Joe Biden is back in Detroit today. Regardless of whether or not he stays the course or bows out of the presidential race, we need him and the rest of the Democratic Party leadership on message nonstop until election day. 

The only way to defeat Donald Trump is for the Democrats to start taking swing states like ours seriously. This means that our potential candidates like Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom need to make the case for the Democratic Party door-to-door in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina Georgia, Nevada and Arizona for the next four months.

It would also be nice to see Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Hakkim Jeffries, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar in these critical states.

Right now, swing state appearances are the best path to victory. Fundraising, social media, television ads, billboards and yard signs may put the Democrats at par. Given the reality of the electoral college, showing up at swing states everywhere is now a must.

Democratic indifference to swing states has cost them the White House. We've seen this before when Hilary Clinton didn’t bother showing up in Michigan during the 2008 campaign until days before the election. That was one of the reasons she ended up many thousands of votes behind Obama, who had soared in my Muskegon County four years earlier. Same problem in Wisconsin where she also lost by a narrow margin. 

Had she simply let surrogates do the endless series of fundraising events in Blue States like New York and California, she would have had time for critical rallies in battlegrounds like Muskegon, Saginaw, Oshkosh and Milwaukee.

We need day-to-day campaigning from Pete Buttigieg, a Michigan resident with a home in Traverse CIty. The same is true for Governor Gretchen Whitmer if she can find time to step away from her book tour and $8.3 billion campaign to resurrect the dangerous Palisades Nuclear Power plant. Instead of trying to draw publicity by inviting her convicted kidnap plotters to break bread, she should be out on a bus tour from Ishpeming to Dowagiac talking to voters. 

How ironic that Whitmer, co-chair of the Biden campaign, is not making the case statewide for the President — or whoever replaces him, should there be an open Democratic Convention.

For that matter, can you think of any good reason why political analysts like George Clooney who are busy writing anti-Biden candidacy op-eds for the New York Times shouldn’t actually be out talking to voters in Harrisburg, Reno, Flagstaff or Raleigh? 

The same is true for Californian Rob Reiner who should leave his anti-Biden social media perch behind and campaign in states where the election will be decided.

Showing up means wall-to-wall coverage for the President, Harris and probably Newsom from touchdown at a Michigan airport to wheels up. Other Democrats will also get a wide media audience at their key events.

The party line could be something like this:

We're here to support anyone the Democrats nominate in Chicago next month regardless of whether or not Biden chooses to step down.

I am not sure why the Democratic leadership, including past presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, aren’t doing whistle-stop tours across swing states.

Mass media ads and social media might work with people who already vote Democratic and some undecided voters. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to have much impact on the 80 million voters who didn’t show up for the last presidential election, including a vast number of potential voters in swing states. 

Reaching these unlikely voters — who are not represented in political polling — requires in-person conversation and community events. 

Voters and potential voters need to be warned that Trump’s election would end military aid to Ukraine and embolden Putin’s Russia Army to march on the Baltics, Georgia and Moldova. 

His Supreme Court judges will continue doing the bidding of large corporations eager to weaken environmental protections. Is it possible that these jurists will validate his planned attempt to roundup, detain and incarcerate his opponents including Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden?

In addition, Trump has promised to pardon the many hundreds of convicted January 6 Capitol invaders — the people who killed police officers and threatened to hang Mike Pence. Is it possible that some of these evil doers, who he watched create mayhem and kill cops for hours before telling them to go home, will wind up working for him in the White House?

Reaching out to women who have been denied the right to manage their own health care by Trump’s Supreme Court justices is critical. Similarly, a direct swing state strategy is by far the best way for the Democrats to deliver the verdict of former Trump national security advisor John Bolton: Trump is unfit for office. 

Public readings of Bolton’s book, The Room Where It Happened, would be a great way for Democrats to campaign. It’s also important to call out his disastrous handling of the Covid pandemic that took over one million American lives. 

Democratic karma has always relied on grassroots campaigning. Knocking on swing state doors may not be as sexy as hobnobbing with movie stars, musicians and other celebrities during private fundraisers in Southampton. Nonetheless it gives the party its best chance to retire Donald Trump to his golf courses, where no one dares challenge his right to cheat.

Roger Rapoport’s new book Searching For Patty Hearst (pattyhearst.com) is out for the 50th anniversary of her kidnapping. He is at rogerrapoport.com