Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Joe Biden is not inspiring confidence

I have to admit, I'm not sure I understand why. To me, he looks to be doing a decent job of the work of being president.

Sure there's plenty to criticize: choose your poison. My picks are immigration policy, climate crisis measures, and student loan forgiveness; you've probably got your own. But it seems to me we're seeing high competence where executive branch competence counts: the NLRB, the FCC, the EPA, etc. A ground breaking appointment to the Supremes (that poor long suffering woman!) And Biden seems to be doing a very good job of holding together and leading without domineering in the international effort to support Ukraine's struggle against Russian imperialism. That ain't nothing. In fact that last might be a life or death matter.

Joe Biden seems rather good at the job of President; but evidently, and I can see this, he's not so good at playing a President on TV.
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A couple of data points:
“If America were confronted with a crisis like a war or another pandemic, how confident are you that President Joe Biden would be physically and mentally up to the job.” (NH Journal, April 14-16, 503 registered New Hampshire voters)
Very/somewhat confident: 42%
Not very/not at all confident: 54%
Biden won New Hampshire decisively in 2020, by 7 points, after placing lower in the state’s primary than any other modern presidential nominee. He’s declined there as much as he’s declined anywhere, and this less-than-comfortable question gets at why. The idea that the president could not handle a new crisis, even if his instincts are right, has permeated with swing voters. By a 13-point margin, registered New Hampshire voters disapprove of how Biden is handling “investing in infrastructure,” which Democrats consider a slam-dunk midterm issue, so much so that Biden headed to the state on Tuesday to talk about it. -- David Weigel
[Nevada] voters also indicated that they preferred Trump to Biden on the issue of Ukraine. Forty percent of voters said Trump could handle the situation in Ukraine better. Twenty-nine percent of voters said they preferred Biden. The Nevada Independent
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Is our reaction to Biden just ageism? Are we really addicted to being governed by blowhards? We've got a Republican Party whose entire message is that we should be very afraid of something. And there are real dangers ...

Time to be talking with voters ... what are people thinking?

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