President Joe Biden and fellow Democrats have struggled to overcome historical headwinds and worrisome economic trends in the lead-up to the midterms.
So aides are scheming up something else: Turning the campaign into a contrast with Donald Trump and the Republicans.
President Joe Biden and his team are hoping to spend the spring and summer months drawing sharp distinctions with Republicans, one in particular. They still plan to push forth revived pieces of stalled agenda. But they’re also eagerly awaiting potentially explosive findings from the Jan. 6 select committee and hope those discoveries can inflame a battle brewing within the GOP over former Trump’s legacy and power.
Biden, who has tried to pivot back toward domestic matters while also tending to the war in Ukraine, gave a hint of the upcoming strategy on his recent West Coast swing, in which he blasted the GOP for falling under the control of far-right extremists.
“This ain't your father's Republican Party,” said Biden, who declared it “the MAGA party now” and that Republicans now “are afraid to act correctly, because they know they'll be primaried” if they don’t toe the line set by Trump and his acolytes.
The goal of turning the election into a contrast may be straightforward. But the execution is another matter entirely. Previous efforts to reframe the conversation have failed, as the White House has been overtaken by outside forces, leaving the president unable to stay on message and Democrats frustrated with a lack of direction coming from the West Wing. And a number of outside groups and Democratic advisers have been baffled by a lack of coordination on key issues. Four Democrats close to the White House said that officials there do not frequently provide surrogate talking points — a key component for any political operation to stay on message.
“The political office does stuff but they do it, it’s because there is a thing,” said one of those Democrats. “There is not a standing meeting. This is more driven by if there is something to defend or sell.”
The lack of coordination has left outside officials frustrated. In particular, of late, Democrats felt empty-handed when asked to defend the administration’s position on voting rights, the president’s legislative agenda, and his decision to rescind Title 42, the Trump-era health directive that allows the expulsion of migrants seeking asylum.
There has also been frustration in the White House — and among some outside groups — about the lack of cover and political push from the Democratic National Committee. The move by Cedric Richmond, a White House senior adviser, to leave the administration and become a senior adviser to the DNC was interpreted as a sign by many as an effort by the White House to get more control over the party.
As the White House seeks to turn the election into a contrast with Republicans, it encounters a trio of stubborn realities: Biden’s poll numbers are low, inflation is high and Democrats’ margins in Congress are slim.
The president has received high marks from foreign policy experts — and even some Republicans — for his handling of the war in Ukraine, helping rally Europe to hold Vladimir Putin’s invasion at bay. But the conflict has put a strain on energy costs, only adding to inflation that has soared to 40-year-highs. Skyrocketing consumer prices, per polling, looms as the decisive issue for this November’s elections.
"Joe Biden and House Democrats are woefully out of touch and have shredded any and all credibility on this issue when they embarrassingly claimed that inflation is 'transitory,'” said Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), chair of the House GOP conference, “and now condescendingly attempts to convince the American people to blame Putin for Bidenflation.”
But the White House has renewed hope that it could change the conversation.
Biden aides have been delighted to watch growing division within the GOP, as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has fended off bitterness within the ranks after a series of revelations about his critical words for Trump and right-wing caucus members after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Additionally, there is growing hope that the House committee investigating the insurrection may produce damaging findings against Trump and other key Republicans. The committee plans to begin holding prime-time hearings this June.
Biden advisers have also tried to game out this week the possibility of one particular October surprise. Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter raised the chance that Trump could be reinstated to the social media platform, where he had more than 80 million followers before being banned in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot. Musk has said he would allow Trump to return, and while the ex-president has claimed he doesn’t want back on, the White House does not believe him.
The consensus among Biden aides about Trump’s possible return: it could cut both ways. While the former president would eat up an extraordinary amount of political oxygen, it’s also possible that he would push the Big Lie or feud with fellow Republicans and damage the GOP’s otherwise strong chances of regaining at least one house of Congress. The more the election becomes about Trump, the better the Democrats’ chances become, many in Biden’s orbit believe.
Some Democrats feel the White House has been too reactive to crises and unwilling to go on the offense. For his part, the president has been reluctant to bash Republicans often, still believing that bipartisan deals can be made. But he has ramped up the attacks of late, including on Thursday when he laced into National Republican Senatorial Committee chair Rick Scott’s tax plan for hurting the middle class and small businesses.
“He grew up in the Senate when there was some bipartisanship, he was hoping to bring that same approach to the White House,” said Adrienne Elrod, a senior aide on Biden's transition team and aide to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. “But the unfortunate reality is that this is not a bipartisan world anymore. The only way we are going to be able to make our case as Democrats and sell our agenda is to draw contrasts with Republicans and show the country how awful they are.”
The White House also was heartened by a development across the Atlantic that strong campaign contrasts could compel voters to reward incumbent parties — even if they’re not enamored with the job those parties are doing.
After carefully watching French President Emmanuel Macron’s reelection over far-right candidate Marie Le Pen, the White House will aim to more directly place the Republican Party in Trump’s shadow. Macron’s surprisingly comfortable victory was not just hailed vital to keeping Europe intact but it also was treated as positive reinforcement for Biden’s own domestic future, according to two senior officials not authorized to speak publicly about private deliberations.
“An interesting observation, just FYI,” a deadpan White House chief of staff Ron Klain tweeted after the race was called. “President Macron appears to have secured a double-digit victory over LePen, at a time when his approval rating is 36%. Hmmm....”
The foreshadowing was transparent: If Biden were to run again — and at this moment the plan is that he will — he could defy his poor poll numbers and prove a strong shot of reelection, particularly when pitted against an unpalatable opponent.
Moreover, it seemed that Macron paid no real price for his focus on international affairs. Though pre-election French polls suggested some voters thought Macron was tending more to Putin than domestic matters, his vote total did not reflect that. That left aides hopeful Biden will similarly not be penalized even as the war remains at the center of his administration.
Moreover, Macron did make a late pivot to pocketbook issues, and the White House believes Biden has already done that and could help Democrats this fall.
“Governing is about competing values and policy agendas,” said White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates. “Republicans in Congress are proposing tax hikes on middle-class families and small businesses while seeking to cost millions their health care coverage and dividing communities with MAGA-fueled conspiracy theories.”
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By: Christopher Cadelago and Jonathan Lemire
Title: Bidenworld wants to make the midterms more about Trump and hopes Elon Musk helps
Sourced From: www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/bidenworld-midterms-trump-elon-musk-00029106
Published Date: Mon, 02 May 2022 03:30:00 EST
