President Obama's Chicago campaign maven and political advisor, David Axelrod, doesn't think Joe Biden has very good campaign prospects, based on a new Wall Street Journal poll.

According to a report in The Hill:

Former President Obama’s senior adviser David Axelrod said a recent Wall Street Journal poll showing President Biden’s approval rating hitting a new low is “very, very dark” for Biden’s reelection campaign.

“You know, job approval down, ratings generally down, most of the comparatives with [former President] Trump … not good,” Axelrod said on the podcast “Hacks on Tap,” which he co-hosts with former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and political media consultant Mike Murphy.

About 37 percent of respondents in the Journal poll, released Saturday, said they approve of the job Biden is doing as president, while 61 percent of respondents had an unfavorable view.

In a hypothetical match-up between Biden and Trump — who continues to lead in GOP primary polls — Biden trailed the former president by 4 points, with 47 percent of respondents saying they would vote for Trump and 43 percent choosing Biden.

That's a realistic assessment, and Axelrod is above all a realist. But it's also got to be a miserable thing for him to say, given his loyalty to Democrats and their radical agenda.

It's also not the first time he's spoken out about Joe Biden being a proven loser as this election campaign progresses.

On November 5, he tweeted this after another unfavorable poll for Joe:

Only @JoeBiden can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it's in HIS best interest or the country's?

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) November 5, 2023

He must have gotten some phone calls from the Bidenites, because it wasn't long before he was walking it back.

According to a November 7 piece by Politico:

CHICAGO — After posting on social media that Joe Biden should consider whether to stay in the 2024 race, David Axelrod insisted in an interview that he was not calling on the president to suspend his campaign.

“It’s overreacting to say I told him to drop out,” said the political architect of former President Barack Obama’s victories. “I didn’t do that.”

“He’s the only one to make the decision. And if his decision is ‘no, I’m the best person to take this on,’ then he will,” Axelrod added.

 Then it got weirder.

In another Politico report, chronicled by Fox News:

Politico columnist Jonathan Martin hammered President Biden's re-election strategy on Monday and argued that reportedly calling former Obama adviser David Axelrod a "p----" in private was not going to win him votes.

Martin also criticized Biden's decision to debate poll results with the White House press corps, adding that it wouldn't make his victory in 2024 any likelier. 

"Calling David Axelrod ‘a p----,’ as a person who has heard Biden use the word says he does in private, is not a strategy to win 270 electoral votes. And repeating a PG version of the same animus in public while litigating polling with the White House press corps also won’t make Biden’s re-election any likelier," Martin wrote in Politico.

And once again Axelrod backed off, this time trying to laugh it off.

In response to a report of Biden calling him a 'p****', The Guardian reported that he told CNN:

Speaking to CNN, Axelrod said: “Well, he wouldn’t be the first, I guess, in my many years in politics.

“I understand he was irritated because I raised concerns that many, many Democrats had. And again, you know, my feeling is either get out or get going. But the status quo, the way they were approaching the campaign, this sort of ‘What, me worry?’ attitude about the campaign, was not going to get him to where he needs to go.”

Joe doesn't care. He gets mad when someone tells him he's not having his victory handed to him a second time. The king demands flatterers.

Now Axelrod has struck again, and soon enough, amid the flurry of phone calls with the White House or Democrat party operatives, we should expect another backtrack from him a third time.

Which is an interesting dynamic going on here.

Already Axelrod has been scolded twice for his remarks about Biden's unfitness for office, and did his bowing and backtracking in response in order to stay in the good graces of Democrats, even as none of it made any sense.

But now he's done it a third time, questioning Biden's electability.

There's no doubt that what he is saying is right. But it's not going to go over well with the Bidenites, who seem to think they have the election in the bag, something Axelrod ought to know about, given their sleazy tactics, but maybe doesn't.

Why would Axelrod strike again, now that he's been scolded twice and no doubt going to be scolded again?

It would appear that Axelrod is guessing that Biden really won't make it to the nomination and thus, has nothing to lose from saying it's over at this point. Biden, after all, is looking at impeachment, and on powerfully concrete, Constitutional grounds.

He may be looking to rally other Democrats to his winnable side.

He may be bird-dogging for Obama, who no doubt can see the disaster unfolding, too, but wouldn't want to say anything.

Whatever it is, it indicates ongoing turmoil among the Democrats that isn't expressed through warring ideas, but through warring political muscle. What it means is that Gavin Newsom and probably a few others are still jockeying for the front position even as they all say they aren't, and Joe could meet a bad end at their hands, thrown to the impeachment wolves, removed for incapacitation, or taken out of the running some other way. 

Axelrod is sort of a warning flare.

Image:  Twitter screen shot