One of the things that’s interesting about politics is that come late July, early August, everybody gets bored. And so all the reporters begin writing nonsense. And the current round is, Will Joe Biden run again? Maybe Joe Biden shouldn’t run again? Who would run if Joe Biden didn’t run?

Now, what that tells you is that it’s late summer, a lot of reporters want to go on vacation. They don’t have any really hard news to cover. Which is odd, because you have this huge bill going through the Senate and the house that would normally be an enormous story. But…there’s a politics of politics, which has to nothing to do with government, has nothing to do with substance. It’s just gossip. And they love it. Because it allows them to babble and have an opinion, talk to each other. And it has nothing to do with the real world except to the degree that the news media is a part of the real world.

I believe if Biden does want to run again, that he’s very formidable for a simple reason. Look how many trillions of dollars they have given him to spend? His staff isn’t stupid. They would know how to call up various governors and senators and House members and say, “Hi, remember those five projects you want? Where are you on the Biden candidacy?”

Jimmy Carter was faced with this, he was clearly going to be defeated. Teddy Kennedy was running. Teddy was the charming Crown Prince of the left and he got smashed by Carter because in the end, an incumbent president has an enormous amount of power, and a great deal of resources. 

Even Gerry Ford, who had been picked to be vice president when Spiro Agnew had to resign for having broken the law, and then ended up replacing Nixon as president when Nixon had to resign. So Ford had no natural base in the whole country. He was a congressman from Michigan who had become the House Minority Leader. But faced with the most successful Republican politician of his generation, the most articulate, the most attractive, and the governor of the largest state in the country – Ronald Reagan – Ford in the end beat him. It was a close race, but Ford in the end, did win. 

So I think underestimating the power of a president is always dangerous, particularly inside their own party. Ford went on to lose, just as Carter went on to lose, so the other lesson is if there is a serious primary opposition, it very often is a sign that that incumbent, even if they can keep the nomination, is not going to get through the general election.

But remember. It’s summer, the reporters are bored, and most of what they’re writing is nonsense.