It is being reported that Joe Biden has chosen a campaign manager for his reelection bid. It is Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the granddaughter of labor leader Cesar Chavez and labor activist Helen Fabela Chávez. This choice tracks with Biden’s claim that he is the most labor union-friendly president ever.
Joe Biden is all about checking identity boxes, not necessarily choosing people for positions because of their experience and competence. Ms. Rodriguez is a longtime Democrat activist and former member of the Obama administration. Biden does tend to gravitate toward former Obama people. This is the third term of Obama, after all. It’s the ramped-up progressive version of the two-term Obama presidency. Unfortunately for Joe, though, American voters aren’t really feeling his reelection. He’s old at age 80 and his mental and physical acuity is being called into question from all quarters. Republicans, Democrats, major newspapers, and former public officials are suggesting that Joe sits the 2024 race out. It’s time for him to retire.
Biden is expected to announce his candidacy for reelection on Tuesday. This comes at a time when some Biden people were settling into the idea that he may wait and announce his candidacy later, say in early summer since there is no rush for him to do so. As they do, Team Biden is now scrambling to put together an announcement when the event should have been a no-brainer for a man who has been in political office for 50 years, including two terms as vice president. Now as the incumbent president, he has a huge platform. Any flubs will be further proof that he is prone to miss a beat, he’s not all there anymore, and voters can’t trust him to be able to handle even a campaign announcement. It won’t be a live event, either. It is rumored to be a video that was recorded in one of his Delaware homes when he returned from his family vacation in Ireland.
Rodriguez’s appointment has not been finalized and Biden has yet to formally launch his reelection campaign but the writing is on the wall.
Growing up in California she was active in campaigns, picket lines, boycotts, marches and union meetings.
She has served as Biden’s director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs since the beginning of his presidency and added the senior adviser role last June.
Rodriguez also has deep ties to Vice President Kamala Harris. She served on Harris’ Senate staff and on Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign as national political director and traveling chief of staff.
She went on to be hired by Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign as a deputy campaign manager and senior adviser for Latino outreach.
Her appointment is a sop to labor unions and a plea for their support of his reelection. He will be sure to talk about her grandfather, Cesar Chavez. Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association. It later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee which then became the United Farm Workers labor union. One thing that is interesting about choosing Rodriguez is that her grandfather was against illegal immigration and we know that Biden’s border crisis is deliberate and intentional. Biden courts illegal immigration, the opposite of what Chavez stood for. Chavez’s opposition was mostly centered around protecting union jobs, back in his day.
He encouraged union members to join “wet lines” along the Arizona-Mexico border to prevent undocumented immigrants from crossing into the U.S. He accused immigration agents at the border of letting in undocumented immigrants to undermine the labor efforts of Latino farmworkers.
Polling is not going well for Biden. A solid majority of American voters do not want him to run for reelection. Even among Democrat voters, a majority do not want him to run again.
A poll earlier this week by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that 26 percent of Americans overall want to see Biden run again – a slight recovery from the 22 percent who said that in January. Forty-seven percent of Democrats say they want him to run, also up slightly from only 37 percent who said that in January.
An NBC News poll shows similar results
According to the survey, 70% of all Americans — including 51% of Democrats — believe he should not run for a second term.
Half of those who say Biden shouldn’t run cite his age as a “major” reason why.
“The president needs to reflect the age group in the country. They should both retire,” said one Democratic poll respondent from Washington state, also referring to Trump. “It is someone else’s turn.”
As for Trump, 60% of Americans — including a third of Republicans — think the former president shouldn’t run in 2024..
The polls have been consistent for months. American voters are ready to move on from the current generation in office and eager for the next generation to move up. The same is true for both Democrats and Republicans. Trump is only four years younger than Biden. Biden shows his age differently than Trump. Trump remains mentally alert and physically active. Biden is failing before our eyes.
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