A brief follow-up to my earlier post, which highlighted nervous griping from Democratic establishment types about their party's 2020 presidential field. One of the major knocks on Joe Biden among elite Democrats is that his fundraising is...quite underwhelming, especially for a (real or nominal) frontrunner. As I indicated this morning, the notion that a viable savior is waiting in the wings to be ushered out to save the party seems fanciful, not to mention fairly offensive to the existing crop of candidates and their supporters. Some more sober-minded donors are reportedly realizing that the solution to Biden's fundraising problem isn't to cast about for another undeclared candidate, but to figure out how to show Joe the money:
A coalition of top Democratic strategists and donors are intensifying conversations about setting up an outside group to bolster Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy, people familiar with the matter tell CNN, aiming to create a super PAC designed to fight back against a barrage of well-funded attacks from President Donald Trump’s campaign. The idea of building an outside organization has been the subject of discussion for weeks by Biden allies, but the conversations intensified in the wake of a cash crunch for the former vice president’s campaign. He reported last week having less than $9 million in the bank, significantly less than his leading rivals. Although he sits atop or near the top of recent polls, Biden's lackluster financial performance has set off rounds of public hand-wringing among Democratic establishment figures about his ability to competitively fund his campaign through the battery of state primaries early next year.
The CNN piece notes that Biden has disavowed Super PACs in the past, but that won't be an obstacle. Biden has taken both sides of many issues over his decades-long political career, including on supposed core principles -- plus, reversing himself on good government and campaign finance questions for reasons of naked self-interest would simply represent a continuation of the Obama legacy. And Biden, despite his overall frontrunner status, could definitely use the help. Meanwhile, for the pro-Warren media demoralized by the former Vice President's lead in recent polling, there's some confusing noise in the latest data:
The polls are getting weird. CNN yesterday had Biden+15. Quinnipiac today has Warren+7. The latest YouGov shows the two of them essentially tied.
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) October 24, 2019
¯\_(?)_/¯
And is it even conceivably possible that Biden is in... a relatively distant fourth place in Iowa?
Iowa Democratic Caucus:
— Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) October 24, 2019
Warren 28 (+4 Since last Month)
Buttigieg 20 (+7)
Sanders 18 (+2)
Biden 12 (-4)
Klobuchar 4 (+1)
Harris 3 (-2)
Steyer 3 (+1)
Gabbard 2 (-4)
Yang 2 (-1)
Everyone else 1% or less
Iowa State University/@Civiqs Pollhttps://t.co/TFEtJZaDBB
This certainly looks like an outlier for now, but what if it starts to look like a trend? Is it any wonder that Hillary Clinton is deploying some of her most loyal mouthpieces to feed media rumors that she hasn't fully closed the door for an eleventh-hour 2020 run? Some dreams die very, very hard:
With Joe and the DNC sucking wind on the important cash sprint, I'll leave you with this:
“Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee have raised more than $300 million this year for his re-election — more than any other sitting president in history at this point in the campaign.”https://t.co/7DkSYfBnIB
— GOP (@GOP) October 21, 2019
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