The Biden Bump

What are those bright lights? They seem to be coming towards me...

Defying my prediction, and my thesis that the general public is radicalizing, Joe Biden’s poll numbers have gone up since he announced his candidacy for the US presidency. He’s now at 40%, well ahead of Sanders in second place at 16% or so. I had predicted that his numbers would be highest when he first declared.

I still think Biden will not be the Democratic nominee. If he is, he will be easily beaten.

Biden has the name recognition. The rest of the field is mostly utter unknowns. It would be odd, in these circumstances, if Biden were not way ahead. A lot of people will be choosing Biden now because he is the only candidate about which they yet have an opinion.

Granted, they probably also know Sanders. But Biden is also the only candidate who seems to be running as a moderate, perhaps with the exception of the unknown and suppressed Tulsi Gabbard. He has that ideological turf staked out, for now. Sanders is sharing the left lane with everyone else in the race, some of whom do have at least some local name recognition.

So Biden’s current numbers are probably his theoretical ceiling. Anyone who finds him an acceptable nominee is probably backing him now. And it is less than fifty percent.

Biden still runs a real risk of being swallowed in a sudden wave of Gabbardmania. Some other anonymous insurgent could restyle himself or herself, being unknown, to poach the ideologically moderate vote. Even if that never happens, even if Biden wins Iowa and New Hampshire, where such hurricanes often happen, what matters is what leftward candidate comes closest to Biden then. The leftist vote will start converging, as others drop out, and the last red standing should overtake Old White Joe.

This did not work with the Republicans last time, because the other candidates did not drop out quickly enough to break Trump’s early momentum. But the way the Democrats have it all set up, this factor may not even matter. They have killed the “winner-take-all” primaries. So no early and insurmountable delegate lead seems possible.

This does not even take into account the likelihood that Biden, on past performance, will make major gaffes while campaigning. Nor the probable effects of opposition research on his dangerously long tail of past and currently intolerable positions, gaffes, and gropes. Nor does it factor in the Democratic love for dark horses, and their tendency to get bored with any early front runner.

So why have Biden’s numbers gone up after announcing?

I think this may have to do with the popping of the Buttigieg bubble, which was bound to happen whether or not Biden entered the race. For a time, Mayor Pete was the grinning face on every magazine cover, notably, Trump has pointed out, Mad magazine. Just like O’Rourke before him. Regrettably, though, the impression has now gotten around that he is mortal. Zits have been sighted. His prior supporters needed some new place to idle their vote. He also looked to many at first as though he was taking a moderate line; then he veered left. Probably making the same calculation that we have, that the moderate ceiling was too low within the party. So Biden became the obvious alternative. For now. Until someone else as improbable emerges from the pack.

If 40% of the Democratic electorate is still moderate enough to be considered sane, that figure will not hold for those most likely to volunteer, caucus, or vote in the primaries. Those who get engaged will be the all fired up. Folks who are driven by policy concerns, which is to say, ideology, or folks who feel mad as hell and are not going to take it any more. Giving more radical or insurgent candidates, that look like a poke in some establishment’s eye, more traction.

We can see such party activists thinking, generally, “We bit our tongues, we did not go with socialism, we did what the party bigwigs wanted last time, we nominated Clinton and not Sanders. How did that turn out? Where did it get us? Now it is our turn.”

This tends to be a strong sentiment after a party has lost a close election, especially one they expected to win. After Kennedy squeaked past Nixon back in 1960, the Republicans turned against the party’s pragmatists and placeholders, and nominated Goldwater. Having lost incumbency to Nixon in 1968, with the conventional and party establishment choice, Humphrey, instead of one of the charismatic insurgents, McCarthy or Kennedy, the Dems turned to the goofy ideologue McGovern next. Losing to Carter with grey incumbent Ford in 1976, the Republicans turned next to Reagan the radical cowboy. You see the same dynamic elsewhere; albeit not in Canada, where everyone is more obedient.

It would be against human nature for the Democratic pack mules to fall in line again behind a candidate backed by the party establishment, and ideologically more moderate than the rest of the field. Even if they nominate someone like that, everyone stays home instead to work on IEDs.

The only Democratic candidate who would have a chance next time against Trump would be a Democratic candidate who looked more anti-establishment than Trump. Not necessarily further to the left—that is not the same thing. And that seems like a tall order.