Biden, Hovde Take On Their Challenges

Joe Biden is too old. Eric Hovde is too California.

Those are the attacks leveled against them by their opponents. In Biden’s case it’s true that he’s the oldest president ever and his problems with age aren’t just an attack coming from Republicans, but the perception of even 61% of Biden’s own 2020 voters. In Hovde’s case the attack has some validity, but he’s largely unknown at this stage, so the California charge is an attempt by incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin to define him right out of the box.

Both candidates are now — pretty effectively in my view — confronting those narratives head on. Biden addressed the age issue at the end of his State of the Union address last week and in a new ad that came out afterwards. Hovde dived into an icy Lake Mendota to prove that he can handle the cold I guess, and produced his own ad set in a middle class Wisconsin neighborhood.

Biden’s ad begins, “Look, I know I’m not a young guy.” Then he proceeds to tout his accomplishments and attack Donald Trump without mentioning the age issue again until a clever, self-effacing “out take” tagged onto the end. I put “out take” in quotes because I doubt very much that it wasn’t scripted. But I thought it was good. Clearly, Biden couldn’t go on ignoring the age issue. He had to address it and using a little humor and lots of candor is the way to go. From the perspective of a guy who just wants to beat Trump and is among that 61% of Biden voters who think he’s too old for the rigors of the job, this is a welcome development in his campaign. I still wish he’d step aside, but since he won’t, this may be the best we can do.

On the flip side, as a guy who would like to see Tammy Baldwin reelected, I worry a little about Hovde. Baldwin won her first Senate race in 2012 by redefining the popular Tommy Thompson as “not for us anymore.” She poured millions into reenforcing that message from the moment he emerged from a bruising primary in which he had to move too far to the right.

She’s going back to the same playbook now with Hovde. Except in this case Hovde doesn’t have to get through a primary, so he’s going straight to a general election style message. Hovde attacks Washington, but not Baldwin directly, and closes his ad by saying, “I think we need to come together to find common sense solutions to restore America.” That’s a big contrast to the hard-edged first ad produced by Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels in 2022. In that ad Michels went right for the red meat, hitting hard on immigration. He had to do that because he had a competitive primary.

While he didn’t go there in this ad, I’d expect Hovde to point out that while he might spend some time on the West Coast, Baldwin has spent 25 years in Washington. A ‘choose your poison’ kind of thing. (By the way, he needs to lose the mustache. Makes him look like a ’70’s porn actor.)

And it doesn’t help that Baldwin has had consistently mediocre approval ratings. The latest Marquette University Law School poll finds that she has a -3 net approval with 42% having a favorable opinion of her while 45% have an unfavorable view. In a word, she’s vulnerable. Hovde, on the other hand, gets a chance to introduce himself to voters who haven’t formed an opinion of him yet. Hence Baldwin’s attempt at defining him before he has a chance to define himself.

Baldwin may be just California dreaming (yeah, cheap, I know, so sue me), but if the tag doesn’t stick I’d expect her to move on to an almost sure winner (she will anyway even if the Cal charge is working). She’ll try to make the election a simple up or down vote on abortion. That might seal the deal for her because Hovde simply can’t move far enough to the middle to capture enough of the two-thirds of Wisconsinites who disapprove of the Supreme Court decision striking down Roe.

So, right now, at this early stage, I’d say Biden has begun to deal effectively with the age issue after ignoring it for too long while Hovde is hitting back on the California issue from the start.

But there’s a difference in their prospects. If Biden can dampen concerns about his age he’s got a good chance of winning. If Hovde turns back Baldwin’s California dream he’s still got problems on abortion and I don’t see how he overcomes those.

And on another matter… I was sorry to read of the passing of Marv MIller. Marv owned the Greenbush Bakery on Regent Street. I’d often stop there late at night on my way home from City Council meetings to pick up some donuts. (I like the sour cream.) Anyway, Marv was a talker, a fun guy and a man who created a Madison institution. He died Friday at 82. We need more like Marv. I’d take a dozen.