One of the main factors that tipped the scales in favor of the Democratic presidential candidate in 1960 – Senator John F. Kennedy – was the refusal of his opponent, Richard Nixon, to bring hugely popular outgoing President Dwight Eisenhower, under whom Nixon served as vice president for eight years, on board his campaign until just before election day.
Nixon's desire to win the big prize all on his own, without any supporting players, no matter how admired they might be – was eventually what led to his defeat, as it prevented the president from shining even a little of his charm and glory on his former VP.
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Sixty years after President Eisenhower was left backstage, we are seeing this play out again. Barack Obama, under whom Democratic candidate Joe Biden served for eight years, is still warming the bench, even though the support he enjoyed from a considerable sector of voters – at the core of which was the African American community – broke and is still breaking records. It was only last week that the former president first came out of his relative self-isolation and replaced his low profile with his favorite method – speeches at huge rallies, the first of which took place last week in Philadelphia.
Although the official reason for this belated entry was Obama's declaration intention to avoid events that could spread COVID, we must ask: is the true reason for his current enlistment the recent polls that appear to show that Biden is losing his lead among African American voters?
Still, even if that really is what prompted the Democratic leading candidate to use every tool in his box, including former President Obama, at this point it still looks as though Biden might be overly concerned. After all, in the second and last TV debate on Thursday night, Trump's appearance and behavior was better than in the first one, which was a disaster for him, but it's still hard to call it an event that could change the campaign in one fell swoop. It was a restrained battled, and in part was to-the-point, with the candidates at ease, in comparison to the first debate, which was no more than a mudslinging match that mainly hurt the president. But it is not likely to be etched in the nation's consciousness as a game-changer.
Of course, this is assuming that Biden's overly-confident statement about his intention to launch "clean" sources of energy at the expense of the traditional, polluting oil industry, won't snowball and deal him a fatal blow in oil states like Pennsylvania and Texas. What's more, despite Trump's ongoing efforts to minimize the seriousness of the problem, the fact is that America is facing the start of a third and very serious COVID wave. With the number of new confirmed cases nationwide hitting 80,000 in a single day and the virus having already claimed the lives of some 220,000 Americans, the election has turned into a referendum on how the nation's leader has handled the crisis.
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Given the fact that the White House's course of action, especially in the early stages of the crisis, was faulty, and the president was unable to move the public discourse onto matters where he has had considerable success, things are looking gloomy for Trump, although by no means terminal. Beyond that, COVID has been especially serious in a number of key states, including Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio, Arizona, and Georgia, which has dealt a major blow to Trump's chances of winning those states' electoral votes (especially among the elderly, most of whom are bitter about the hasty reopening of the economy that put them in danger of contracting the virus, and suburban women, who have abandoned the president in droves, and not only because of COVID).
On the other hand, we must not forget that four years ago, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton had a double-digit lead of 12% 10 days before the fateful day, so we still can't rule out an October surprise, even if the chances of one are fading fast. As of today, the president needs a dramatic media bomb, like solid information about ethical crimes in which Joe Biden and his son Hunter might allegedly have committed. But right now, nothing in the material already published appears to be directly incriminating, and there are also questions about the reliability of the sources of that material.
In the end, at least at this stage, not only is Biden leading the race, he is managing to make inroads in traditional Republican strongholds like Arizona and Georgia, and the Democrats' chances of re-taking the Senate look promising. What's ironic is that the two sworn rivals – Obama and Trump – are at center stage, using the same tactics: depending on their rhetorical abilities to stir up the masses and get them to rally around the flag. The question is whether this tactic will work to get the 45th president over the finish line, which right now seems quite a ways away.
Another question that must be asked is whether or not this will once again be a black day for the pollsters, as there could once again be a hidden Trump base that has evaded the radar and not declared their true intent to give the sitting president their votes.
