The Permission Ramp Gets Sturdier

In Defying the Odds, we discuss the 2016 campaign. The 2019 update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms. The 2020 race, the subject of our next book, is well underway. 

  An unusual aspect of the campaign is the number of high-profile Republicans supporting Biden.


Camilo Montoya-Galvez at CBS:

Republican aides who worked in the George W. Bush administration and for the late Senator John McCain and Mitt Romney vouched their support for 2020 Democratic nominee Joe Biden on Thursday, joining other GOP officials in rejecting President Trump's reelection campaign on the final day of the Republican National Convention.

...

"Given the incumbent president's lack of competent leadership, his efforts to aggravate rather than bridge divisions among Americans, and his failure to uphold American values, we believe the election of former Vice President Biden is clearly in the national interest," more than 100 former McCain staffers wrote in a public letter.

Romney's former staffers were more forceful in their rebuke of Mr. Trump, saying that while some of them voted for him in 2016, they are all now worried about the GOP transforming into a "toxic personality cult" under the president's leadership. Romney himself has frequently crossed the White House since arriving in the Senate, and was the only GOP senator to vote to convict Mr. Trump in his impeachment trial.

"Since 2017, the results of that disastrous decision have been on full display for the world to see. Now, with a pandemic crippling our economy and strangling our national spirit, every corner of America is suffering at the hands of President Trump's erratic, inept, self-absorbed governing style," more than 30 former Romney aides wrote in their letter.

...
"Joe's kindness is sorely needed right now. He famously treats the train operator with the same dignity as his fellow senators. As former public servants, we believe that decency in government must not be allowed to die on the vine," 230 Bush alumni wrote in their letter. "We must take a stand and insist that it returns to the Office of the President."

Attacking a Hero, and Getting Away with It

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's character.   The update  -- just published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.

Lloyd Green at The Guardian writes about Trump's bizarre postmortem attacks on John McCain:

While Trump’s nonstop effort to mar the late senator’s memory should surprise no one, the response of McCain’s Republican Senate colleagues to Trump’s posthumous onslaught is both telling and disgraceful. The barons of the Senate live in fear of the president and his base. When Trump told Iowans in early 2016 that he could stand on New York’s Fifth Avenue “and shoot somebody” and still not lose voters, he knew of what he spoke.

Senator Lindsey Graham, McCain’s “best friend” and a naval reserve officer, is the most obvious case in point. Graham would only offer up tweeted mush in defense of his one-time “Amigo”: “As to @SenJohnMcCain and his devotion to his country: He stepped forward to risk his life for his country, served honorably under difficult circumstances, and was one of the most consequential senators in the history of the body.” We are comforted.

...
And yet politically, who can blame Graham for going full weasel?

The polls tell the story, namely that embrace of Trump is a surefire way to defuse a prospective GOP primary. To illustrate, in 2017 Graham had one of the highest disapproval ratings in his home state of any senator, 40%. By January 2019, Graham’s disapproval numbers had dropped to 32%.

Playing Trump’s hatchet man at the Kavanaugh confirmation clearly paid off for Graham, and with McCain lying soundly in the grave, their friendship could lie there too. Said differently, if Graham could stand idly by as Trump trashed McCain, it was a green light for others to do the same.

Robert Costa, Josh Dawsey and Seung Min Kim at WP:

By attacking McCain, Trump allies said Thursday, the president is stoking his supporters’ rawest emotions and suspicions about the GOP’s political elite.

“You’re talking about a group of people who have felt powerless and voiceless for many years until President Trump came along, and they’re going to be loyal to him. It’s part of the fabric of their life,” said Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R), who has run Trump-style insurgent campaigns in his state. “To those people, McCain was the embodiment of a lifetime career politician.”

Mike Shields, a Republican consultant who has worked with Trump’s political team, said Trump is tapping into how “a significant number of voters in this country have seen politicians that lie to them, make promises, are disingenuous, who are basically not themselves. They aren’t real. When the president does things like this, he is real. There’s a currency for that.”

And there is an audience. On social media, Fox News and other conservative-leaning platforms, Trump’s searing critiques of the late senator are acceptable to many rank-and-rile Republicans.

