Politico's Holly Otterbein: If no one can beat Biden with black voters, Biden has the nomination

[highplainsdem]

Politico article about a discussion of "What We Know About the Democratic Primary" by founding editor John Harris and reporters Natasha Korecki, Holly Otterbein, and David Siders.

Holly Otterbein is the daughter of DUer Joe Otterbein.

I don't always agree with Holly, but I think she's correct about this:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/03/what-we-know-about-the-democratic-primary-227996

Otterbein said her choice for the pivotal question of the Democratic race is: Will African-American support swing decisively toward a candidate other than Biden?

“I think that is pretty much the race, right?” she noted. “Right now a big part of the reason that Joe Biden is ahead is because he’s just crushing every else among African-American voters. Pete is doing atrociously with black voters. Elizabeth Warren is not doing well…She’s kind of won a lot of high-profile black activists over but she’s not done well with the [broader] electorate there yet. Bernie is doing okay—he’s second usually, but he’s just way behind Biden. And, you know, if no one can beat Biden on that front, then I think Biden has got the nomination.”

The article came up with some other takes on the campaign, basically theories about it, that I believe didn't exactly hit the mark. I can agree with some of this section about how "razzle-dazzle has fizzled" but they don't seem to understand Biden's appeal:

Barack Obama in this generation, like the Kennedys in an earlier one, created a standard for what counted as charisma: a combination of photogenic looks and rhetorical inspiration that would send a thrill up Chris Matthews’s leg, and yours too.

So far the Democratic race has featured multiple candidates who credibly hoped to lay claim to that tradition—and drew lots of news media cheerleading for their efforts. Beto O’Rourke has tried to channel the urgent electricity of Bobby Kennedy’s appeal; Pete Buttigieg’s youth and Rhodes scholarship and teacher’s pet speaking style looked like it might make him this year’s Bill Clinton; Kamala Harris’s poised bearing, combined with her prosecutorial brand of argument, drew 20,000 people to her announcement and seemed ready to become a Democratic sensation. Cory Booker and Julian Castro have reputations for being dynamic and even glamorous and have shown flashes of command on the debate stage.

So far, all these candidates after the first waves of interest and excitement are laboring to stay in the first tier (Buttigieg and Harris) or penetrate it at all (O’Rourke, Booker, Castro).

The year seems to be creating a new standard of charisma, as illustrated by the magnetism many Democrats feel toward Bernie Sanders’s flyaway gray hair and give-‘em-hell leftism, or Elizabeth Warren’s crisp, professorial town-hall performances. Biden, meanwhile, seems to be making the case that his familiar ol’-Joe non-charisma is what Democrats need to unify the party and defeat Donald Trump.

They define charisma as "a combination of photogenic looks and rhetorical inspiration." And yet they dismiss Biden with a line about his "his familiar ol’-Joe non-charisma."

I guess they haven't looked at Biden lately

https://tinyurl.com/y2bmq6ld

or considered that his ability to deliver great speeches reduced Rachel Maddow to fangirl raving after his 2016 DNC speech

or even considered the reactions to Biden's speech in Iowa a few weeks ago:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/07/bidens-big-speech/


Even the Washington Post's theater critic, who's very much a Warren fanboy, and who sniped at Biden otherwise, said that sometimes, watching Biden campaign, "You can feel you're watching a film star playing a presidential candidate."

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287240456


That's charisma.

It might be more of the sort of everyman-hero charisma of a Tom Hanks or a Jimmy Stewart, or Kevin Costner in some of his roles. But it's charisma.

[BannonsLiver]

1. Fuck Politico

A digital right wing tinged rag founded by a Reaganite that has contributed mightily to turning our politics into a never ending infotainment horse race narrative.

[highplainsdem]

4. Politico has done some fine campaign coverage over the years. And Holly is a fine reporter and

writer.

She's also -- as far as I can tell based on stories she's written -- probably a Sanders or Warren supporter (like her dad, apparently, from his posts), so her saying this about Biden struck me.

