I’ve written before about how Biden is just too old to do this job now, let alone for the next six years. I know it. You know it. Democrats in Washington know it. The regime media know it. So why have the Democrats not just privately, but very overtly at times, gone along with the concept of another Biden term in office? It’s a calculated gamble, but the gamble is regardless of how bad Biden’s disastrous administration is – inflation, border chaos, international crises compounding, at least the silver lining is he’d beat Trump in a general election. And they had reason to put faith in that assumption.

Since mid-March, there has only been one reliable national poll that showed Trump leading in a general election matchup with Joe Biden, and that poll, the Harvard Harris poll, didn’t offer up a margin of error in their sampling. Every other poll, and there have been five respectable ones, and all showed Biden beating Trump in a rematch. Beltway pundits would appear on the Sunday shows and say yeah, we all know things aren’t that great around the Biden White House and he’s definitely showing his age and then some, but at least he’s outpolling Trump, and that’s all that seemed to matter. No more.

George Stephanopoulos broke the news on This Week.

Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union remarked that this is a very bad sign if you’re a Democrat.

Later in the hour on ABC’s This Week, longtime Democratic political activist Donna Brazile said what Democrats in the Beltway are all thinking – the failsafe assumption of Biden always being able to beat Trump isn’t there any longer, and Biden is not going to get any more lucid with the passing of time.

She tries feebly to say it’s not about age, but that’s just spin. But you know she thinks it. That’s why she’s up at night. And this poll shows Biden not only getting thumped outside the margin of error by Trump, he’d also get thumped just as badly by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is rumored to be bypassing the traditional route of announcing an exploratory committee and just cannonballing into the deep end of the GOP nomination pool later this month.

I’ve held the position for a while that age cuts both ways in the upcoming election. If the race is between Trump and Biden, which I am increasingly coming to believe is not nearly as likely as it seemed a few months ago, Trump ekes out the advantage on age not just because he’s four years younger than Biden, but because he carries himself in public about 20 years younger. He’s more energetic and doesn’t stumble into infirmity land like Joe Biden does outside the hours of 10am-4pm daily.

But if you take one or the other out of the equation – either Joe Biden announcing a couple months down the road that an unforeseen illness has arisen that prevents him from serving another term, or more indictments or an unforeseen health issue affecting Trump, one falling off the ticket will cause the other party’s voting bloc to drop the other one because the perceived age difference will be too difficult to overcome. It’ll be a matter of electability, and the one in their 70s versus anyone in their 50s, the younger one has got a clear advantage, regardless of party, and both sides know it.

If Biden were to raise the white flag and hang it up after one term, the Democrats would go with someone like North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, or Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, or California Governor Gavin Newsom, or Colorado Governor Jared Polis. That would be your final four Democratic primary emergency matchup. Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg might try to make some noise, but both are regarded to be too dumb for the room and not viable options. Republicans would have to counter, knowing that Democrats are going for a younger demo and trying to win back disaffected indies Biden has lost. Trump will have a very hard time making that case with that change in dynamics.

Conversely, if Trump couldn’t get the nomination for one reason or another, and it turned out to be DeSantis, or Nikki Haley, or Tim Scott, the most likely of the top three running as of this writing, there’s no way the Democrats are going to let Biden at his age run against that gauntlet. The infirmity gap would be way too pronounced to overcome.

My longshot, Babe Ruth pointing over the centerfield wall if you will, is that neither Biden nor Trump will be on the general election ballot when primary season concludes. Why do I continue to believe that? Here’s Joe Biden on MSNBC with Stephanie Ruhle from Friday night. Keep in mind that this interview was taped in advance, and this still made the final cut.

He truly forgot Trump’s name. He said Obama, knew that was wrong, closed his eyes in search of the right name from the part of his brain that works about as well as a submerged iPhone these days, and could not come up with the name of his predecessor.

Again, every day from here on out is going to be Joe Biden’s best day. He will not be any sharper tomorow than he was Friday. And he will be worse off next week. So there will be nothing out there to ameliorate the growing belief among Americans that he’s not mentally up to the task of being president. That cake is baked. By the way, if you didn’t already notice, this question came at the end of the interview, and that Jack-In-The-Box speaker voice trying to disrupt the interview was a Biden staffer trying to give Ruhle the hook and stop the interview before more damage was done. Biden waived the staffer off and presented this admission against interest.

Now contrast the end of the hard-hitting MSNBC interview (tongue planted firmly in cheek) with how the interview began. Biden should be rested and fresh at the beginning, right? Nah.

36% isn’t a floor for Biden. It used to be, but with each passing month of high inflation, each month of hiding from the press, day after excruciating day of verbal gaffes and senior moments, there’s really nothing out there to prop up that approval floor. And now that one of the big pollsters has Trump beating him outside margin of error? The LBJ letter can’t be far behind, can it?

Closing thought. In case you thought the Kamala Harris rehab project was starting to bear fruit…

Heard all over America:

“Hey, Honey, has gas and food come down in price recently? No? I didn’t think so, either. What’s she talking about then? No, I don’t think God knows what she’s talking about, either.”