David Axelrod, a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama, defended recent criticism of the president's re-election campaign, saying it is unhelpful to brush off concerns about President Biden's poor performance in major polls.
Axelrod said: interview Politico said people who voice concerns about the Biden campaign's strategy find it “upsetting” to be called “bedwetters.”
Politico asked him if he was referring to Jim Messina, Obama's 2012 campaign manager. Messina has frequently shared his support for Biden on social media and with commentators, and has dismissed the polls as “stupid” to this point.
“I think that's very unhelpful, because sometimes there are reasons to be concerned. And there are also a lot of really smart, dedicated Biden supporters who are concerned,” Axelrod said Friday. He spoke in a published interview.
“What you have to do is think through what it is that concerns people and decide what is legitimate and what needs to be done. “There are people on the side who are really committed to Joe Biden with a sense of concern and urgency. That's why I thought it was unusually tone-deaf and unhelpful,” he said.
Axelrod, a CNN political commentator and podcast host, recently received a political pin in the mail with the message “Support Biden,” Politico reported.
He defended his decision to point out Biden's challenges, particularly when he suggested in November that this was the “last moment” to determine whether Biden should resign.
“I know people expect 100 percent loyalty, but that's not my job,” Axelrod said. “It's clear there's a challenge here, and it seemed very clear to me in early November when I suggested he think hard about what he was doing. I was 99 percent sure it didn't mean anything, but I thought there was a 1 percent chance he'd actually reconsider it.”
Among other criticisms, he prefaced his comments by saying he thought Biden had accomplished great things in his first three years in office, particularly citing infrastructure legislation and getting the U.S. out of the COVID-19 pandemic. pointed out.
The Biden campaign has largely responded to negative polling by arguing that polls are off by such wide margins that they typically cannot predict voters in November. The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Axelrod's comments Friday.
“Unlike the 2012 campaign, we are on the verge of the strongest mid-term performance of a president since FDR,” a source close to the Biden campaign told The Hill.
White House aides often point out that Mr. Obama still won despite tough polling conditions a year before his re-election bid. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party performed better than expected in the 2022 midterm elections, similar to how Franklin Roosevelt, who led the United States out of the Great Depression, won seats for his party in the 1934 midterm elections.
Former President Trump, the Republican front-runner, has a 1.2-point lead over Biden, according to a tally of polls kept by Decision Desk HQ and The Hill.
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