Of course, we've had plenty of discussions here at DU as well about how important that support from black voters is to Biden's lead.

But Holly's statement about it was particularly concise.

[BannonsLiver]

8. If you can tell she is a supporter of any candidate there is bias and that's a bad thing.

And yes I have read her dad’s vicious attacks on Biden here from time to time. I just figured that’s where the bias came from.

[highplainsdem]

9. There's a lot of bias in reporters' coverage from other outlets as well. Nate Silver tweeted a

while back that his guess is that most political reporters favor Warren, followed by Sanders and Harris and Buttigieg, in no particular order. That's been my impression, too. And Dave Weigel of the Washington Post tweeted recently that people in his Washington bubble tend to favor Warren and Sanders.

It isn't just Politico.

As for who Holly favors -- it's quite possible, since I'm reading her articles through the prism of knowing what her dad posts here, that I'm seeing more bias than is actually there.

[Skya Rhen]

2. I am not very easily impressed, but I have always been captivated by Biden's charm, looks,

smile and wit.

I have felt this way about him for over 25 years and still feel the exact way, today. There is no other politician, besides Obama, whose charisma compares to his - as far as I am concerned...

[seaglass]

5. Charisma is in the eye of the beholder. I don't find Biden, Sanders or Warren

to be very charismatic. I do find Harris and O'Rourke to be.

I also don't find anything copied from this article to be either original or insightful, just a repeat of conventional wisdom. YMMV

[Cosmocat]

6. This is a legit point. Overall my sense is that this is a Superman/Bizarro

election.

Seriously, the public at large seems determined to right the election of a deluded 80 year old white guy with a decent, nice 80 year old white guy.

[Hortensis]

7. Thanks, Highplains. Biden always looks to me like one of those

guys who just has and makes friends wherever he goes because he likes people and likes being with them. Over the years we've known a number of people who are always like that. Even when we don't know them well, we're friends when we meet. Their doing mostly, and so appreciated and reciprocated.

I think that's a big part of Biden's appeal, his substance. Contributing to but separate from the charisma most politicians have at least some of, including that peculiarly commonly seem in sociopaths, like Trump's.

Liking people in general, enjoying being with them, and having the confidence of knowing one is liked is very attractive literally and otherwise. And reassuring. It's real, and wherever we've gone, if one of those was there, we had a friend in the room.

[highplainsdem]

11. +1,000,000. Great take on him, Hortensis!

[Gothmog]

10. The nominee of the party will need to win the support of the African American bloc

No one will be able to win the nomination of the Democratic Party without the support of African American voters.

[Tarheel_Dem]

12. And Hispanics. n/t

[LincolnRossiter]

13. Agree. If Biden can hold his own in Iowa and NH (let's say top 2 finishes) he'll be well positioned

to run the table in the states with significant black and brown representation—especially the South.

[Cha]

14. What?! ".. non charisma.."? That sounds

like Biden envy. And ".. Hillary not inspiring.." ".. Al Gore.. boring..".. ".. rather have a beer with ******* bush.. "

IOW.. reporter talk for what they think and are trying to push on the American public.

I don't let them think for me.

[highplainsdem]

15. +1,000,000

[Cha]

16. ..

[betsuni]

18. Yes! Gore-boring-said-he-invented-the-internet; Kerry-flip-flopper; Hillary-unlikeable-emails.

At least some in the press apologized later for what they did to Gore. Then they go and do the same damn thing. It's like they want us to stay in high school our entire lives.

[Cha]

19. Yeah, just because the US m$$$$media

stays in high school or lower.. doesn't mean the America public does.

[betsuni]

17. About authenticity.

This part confused me. They say being authentic is having some kind of flaw, not being polished: Trump's off the cuff craziness, Biden's gaffs, Warren's wonkiness, Bernie's repeating the same things over and over. People like authenticity. But the last Democratic nominee was constantly called a "flawed candidate" but was not considered authentic.

And OF COURSE Biden has charisma.