Trump v. Distinguished Attorney, a Deceased War Hero, and the Truth

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's character.   The update  -- just published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.

George Conway, often referred to as Mr. Kellyanne Conway by those who know him, is VERY jealous of his wife’s success & angry that I, with her help, didn’t give him the job he so desperately wanted. I barely know him but just take a look, a stone cold LOSER & husband from hell!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 20, 2019

Eliana Johnson and Daniel Lippman at Politico:

With a single insult-filled morning tweet, tapped out from the White House residence before 8 a.m., the president extended his dispute with Conway’s anti-Trump spouse, George, into a bewildering second day. By the afternoon, Trump had complemented it with new attacks on a dead man: the late Republican senator and war hero John McCain. Speaking in Ohio, Trump declared that he “never liked [McCain] much … [and] probably never will.”

From RealClearPolitics:

 At a speech Wednesday at a tank factory in Ohio, President Trump took a moment to talk about his feud with the late Sen. John McCain. 

"I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve. I don't care about this. I didn’t get thank you. That's ok. We sent him on the way, but I wasn't a fan of John McCain," Trump said. 

He also noted: "John McCain received the fake and phony dossier. You hear about the dossier? It was paid for by Crooked Hillary Clinton. And John McCain got it. And what did he do? He didn’t call me. He turned it over to the FBI hoping to put me in jeopardy."

 Linda Qiu at NYT:

Senator John McCain did obtain a copy of the so-called Steele Dossier, which outlined a range of often salacious but unproven misdeeds by President Trump and his associates — and he did turn it over to the F.B.I. — but this occurred after the 2016 presidential election. The information provided by Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the dossier, had already reached F.B.I. agents investigating Mr. Trump in September, and he met with agents in October.

...
Mr. Trump did authorize facets of Mr. McCain’s funeral arrangements, namely the use of military transportation, military pallbearers and band support. He also ordered the flag to be flown at half-staff at the White House and other public buildings — after pressure from his own staff, veterans groups and lawmakers.

But other elements of Mr. McCain’s funeral were not up to Mr. Trump. The senator was lain in the Capitol Rotunda, a decision approved by Congress, and his Washington memorial service took place at Washington National Cathedral.

Cohen: Trump Does Not Love Our Country

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's character.  The update  -- just published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.

Michael Cohen testimony to the House Oversight Committee:

The sad fact is that I never heard Mr. Trump say anything in private that led me to believe he loved our nation or wanted to make it better. In fact, he did the opposite.

When telling me in 2008 that he was cutting employees’ salaries in half – including mine – he showed me what he claimed was a $10 million IRS tax refund, and he said that he could not believe how stupid the government was for giving “someone like him” that much money back.

During the campaign, Mr. Trump said he did not consider Vietnam Veteran, and Prisoner of War, Senator John McCain to be “a hero” because he likes people who weren’t captured. At the same time, Mr. Trump tasked me to handle the negative press surrounding his medical deferment from the Vietnam draft.

Mr. Trump claimed it was because of a bone spur, but when I asked for medical records, he gave me none and said there was no surgery. He told me not to answer the specific questions by reporters but rather offer simply the fact that he received a medical deferment.

He finished the conversation with the following comment. “You think I’m stupid, I wasn’t going to Vietnam.” 

I find it ironic, President Trump, that you are in Vietnam right now.

The Pariah President

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's character. 

Noah Bierman at LAT:

In April, Trump was asked to stay away from the funeral of Barbara Bush, wife to one president and mother of another, leaving it to former Presidents Clinton and Obama to serve as national consolers to the Bush family. In December, he opted to skip the president's traditional attendance at the annual Kennedy Center Honors gala after several of the artists being feted threatened a boycott.

The British royal family dispensed with inviting foreign dignitaries to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding in May partly to avoid having to invite Trump, whom Markle had attacked as "divisive" and "misogynistic." Trump canceled the usual White House celebration for the NFL's Super Bowl champions when he learned most of the Philadelphia Eagles players were unwilling to attend. Only months earlier the Golden State Warriors had passed on their own invitation to celebrate their 2017 NBA championship title at the White House.

