cash is drying up.
Will Biden stick it out?
Will he become a 21st century Harry Truman?
Or a 21st century McGovern?
Or a 21st century Nixon who bows to the wishes of his party leaders and many members of his party?
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