David Plouffe knows how to win elections. He was the campaign manager for Barack Obama’s 2008 run, crafting a brilliant strategy to defeat the Clinton political machine. Not an easy feat for a then-no-name Illinois US senator who had served two-thirds of his first term after a remarkably unimpressive stint in the state legislature. Given the serial Democratic incompetence ingrained in the 2024 cycle, you know he was bound to spill everything.
Plouffe joined the 2024 Kamala Harris campaign late. He wasn’t alone—Stephanie Cutter also joined in what some in the media joke as a reassembling of the Obama campaign operation. Yet not even these people could save a candidate who was weak, unqualified, and laughably inept. Harris' main problem was her penchant for freezing when she needed to make tough decisions, which you do not want to read about regarding a presidential candidate. She came off as aloof, unengaged, and not ready for primetime. One step away from the talking points, she crashed into the rocks. We all saw it.
Now, spilling his guts to Axios’ Alex Thompson and CNN’s Jake Tapper—Plouffe went on the warpath, blaming the Democrats’ 2024 defeat on Joe Biden for dithering too long on whether to drop out. Last, he called Kamala Harris’ 107-day campaign a “f**king nightmare” (via the Guardian):
Joe Biden “totally f**ked us” by leaving it too late to drop out of the 2024 US presidential election, a former top campaign aide to Kamala Harris has told the authors of a new book.
David Plouffe, who was manager of Barack Obama’s winning 2008 campaign and a senior adviser in his White House, was drafted in to help Harris’s bid for president after the declining Biden withdrew from the race last summer.
Harris’s 107-day sprint against Donald Trump was “a f**king nightmare”, Plouffe is quoted as saying by authors Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson in Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. A copy was obtained by the Guardian.
“And it’s all Biden,” Plouffe adds, reflecting on the former US president’s decisions to run for re-election and then to cling on for more than three weeks after a catastrophic debate performance against Trump raised questions about his mental acuity and age. “He totally f**ked us.”
[…]
The book describes how Plouffe had received calls from donors worried about Biden’s diminishing energy, cognitive skills and ability to deliver a speech. He in turn pressed the White House and Democratic Party if they felt sure that the then president could win another election and was repeatedly told he could.
[…]
One senior aide, who quit the White House because they did not think Biden should run, admits to the authors that “we attempted to shield him from his own staff so many people didn’t realize the extent of the decline beginning in 2023”.
“I love Joe Biden. When it comes to decency, there are few in politics like him. Still, it was a disservice to the country and to the party for his family and advisers to allow him to run again.”
A prominent Democratic strategist says of Biden’s determination to seek re-election: “It was an abomination. He stole an election from the Democratic party; he stole it from the American people.”
Recommended
The Biden inner circle in the White House kept the president insulated from these inquiries. It was adroit at maintaining this façade that was made untenable after his meltdown in the CNN debate with Donald Trump. Rep. Annie Kuster (D-NH), at that infamous Los Angeles fundraiser, noticed how Biden could not hack the photo line with attendees. This event is also what spurred George Clooney to pen that damning op-ed calling on Biden to drop out, effectively dissolving the White House’s ties with the Hollywood Left.
While Biden had a loyal cadre within the White House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wasn’t scared of them. She took down the White House in a few weeks and booted Joe off the ballot. She’s gone on record noting the unremarkable lack of talent within the Biden White House’s political team, which is how she could easily outmaneuver this bunch. It’s unreal. In no circumstance should the White House lose to a congresswoman who isn’t even in Democratic leadership anymore. And yet, she made mincemeat of it in a few weeks, a testament to the appalling weakness permeating this administration's halls.
The agenda, along with the president, was unpopular, who later shackled his vice president not to distance herself from him, which further hobbled Democrats. Kamala didn’t have the political skills to branch out anyway. There wasn’t a single internal poll from the Harris campaign that had her defeating Donald Trump in the election. All the Democrats had was hope that the former president’s baggage and approval ratings would stop him from winning. It didn’t: Trump once again overperformed in the polling, snatched young voters away from Democrats, clinched more from Hispanic men, and attracted non-white working-class voters. Trump had taken over the Obama coalition. Plouffe knows something about that. He built it in 2008 and knows it’s unbeatable. I can see why it was a “f**king nightmare.”
One president was half-braindead due to age. The other is equally mentally deficient due to a lack of intelligence and experience. Politically, Biden-Harris were the same person: weak, stupid, and horrifyingly incompetent.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member