Peter Funt, in addition to being a television host, writes political opinion pieces for USA Today. Having watched the carnage inflicted on the Biden campaign in both Iowa and New Hampshire, Funt has seen enough of this circus and clearly believes that desperate times call for desperate measures. With that in mind, today he calls on Biden to perform what he describes as a selfless act of patriotism for his country. If there is any hope of beating the Bad Orange Man in November, Joe Biden needs to drop out of the race right now.
Dismal results in Iowa and New Hampshire didn’t cause Joe Biden’s presidential campaign to become untenable, they only confirmed it. Many of us who watched him at close range on the trail saw it coming months ago: The former vice president’s campaign isn’t going to work.
Biden, who has served his country honorably, must now demonstrate — again — what a truly good man he is. Rather than cling to hope of a recovery in Nevada on Feb. 22 or South Carolina on Feb. 29, he should withdraw now to smooth the process for his fellow Democrats seeking the best candidate to defeat President Donald Trump…
It would have to be an exceptional act of patriotism.
But why? How would Uncle Joe bowing out this week fix the Democrats’ problems? If you read the subtitle to Funt’s op-ed you’ll find the answer. “Other Democrats need a chance to draw minority and centrist support.”
The lack of logic in this analysis is impressive. You see, in Funt’s view of the world, Joe Biden’s primary sin isn’t doing poorly in Iowa and New Hampshire. It’s in being too popular with minorities and more centrist Democrats. Biden garners the most support from Black and Hispanic voters, particularly in South Carolina, where Sanders, Klobuchar and Mayor Pete receive little to no love from those demographics. And since he’s running in the moderate lane, he’s probably draining some potential support from Buttigieg there as well.
So it would appear that Funt’s theory is that if Biden was gone, all of those minority and moderate voters would migrate to Klobuchar and Buttigieg (perhaps less so to Sanders). Seriously?
Here’s something for Peter to consider. Perhaps the reason that both Sanders and Buttigieg have landed with a thud among minority voters is that those voters simply don’t like them or aren’t impressed with them. You’ll recall that Buttigieg came under heavy fire on the left after people learned that back in South Bend he had fired an African-American police chief for little or no reason and literally bulldozed a huge swatch of lower-income property in Black neighborhoods. Why Sanders has floundered with minority voters isn’t quite as clear, but he’s had that problem since 2015 for whatever reason. Klobuchar hasn’t run up high ratings with minority voters, but until very recently she wasn’t doing very well with any voters.
Simply making Joe Biden disappear doesn’t mean that those voters are going to forget all of those things and happily migrate over to one of Funt’s preferred candidates.
Oh, and in case you didn’t read through the entire article, Funt isn’t content to stop there. After showering praise on Biden and admiring his patriotic service to his country, Peter turns around and reminds everyone that Biden’s age poses “rising medical and cognitive risks.” Oddly, he expresses no such concerns over the even older guy that already had one heart attack on the campaign trail. He simply thinks the “Bernie Sanders wing of the party” isn’t a good bet against Trump.
Funt then goes on to toss in a reference to Hunter Biden’s Ukraine issues (while assuring us there’s nothing to them, but people might believe it) and blames Biden for Harris, Booker and Castro dropping out of the race. The author may have started out by praising Joe Biden and admiring his patriotism, but by the time he finished, poor Joe had more knives sticking out of his back then Julius Ceaser.
I’m not on Biden’s staff so I don’t tend to offer him advice. I have no idea whether he’s been knocked out of this race or if he might come back and defeat the rest of the field. But if he starts taking campaign advice from Peter Funt the party will be over long before the balloons drop.