Ashley Parker at WP:

The latest snub comes in the form of the upcoming funeral for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), which, before his death, the late senator made clear he did not want the sitting president to attend. That the feeling is mutual — Trump nixed issuing a statement that praised McCain as a “hero” — only underscores the myriad ways Trump has rejected the norms of his office and, increasingly, has been rejected in turn.

Less than two years into first term, Trump has often come to occupy the role of pariah — both unwelcome and unwilling to perform the basic rituals and ceremonies of the presidency, from public displays of mourning to cultural ceremonies.

...
“We’re not talking about a president going and having a rally in a state that voted against him,” said Tim Naftali, a presidential historian at New York University who previously served as the director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. “We’re talking about a president who can’t even go and participate in a ritual where presidents are usually welcomed, and that is one of the consequences of his having defined the presidency in a sectarian way.”

...

McCain's Acceptance Speech

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's character. Trump infamously said that John McCain was not a war hero. Signing a defense bill bearing McCain's name, he refused to utter it. Trumpist Arizona Senate candidate Kelli Ward suggested Saturday that the McCain family's Friday statement about stopping treatment was an effort to undercut her.

This passage from John McCain's acceptance speech, recounting his captivity in North Vietnam, is unlike any other.

I was dumped in a dark cell and left to die. I didn't feel so tough anymore.

When they discovered my father was an admiral, they took me to a hospital. They couldn't set my bones properly, so they just slapped a cast on me. And when I didn't get better and was down to about a hundred pounds, they put me in a cell with two other Americans.

I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even feed myself. They did it for me. I was beginning to learn the limits of my selfish independence. 

Those men saved my life. [applause]

I was in solitary confinement when my captors offered to release me. I knew why. If I went home, they would use it as propaganda to demoralize my fellow prisoners.

Our code said we could only go home in the order of our capture, and there were men who had been shot down long before me. I thought about it, though. I wasn't in great shape, and I missed everything about America, but I turned it down.

A lot of prisoners had it much worse...[applause]

A lot of -- a lot of prisoners had it a lot worse than I did. I'd been mistreated before, but not as badly as many others. I always liked to strut a little after I'd been roughed up to show the other guys I was tough enough to take it.

But after I turned down their offer, they worked me over harder than they ever had before, for a long time, and they broke me.

When they brought me back to my cell, I was hurt and ashamed, and I didn't know how I could face my fellow prisoners. The good man in the cell next door to me, my friend, Bob Craner, saved me.

Through taps on a wall, he told me I had fought as hard as I could. No man can always stand alone. And then he told me to get back up and fight again for my country and for the men I had the honor to serve with, because every day they fought for me. [applause]

I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency, for its faith in the wisdom, justice, and goodness of its people.

Wacko Senate Candidate Has Wacko Husband

In Defying the Odds, we discuss congressional elections as well as the presidential race.

Andrew Kaczynski and Nathan McDermott report at CNN:

Arizona US Senate candidate Kelli Ward's husband has a history of promoting fringe conspiracy theories on social media, a CNN KFile review has found.

Mark Ward, who like his wife is a doctor, is an Arizona political activist and heavily involved in his wife's campaign for the Republican nomination for US Senate in Arizona in the race to replace retiring Sen. Jeff Flake. He frequently appears at campaign events, knocks on doors to speak with voters and has even appeared at a local event on his wife's behalf.

On Twitter, Mark Ward retweeted users who suggested that a murdered staffer of the Democratic National Committee, Seth Rich, was involved in the hacking of the organization's emails and who implied a conspiracy theory to cover up his death.

...

In March 2017, Ward claimed on Twitter that McCain "supports, funds, equips and trains #ISIS"

Ward frequently mocked McCain for his age on Twitter. In July 2016, Ward said that McCain "is the weakness frail and scared guy that won't debate @kelliwardaz." Also in July 2016, Ward tweeted that McCain was "a senior citizen masquerading as a competent Senator."

