Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely won the Presidency
By: Amazon Book Review
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Almost no one thought Joe Biden could make it back to the White House—not Donald Trump, not the two dozen Democratic rivals who sought to take down a weak front-runner, not the mega-donors and key endorsers who feared he could not beat Bernie Sanders, not even Barack Obama. The story of Biden’s cathartic victory in the 2020 election is the story of a Democratic Party at odds with itself, torn between the single-minded goal of removing Donald Trump and the push for a bold progressive agenda that threatened to alienate as many voters as it drew.
In Lucky, #1 New York Times bestselling authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes use their unparalleled access to key players inside the Democratic and Republican campaigns to unfold how Biden’s nail-biting run for the presidency vexed his own party as much as it did Trump. Having premised his path on unlocking the Black vote in South Carolina, Biden nearly imploded before he got there after a relentless string of misfires left him freefalling in polls and nearly broke.
Allen and Parnes brilliantly detail the remarkable string of chance events that saved him, from the botched Iowa caucus tally that concealed his terrible result, to the pandemic lockdown that kept him off the stump, where he was often at his worst. More powerfully, Lucky unfolds the pitched struggle within Biden’s general election campaign to downplay the very issues that many Democrats believed would drive voters to the polls, especially in the wake of Trump’s response to nationwide protests following the murder of George Floyd. Even Biden’s victory did not salve his party’s wounds; instead, it revealed a surprising, complicated portrait of American voters and crushed Democrats’ belief in the inevitability of a blue wave.
A thrilling masterpiece of political reporting, Lucky is essential reading for understanding the most important election in American history and the future that will come of it.
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It's an Amazon Book review. The only importance I place on it is that quote.
I will neither moderate nor comment.
Book Group moderator shall do the honors.
Wait... Biden barely won? I thought Trump won by a landslide.
Barely won? By over 7 million votes? Hilarious!
I'd say that 4 years ago Trump was the lucky one. He won after losing the election by 3 million votes....
I agree. If COVID-19 had not hit then Trump would have been reelected based on the economy (uber alles).
But COVID-19 did hit and it caused a dip in the economy, caused countless businesses to close, stressed out the nation (and the world) and provided an opportunity for Trump to royally fuck up by trying to downplay COVID-19 (here is where Trump sealed his fate).
Trump had three major advantages: incumbency, strong economy, content electorate. With COVID-19 (and how he reacted to it), Trump's economy was tarnished (net advantage to him is not negative but lower) and the electorate was discontent (negative advantage to Trump). And the fact that Trump is personally not liked did not help his cause.
Months ago, even before the election, I posted that Biden should thank China, for the very reasons that you just stated. Of course I was put down at the time. So who's laughing now?
Had I seen that, I would have agreed with you (of course).
Well before COVID-19 hit, I noted Trumps three fundamental advantages and noted that they posed a strong challenge for the D nominee to overcome. Not impossible, but even when the PotUS is an asshole, it is difficult to unseat a PotUS presiding over a great economy with a content electorate. I figured people would downplay Trump's personal flaws and hold their noses to keep the good times rolling (in their minds).
Seems that would have been correct. Because even with COVID-19's damage to Trump's reelection, he still had a remarkable (inexplicable) level of support. The USA electorate has ... issues.
LOL What an understatement.
IMO: So few voters actually research who they are giving power over us to.
Name one of the 44 previous presidents who was an "asshole" like Trump. Name one.
How can you say the electorate was "content" when he was the one and only president to not reach 50% approval rating at any time during his first term?
This is insanity.
I do not think any of them were as much an asshole as Trump. What makes you think I thought otherwise? Do you ever actually read my comments? I have been speaking of Trump as an asshole the entire time he has been in office.
No doubt I am not the only one sick of you inventing your own facts.
I have explained this to you many times. Pay attention. The concept of a content electorate deals with the everyday lives of the people. People focus first on local factors (friends and family) and much later onto sociological, political, etc. And even much later onto world issues.
The economy was good, people had money, no wars going on, etc. That is what I mean by content.
Not everyone's life is centered on Trump 24x7. Most people live their lives with little daily concern over the asshole politicians in office. Some people seem to be too tightly wound and focused on a single individual every day of their life. I assure you John, that is not the norm.
John,
You are not reading what Tig is writing.
Most people will re-elect an awful president if the economy is humming along well. It was prior to COVID. This is a fact. What is it that James Carell says: "It's the economy, stupid". Well, he had that.
COVID was the happy accident that pointed out all his other fatal flaws.
Anyone who needed covid to point out Trump's flaws must have been sleeping for the past 5 years. He was freaking impeached two months before covid broke out in America.
I'm speechless.
*****
A five star sentence.
Although I would have not been so nice about it.
IMO: Anyone supporting trump wasn't thinking worth a shit. I saw trump's flaws from day one. Megalomaniacs do not make good politicians however many have been horrible dictators.
WTF would any American vote for a dictator ?
trump's horrible personality really does show trump's true self. "trump first" became in words only "America first".
Witnessed by trump's failed illegal takeover of our government.
