The Patriot Post® · Deadbeat Prez Sets Vacation Record

Friends, we’re in the wrong line of work. Indeed, we’ve got “C-H-U-M-P” tattooed on our foreheads.

We say this without equivocation. We say this because Joe Biden, having just returned to the White House from an 11-day midsummer’s respite, just logged his 366th day of vacation. Yep, you read that right: He’s been in office just over two and a half years, and he’s already taken more than a year’s worth of vacation.

Nice “work” if you can get it.

Don’t get us wrong. We don’t begrudge anyone a bit of well-earned time off, but what American president spends 39% of his time on vacation?

As the Republican National Committee’s research team points out, Biden is a first-ballot Presidential Slacker Hall of Famer: “Over two full terms, Obama spent 328 days (11.2%), Bush 43 spent 1,020 days (34.9%), Clinton spent 345 days (11.8%), and Reagan spent 335 days (11.5%) on vacation. Over a single term, Trump spent 381 days (26%), Bush 41 spent 533 days (36.5%), and Carter spent 79 days (5.4%) on vacation.”

We’re not sure about some of those numbers. For example, we don’t believe Barack Obama spent that little time on vacation nor George W. Bush that much. But Biden’s numbers seem right, especially with all the documented time he spends doing who-knows-what back in Delaware.

“Since Biden took office,” said RNC spokesman Jake Schneider, “prices are higher, real wages are lower, gas prices are surging, wealth is down, debt is up. Biden can spend all the time in the world at the beach, but there’s a reason why he has among the worst approval ratings in modern presidential history. In addition to being corrupt and out-of-touch, he simply does not care.”

Of course, we’re conflicted about whether Biden’s deadbeat presidency is a good thing or a bad thing for the country. On balance, we might argue it’s good. The more time this guy spends away from the Oval Office, the less time he has to muck things up.

Don’t just do something, Mr. President. Stand there!

On the other hand, if Biden isn’t running the ship — and, clearly, he isn’t — then it means someone else is. And that’s even more worrisome.

But Biden and his handlers have reason to worry, too. His carefully cultivated image as Scranton Joe, as Working-Class Joe, seems utterly at odds with a guy who spends two out of every five days on vacation.

This reality is starting to show up in his polling, too. Take working-class blacks and Hispanics, for example. As Josh Kraushaar writes at Axios, “One of the main reasons President Biden is struggling in polls against former President Trump is his glaring underperformance with a constituency that has long been overwhelmingly Democratic: non-white voters without a college degree.”

According to a New York Times/Siena poll released last week, Biden’s lead over Donald Trump with non-white working-class voters is now just 16 points — 49% to 33%. Compare that number to Biden’s performance in 2020, when he carried this group by a 48-point margin. And compare it to Barack Obama’s performance in 2012, when he did so by a whopping 67 points. (Caveat: Polls versus election results.)

To be sure, the tightening isn’t only a matter of Biden taking too much vacation. As the American Enterprise Institute’s Ruy Teixeira points out, the non-white working class isn’t pleased with Biden’s handling of the economy or his idiotic embrace of the green agenda and his war on fossil fuels. In addition, these voters aren’t as sold on systemic racism as the Democrats would like them to be.

Polling caveats apply, of course. We still maintain that the end is near for Angry Ol’ Joe, and that he’s likely to pull an LBJ at some point between now and election day week month season. Thus, whoever replaces him on the ballot will do so with none of the baggage that’s currently weighing down Joe Biden, and that means most of this group will back the Democrat when push comes to shove.

But still: The difference between Biden and Trump in these two key areas, energy and competency, is glaring. It’s hard to believe only three years separate the two men. And it’s hard to believe that 45% of Democrat voters still think he should be the party’s nominee in 2024.

And it’s hard to believe an American president can get away with all that vacation.