Offense Versus Defense
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It is Day 3 of Wide World of News look at what Team Biden is doing to change the game before the midterms, with the question remaining: Will said Team double down on what has been tried or go in a different direction?
Another way to look at this puzzle: Is Team Biden going to be content to just play defense – or is the plan to go on offense?
The list of issues where defense is currently being played is long: inflation, immigration, crime, education, etc.
On some of those matters, there is clearly an “offense” strategy, but defense still dominates.
On some, such as immigration, it would appear that the best the administration can hope for is to be playing less defense by the fall.
My recent prediction that the White House will back off on its stated intention to discontinue the use of Title 42 to help control the Mexican border seems more likely to come true after the last 24 hours, with two developments driving the narrative there.
First, Politico reports that even progressive Democratic Senate candidates are joining an increasing number of their incumbent party mates in urging the administration to halt the change until they have some idea what the overall plan is.
Second, the political and human brutality/reality of the latest stats.
Migrants attempted to cross the U.S.-Mexico border at the highest level in two decades as the U.S. prepares for even larger numbers with the expected lifting of a pandemic-era order that turned away asylum seekers.
Immigration authorities stopped migrants 221,303 times along the Southwest border in March, a 33% increase from a month earlier, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data released Monday.
The U.S. has made more than a million arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border since October, the fastest pace of illegal border crossings in at least the last two decades, according to new data released Monday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Border agents made 209,906 arrests along the border in March, making it the busiest month in two decades. Another 11,397 migrants were permitted to enter the country to seek humanitarian protection at land border crossings, according to the data. The numbers cover a period from the beginning of the fiscal year to the end of March….
Of the 1.01 million crossings so far this year, roughly 51% resulted in the migrant being expelled under Title 42, while the rest were processed under normal immigration procedures, meaning they were either rapidly deported, detained or released to seek asylum. Title 42 can elevate the total number of border crossings each month, as it encourages some migrants to cross the border repeatedly, who are attempting to enter the country undetected.
Even with Title 42 in place, the Biden administration presided over the highest number of arrests made at the border on record last year. Administration officials have acknowledged that revoking the policy is likely to result in a further rise in illegal border crossings, as migrants who want to seek asylum will no longer be blocked from doing so.
Remember, part of why this issue is so politically tough is that the left is no happier with the Biden policies on immigration than the right (or center) is.
As Punchbowl News says:
Moderate Democrats – and those seeking reelection this year – are deeply concerned that rescinding the Title 42 order will lead to a surge in migrants crossing the border, dominating the news and handing Republicans a cudgel in the critical months before the midterm elections….
Yet a number of top Senate Democrats, including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Majority Whip Dick Durbin, Foreign Relations Committee Chair Robert Menendez (N.J.), and Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), have all demanded the Biden administration stop the use of the Title 42 authority. Pro-immigration groups also strongly backed the decision as well. So there’s a real split in the Senate Democratic Caucus, which Republicans will exploit.
And, remember, (another) part of why this issue is so politically tough is that the Dominant Media is no longer giving President Biden the slightest benefit of the doubt on this issue (except, implicitly, by not covering the depths and texture of the failure nearly as much as it would be doing if this were, say, a president of a different party).
Or, to put it another way: Immigration continues to be seen as bigger problem in Arizona than it appears to be from Chevy Chase.
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Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts laid out her ideas for what “offense” means in a splashy New York Times op-ed piece, in which she makes it clear she doesn’t agree with those who argue that her party should simply be selling past accomplishments and promising new ones, rather than trying to get anything else done significant in 2022.
In fact, Senator Warren is emphatic: No fresh accomplishments = electoral doom.
Like many Americans, I’m frustrated by our failure to get big things done — things that are both badly needed and very popular with all Americans. While Republican politicians obstruct many efforts to improve people’s lives and many swear loyalty to the Big Lie, the urgency of the next election bears down on us.
