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Shorter analysis of President Biden’s press conference:
It still seems at least slightly more likely that Joe Biden passes no more major pieces of legislation in the approximately one-year window left to get things done than that he achieves FDRLBJ-like status.
Check with Joe Manchin’s mood if you want to know which it will be.
Not much actual news was committed in the East Room of the White House on Thursday, but the press conference is quite useful as prism to take stock of Biden’s chances to succeed at going big with the massive progressive agenda that is the Biden-Harris-Klain-Pelosi-Schumer project.
There is no doubt that Team McConnell, the narrowly divided congressional chambers, and the fierce partisanship in DC and around the country pose real obstacles to Biden’s aspirations.
But the press conference and its aftermath put in sharp relief the Four Ps that give Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. the upper hand.
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1. POLLS
According to every credible survey, many of the element of the B-H-K-P-S agenda are overwhelmingly popular with the American people, with support in the 55%-85% range (and, no, it doesn’t depend on “how you ask it”).
Raising taxes on the wealthy; more gun safety measures; a public option for health insurance; a path to citizenship for Dreamers; a minimum wage increase; spending on pandemic relief — all these and more have broad support, including strong or overwhelming support from Republicans, too.
When Mr. Biden says (as he did at his press conference) that he has significant bipartisan support in the country which offsets the lockstep GOP opposition inside the Beltway, he is right as rain.
Now, Democrats have held polling advantages on most of these issues for a long time, including throughout the Obama administration and during the rise of Donald Trump. So these numbers are not dispositive.
But give Team Biden credit for rhetorically and otherwise leveraging these advantages more than Democrats have in the past.
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2. POLITICS
Also remarkable is the continuing ability of Team Biden to hold its folks inside the Big Tent, making the range of characters who reside there – from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Manchin – feel like they are more part of a beautiful mosaic than celebrity guests on an intraparty family feud.
The president said plenty of things in the press conference that could have riled up the left and the center of his party.
But instead of cherry picking the bits they didn’t like and yelping about them, note the dogs that are not barking – you will search in vain, even on the free-for-all cesspool of Twitter, for more than token unhappiness from Democrats weighing in to express displeasure at anything Mr. Biden said.
On almost any topic – take, say, Afghanistan – Biden’s cautious, split-the-difference verbiage could have created open unhappiness on one end of the spectrum or the other (or both).
Instead: the sound of Democratic silence, music to the ears of Ron Klain, who continues to meet with progressive leaders, to genuinely hear them out, but/and, also, to keep them quiet.
It’s working.
As during the campaign in 2019 and 2020, Team Biden’s greatest strength is the wicked smart way they play the inside challenge of Democratic Party politics.
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3. PREDECESSOR
Part of what unites the Democratic Party base (in which one must include the Dominant Media) is the overwhelming consensus of rapture that Donald Trump has left the arena and the engulfing relief that Joe Biden is not Donald Trump.
Unless you are a close reader of the New York Post, you probably don’t know what Biden’s predecessor said in a wide-ranging interview on Fox News Thursday night.
Nothing surprising or earth shattering from Mr. Trump, but the near absence of its mention in the media reflects the reality that Team Biden has Trump right where it wants him: a hovering-yet-largely-silenced presence, whose brickbats don’t cross the White House moat but whose mere existence powers Democratic unity in DC and around the country.
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4. PRESS
The president’s press conference performance was surely not the disaster that some on the right claim it was, but OMG the questions that were asked at the session and the subsequent coverage.
More queries about the 2024 campaign than about a once-in-a-generation pandemic THAT IS STILL GOING ON???
For those who asked defensively, “Well, what would you have asked about the pandemic?” the options are too numerous to list, but for one thing
There were some stronger questions about immigration asked but the absence of a strategy on the part of most of the White House press crew was manifest.
A topic is not a strategy.
Follow-ups have to be tactically framed to work.
As for the Dominant Media’s coverage of the event, there are too many examples to choose from to illustrate the home-field advantage enjoyed by Team Biden, so let’s review the few we have time for:
A. In all the wrap-up pieces and news analysis stories I read, I saw not one quote from a critic of Mr. Biden. The closest I found was a critique from David Axelrod (not always Joe’s biggest fan, but still….) and one vague mention of Team Trump’s views on immigration.
Not a lot of prominent fact checking, either.
B. Is this stanza the lead of a New York Times story or the third-to-last paragraph?
Mr. Biden …left a series of open questions about some of the most politically contentious problems facing his administration. He would not say how soon he planned to allow reporters to see the conditions at migrant detention facilities along the U.S.-Mexico border. He did not commit to a timeline for pulling American troops out of Afghanistan. And he declined multiple times to say whether he would try to change how the Senate functions.
C. Also from the New York Times:
Unlike President Donald J. Trump’s hot-tempered blowups or President Barack Obama’s extended answers of professorial cool, Mr. Biden was the sober political veteran comfortable with thinking out loud, talking personally and conversationally, and showing occasional impatience before a roomful of reporters…..
[I]t was another return to normalcy, after four years of Mr. Trump’s free-for-all, fact-challenged news conferences. At one, Mr. Trump mocked a reporter for wearing what he called “the largest mask I think I’ve ever seen” and at another claimed that injecting disinfectants into the human body could help combat the coronavirus. Reporters shouted to be heard, and Mr. Trump appeared to relish the chaos.
Mr. Biden’s performance, in contrast, was relatively sedate.
D. Also from the New York Times (and demonstrably false):
As he took questions for over an hour, the president also did little to fuel the narrative being crafted by conservative news media that he is lacking in his mental facilities. He appeared well prepared and sure of his facts…
E. From the Washington Post (and demonstrably on-message):
“I think Biden is of the school of thought that a president can get one or two big things done at a time,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian.
“When you say ‘No Drama Obama’ — he’s trying to be ‘One Step At a Time Biden,’ ” he added. “He wants to present himself as a ‘Steady Eddie’ with a lot of experience and the ability to use patience and diplomacy as tools.”
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Don’t underestimate the advantages Joe Biden gets from the Four Ps.
Those Ps might not be as powerful as Joe Manchin, but they make the art of the possible possible over the next 12 months.
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ESSENTIAL READING
The Washington Post, from a parallel (and maybe real) universe, on the Senate’s bipartisan Gang of 20 lunch bunch, whose members are trying to dine their way to a new paradigm.
Not much new here, but color and colorful quotes galore – and attention must be paid because this is the only other game in town.
[And for those ready to pounce, “game” is a figure of speech; I do not think the issues at hand facing the real lives of real Americans are a game at all. They are very serious.]
See you Sunday at Lauriol Plaza for brunch!
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