“Yes, we can.”
- While the traditional campaign logistics have been skewed by the pandemic, some fundamentals remain in play. Exhibit A: Get your closer out there to make the case, especially in a country that has one of the lowest rates of voter turnout among developed nations. And nobody, including Joe Biden, makes the case against a Trump re-election better than The Donald’s predecessor, Barack Obama.
Obama recently campaigned in Philadelphia, underscored that Dems “can’t be lazy and complacent,” and then traveled twice to Florida, including most notably, to majority-black North Miami. “If you bring Florida home, this thing’s over,” said Obama. In other words, let’s get the black vote back to 2008 numbers when the black turnout in Florida was 74 percent. In 2016 it was 69 percent. The excuse was: Clinton wasn’t Obama. Well, neither is Biden, but he is the experienced, decent, unifying alternative to a national and global threat. That should be motivation enough—and Obama is the “Yes, we can” one to keep making the case to vote as if American democracy were at stake, because it damn well is.
- “Moral obligation.” How Biden has characterized the role of the U.S. regarding climate change.
- “The environmental movement doesn’t have a persuasion problem; we have a turnout problem. There’s this enormous, latent pool of political power in the climate movement in Florida.”—Nathaniel Stinnet, founder of the Environmental Voter Project.
- FiveThirtyEight estimates the odds of a Democratic takeover of the Senate at 74-26—or three to one.
- Fortunately for Biden, no big deal was made of his quick look at his watch near the end of the last presidential debate. Shades of President George H.W. Bush doing that against Bill Clinton in 1992. Talk about unforced errors.
- Don’t stand back. Don’t just stand by. But stand up for America. And vote out the one that democracy can’t stand.