In June 2016, Ward retweeted an image calling McCain a "senile old fart" who "loves illegal immigrants" and "thinks he can make it all okay by calling himself a 'war hero.'"

In August 2016, he tweeted that McCain was old, stale, and feckless. Also in August 2016, Ward tweeted that McCain was too "scared and frail" to debate his wife.

Trump Calls Putin

In  Defying the Odds, we discuss Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign.

Carol D. Leonnig, David Nakamura and Josh Dawsey at WP:

President Trump did not follow specific warnings from his national security advisers Tuesday when he congratulated Russian President Vladi­mir Putin on his reelection — including a section in his briefing materials in all-capital letters stating “DO NOT CONGRATULATE,” according to officials familiar with the call.

Trump also chose not to heed talking points from aides instructing him to condemn the recent poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain with a powerful nerve agent, a case that both the British and U.S. governments have blamed on Moscow.

An American president does not lead the Free World by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections. And by doing so with Vladimir Putin, President Trump insulted every Russian citizen who was denied the right to vote in a free and fair election. https://t.co/lcQTBi7CA1

— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) March 20, 2018

From MSNBC:

 Former CIA Director John Brennan says it is possible the Russians 'have something' on the president, and he also believes the country's future is in jeopardy as Trump 'continues his antics.'

The Arpaio Pardon: Opinion and Reaction

Trump pardoned defeated Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio. A few days ago, the Arizona Republic reported:

Half of Arizonans surveyed over the weekend believe that President Donald Trump should not announce a pardon for former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio at a Tuesday rally, compared with 21 percent who said it would be a good move, according to a new poll.

Another 29 percent said they weren't sure or didn't know.

The poll results, released Monday morning, come amid speculation that Trump will use his Phoenix visit as an occasion to pardon the controversial lawman after his recent criminal-contempt conviction.

From Arizona's senior senator, John McCain:

 “No one is above the law and the individuals entrusted with the privilege of being sworn law officers should always seek to be beyond reproach in their commitment to fairly enforcing the laws they swore to uphold. Mr. Arpaio was found guilty of criminal contempt for continuing to illegally profile Latinos living in Arizona based on their perceived immigration status in violation of a judge’s orders. The President has the authority to make this pardon, but doing so at this time undermines his claim for the respect of rule of law as Mr. Arpaio has shown no remorse for his actions.”

Arpaio was convicted of defying court order to stop violating #4thAmendment. It's a pardon of a govt official who ignored Bill of Rights.

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) August 26, 2017

We've been covering Joe Arpaio for more than 20 years. Here's a couple of things you should know about him... 1/many

— PhoenixNewTimes (@phoenixnewtimes) August 26, 2017

Trumpcare Dies, Again

Matt Flegenheimer, Jonathan Martin, and Jennifer Steinhauer report at NYT:

The closing argument was a curious one: Vote yes, Republican leaders told the holdouts in their conference. We promise it will never become law.

After seven years of railing against the evils of the Affordable Care Act, the party had winnowed its hopes of dismantling it down to a menu of options to appease recalcitrant lawmakers — with no more pretenses of lofty policy making, only a realpolitik plea to keep the legislation churning through the Capitol by voting to advance something, anything.

 They ended up with nothing.

Mike Allen:

McCain's maverick moment ... Amazing CNN video gives a second-by-second breakdown of the wee-hours death of the Republicans' health-care repeal plan, one of the most dramatic moments in Senate history: "1:29 a.m.: Senator McCain reenters the chamber. ...

"McCain waves his hand to get the attention of the Senate clerk, pauses for just a moment, and gives a dramatic thumbs-down. ... Audible gasp on the Senate floor, and then commotion. ... Republicans like Senator Marco Rubio stare in disbelief ...
"Senator John McCain turns around and walks back to his chamber desk, all alone."

Watch it; will give you chills.

P.S. Axios' Caitlin Owens emails me: "Heard at House [Republican] conference meeting [yeseterday] morning, this was the reaction to the health care bill: 'Lots of Senate blaming. Lots of McCain blaming. But a surprising number of members [standing] at the mike in conference blasting Trump.'

"One called him an 'embarrassment.'"

