The Ice-Cream Theory of Presidential Politics
It’s hard to get excited about vanilla, but it’s even harder to get angry about it.
One of the most revealing statements of the 2020 presidential campaign wasn’t uttered by the candidates. It came instead from a former Republican congressman. “It’s difficult to attack vanilla,” griped Florida’s Carlos Curbelo, lamenting the failure of GOP attacks against then-candidate Joe Biden. Curbelo probably intended to deride the former vice president as milquetoast. But he inadvertently landed on the key to Biden’s success: No one hates vanilla. Biden’s flavor of politics is not everyone’s favorite, but it’s one that most people are happy to accept.
Biden won in 2020 by 7 million votes, but the criticisms of
