Has a presidential campaign ever had a worse four-day stretch than what Joe Biden and his handlers are going through? The current president all but ended his campaign on Thursday evening, turning in one of the most damaging debate performances in history. What’s followed hasn’t been pretty.
READ: Biden’s Handlers Release a New Video, and It’s a Five-Alarm Fire Moment
The Biden campaign is adrift. It simply has no idea where to go next, and that’s led to a variety of missteps in the aftermath of the debate disaster. That would include a heavily edited video of the current president mumbling lines off a teleprompter, all but confirming that he is senile. The deluge of leaks involving Democratic Party officials seeming completely uncertain about the future hasn’t helped either.
Then there are the things that were pre-planned and are now dropping at the worst possible time. One of those is Jill Biden once again appearing on the cover of Vogue.
If the White House’s goal after the debate was to reassure American voters that Joe Biden is in control and that there’s no puppet master behind the curtain, this cover does the complete opposite of that. Amid a variety of videos over the last few days showing Jill Biden leading her aimless husband around, the last thing the campaign needs is her face being plastered everywhere. All it does is serve as a reminder of who is really in charge.
It’s not just the optics, though. Some seriously questionable lines within the piece only serve to make the Bidens seem power-hungry and out of touch.
If you want to know what power feels like, try to get yourself driven around in a motorcade. Flashing police chaperone lights form a perimeter as you blaze down an empty highway, waiting cars backed up on entry ramps as you pass. It’s as if the world is holding its breath. For you. Also, rules don’t apply: On a cool spring day, driving down suburban Minneapolis side streets, we run red lights and whip round curves so fast I can barely take in the commonplace American view.
Is that feeling of power why Jill Biden is so obsessed with keeping her husband in the race? That’s certainly how many people see it given her behavior. From the first year of his term, she has put herself at the forefront. Who can forget the infamous picture of her “preparing” for the G7? And after the latest meltdown, who was leading Joe Biden’s post-debate rally, talking to him like a child? She opened for him the next day as well. The perception that Jill Biden is running the show is impossible to ignore.
Vogue even included this editor’s note at the top of her cover article, which again heavily insinuates that the president’s wife is calling the shots.
Reached by phone on June 30 at Camp David, where the Biden family had gathered for the weekend, she told Vogue that they “will not let those 90 minutes define the four years he’s been president. We will continue to fight.” President Biden, she added, “will always do what’s best for the country.” Whatever happens in the weeks and months between now and November, it is Dr. Biden who will remain the president’s closest confidant and advocate.
Call it arrogance, political malpractice, or both, but if Jill Biden had any strategic sense, she’d stop reinforcing the idea that her husband is senile and incapable of handling his affairs. Every single time she appears on a magazine cover (she’s now appeared in Vogue more times than Michelle Obama did in eight years) and puts out statements talking about how “we will continue to fight,” she reminds people of exactly what’s going on.
If it wasn’t obvious before, it’s obvious now: Jill Biden is the reason Joe Biden is still in this race. That Vogue article completely gives the game away. She seems content to run her husband into the ground in pursuit of her own political ambitions. It’s sad to watch, though the chaos enveloping the Democratic Party is well deserved.