Democrats cannot bow to the wisdom of out-of-touch consultants who recommend we simply tout our accomplishments. Instead, Democrats need to deliver more of the president’s agenda — or else we will not be in the majority much longer.
Politico says that the president is going to return more public focus to domestic matters, as opposed to Ukraine, to improve the midterm odds, and/but:
Aides want Biden to hit the road to both pitch these ideas and show that he is empathizing with Americans’ struggles. But his tools to actually deal with rising gas and food prices are somewhat limited. And on several other initiatives — including gun control, citizenship for immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, and voting rights — there seems to be no legislative path forward due to Republican opposition and Democratic resistance to change the legislative filibuster….
“Democrats have one overriding political communications priority now — we have to convince voters that things are better because of our time in power,” said Simon Rosenberg, a longtime Democratic operative, who is advising campaigns and party committees to ramp up now. “If people come to believe by this summer that things are better, we will be competitive this fall. If they don’t, we won’t.”
Unfortunately for the Blues, much rides on the Fed’s capacity to fix stuff, and, as the Wall Street Journal points out, taming inflation without causing a recession of some size is not precedented.
So, two more clues about how Team Biden plans to go on offense.
This is from the pool report about Vice President Harris’ Monday night fundraiser in SoCal:
She acknowledges the economy hardships. "Now, yeah it costs more money at the pump, and we need to deal with that we need to acknowledge but we also need to keep with our program around making it easier to get by day to day which means again, going back to the childcare, which means bringing down the cost of living means looking at what we have an investment in affordable housing what we should do in terms of bringing down the cost of prescription drugs."
But she said Democrats will need to remind people why they should vote in Nov - echoing remarks she made at last week's DNC fundraiser in DC.
"You put in an order, you said I want certain things to happen," she said, pointing to accomplishments including the Child Tax Credit, "which has meant that at least in the first year we reduce child poverty."
She pointed to Biden fulfilling his promise to put the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.
"You want an administration that's going to bring back the world community - you got it. You want the creation of jobs. You want a vaccine that's going to be distributed to all people, you want the schools to be reopened: check check check."
"So when when you made the effort, when we did the emailing and the calling and the texting and the knocking on doors, it mattered. Elections matter. And so as we go toward this next election, let's remind people that it matters, and that we are so well aware of the work that we still have yet to do."
She said she's approaching the midterms with "a great sense of optimism."
"And we don't have to any time to slow down. You don't have any time to doubt ourselves. We gotta get to work."
That message seems more along the “look at what we have done, there is so much more we will do if you re-elect us” message than the Warren preference for actually getting more big things done before the midterms.
Finally, Axios explains that part of the reason that the president is flying across the continent this week is for cash money:
Joe Biden is about to start raising money on the road for the first time in his presidency, headlining fundraisers on Thursday in Portland, Ore., and Seattle for the Democratic National Committee, Axios' Jonathan Swan and Hans Nichols report.
Why it matters: The pandemic has severely constricted Biden’s in-person ability to raise money, thank donors and motivate them to give more. Vaccinations, declining rates of severe illness and relaxations on gatherings make the turn possible. Rising inflation and tanking poll numbers make it necessary.
The big picture: This week's events will give select Democratic donors their first opportunity to see Biden outside of Washington.
Last month, he attended his first in-person fundraiser in Washington since becoming president. But there are hundreds of big- and small-dollar donors that are eager to interact with the president in person.
Details: The fundraising events this week will support the Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund, a joint fundraising account benefitting the DNC and all 50 state Democratic parties. Biden is traveling out west to promote the bipartisan infrastructure bill that he signed into law last year.
A White House spokesman declined to comment.
That is a long way to go to raise a little coin for his party.
If this presages Biden trips to all the nation’s biggest markets for fundraising this spring/summer/fall, that is going to be quite a logistical change for this war time president.
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The Associated Press story on real-time American reaction to the striking down of the transportation mask mandate made me laugh and cry.