Barack Obama’s reelection campaign manager is warning Democrats that Donald Trump could “absolutely” win in 2024, as he laid out reasons why they should not remain complacent while at the same time telling them to “chill out.”
Jim Messina, who took Obama to victory in 2012, called Democrats “bedwetters.”
“I thought it was important to say to my friends and clients and other people, let’s just take a step back and try to be really number-specific and really sort of who has what cards in their poker hand,” Messina told Politico, the outlet reported Wednesday.
“And you would just rather be Joe Biden than Donald Trump.”
As Politico noted, there are reasons to be worried.
“Every day, it seems, there’s new fodder for Democrats looking to freak out about President Joe Biden’s reelection prospects: Sagging public views of the economy. Persistent voter concerns about Biden’s age. And erosion in the president’s standing among key minority groups, to name a few.”
But it’s time to chill out, Messina said: “Historically, we’re f***ing bedwetters,” he told Politico.
“We grew up in the ’80s and ’90s when Republicans won elections all the time. Democrats had their hearts deeply broken when Hillary [Clinton] lost, and people didn’t see that coming. And so, you know, we continually believe every bad thing people say,” he said.
The Messina Group put out the 22-slide pro-Biden presentation, even though Messina believes “(1) no matter who the Republican is, it’ll be a close election and (2) the most likely GOP nominee, Donald Trump, has a strong base and can absolutely win.”
However, the key points are inherently flawed, as Politico notes.
Firstly, Messina’s idea is that the fundamentals of Joe Biden’s economy are strong.
“The ‘misery index,’ a bellwether economic measure that combines unemployment and inflation, is now lower than it was ahead of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Obama’s successful reelections,” Politico said.
“Messina also gives credit to Biden and team for consistently selling ‘Bidenomics’ to voters, even as voter views remain stuck — likening it to the challenges Obama faced in 2012 as the economy slowly emerged from the Great Recession: ‘People thought we were crazy to go as early as we did with economic messaging.'”
The problem lies with how Messina calculates the “misery index” in the slide show as being “lower than it was at the same point in the Obama, Clinton, & Reagan presidencies before their successful reelections.”
As The Western Journal writes: First off, calculating the misery index simply says where you are now, not what’s already happened. Clinton, Obama and Reagan didn’t have massive shocks to the labor market created by a massive shutdown of the world economy accompanied by a concomitant readjustment in the labor-force participation rate.
As for inflation, that number tracks year-over-year. Inflation is slowing now because, if it were still at the same level it was during Biden’s first two terms in office, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom and Pete Buttigieg would have the anteroom to their offices choked with potential campaign advisers meeting with them to “discuss options” about 2024. Wink, wink.
None of the three men Messina cites as examples had similar situations, although Reagan was forced to right the ship after Jimmy Carter’s disastrous four years in the Oval Office, and Obama had the Great Recession to deal with. But in neither of those cases were Reagan or Obama handed a simple job: Let the economy recover from COVID and get back to normal. That was Joe Biden’s task. He couldn’t do it. Raw misery index numbers say nothing about that.
Next winning issue? Abortion: “Democrats have long played defense on so-called culture war issues, but after the Dobbs ruling, Messina said, Democrats have an issue to rally voters around unlike anything he’s seen in modern politics,” Politico said. (Emphasis mine, again.) “And its staying power, he added, is only buoyed by a Republican primary where a national abortion ban is continuingly [sic] put forward as a litmus test.”
So, to win in 2024, you need “an issue to rally voters around unlike anything he’s seen in modern politics?” What about indicting the leader of the political opposition on a series of charges that makes the United States of America look like Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua? Would that work, Mr. Messina? Because, um, if you haven’t been reading the papers…
And Messina thinks Biden has the advantage, as per Politico, is that “The election is a choice, not a wish.”
“Pressed on the dismal voter views of Biden, Messina said he is confident the qualms will wash away as the horse race takes shape. ‘It’s a choice between two parties, two ideologies, between two people,’ he said. ‘And that choice matters. … People didn’t see the Democratic turnout in 2022 coming.’ And while Messina assumes it’s a Biden-Trump rematch, he argues that even another GOP nominee can be painted as extreme and Trump-y.”
Yes, but he or she can’t be painted as this:
And then there’s that other “big caveat,” as Politico put it: the possibility of a third-party candidate, which Messina didn’t sound too thrilled about.
“I don’t care what they do. I don’t care how much money they spend. I don’t care who their nominee is. They’re going to get zero electoral votes. The question is, who do they take the votes from?” Messina said.
“You just can’t split away votes if you want to beat Donald Trump. And I just cannot overstate how crucial it is to make sure that we don’t create a vehicle that takes enough votes up to elect Donald Trump.”
In more simpler terms, Biden needs to tout his economic record, which is extremely bad, unlike what Messina thinks – given he is using out-of-context data to justify it.
READ: Obama INSIDER: Michelle Is Preparing to Enter the 2024 Race
