Democrats Scrambling to Save Biden from Humiliation in New Hampshire
They’re trying to save President Joe Biden from himself — and the backfire could be even worse.
When the Democratic president made a deliberate decision last week to write off New Hampshire voters, it was a strategic move to pander to his party’s more “diverse” base.
But he still set himself up for a potentially humiliating prospect: Seeing a rival win the Granite State’s traditionally influential first primary in his party’s nomination contest.
According to Fox News, a Democratic group operating independently of the Biden re-election campaign has launched a drive to keep that from happening by staging a campaign for voters to write Biden in on a presidential primary ballot that won’t include the incumbent’s name.
“The fate of our democracy itself hangs in the balance in the 2024 election,” the Write-In Biden website declares.
Actually, it’s more like the fate of Biden and his dodgy family that hangs in the balance — considering it’s Biden’s political power that protected the family’s influence-peddling schemes from getting uncomfortably close scrutiny from the feds.
But that isn’t stopping write-in campaign organizers from trying to convince New Hampshire voters to give Biden an undeserved showing in a primary he’s openly scorned.
As The Associated Press reported last week, Biden chose not to file to have his name included in the New Hampshire primary because the state has remained stubborn about maintaining its first-in-the-nation voting status.
In February, after Biden’s urging, the Democratic National Committee approved a primary calendar that replaces New Hampshire as the first primary state with South Carolina — the state that saved Biden’s flailing campaign during the 2020 nomination fight.
Since New Hampshire refused to go along with the schedule, which puts its primary three days after South Carolina, Biden will not be campaigning there.
Even The New York Times Magazine, in an article in July, noted that New Hampshire’s Democrats were “setting up a clash with the D.N.C. that could widen to publicly embarrass Biden … handing the incumbent president a shocking statewide defeat.”
The Write-In Biden campaign is aiming to prevent that — and keep the title of the Democratic New Hampshire primary winner from going to some much lesser-known (and possibly insane) contenders like Marianne Williamson, a veteran of the 2020 Democratic primary and kind of a weirdo.
Judging by the initial social media response, it might not exactly be the galvanizing force organizers are thinking:
Just a ridiculous idea that adds strain on poll works for no reason. Democrats need to take the hint. Biden doesn’t care about NH votes. Move on.
— Enoch (@TheElderRace) October 30, 2023
Lol. Biden is throwing @NHDems under the bus by not entering the NH Primary, & the Dems are mounting a write in campaign for him
— Mr. Roscoe 03 (@JamesHAnnis1) October 30, 2023
Who would ever want him re-elected?
— dcnh (@davec_NH) October 31, 2023
While it seems like the Democratic primary result is a foregone conclusion in favor of the incumbent — no matter what New Hampshire does — the party has certainly gotten livelier since Friday, when Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota announced he is challenging Biden for the nomination and filed to run in the state capital of Concord.
While he has almost impossible odds to overcome, Phillips has some advantages: He’s one of the wealthiest men in Congress, according to Politico, and he’s evidently not insane. (He thinks Biden is simply too old to be president.)
Write-In Biden leader Jim Demers told Fox News that Phillips’ entry into the race wasn’t a factor in the group’s decision launch — it was made before Phillips filed, Demers said. But staving off potential rivals was clearly the whole idea.
But that’s where the potential for a backfire comes in.
The decision by Biden, his handlers and the Democratic National Committee to effectively cut New Hampshire out of the nomination process was no doubt made with the knowledge that it could well mean Biden would not appear on the state’s ballot. (New Hampshire takes its status so seriously it has a state law requiring its primary to be at least one week ahead of any other state’s.)
If Biden’s name wasn’t even on the ballot, a “loss” there could be spun as no loss at all, but at worst a non-decision. And given the establishment media’s willingness to spin the lefty Democratic spiel, it could even be played as a moral victory, a sacrifice to the god of Diversity.
But now that there’s an actual campaign championing Biden, the danger of humiliation is even higher, regardless of whether it’s actually affiliated with Biden’s organization.
There’s a very good chance the Write-In Biden effort will tank. Biden wasn’t popular in New Hampshire in 2020, when he placed fifth in a still-crowded field led by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
After unambiguously insulting the state’s Democrats by downgrading their primary placement, he’s unlikely to have improved his image much.
Since the Write-In Biden campaign will actually give Democrats at least the notional chance to cast a vote in favor of the president, it will be even worse if — and almost certainly when — they choose one of his rivals.
No thanks, will vote for Dean Phillips as he wants to be on the ballot
— Rick Curtis (@RickDaSportGeek) October 30, 2023
Trying to save Biden from himself, they might have just made things a whole lot worse than they would be if they’d just been left alone.
If nothing else, they’re proving they’re really Democrats.
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