Flynn Flies

Michael Flynn quit as national security adviser. Rick Klein reports at ABC:

Flynn’s abrupt departure reveals a national-security team in disarray at a time when President Trump is being tested by friends and foes alike. With demands for answers and investigations only increasing, the story goes significantly deeper than questions of who is in charge and who knew what, and when.

The circumstances of Flynn’s exit raise the most delicate and dark brand of questions for the White House he wound up serving only briefly. They revive questions of alleged Russian interference with the election, demanding inquiries that could lead to far more serious revelations about the president and his inner circle.

Sen. John McCain, who is rapidly emerging as the most influential counterweight to the administration on Capitol Hill, Tuesday said there is “significant disarray” in the national-security realm. He also made the connection that has Washington fixated on a series of bigger pictures.

“General Flynn’s resignation also raises further questions about the Trump administration’s intentions toward Vladimir Putin’s Russia,” McCain, R-Ariz., said.

Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Philip Rucker report at The Washington Post:

The acting attorney general informed the Trump White House late last month that she believed Michael Flynn had misled senior administration officials about the nature of his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States, and warned that the national security adviser was potentially vulnerable to Russian blackmail, current and former U.S. officials said.

The message, delivered by Sally Q. Yates and a senior career national security official to the White House counsel, was prompted by concerns that ­Flynn, when asked about his calls and texts with the ­Russian diplomat, had told Vice ­President-elect Mike Pence and others that he had not discussed the Obama administration sanctions on Russia for its interference in the 2016 election, the officials said. It is unclear what the White House counsel, Donald McGahn, did with the ­information.

John Schindler writes at The Observer:

In light of this, and out of worries about the White House’s ability to keep secrets, some of our spy agencies have begun withholding intelligence from the Oval Office. Why risk your most sensitive information if the president may ignore it anyway? A senior National Security Agency official explained that NSA was systematically holding back some of the “good stuff” from the White House, in an unprecedented move. For decades, NSA has prepared special reports for the president’s eyes only, containing enormously sensitive intelligence. In the last three weeks, however, NSA has ceased doing this, fearing Trump and his staff cannot keep their best SIGINT secrets.

Since NSA provides something like 80 percent of the actionable intelligence in our government, what’s being kept from the White House may be very significant indeed. However, such concerns are widely shared across the IC, and NSA doesn’t appear to be the only agency withholding intelligence from the administration out of security fears.

What’s going on was explained lucidly by a senior Pentagon intelligence official, who stated that “since January 20, we’ve assumed that the Kremlin has ears inside the SITROOM,” meaning the White House Situation Room, the 5,500 square-foot conference room in the West Wing where the president and his top staffers get intelligence briefings. “There’s not much the Russians don’t know at this point,” the official added in wry frustration.

None of this has happened in Washington before. A White House with unsettling links to Moscow wasn’t something anybody in the Pentagon or the Intelligence Community even considered a possibility until a few months ago. Until Team Trump clarifies its strange relationship with the Kremlin, and starts working on its professional honesty, the IC will approach the administration with caution and concern.

The Trump Balloon Springs a Hole

Nate Cohn writes at The New York Times:

Donald Trump’s surge in the polls has followed the classic pattern of a media-driven surge. Now it will most likely follow the classic pattern of a party-backed decline.

Mr. Trump’s candidacy probably reached an inflection point on Saturday after he essentially criticized John McCain for being captured during the Vietnam War. Republican campaigns and elites quickly moved to condemn his comments — a shift that will probably mark the moment when Trump’s candidacy went from boom to bust.

His support will erode as the tone of coverage shifts from publicizing his anti-establishment and anti-immigration views, which have some resonance in the party, to reflecting the chorus of Republican criticism of his most outrageous comments and the more liberal elements of his record.

His surge in the presidential polls began on June 16 when he declared his candidacy. Announcements of that type always yield a wave of media coverage, just as they did for candidates like Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. So far this year, media attention from announcements has helped the best-known candidates by an average of six percentage points, with the effect degrading steadily afterward.

 

What a Jerk!

Ben Schreckinger reports at Politico:

Donald Trump might finally have crossed the line.

