Weekend will be test of Biden's resolve

Defiant president faces uphill battle to convince voters, party donors he’s fit to run for re-election

- ALLAN WOODS

While U.S. President Joe Biden is a tried-and-true political warrior, he can no longer claim the physical qualities required of a modern-day political campaigner, Allan Woods writes.

The longer that U.S. President Joe Biden waves his party’s presidential battle flag, the more it is shredded by friendly fire.

Heading into a high-stakes weekend that could make or break his long political career, he is vowing to march onward to victory. But if he can’t convince his party and, more importantly, his donors, he could be days away from defeat and a declaration of surrender.

Forgive the martial analogies, but there is a reason that political campaigns are run out of what insiders refer to as “war rooms.”

In politics, like in combat, partisans fight for their lives, campaigns fight to the death. Soldiers don’t stop fighting until victory, defeat or a truce has been decided and formally declared.

This helps make sense of the discordant messages emerging from Biden’s re-election campaign and from Democratic party circles in the United States over the past week, since the disastrous and potentially fatal performance in the debate against Donald Trump.

Biden the candidate is convinced he can win the November presidential election. Too many of those who should be lined up in battle beside and behind him don’t believe that he can or should do so.

Two realities have emerged. The first is that while 81-year-old

Biden is a tried-and-true political warrior, his best days are from an earlier time. Today’s political attacks and counterattacks are constant. They require candidates to have the strength of a heavyweight boxer, the speed of a sprinter and the stamina of an ultra-marathoner.