I don’t always read The Guardian, but man oh man have they gotten a hold of the usual suspects who dump on failing political campaigns.  They have Larry Sabato, Michael Steele, and drum roll please — Bob Shrum.  They and others listed in the article tell us who questioned the foundations of a Biden candicacy what was obvious from the start.  Funny.  I don’t recall any of these wunderkinds telling us this before Iowa and New Hampshire.  But there was one “nugget” of information and/or disinformation in this article.  Frankly, I think it is disinformation, but I will let you all see it and decide.

Let’s get to what I think is disinformation:

Telltale signs’

Biden has frequently referenced his partnership with Obama but America’s first black president has remained notably silent.

Obama reportedly discouraged Biden from running in 2016 because he believed Hillary Clinton had a better chance of winning. This time, rumour has it that he nudged Deval Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts, to make a late bid because again he was dubious about Biden’s viability (Patrick dropped out after a poor showing in New Hampshire).

Steele, the ex-RNC chairman and former lieutenant-governor of Maryland, commented: “The telltale signs were there: the lack of interest that Barack had in the Biden campaign, the fact that the word on the street was that Deval Patrick was in the race was because Obama encouraged him to get in the race. Why would you do that with your vice-president already in the game?”

Word on the street?  If this was even remotely true, it says Obama has lost more than a political step or two.  Deval Patrick was never seriously considered by anyone.  In fact, I had forgotten he was in the race.  The only times I read about him was when Jason Johnson of The Root would throw a solar eclipse worth of shade at Patrick.  And consider the source, Michael Steele.

Anyone else think that Obama was stupid enough to urge Deval Partick into the race because he wanted to undermine Joe Biden?

But this is what happens when a campaign is seen as faltering.  Rumors fly, the established pundits and prognosticators come out to say the campaign was doomed from the start, and the campaign staff start to tell the Media how bad things are going.  I think the campaign staffers stories are the most telling because they are believers in their candidate.

Larry Sabato is an analyst, author and director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. His students are currently embedded in various presidential campaigns. Two were working for Joe Biden in Iowa. Before caucus day, they texted Sabato to say they expected to lose badly.

Sabato asked why. The answer: “No energy at all.”

And then you get those who worked with Joe Biden before:

Moe Vela, who was director of administration and senior adviser to Biden at the White House, said: “In Iowa I saw one of the most inferior ground games in politics. I have never seen anything so inept. He’s not being served properly by his campaign.”

Vela, now an LGBTQ and Latino activist and board director at TransparentBusiness, added: “He had been the front runner for so long that I think the campaign staff became complacent. You got a sense they were so busy talking about electability and pitting him against Trump they forgot they have to deal with these 15 people first. You could see this rude awakening in Iowa as the night was slipping away.”

What gets me about these type of death watch articles is that most of the Media had witnessed the bad campaign organization, the less than enthusiastic “crowds,” and they had access to Biden’s previous track record with regards to national campaigns.  Why didn’t they report any of this? 

This is typical of how the Media operates.  They have access to the candidates, but there any number of things they refuse to share with their readers or viewers.  Yeah, it’s inside baseball to some, but this inside baseball goes directly to what every Democratic voter is obsessing about:  electability.  Don’t we as news consumers have a right to know how the campaigns are really performing?