Now is the time for Biden to be bold
“In six months,” the narrative states, the man in the White House “had faced some of the roughest abuse and difficulties of any president in history.
“He had been castigated … repudiated … ridiculed. He had faced the pressure of the Palestine issue, the increasing threat of war [with Russia], watched his popularity disintegrate in the polls, seen himself portrayed in the press as inept and pathetic.
“… No president in memory … had been treated with such open contempt by his own party.”
It sounds an awful lot like Joe Biden, right? But, no, the president in question was someone else; but just like Biden, this commander-in- chief faced a variety of obstacles as he embarked on his election campaign.
The year was 1948. That year’s most memorable headline emphatically stated, “Dewey defeats Truman.” Of course, the Chicago Tribune got it all wrong: The incumbent president of the United States, Democrat Harry S. Truman, beat – actually, trounced – his Republican challenger, Thomas Dewey.
How did Truman do it? Moreover, are there lessons Biden, a Democrat, might draw on to overcome his GOP rival, Donald Trump?
There sure are, but caution: 2024 is not 1948, which was just three years after the end of World War II when trust in government may have been at an all-time high, not at an all-time low, like now, and Joe Biden is not Harry Truman – Biden is a faltering 81-year old while Truman was a healthy 64.
(Truman was famous for his public walks each morning before work, keeping to a military pace of 120 strides per minute. “He was alert, sharp … he [was] vigorous, very strong,” recalled a former presidential aide speaking to Truman biographer David McCullough in the 1980s.)
In fact, what Truman did to pull victory from the jaws of defeat may be beyond Biden’s capacity to sustain over the course of a grueling campaign.
Example: during an extensive June campaign train trip, Truman began the practice of speaking off-the-cuff. Frequently stiff and mechanical while reading the text of a prepared speech, Truman came off as authentic and folksy when speaking spontaneously and without notes.
While Biden doesn’t need to reinforce his folksy credentials – he’s “Scranton Joe,” for gosh sakes – he does need to show he can think on his feet to counter the impression of bewilderment he left with voters during his recent debate with Trump.
Zachary Karabell, in his book about the 1948 campaign, pointedly noted, “Listening to Truman during the trip, said one reporter, was ‘a revelation even to correspondents who covered Truman at the White House. A new Truman … emerged.'”
Is it in the cards for Biden to pull off a verbal change of pace similar to Truman’s? Hmmm.
The whole idea behind Truman’s pre-convention cross-country train excursion was to get him out of the cocoon of Washington, D.C., and to show him off to masses of voters in cities and towns and at rural crossroads.
The whole idea behind a similar journey for Biden is to put the president in front of millions of Americans doing what needs to be done: demonstrating the president’s physical and mental capacity to carry out what would be a brutally demanding schedule.
Harry Truman left Washington on June 3, 1948. He returned on the 18th. In 15 days, he traveled 9,505 miles, visited 18 states, made 73 speeches, and saw and was seen by three million people.
It changed the trajectory of the campaign. Biden needs to do something just as dramatic and game-changing.
On his long journey, Truman rode in an open car in both Chicago and Los Angeles. He was cheered by over a million people.
It hasn’t been done in decades and the Secret Service would have a fit, but maybe Biden should ride in a top-down limousine through an American city or two, in addition to getting on a train, say, on Monday for an extended meet-and-greet with voters.
All of these, including more press conferences, probably should have been tried months ago. Now time is short. Every minute of every day, all eyes will be on the president. If he insists on staying in the race, he should use that to his advantage – if he can.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.