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Joe Biden’s new clothes
One of the persistent pieces of figurative language in politics is the notion of coattails. The term goes back at least to one of Abraham Lincoln’s speeches in Congress in 1848, used then to suggest the covering of politicians at lower tiers by a national leader, but now used to describe the effect that the top of the ticket has in pulling others along to victory, a sense that was first used in 1949. For those who would like to achieve big political results, a presidential nominee who inspires lots of sympathetic voters to come to the polls is an example of tactical perfection if it can be achieved.
How often this can be achieved is a dose of reality, since it is easier to find one’s campaign in Pickett’s Charge rather than the Battle of Cannae, and even when a president sweeps into office with sufficient numbers in the legislative branch to get a big agenda enacted, the following mid-term election is likely to erase that advantage. Obama’s experience in 2008 and 2010 is but the most recent illustration of this lesson, a warning that the American electorate is a fickle body.
Thus we come to this year’s election. In 2018, the Democrats gained control of the House and showed the country why half a loaf is just so much moldy bread. On Twitter, leftist accounts talk of a coming blue wave and have been predicting this outcome since before Trump took office. If we expect to get any…
