The Hidden Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Power

 

Do you know these names?

• Mike Donillon
• Ron Klain
• Valerie Owens
• Symone Sandler
• Steve Ricchetti
• Anita Dunn
• Cedric Richmond

One thing about Donald Trump, you know he is not a puppet on strings controlled by others. He is his own enfant terrible, whose tantrums control others.

But in Joe Biden's case, there are people behind him, propping him up, propelling him forward you never or only rarely see, who will keep him in this Presidential race because if he drops how, their lives are ruined.

I caught a glimpse of these folks when Joe Biden arrived at the Community Oven, a capacious Pizza restaurant in North Hampton in 2020, in the midst of the New Hampshire primary. (He left days before the voting, in 5th place, to go to South Carolina.)

I arrived there with my long time guide to New Hampshire politics, with whom I frequently canvassed for votes, and she had met Biden in some previous New Hampshire primary, when he was likely four or even eight years younger, and still had an eye for the ladies, and he told her as he worked his way down the line she had gorgeous eyes, which is still true, but which I'm not sure he can even notice any more.

We had listened to him try to get through audience questions, as he lost his way, and by the end of every sentence had lost track of the original question, words drifting off on clouds of distraction, often unintelligible, slurred and non sensical.

"Oh," my guide said. "This is not the same man." 

That was 4 years ago, 2020.

But what fascinated me was watching Joe Biden outside, in the parking lot, after the event, as he waited to be loaded into a limousine SUV, standing there with older women and men I did not know, but who were clearly his "handlers."

Some of them may be the folks named in that list at the top of this post. 

Whoever they were, they were clearly guiding Joe, at his elbow, behind him, and he looked very much like an addled old man being guided by others, as if he would simply have remained chatting with random citizens had they not guided him into his car.

He particularly seemed to enjoy hearing stories of distress from wounded people on the receiving line, telling them to give their names to his people so he could call them back, to be sure they got the help they needed, as if a President should be someone who personally helps a half dozen people in a small New Hampshire town.  More a parish priest consoling the flock than a man who wanted to be President, who needed to rule from the top and get big forces in motion which would provide help to legions of wounded.

He was incapable of connecting with words with a crowd, so he was trying to connect with individuals.

And I thought of Obama, on that rainy Chicago night in Grant Park, his election just won, walking out on that stage and saying to the crowd: 

"If There Is Anyone Out There Who Still Doubts That America Is a Place Where All Things Are Possible... Tonight Is Your Answer."

The cameras panned across the crowd--found Ophra Winfrey with tears streaming down her cheeks, and other anonymous souls weeping for joy.

If Joe Biden was ever capable of that sort of stagecraft, that time is long gone. 

The debate was not, of course an aberration, a single bad night, it was the confirmation of what we had all been seeing for some years. Sure, even people with dementia have lucid moments, but the obvious decline in President Biden is there for all to see.

It is only this inner circle, who see their own jobs and fates circling the drain if Mr. Biden withdraws, as he surely ought to do--it is only this inner circle, this cabal, which is keeping the country on tenterhooks.