Candidates past their prime go up to bat because they have the biggest networks of fellow politicians, donors and party activists. It’s as if Major League Baseball favored players on the basis of seniority and how well they networked, not based on how well they can pitch or hit.
Voters self-importantly think of elections as the big political competition, but that’s like judging companies based on the keynote addresses of their CEOs. Elections are the least important part of politics. All the really important parts of politics happen behind closed doors. What politicians do isn’t run for office, they network, they cut deals and they plan their careers.
That network, which we occasionally call by wholly inadequate names like the “establishment” or “D.C. insiders” is the reason Biden is up again in 2024. And why he can’t be gotten rid of.
But where did Obama come from? He came out of that network of radical activists, donors and government personnel now running the country. Obama is not a brilliant genius or one-man dynamo, he was a lazy and unoriginal activist lawyer, one of tens of thousands of Ivy Leaguers who join the political side of the network…. […]
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