“Some major Democratic donors have told the largest pro-Biden super PAC, Future Forward, that pledges worth roughly $90 million are now on hold if President Biden remains atop the ticket,” a New York Times article explained on Friday.
A daring bit of pressure from insiders whom Biden now calls, without hint of irony, “the elites.”
“A leaked poll from a group closely linked with Future Forward after the debate showed that the super PAC had tested the strength of potential Biden alternatives, including Ms. Harris, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary,” The Times elaborated. “The poll showed that Mr. Biden had a worse overall favorability rating than all the alternatives.”
Forbes identified the skeptical billionaires as including Mark Pincus, Christy Walton, Michael Novogratz, Reed Hastings and Mark Cuban. Biden, refusing to bow out, “has attempted to undo the debate damage by rallying his allies in Congress, sitting for a series of media interviews and holding his first post-debate press conference Thursday. The interviews and Thursday’s presser are widely viewed to have gone better than the debate, but not well enough to reverse the backlash.”
“Everything is frozen because no one knows what’s going to happen,” explained one Democratic strategist to CNN. “Everyone is in wait-and-see mode.”
Well, that mode did not last long.
On Saturday their bête noir Donald Trump was shot. The whole question of winning the race got infinitely harder, for the still-alive former president looked heroic after the bullet, especially contrasted with a feeble Biden. Used to plying an insider advantage, “the elites” now have almost no advantage to ply. They might as well unfreeze their $90 million.
Or keep it, instead.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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1 reply on “A Cool Ninety Million”
Let’s see what Democrats do before the convention if Biden refuses to back out. Party leaders allowed only token opposition in the primaries. Biden was their guy. Assuming Biden does not withdraw, will Dems tell their delegates they are free to choose another candidate on the first ballot, even if they were committed Biden delegates? That makes even more of a mockery of the primary system, if party leaders are allowed to seize control of the nominating process that they themselves put in place. On the bright side, their convention could end up being must-see TV.