Appearing on Saturday at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, the real estate mogul took his running feud with Arizona Sen. John McCain to a new level.

“He’s not a war hero,” said Trump. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

The remarks, which came after days of back-and-forth between McCain and Trump, were met with scattered boos.

McCain, a former Navy pilot, spent roughly five-and-half years in a notorious North Vietnamese prison known as the “Hanoi Hilton,” where he was repeatedly tortured. He spent two of those years in solitary confinement.

At a press availability following his remarks, Trump denied saying that McCain isn’t a war hero and said, “If somebody’s a prisoner, I consider them a war hero.”

He also continued his attacks on the Arizona senator, saying, “I think John McCain’s done very little for the veterans. I’m very disappointed in John McCain.”

Trump received four student deferments from military service between 1964 and 1968. In Ames, he told reporters another medical deferment he received after graduating was for a bone spur in his foot. When asked which foot, Trump told reporters to look up the records.

Early Trial Heats are Predictive. Just Ask President Giuliani.

At The Washington Post, Aaron Blake writes:

It's no big surprise that Hillary Clinton has come back down to earth polling-wise in the last few months. Her stumbles aside, it was basically bound to happen eventually -- for a whole host of reasons.

A new poll from McClatchy and Marist College documents that decline pretty well. In hypothetical matchups with potential 2016 Republican candidates, Clinton has seen her lead decline from 20-plus points in February to the mid-single digits today. She leads Chris Christie by six points after leading him by 21 points six months ago. She leads Jeb Bush 48-41 after leading him by 20 in February. She leads Rand Paul 48-42 after leading him by the same margin early this year.

More than two years  away from the election, however, those data are close to meaningless.  On February 9, 2006, Dana Blanton reported at Fox News:

A new FOX News poll finds that strong support from within their party as well as from majorities of independents helps Republican candidates outperform Democratic candidates in head-to-head presidential matchups.

It might be early, but it is still fun to look at hypothetical matchups between possible 2008 candidates. The poll asked about Republican candidates Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Democratic candidates Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Overall, the Republican candidates top their Democratic opponents, and while the two Republican candidates get about the same level of support in each trial heat, Clinton performs significantly better than 2004 Democratic presidential nominee Kerry.

Among registered voters, Giuliani bests Clinton by 11 percentage points and Kerry by 19 points. McCain tops Clinton by 13 percentage points and Kerry by 20 points. These results are in line with past FOX News results on these vote questions, with the only real change being a lessening of support for Kerry.

Biden 2016?

At RealClearPolitics, Richard Benedetto writes:

In case you haven’t noticed, President Obama and his vaunted PR machine are orchestrating a full-court press to boost the presidential stock of his loyal vice president, Joe Biden.

It is not clear whether Biden will seek the Oval Office next time -- he will be 73 years old when 2016 rolls around. But just in case, the political foundation is carefully being laid and the public expectation is being buttressed by White House strategists, and dutifully documented by the media. 

At Roll Call, Shira Toeplitz offers some caution:

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s bona fides as the ultimate Capitol Hill creature have gotten a significant boost since the November elections, first in the fiscal cliff negotiations and now via the gun violence task force he’s leading.

But Biden’s close association with a legislative body that is viewed less favorably than cockroaches presents a conundrum as he forms his role in President Barack Obama’s second term and looks ahead to a possible 2016 presidential bid.

The Pew Research Center offers a reality check:

Vice President Joe Biden, who is leading the White House effort to formulate new proposals to reduce gun violence, gets mixed ratings from the public: 42% have a favorable impression of him, 42% unfavorable. This is virtually unchanged since late October on the eve of the election (44% favorable, 42% unfavorable).

Views of Biden are deeply divided along partisan lines – 77% of Republicans have an unfavorable opinion of him, while 75% of Democrats have a favorable opinion. Biden is viewed unfavorably by 63% of people who say the priority should be protecting the rights of gun owners, and favorably by 60% of those who prioritize controlling gun ownership.

