The Republican Party is Absolutely Banking on Biden's Terrible Record to Bring Him Down

Joe Biden, who continues to lead the extremely early polls for the Democratic presidential nomination, has—rightfully—faced scrutiny from progressives and leftists, who are critical of his positions on mass incarceration and the war on drugs as well as his apparent inability to offer anything approaching a real apology to Anita Hill. A new piece in Vanity Fair shows how aware the Republican Party is of his political baggage, and details how they plan on exploiting it.

As one RNC strategist who’s part of the effort described Biden’s record: “It’s sort of a gold mine of content.”

Here’s more from Vanity Fair:

To pull it off, the R.N.C., working hand in hand with the Trump campaign, has assembled perhaps its largest-ever war room, with approximately six to seven operatives working in opposition research and four to five conducting near ‘round-the-clock rapid media response. The effort—featuring public document requests and other standards of the dirt-digging trade—has been well underway since last year.

But the real oppo muscle of the Republican campaign is being provided by America Rising, an outside group that is focused on finding damaging information on Democratic candidates. With a staff of 70, expected to grow to 90 by Election Day 2020, America Rising for more than a year has been compiling dossiers on Biden and several other Democratic contenders. There’s more to it than Freedom of Information Act requests. The group, which was founded by some of the best in the business, employs a full-time army of trackers shadowing the Democratic candidates, while another unit travels the country searching for obscure pieces of history on each candidate, in courthouse records, public libraries, maybe college yearbooks, that the candidates themselves might not even realize exists. The material is forwarded to two of America Rising’s most important clients, the R.N.C. and America First Action—Trump’s designated, third-party super PAC—and weaponized.

But the question is—will voters care? I don’t know! Do you care? The first real salvo in the Democratic presidential race is still months away, and I for one already know all I need to know about Joe Biden.