The Hill occasionally will publish opinion pieces, or opinion pieces posing as hard news, that make a half-hearted attempt to balance out their coverage. In that vein, Amie Parnes (per her biography, a longtime political journalist and writer with a penchant for covering Democrat campaigns) wrote a piece titled “Five reasons Democrats are worried about Biden.”

Really? Only FIVE? Pretty sure that there are lots more, but let’s look at what Parnes lists out as the Democrats’ current causes of concern. First up: Biden’s age.

The biggest worry Democrats have is the president’s age. Biden will turn 81 in November and would be 86 at the end of a second term.”

He’s already the oldest president in U.S. history, a record he breaks every day in office.”

Strategists in the Democratic Party see it as the main reason for a contradiction in polling: Most Democrats approve of Biden’s first term, but more than half of those surveyed say the president shouldn’t run again.”

Biden’s age is a source of attacks from his would-be rivals.”

This is a gimmie, because it’s so obvious. Remember that Ronald Reagan was only 77 when he LEFT office – a full three years younger than Biden is NOW. And Biden will be turning 82 just a couple of weeks after Election Day 2024. By contrast, John McCain was 71 in 2008 – and HE was dogged by age questions that the media found perfectly acceptable to ask. Which is why Democrats are being put in front of cameras to claim that Biden has “energy.”

Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell says Biden "puts many of us to shame with his energy" pic.twitter.com/tLmv0b6PGB

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 27, 2023

Yeah, so much “energy” that he’s only good for 30 hours a week.

Biden’s close advisers say he’s mentally sharp. But even some of them concede his age has diminished his energy, significantly limiting his schedule.”

Many White House officials say they’re amazed at Biden’s stamina — often adding the caveat: “for his age.”

Some White House officials say it’s difficult to schedule public or private events with the president in the morning, in the evening, or on weekends: The vast majority of Biden’s public events happen on weekdays, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.”

The man is paid $400K a year, and we are told being president is a 24/7 job. Anyone else want to get paid $400K a year for six hour days, five days a week, with free room and board and security and staff to cover for you if you’re just not awake enough to do the job at 3 am when a crisis happens?

Most of Parnes’s list all relate back to the first concern. Her second is “lack of interviews.” Yeah, between the media giving him the questions ahead of time (which both sides deny happened, even though we can see it plain as day on the cue card), and little kids stumping him about the last country he visited, there’s a reason why his handlers don’t want him exposed to interviews. The third is “nimbleness” – which Parnes equates to being able to respond off-the-cuff and being flexible about public interactions. The fourth is “proneness to gaffes,” which has been a Joe Biden trademark since his days of plagiarism and lying about his college education – lies and exaggerations that continue to this day. The fifth concern is “handling of the economy,” but that is baked into the cake for any Democrat insisting on more spending and more taxes in a weakening economy where the people who did things right are punished, while still attempting to bribe voters off with the promise of student debt forgiveness. The Democrats are simply worried that Biden doesn’t have the charm to sell the crappy economy, high inflation, and rising energy and gas prices to a voting public.

Maybe Parnes thought these were the five most pressing concerns, but there are lots, lots more to be found. Here are five more.
1) Kamala Harris
As I said yesterday, Joe and Kamala are locked in a symbiotic relationship. They don’t get along, but neither of them can survive without the other. He needs her intersectionality to justify his own presidency, and she’s so terrible at her job that she has become his insurance policy.

Kamala didn’t even speak in the re-election video that was released this week, though she appeared in it. She hasn’t exactly been Joe’s right-hand woman (that’s Jill) during this administration, but he can’t get rid of her, and she knows that the Old Man is one staircase away from putting her into the Oval Office. The odds are also good that if they win, Joe doesn’t finish the next four years. Democrats are nervous about that.

They’re saying this because Kamala knows if Biden is re-elected, he won’t serve his term. https://t.co/KPnlZVXJCV

— Vanessa (@Nessakins_) April 28, 2023

Selling Joe, the senile old man, is hard enough. Selling Kamala, the cackling word salad generator with worse poll numbers? Good luck with that.

2) Afghanistan
The disaster that was the withdrawl from Afghanistan is Joe Biden’s fault. Period. Every single terrible image, every death, and every foreign policy fallout that has followed is his to wear. The buck stops with him. That’s why the administration has been so desperate to shift the blame. The drumbeat of failure should follow Biden everywhere during this campaign. He has no argument that stacks up to the loss of 13 American lives, countless numbers of Afghan lives, and the regression of Afghanistan into a terrorist safe haven once more. There are myriads of campaign ads to be reaped from Biden’s Afghanistan record – and Democrats know this.

3) Hunter Biden and “the family business”
Hunter’s baby mama drama seems like gossip fodder, but the laptop and his financial situation are both tied in to that court case. In fact, Hunter Biden stands at the epicenter of the Biden family financial schemes. Thanks to his dumbassery in abandoning his laptop, we see Hunter’s personal failings as well as his financial profiteering. The House Oversight Committee is still investigating, but there are now NINE Biden family members that were identified via financial records as having received money from various “family businesses.” Trading on the family name may have been quite profitable for the Bidens, and Hunter might only be the most obvious tip of the iceberg. At the very least, Hunter is the most protected and coddled member of the family, having the Attorney General of the United States allegedly sitting on any charges, and having Daddy’s campaign lackeys get former intelligence officials to call his laptop a “Russian disinformation” operation. Hunter’s antics could take Joe out at the knees – which is why the Democrats have leaned so heavily on the media to squash the story. And most of the media, with rare exceptions, have willingly complied in order to keep Biden in office.

4) The failure to secure the borders
While the southern border gets the most attention, the northern border is now also seeing an increase in illegal crossings. The Biden administration, through its mouthpiece Alejandro Mayorkas, insists that the border is “secure” even though it’s clearly not, and Title 42 is going to come to an end on May 11th. The Border Patrol is bracing for a surge that internal projections have put at 10,000 to 13,000 PER DAY once the policy ends. In 2021, the FAA attempted to keep the images of all the illegal migrants off the news by blocking Fox News from using a drone – so reporter Bill Melugin got a helicopter ride instead to see the staggering visuals for himself. Border security is a federal issue, and the buck stops with Biden (even though he tried to pass it to Kamala). Again, these are campaign ads just waiting to be cut.

5) Foreign policy
While this does tie back to Afghanistan, Joe Biden has been a foreign policy failure as president. Russia invaded Ukraine, and there is no end in sight to that conflict. China is threatening Taiwan and getting cozy with Russia. Team Biden has dissed Israel, tried to reinstate the Iran Deal, and badmouthed Saudi Arabia before sending old Joe there to beg for oil – including an attempted quid pro quo while trying to pressure the Saudis into not cutting OPEC’s oil output before the midterm elections. Does the world feel more or less secure after two-plus years of Joe Biden in the Oval Office? Democrats should be worried.

I’m sure that I have forgotten many, many more causes for concern that Democrats are thinking over – and you readers can tell me what I’ve left out. However, it’s obvious that Joe Biden is a weak candidate, and Democrats know that. That’s why they’re trying to declare the primary season all over but for the shouting. But we have a long, long way to go before Election Day 2024. And yes, it’s absolutely long enough that by the time we get there, Joe Biden may not be a viable or available candidate. If that happens, well… Democrats have already looked at their options and decided to stick with the old man, and that tells you everything you need to know about what they think of their chances with the rest of the bench.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click