An old Joe Biden foe is back - the enthusiasm gap

Every presidential campaign raises nagging questions of various sorts.

- Clarence Page

With the 2024 election barely more than a year away, one overarching question haunts Democrats: Why the heck isn’t President Joe Biden doing better in the polls?

The fear and the handwringing from my friends and colleagues — and not just the liberals — have begun to remind me of the classic Yuletide “Dennis the Menace” cartoon.

Dennis is seen on Christmas morning awash in toys and wrapping paper as he turns to his parents to ask, “Is this all?”

I hear that question a lot from Democrats and others who are frustrated not by a lack of gifts but by the lack of movement in Biden’s poll numbers.

It’s not like he hasn’t had significant accomplishments to cite, and we’ll be hearing more about them, although his own allies complain — with good reason, in my view — that he doesn’t toot his own horn enough about them. Part of the malaise seems to be leftover exhaustion from the last campaign’s drama, which ended with victory, followed by an assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.