The progressive RootsAction organization launched its first television ad in New Hampshire as part of its “Don’t Run Joe” campaign urging President Joe Biden not to seek reelection.
The only announced candidate seeking the 2024 Democratic nomination for president is best-selling author Marianne Williamson, who founded a non-profit group to feed homebound patients in Los Angeles during the peak of the AIDS crisis.
The Don’t Run Joe campaign has released an ad featuring Biden as he vehemently and unequivocally pledged during his 2020 presidential campaign not to approve oil drilling in the Arctic, a promise recently shattered by his administration.
For months, the group behind the ad has been calling for a progressive Democrat to step forward with a primary challenge to Biden, who has said he intends to run for re-election.
The ad shows a video of Biden appearing before an audience in Hudson, New Hampshire on Feb. 9, 2020. He responded to a woman who said, “Just a quick question about how you feel about drilling in the Arctic Refuge.”
Biden replied: “Totally opposed to it. Completely, totally opposed to it.” And Biden said: “No more drilling on federal lands. Period. Period. Period. Period. The Arctic Circle is a disaster to do that. A big disaster.”
But two weeks ago, Biden approved the huge Willow oil drilling project in Alaska.
The new Don’t Run Joe ad, which will be running nationwide online, can be viewed here.
The release of the ad comes in the wake of new polls showing Biden at near-record lows in public approval, with a minority of Democrats wanting him to run for re-election.
“Only 37 percent of Democrats want Joe Biden to seek a second term, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll,” said Lisa McCormick, a progressive Democrat in New Jersey who declared that she has had it with the President last July.
McCormick said that the only announced Democrat in the race for president, Marianne Williamson, is making a lot more sense than anything coming out of the White House.
“The ad speaks for itself,” said Chris Liquori, the Don’t Run Joe coordinator in New Hampshire. “Biden could not have been more clear when he promised not to approve drilling in the Arctic. Now he has done exactly that by approving the Willow drilling project inside the Arctic Circle. Each of the estimated 600 million barrels of oil he has approved for extraction is another dagger in the heart of climate stability. This is a betrayal of monumental proportions for future generations.” Liquori added: “Young voters and Democratic activists deserve better. Joe Biden may not have to live with the catastrophic consequences of his decision, but most of us will.”
Three months ago, the group released an ad focused on New Hamshire, where the first in the nation primary has taken place for the last 100 years or more. Biden reacted by pushing the Democratic National Committee to let South Carolina usurp the Granite State’s calendar position. Biden won South Carolina with 48 percent in 2020, in a move that fractured the crowded field and helped him leave Senator Bernie Sanders in the dust.
New Hampshire State Representative Ellen Read, who co-chairs the Don’t Run Joe campaign in the state, said Wednesday: “Joe Biden reneged on his promise. Betraying progressive campaign promises is a song so old we can all sing it by heart now. Even at his peak performance, he was a corporatist Democrat. Democrats need to finally learn to not settle for people who have never walked the walk but only tell them things they so desperately want to believe.”
Don’t Run Joe New Hampshire co-chair Keith Yergeau said: “Biden is dooming future inhabitants of Earth with his pay-to-play broken promise. His re-election would represent nothing short of the further entrenchment of the status quo that will upend human life on the planet.”
Here is the full quote of Biden’s Feb. 9, 2020 promise to voters about his opposition to future oil drilling in the Arctic: “Totally opposed to it. Completely, totally opposed to it. And I think I’m the only one . . . running who’s been up in the Arctic Circle. Remember the great oil spill that occurred? And I watched when I went up there, and I went up in a helicopter on the North Slope and saw what’s going on, and saw what was happening as the glaciers began to melt, and how the caribou and everyone. There’s a lot going on up there and it’s a real gigantic problem. And by the way: no more drilling on federal lands, period, period, period, period. The Arctic Circle is a disaster to do that, a big disaster in my view.”
Biden’s challenger, Marianne Williamson, has seen a meteoric rise in support, reaching ten percent in national polls less than one month since she declared her candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination on March 4. According to the FiveThirtyEight A-rated Echelon Insights March Omnibus Survey of likely voters, the campaign’s surge is due to Williamson’s message resonating with voters.
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