JV Last made an excellent point about the upcoming presidential election: The 2024 election has no modern precedent and this unprecedented difference (1) Is not properly appreciated, and (2) Explains why the race has been so stable. This thing is so obvious that you’re going to dismiss it out of hand. But I want you to work through it with me: No one living has seen an election in which two presidents have run against one another. And that changes everything. Let me explain. What is the fundamental hurdle that every presidential candidate has to overcome? When the voter looks at the candidate, she asks, Can he do the job? That’s it. That’s the big question. And the answer is binary: Voters have to imagine each candidate as the chief executive and decide either, Yes, this person is a plausible president, or No, this person is not up to the office. One of the (many) advantages an incumbent president has is that he has proven that he can do the job. This sword has two edges: An incumbent’s presidential record can be attacked. Some voters may like it. Some may not. But at the lizard-brain level, they have all seen him sitting at the big desk in the Oval. They know what he looks like as president. An insurgent candidate has advantages, too. But having to clear the bar of being plausibly presidential is the biggest and most fundamental disadvantage any insurgent faces. If a candidate can’t do that, then nothing else he has going in…