Thanks, But No Thanks
To be involved in politics requires an ego.
It doesn't have to be a Donald Trump-sized ego, but having a loud, brash confidence in yourself is a key attribute to being part of a successful campaign. No matter your role, you have to have confidence that your candidate is the best person for the job and you have to be able to relay that information to undecided and often uneducated voters. The more competitive the campaign, the more competition emerges for sought-after campaign roles. Those who end up working on the highest levels of presidential campaigns are often the best of the best; they are the ones who have connections to previous marquee Democratic candidates and are the ones who know what it takes to run a 50-state campaign. Despite being glorified on TV shows like The West Wing and Veep, real-life campaign staff often go unrecognized in public. It is the blessing and the curse of being so close to power yet ultimately faceless in the crowd.
How individuals respond when their time just beyond the spotlight is done is telling. There are those like Simone Sanders-Townsend and Jen Psaki who have parlayed their initial work with the Biden-Harris Administration into paid television gigs on MSNBC. There are those of the Obama-Biden Administration who have launched podcasts like Jon Favreau or who have published books like Pete Souza. And there are those like George Stephanopoulos and James Carville who became the face of a young, upstart Clinton-Gore Administration who later parlayed their time in the Oval Office into long, prosperous careers as television pundits and political consultants. No matter where they ended up, there remained a group of loyal Democratic administration officials who continued their support of anything and everything related to the Democratic Party.
As we've seen over the past week, a small but vocal contingent has emerged of former Democratic campaign officials who are suddenly "concerned" about the prospects of a second Biden Administration. While some folks like former Obama Chief of Staff David Axelrod showed their true colors early on, this latest wave of Democratic turncoats has waited until the summer months to try and capitalize on the obviously flawed polling to try and sound the alarm bells for the future of the Democratic Party. The most recent example in Saturday's New York Times op-ed from former Bill and later Hillary Clinton advisor Mark Penn:
Despite this math, scared candidates are, in my experience, easily sold the idea that the Democratic base or Republican base is going to stay home in November unless they are constantly fed what they want to hear. One call from the head of a religious group, a civil rights group, a labor group and others (often called “the groups”) and fear runs through a campaign. A New York Times article this winter about Black pastors warning the Biden White House that his Gaza war policy could imperil re-election is a good example. Maybe if Mr. Biden were running against a well-liked centrist opponent, concern could be justified. But during a fall election against Mr. Trump, the final month of this campaign is going to see a frenzy of get-out-the-vote efforts, and I doubt the Democratic base is going to sit idly by at the thought of the Trump limo cruising up Pennsylvania Ave. The reality is that swing voters in battleground states who are upset about immigration, inflation, what they see as extreme climate policies, and weakness in foreign affairs are likely to put Mr. Trump back in office if they are not blunted.In what has become all too common, Penn relies on outlier polls and one-off anecdotes to paint a broader picture of what he perceives to be a weakness of the Biden campaign. His op-ed goes on to cite Biden's supposed slipping poll numbers in swing states, while conveniently ignoring this past week's positive Wisconsin poll giving Biden a six-point lead over Trump. Of course, Penn goes on to cite his very own 1996 campaign as a lodestar for how Democratic campaigns should be reaching swing voters which Penn fails to realize is exactly what Biden has been doing. Penn's inability to realize that Joe Biden is actually already doing what he suggested in his op-ed shows that it is Penn's ego rather than Biden's policies that is his main cause for concern. For somebody no longer at the table where decisions are being made, Penn is desperate to stay relevant and his op-ed demonstrates that there is a reason why he's no longer viewed as an expert in the field. That reason is that Biden's team is not only in agreement with Penn but is way ahead of him, showing him and his New York Times opinions to be yesterday's news.
And yet, Penn isn't the only one unable to realize his fifteen minutes of fame ended long ago. Also this past week former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe came out of left field to announce that he was joining Kellyanne Conway on a podcast series that would take a look at the 2024 election through two sets of eyes from both ends of the political spectrum. However, Twitter was having none of it and Plouffe's tweet has become a classic example of being ratioed, and not in a good way:
Back in the podcast arena. This time with @KellyannePolls The Campaign Managers launches May 22! Please tune in to go deep into the complexities of the 2024 election. We've both run and won Presidential elections and hope listeners will gain value by hearing in one place how…
— David Plouffe (@davidplouffe) May 6, 2024
Yikes.
But seriously, what did David expect? You can't partner with a chronic gaslighting, truth-denying, Trump sycophant and not expect there to be significant blowback. This isn't some low-level Trump staffer with whom you can have an honest debate, it's Kellyanne Frickin' Conway, the person who literally coined the phrase "alternative facts" to indicate a complete and utter disregard for the truth. Kellyanne Conway was an enabler, plain and simple. She helped feed the monster that was Donald Trump and was one of the people who gave him permission to enact his policies that ultimately killed hundreds of thousands of Americans due to sheer negligence and a complete and utter dereliction of duty to protect the American people. Kellyanne Conway will go down in the history books as a modern-day Baghdad Bob and no true Democrat cares to hear her thoughts on Donald Trump during this election cycle. Nobody outside of the most Trumpiest of Trump supporters cares what she has to say. David Plouffe has committed career suicide all in the name of a few extra podcasting dollars.
So it goes.
While Penn and Plouffe are the latest iteration, they won't be the last. While Democrats by and large realize the absolute danger that Donald Trump and Republicans present to the country, there are still those hoping to use their previous influence for personal gain during this election cycle. We know we'll see Tulsi Gabbard on Fox News. Briahna Gray Joy continues to hate all Democrats not named Bernie Sanders. Chris Cuomo is now an anti-vaxxer praising Joe Rogan and taking Ivermectin. While there will remain an army of the good, our news media will embrace the contrarians to try and highlight their longstanding Dems In Disarray narrative. Mark Penn and David Plouffe are hoping to use this narrative to assuage their fragile little egos. They are hoping that Democrats will rediscover them and see them as reliable sources. They're hoping that Democrats won't mind that they are platforming and citing known Republican liars and misinformation. And they're hoping that Democrats will start listening to them again so they can return to prominence during the 2024 election cycle.
The truth is that Penn and Plouffe are no longer relevant, no matter what their fragile White male egos might tell them. There's a reason they're no longer in the inner circles; their time has passed. They could have taken the high road as strong Democratic surrogates but they chose to be contrarians rather than champions. They made their bed and now they must sleep in it. While they may be able to submit the occasional New York Times op-ed or launch an election podcast, the vast majority of Democratic voters see them as having abandoned the party when they were most needed. Instead of doubling down on supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, they instead chose to sow doubt on them and their re-election chances. All in the name of simply trying to get their names back in the headlines.
White male fragility, even among Democrats, is a helluva drug.