Joe Biden’s popularity is all about name recognition and vague feelings of pre-Trump comfort — nothing more. Poll respondents are lazy as fuck. It’ll take most of them months to even become vaguely familiar with Beto O’Rourke and Mayor Pete. Biden is a decent, compassionate handsy guy and in solid with fair-minded, 60-plus, old-school, rank-and-file slowboats, but he can’t become the Democratic nominee. Not in this atmosphere. He’s out of time, yesterday’s news. In a 1960 election context, Biden is like an older Stuart Symington or, you know, a holdover from the Truman or Roosevelt administrations. Beto, Buttigieg and Kamala Harris are the JFK-like figures. Be here now.
