Joe's Schedule

Over the past couple of weeks, I thought I was beginning to see a pattarn of increased activity from the big guy, if only due to the increased coverage of his fumbles and gaffes on the road. It turns out I was right, I checked his daily public schedule. Yesterday and today, he's in Texas. Tuesday,, he was in Arizona. On Saturday, he gave the Gridiron Club address; on Sunday, he had St Patrick's Day activities.

Last week, he was in New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Michigan. There's been a flurry of activity ever since the State of the Union, but before that, it was business as usual, long weekends at Camp David or in Wilmington. although there were similar campaign trips in February. This is in major contrast to his schedule last year; via the Washington Times,

Leisure time has become a factor in the White House — and the Republican Party is tracking the trajectory of it while providing the damning numbers as well.

“President Biden requires a lot of vacation. In 2023, Biden spent 142 days — 38.9% of the year — on vacation. That includes at least 30 trips to Delaware, 10 trips to Camp David, portions of two visits to the U.S. Virgin Islands, and vacations in Nantucket and Lake Tahoe,” said Jake Schneider, director of rapid response for the Republican National Committee.

“After nearly three years in office, Biden remains well on track to outpace each of his modern-day predecessors in leisure,” he said in a written statement shared with Inside the Beltway.

It's become clear that the big guy is under pressure to look like he wants to keep his job. His public activities over the past couple of months, though, are campaign appearances, aimed at November, which is still eight months away, and this current level of appearances is quite a bit more than he's been used to. Beyond that, they aren't having the intended effect. In the Washingtonm Examiner, Democrat pollster John Zogby observed,

The newly energized president hit the road with a message of real projects for communities, while Vice President Kamala Harris made an historic first visit to an abortion clinic, emphasizing a key issue for Democrats in the fall.

But Biden’s approval rating barely moved. He is still at 40% approval. The national polls continue to show a close race between him and former President Donald Trump, whether in a two-way or five-way race. And, only one in four feel that the country is headed in the right direction. I could possibly copy this report card so I can paste it another time when I need to.

The problem continues to be what Nate Silver has been pointing out, increased public appearances mean increased opportunies to wander around stages, utter gaffes and malapropisms, lose his temper, and chat up pre-teen girls. So far, it's the same problem Hillary Clinton had, the more people saw of her, the less they found to like. This is an important contrast to the conventional wisdom on Biden's lawfare campaign against Trump, for instance from Byron York:

So far, the lawfare directed at Trump — two federal indictments from a special counsel appointed by the Biden Justice Department, plus two local indictments from elected Democratic prosecutors, plus a financial lawsuit from another elected Democratic prosecutor and a sex-and-defamation lawsuit financed by a Democratic megadonor — has backfired at the polls. It helped boost Trump to a runaway victory in the Republican primaries, and so far, it hasn’t hurt him in general election matchup polls against Biden.

. . . But the lawfare campaign is already having another effect on Trump. It has put the former president under severe financial stress in two ways. The first is the tens of millions of dollars in legal fees Trump has already spent defending himself against the onslaught of criminal charges and lawsuits. The other is the crippling financial penalty, $454 million, in the lawsuit brought by the elected Democratic attorney general of New York, Letitia James.

The difference is that, even if James seizes Trump Tower, the Donald still lives at Mar-a-Lago, and he's still ahead in the polls. He's still got a constantly mutating version of the Chicago Seven defense, for which Alan Dershowitz, who helped originate it in the 1960's, gives Trump his grudging admiration. Instead of a single Judge Julius Hoffman, Trump has an expanding range of foils, not just Judge Engoron, but now, in addition to Letitia James, he's got Fani Willis, Nathan Wade, Jack Smith, Alvin Bragg, and no doubt more. It's not just publicity, it's comic book villain-vs-superhero material. (Isn't there an element of Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne in Trump's image?)

This is what Joe, basically an over-the-hill nebbishy mediocrity, has working against him, he's a bore, but even more so is the calendar. He's having to conduct a national campaign, which normally lasts from September to November, that's already begun in early March. I don't think he can sustain it.