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'Biden must not repeat Hillary's mistakes to win against Trump: Ex-congressional staffer

Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton (file photo)

By Rodney Martin

Michael Moore's comments that he posted on Facebook are well taken and they should be listened to. He was correct, in 2016, when he predicted Trump's election victory as was I on Press TV.

And I should say that when Joe Biden announced his candidacy I had originally thought that he would march his way into victory, however, my position has changed. The United States is at present in terms of where the nation stands is 40/40; there's probably 40% for Trump, 40% for Biden, and the rest is up for grabs.

And as you well noted we don't have a national election for president of the United States. We have 50 statewide elections in which each state votes for president, and that's tabulated in the electoral college which is enshrined in our Constitution by our founders, for a whole myriad of reasons, but specifically, so larger states could not dominate the smaller states, and that is not going away anytime soon.

And so the great danger is that former Vice President Biden will repeat the mistakes of Hillary Clinton but on a grander scale. His original plan was that he would just stay home and phone this election in, and now just in the last 24 to 48 hours, he's announced that he's going to make campaign stops in the Rust Belt states that he was originally leading quite nicely in, which is a defensive measure.

So Michael Moore's comments are well taken. And the former vice president has now a change of strategy to go into the Rustbelt States that he was leading in probably indicates that his internal polling shows a replication of the 2016 election which means Donald Trump has a solid core of support of probably 30 to 35% on any given day which means he needs the support of independence and the old Reagan Democrats.

The Reagan Democrats are what Joe Biden was supposed to bring back to the party, however, recent events in the United States specifically violence on the streets rioting and looting has historically been something that has driven Reagan Democrats to Republican candidates such as in 1968 they voted for Richard Nixon because of violence in the streets and then in 1980 election they voted for Ronald Reagan because Jimmy Carter was perceived as grossly incompetent.

What the former Vice President Biden has to do is to greatly move to the center and run as a centrist candidate. He has to, shall I say, become Bill Clinton and embrace the centrist policies of Bill Clinton to recapture the independents and the Reagan Democrats. Now that's going to be very tough because there is a schism within the Democratic Party right now between the very extreme and progressive left, and that moderate wing that Vice President Biden has historically correct represented.

So he has a very tough chore on his hands that Donald Trump does not. Donald Trump has 90 to 95% of the Republican base in lockstep with him. So Vice President Biden has a much tougher road to hoe. But if he wants to win, and if the Democratic Party wants to win they're gonna have to make a political decision. Is winning and obtaining the White House for the benefit of the country and world peace more important than political purity tests?

Rodney Martin is a political analyst and former congressional staffer based in Arizona. He recorded this article for Press TV website.


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