COVID-19 did not reveal Trump's flaws. What it did was change the dynamics of his reelection campaign. Trump's handling of COVID-19, however, did illustrate just how narcissistic Trump is. It showed in clear, factual terms that he does not really care about what is best for the people of this nation. I am sure he lost plenty of votes on that alone.
John, John, John....Almost half the voters in America wanted him to be POTUS for ANOTHER four years - so either they were sufficiently "content" or else there aren't enough building materials in all of North America to construct the insane asylums required to house them. So using YOUR vernacular, almost half of Americans are "Trumpsters".
IMO: Telling the American public a deadly pandemic would just disappear did reveal to many just how flawed trump really was/is.
trump tried to ignore covid for his own greed of power, thankfully like much of trump's plans .. he once again failed. typical trump, failure due to his lack of detailed planning.
Bull shit walks.
It certainly is not difficult to figure out that Trump lost votes with the advent of COVID-19. John apparently thinks that Trump did not lose many votes with COVID-19 since he rejects the idea that Trump had a shot at reelection. He apparently has forgotten the margins of victory in the swing states.
No matter how much someone hates Trump, one should always try to remain cool enough to objectively deal with the facts of reality.
Yes, that is what I was referring to. But clearly most people knew many of Trump's flaws prior to that.
True TG
Unfortunately trump promised everyone he would fix everyone's everything so many bought into his Bull Shit. SAD !
What in the world is wrong with you?
If covid had never hit Trump would still have gone down as the worst United States president of all time (240 years). He was already being framed in those terms by presidential historians long before covid.
So you are telling us that the worst president ever would have been re-elected ? The fact is , prior to covid, Donald Trump never led Biden in the polls, and was neck and neck with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
It is impossible to fathom what you see in Donald Trump that made you promote him as a viable candidate. Not only was he unfit to serve in 2020 , he was unfit to serve every year before that, starting in 2011 when he promoted a demented racist conspiracy theory about then sitting President Obama. Are you trying to tell us that someone who tried to unseat a sitting president using a racist conspiracy theory should have been a legitimate candidate for office himself?
Trump was a KNOWN pathological liar, crook, bigot, moron and cheat prior to election day 2016. He was never for one second fit to hold the office of President of the United States of America. Not one second.
What we mostly see from you is that yes he is unfit NOW because he did not accept the election. Tig, he has NEVER been fit to hold office. NEVER!
What the hell is wrong with this country? Has everyone gone insane?
I think I should ask you that question. What now is your problem?
I stated this many times before COVID-19. You responded to me. Now you act as though this is news? What is your problem?
Promote him?? JR you need to get a grip. I never promoted Trump. Quite the opposite. Buy a fucking vowel. But yes he was viable.
You want to deny that prior to COVID-19 Trump had a good chance to be reelected. That tells me you are not thinking clearly.
Judging from your comment, some people certainly are not thinking clearly.
I have watched you for the last couple years tell everyone here that Trump was going to win.
It was only deep into 2020 that you changed your tune.
His birtherism IN ITSELF should have disqualified Trump from hope of being elected to office.
Too many people did not take this shit seriously, like you, and see what that got us. A country in chaos. It was on the network news tonight that the chief of the Capitol Police says Trump's militia member fan club wants to blow up the Capitol Building during Biden's state of the union address.
This is what going easy on Trump has wrought.
That is a flat out lie. Pretty disgusting behavior on your part.
Another lie. You must be doing this on purpose. My calculus changed around February of 2020 when I factored in COVID-19.
Another lie. Your behavior is disgusting.
You said Joe Biden was half senile, correct? You said none of the Democrats could beat Trump. That IS promoting him.
I let it go when you changed during 2020 and began to speak out that Trump was unfit. But most of that came after he refused to accept the election results.
Did you call for Trump to be impeached and removed from office when he tried to extort the president of Ukraine in to helping him by smearing Joe Biden? He should have been GONE after that. He was guilty as hell.
I dont recall you saying Trump needed to be impeached and removed over Ukraine. That was in December and January of 19' and '20. You say you changed your mind about Trump starting when covid hit at the end of February.
I said, when I saw Biden speaking, that he showed (to me) signs of cognitive decline. That he did not appear as sharp and I wondered if he was up to the job. That is as far as I went. I did not diagnose the man. You, again, are just making shit up.
I said that every one of the D candidates had their work cut out for them. I never said that none of them could beat Trump. I did state that Biden had the best chance and noted that Sanders would almost certainly lose. Pay attention to what I write if you are going to come back and make accusations.
Analysis is not promotion. You are redefining the English word promotion. That is a form of lying.
No. I watched the trial and decided, after hearing the case, that the D managers failed to make a case sufficient to remove a PotUS from office. The first impeachment was not about impeaching Trump because he was an asshole but rather on specific charges on a sitting PotUS. (You need to put your Trump obsession on hold when thinking this through.)
The second impeachment, however, is different. I think Trump should have been convicted based on the article and the case presented.
Impeachment and reelection are different matters. Focus. I did not 'change my mind about Trump' regarding impeachment. I changed my calculus (that means my analysis of his chance for reelection) once COVID-19 hit.
Try to comprehend.