Born November 20, 1942, Biden will be 74 at the time of the 2017 inauguration.  John McCain, the most recent seventysomething to run for president, was about two years younger, and the age issue did not help him,  as Kathy Frankovic wrote in 2008:

Is John McCain too old to be President? More to the point: do people think he is too old?

we ask Americans, "In general, what is the best age for a president of the United States?" as a CBS News/New York Times poll did last February, we get some surprising results, although it just might show their ignorance about how old the candidates are.

Just about half, 48 percent, said the "best" age for a president was the 50s, even though neither of the presumptive nominees is in his fifties (nor is Hillary Clinton). Barack Obama is 46, and just 20 percent of registered voters said the 40s was the right age for a president. But far fewer - only 2 percent -- thought McCain's decade (70's) was the best for the job. But even that 2 percent was higher than what Americans said in 2007, when zero percent thought being in one's 70s was the best age for the job.

There was little difference between the parties, too, in those poll results. Republicans, Democrats and independents all said the 50's was best, though Republicans had a slight preference for an older president: 28 percent of them said the 60's was the right presidential age, compared with just 10 percent of Democrats. On the other hand, Democrats were willing to go younger: three times as many Democrats (30 percent) as Republicans (10 percent) looked for a 40-ish candidate.

Obama's First Real GOP Opponent

Why has the Obama campaign been less than sure-footed in parrying GOP attacks on economic performance and other issues?  Byron York writes:

Here's a theory: Barack Obama has never in his life run against a sharp, determined and aggressive Republican opponent. Facing Mitt Romney, who is all three, is a new experience for the president.

Look at Obama's political career. He won his first election to the Illinois Senate in 1996 mainly by challenging signatures on his Democratic primary opponent's candidacy petitions and getting her kicked off the ballot.

Re-election was no problem in Obama's heavily Democratic district. The only race he would ever lose came in 2000, when he mounted a primary challenge against Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush for a seat in Congress. Republicans were not a factor.

When Obama ran for U.S. Senate in 2004, both his Democratic primary opponent and Republican general election opponent imploded when their (ugly) divorce records were made public. Obama ran for a while with no opponent at all until GOP gadfly Alan Keyes moved to Illinois to offer weak opposition. Obama won in a landslide.

In 2008, Obama faced the race of his life against Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primaries. He ran a good campaign but was also aided by some inexplicable Clinton mistakes in which she failed to exploit the system by which Democratic delegates were awarded.

When the general election came around, Obama faced a Republican opponent, John McCain, who had lost a step from his GOP primary run eight years earlier, whose campaign was riven by internal turmoil, and who simply was not determined to do what it took to win.

The Changing Political Map

At The Wall Street Journal, Michael Barone analyzes the changing electoral map:

A party that attracts new support from a segment of the electorate tends to repel part of its old coalition. As the 1990s began, political pundits were opining that Republicans had a lock on the Electoral College—just before Bill Clinton, with assistance from Ross Perot, picked the lock and ripped open the door. Democrats won the popular vote in four of the five next presidential elections.

Republicans similarly embarrassed the pundits who said two decades ago that Democrats had a lock on the House of Representatives. Republicans won the most popular votes and most seats in seven of the nine congressional elections beginning in 1994.

As a result, the Republican core going into the 2012 election is no longer northern Protestants but white, married Christians. If you compare John McCain's 2008 percentages with the senior Bush's in 1988, you find Republicans suffering double-digit losses in states dominated by giant, culturally non-Southern metropolitan areas—New England, New York and down the I-95 corridor through New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and then down to Florida.

Republicans found support similarly sparse in Illinois, Michigan and (though the loss here seems temporary) Indiana, as well as in California, Nevada and Barack Obama's native Hawaii. Latino immigrants have added Democratic votes in most of these places, and out-migrating, native-born Americans have subtracted Republican votes.

But when you look at this map you also see areas where Mr. McCain ran even with or better than George H.W. Bush, notably the (Andrew) Jacksonian belt settled by Scots-Irish in the 18th and 19th centuries, running southwest from West Virginia through Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. Western Pennsylvania and rural Texas, which remained solidly Democratic in the 1980s, have become solidly Republican.

