With apologies to James Carville, it’s COVID, stupid.
The recent increase in coronavirus cases in much of the country is bringing the issue to the forefront of the presidential campaign. If the elections were held today, the outcome would largely depend on the voters’ judgment on how the candidates handled the issue.
The result would be Joe Biden in a landslide, polls say. It is a remarkable find given that Biden rarely ventures out of his basement and has made no proposal beyond what the White House is already doing. Clearly, the Democrat benefits from public unhappiness with President Trump’s performance.
Florida is the latest example, with voters criticizing both Governor Ron DeSantis and Trump. A Quinnipiac poll finds that only 38 percent approve of how DeSantis is handling the coronavirus, with 57 percent disapproving.
Trump has similar numbers there, and both Republicans are taking a beating in his overall job approval as a result.
DeSantis’ support fell off a cliff, undergoing a 31-point change in net approval. Trump’s fall is less precipitous, but big enough that Biden’s lead has grown from four points in an April Quinnipiac Poll to 13 points now.
Many Trump supporters don’t trust the polls, but the president’s recent actions show he knows he has a big problem with the way the public views his performance on the virus.
Annex A was his return to the White House press room last week to give regular updates on the government’s response for the first time since late April.
The most striking thing was the difference in tone. Its briefings from March to April featured bullish predictions, sometimes lasting two hours and often turning into small discussions with journalists, also known as Democrats with press badges.
This time, the president, appearing alone instead of with his task force, read shorter statements that offered a softer and more sober assessment. He took fewer questions and answered them clearly, but the most important changes were substantive.
On Tuesday, Trump endorsed wearing a mask and dropped any conversation about the virus’s rapid disappearance, even acknowledging that the spread “is unfortunately likely to worsen before it improves.” Something I don’t like to say about things, but that’s the way it is. It is what we have.
He continued Thursday by canceling the Jacksonville, Florida portion of his party’s convention. “I think that setting an example is very important. It is difficult for us to say that we are going to have a lot of people in one room, and then other people should not have it, “Trump said.
That would suggest that no further manifestations of him are planned. The only one he’s had, in Tulsa, since the initial outbreak presented the rare sight of thousands of empty seats despite his campaign boast that he had requests for 1 million tickets.
Soon after, the president shuffled his team’s deck, and the modified approach reflects the new leadership.
In a brief telephone interview on Friday, the president acknowledged that the COVID disaster, which has claimed the lives of 148,000 Americans, has restructured the race.
“With the China virus, even George Washington would have had difficulties,” he told me. “We were sailing towards victory, then we were hit by China.”
He maintains that “we have done a very good job but have not received credit for it,” and he reiterates his criticism that the focus on the increasing number of infections reflects the rapid growth in the number of tests. “The evidence creates cases for the press to speak,” he said.
In fact, while cases skyrocket and deaths rise much more gradually, media hysteria still makes it seem like every positive case is a death sentence.
When I said that Steve Bannon was right in calling the media the true opposition party, the president agreed and ranked his opponents in this order: the media first, the Democratic Party second, and Biden third.
Despite his acceptance of the need to get better ratings from the public in handling the virus, the president clearly wants the campaign’s focus to be on other things. The economy he built until the outbreak remains his main strength, and he is especially eager to contrast Biden about the unrest and the crime wave that burns in urban areas. He’s already running television commercials depicting an old woman calling 911 during a robbery attempt, only to get a recording.
“People are understanding the radical left, what is happening in Oregon and Chicago and even in New York,” Trump told me. “All of these are run by super liberal Democrats; in some cases they are really radical, “quoting Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
We were running out of time, but I had one more question that I had been wondering about. “Sir. President,” I asked him, “do you pray?”
Silence, and then “Yes.” After a brief pause, he continued: “The country needs it. I’m the only thing that stands between the craziest and most radical crazies, “and he re-numbered the cities under siege by the anarchists.
“You would have that across the country with Joe Biden, who is corrupt and cheated on my campaign,” he said. “This is the same ideology as Venezuela.”
That’s the main fight he wants to have. But to get there, you must first convince voters that the United States is winning the COVID war. More prayers will be needed.
Governor ‘Thug’
Governor Andrew Cuomo cannot help it. When asked if he would support an independent investigation into butchering in a nursing home, he again attacked The Post, me, and columnist Bob McManus.
Fox News, an apparent reference to Janice Dean, the network’s senior meteorologist, who lost her two in-laws when the coronavirus spread through her nursing home, also added. Dean has become a powerful voice for bereaved families by demanding an investigation of Cuomo.
The governor’s response illustrates why so many in Albany consider him a bully. Personalize all the criticism and try to isolate those who dare to suggest that the emperor has no clothes.
At least 6,500 elderly New Yorkers, and perhaps twice that number, died in state nursing homes, the vast majority of them after the Health Department ordered households to admit patients with coronavirus. In an additional dose of insanity, the order prevented the facility from even asking if the patients had tested positive.
Obviously feeling the heat, Cuomo recently had his staff prepare a silly report absolving him and his Health Department of any responsibility, a claim so absurd that the effort added to the case against him. After all, why create a fictional narrative if the facts are on your side?
Cardboard cops?
Present this in “don’t give him any idea”.
Reader Harold Theurer writes: “The Mets sold 5,000 fans the ability to have clippings of themselves at Citi Field to provide a fan presence for players.
“Perhaps the 17% mayor will place 5,000 police cuts in the most dangerous neighborhoods to fight crime.”
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