Obama's Net Loss of 2008 Voters

Gallup reports:

Eighty-six percent of voters who say they voted for Barack Obama in 2008 are backing Obama again this year, a smaller proportion than the 92% of 2008 John McCain voters who are supporting 2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney. Nine percent of 2008 Obama voters have switched to supporting Romney this year, while 5% of McCain voters have switched to Obama.

A "Fine" Time for Republicans

As previous posts have suggested, the president has been having a rough patch lately.  Dan Balz writes at The Washington Post:

All you need to know about the week the Democrats just had can be summed up by noting that both President Obama and former president Bill Clinton, the two best campaigners their party has seen in decades, had to clean up verbal messes they’d made earlier. And, oh yes, Mitt Romney’s campaign raised more money last month than Obama’s — by more than 25 percent.

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Over the past 10 days, Obama and the Democrats got a taste of what Romney was going through during the winter and early spring. First there was the intra-party angst, fueled by questions about Clinton’s dependability after he seemed to undermine the Obama campaign’s attacks on Bain Capital by saying Romney had a sterling business record.

Then came the employment report that showed the economy had added just 69,000 jobs in May, which renewed concerns among Democrats about how competitive the election might actually be and about whether Obama had any new ideas for fixing things.

Then came another Clinton moment, when he had to walk back a comment saying that the Bush tax cuts, even those for the wealthiest Americans, might have to be extended temporarily because the economy was weak — a comment 180 degrees off from the position of the White House.

Then came the latest evidence that the Democrats were in serious danger of losing the fundraising wars, perhaps by hundreds of millions of dollars, in view of Romney’s success in May and the potential war chests of Republican super PACs raising money through unlimited, and often secret, donations.

Finally, and unexpectedly, the president committed a major gaffe when, in an unscripted moment and trying to defend himself from critics who accused him of blaming Europe for America’s economic problems, he said, “The private sector is doing fine.” 

At Buzzfeed, Ben Smith wrote on Friday:

Barack Obama's assertion today that the private sector is "doing fine" may be an important pivot in the race for president, a moment when Mitt Romney finally succeeded in casting the president as basically out of touch with Americans' economic woes.

That may not be fair — Obama was making the point that the public sector has been a major drag on job growth — but it is certainly a taste of Obama's own medicine.

The moment reminded me of nothing more than that fatal morning of September 15, 2008, when John McCain pronounced that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong.”
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And former McCain aides, now, are relishing the moment.

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"We very much look forward watching Team Romney put Obama's head in a vice over this," he emailed "What goes around comes around, assholes."

And the RNC has released an attack video that seems to follow an identical template to Obama's 2008 instant attack.

Strategies: 2008 v. 2012

Erin McPike writes at RealClearPolitics:

President Obama is attempting to shore up the 2008 coalition that helped him achieve a decisive victory over John McCain, but he is doing so in a more piecemeal way this time around.

As an incumbent, Obama's method is to target various constituencies -- albeit ones that supported him four years ago -- and make the sale with this argument: On the issues they care most about, he has advanced specific policies to help them, programs opposed by the Republican Party and its presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney.

Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei write at Politico:

Mitt Romney and his top aides are building a strategy, partly by design and partly because of circumstance, around what they consider John McCain’s disastrously run campaign in 2008.

The strategy: Whatever McCain did, do the opposite.

Many of the current strategy discussions are centered on not falling into the traps McCain did: looking wobbly as a leader and weak on the economy in the final weeks of the campaign. The private discussions include ruling out any vice presidential possibilities who could be seen as even remotely risky or unprepared; wrapping the entire campaign around economic issues, knowing this topic alone will swing undecided voters in the final days; and, slowly but steadily, building up Romney as a safe and competent alternative to President Barack Obama.

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Charlie Black, an outside adviser to the Romney campaign, said the biggest lesson to learn from 2008 is, “Do whatever it takes not to get outspent.” Much of the Romney money is being invested heavily early to eat into Democratic strengths, especially with technology. By the time Romney finishes his current hiring spree, about one-fourth of his 400 staffers will be on the digital team — fundraising, communications and organizing.

Do the opposite? It worked for George Costanza.