After reading a few days worth of carping about Joe Biden’s performance, I decided enough’s enough and responded at New York:
Joe Biden has been president of the United States for 43 days. He inherited power from a predecessor who was trying to overturn the 2020 election results via insurrection just two weeks before Inaugural Day, and whose appointees refused the kind of routine transition cooperation other administrations took for granted. His party has a four-vote margin of control in the House, and only controls the Senate via the vice presidential tie-breaking vote (along with a power-sharing arrangement with Republicans). Democratic control of the Senate was not assured until the wee hours of January 6 when the results of the Georgia runoff were clear. Biden took office in the midst of a COVID-19 winter surge, a national crisis over vaccine distribution, and flagging economic indicators.
Biden named all his major appointees well before taking office, and as recommended by every expert, pushed for early confirmation of his national security team, which he quickly secured. After some preliminary discussions with Republicans that demonstrated no real possibility of GOP support for anything like the emergency $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief and stimulus package he had promised, and noting the votes weren’t there in the Senate for significant filibuster reform, Biden took the only avenue open to him. He instructed his congressional allies to pursue the budget reconciliation vehicle to enact his COVID package, with the goal of enacting it by mid-March, when federal supplemental unemployment insurance would run out. Going the reconciliation route meant exposing the package to scrutiny by the Senate parliamentarian, It also virtually guaranteed total opposition from congressional Republicans, which in turn meant Senate Democratic unanimity would be essential.
The House passed the massive and complex reconciliation bill on February 27, right on schedule, with just two Democratic defections, around the same time as the Senate parliamentarian, to no one’s great surprise, deemed a $15 minimum wage provision (already opposed by two Senate Democrats) out of bounds for reconciliation. The Senate is moving ahead with a modified reconciliation bill, and the confirmation of Biden’s Cabinet is chugging ahead slowly but steadily. Like every recent president, he’s had to withdraw at least one nominee – in his case Neera Tanden for the Office of Management and Budget, though the administration’s pick for deputy OMB director is winning bipartisan praise and may be substituted smoothly for Tanden.
Add in his efforts to goose vaccine distribution — which has more than doubled since he took office — and any fair assessment of Biden’s first 43 days should be very positive. But the man is currently being beset by criticism from multiple directions. Republicans, of course, have united in denouncing Biden’s refusal to surrender his agenda in order to secure bipartisan “unity” as a sign that he’s indeed the radical socialist – or perhaps the stooge of radical socialists – that Donald Trump always said he was. Progressives are incensed by what happened on the minimum wage, though it was very predictable. And media critics are treating his confirmation record as a rolling disaster rather than a mild annoyance, given the context of a federal executive branch that was all but running itself for much of the last four years.
To be clear, I found fault with Biden’s presidential candidacy early and often. I didn’t vote for him in California’s 2020 primary. I worried a lot about Biden’s fetish for bipartisanship. I support a $15 minimum wage, and as a former Senate employee, have minimal respect for the upper chamber’s self-important traditions. But c’mon: what, specifically, is the alternative path he could have pursued the last 43 days? Republican criticism is not worthy of any serious attention: the GOP is playing the same old tapes it recorded in 2009 when Barack Obama (and his sidekick Biden) spent far too much time chasing Republican senators around Washington in search of compromises they never intended to make. While they are entitled to oppose Biden’s agenda, they are not entitled to kill it.
Progressive criticism of Biden feels formulaic. Years and years of investment in the rhetoric of the eternal “fight” and the belief that outrage shapes outcomes in politics and government have led to the habit of seeing anything other than total subscription to the left’s views as a sell-out. Yes, Kamala Harris could theoretically overrule the Senate parliamentarian on the minimum wage issue, but to what end? So long as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema oppose the $15 minimum wage, any Harris power play could easily be countered by a successful Republican amendment to strike the language in question, and perhaps other items as well. And if the idea is to play chicken with dissident Democrats over the fate of the entire reconciliation bill, is a $15 minimum wage really worth risking a $1.9 trillion package absolutely stuffed with subsidies for struggling low-income Americans? Are Fight for 15 hardliners perhaps conflating ends and means here?
Media carping about Biden’s legislative record so far is frankly just ridiculous. Presumably writing about the obscure and complicated details of reconciliation bills is hard and unexciting work that readers may find uninteresting, while treating Tanden’s travails as an existential crisis for the Biden administration provides drama, but isn’t at all true. The reality is that Biden’s Cabinet nominees are rolling through the Senate with strong confirmation votes (all but one received at least 64 votes), despite a steadily more partisan atmosphere for confirmations in recent presidencies. The COVID-19 bill is actually getting through Congress at a breakneck pace despite its unprecedented size and complexity. Trump’s first reconciliation bill (which was principally aimed at repealing Obamacare) didn’t pass the House until May 4, 2017, and never got through the Senate. Yes, Obama got a stimulus bill through Congress in February 2009, but it was less than half the size, much simpler, and more to the point, there were 59 Senate Democrats in office when it passed, which meant he didn’t even have to use reconciliation.
There’s really no exact precedent for Biden’s situation, particularly given the atmosphere of partisanship in Washington and the whole country right now, and the narrow window he and his party possess – in terms of political capital and time – to get important things done. He should not be judged on any one legislative provision or any one Cabinet nomination. So far the wins far outweigh the losses and omissions. Give the 46th president a break.
AS to kerry needing to win more states:
with regard to red blue states that are strong for either one diff of just 20 votes:
Bush has 216 EV
Kerry: 194 EV
Weak states, where the state is at some risk to go to one or the other, usually trending but within margin of error, and not taking into account undecidededs
Bush Weak: 74
kerry Weak: 45
Bush is at more risk (note the 30 vote difference)
Undecided EV where they are tied or different polls og to each one: 128 EV
Taking in account just decided voters the election is very close, if undecideds are factored in Kerry is ahead
I’m encouraged by this post, but there are caveats. I don’t see that the link identifies the “Battleground States”. Also, it identifies a 7% lead based on Democracy Corps polls, which are partisan and lean democratic, at least by 2-3 points, typically, compared to media polls. Also, Kerry needs to win a lot more of the battleground states than Bush, since the Bush safe states comprise a lot more electoral votes than the Kerry safe states, and most battleground states are blue. In short, this is a very “tweakable” statistic, and we need a lot more information.
http://www.electoral-vote.com is an ok site, but very simplistic. they take the latest poll and go with that, no detailed statistical analysis. the Hawaii issue is a good one, Hawaii is NOT going to go to Bush, every poll has kerry with a large lead and anybody who have leved there know its as likley to to to Bush as MA. the problem was a bogus poll reported in some blogs had bush barely ahead. Everbody is discounting the poll, yet http://www.electoral-vote.com used it to give state to bush
If you really want a true analyssi of the state of the college and the cahnges for Kerry go to
http://synapse.princeton.edu/~sam/pollcalc.html
Sam Wang does what is know as a meta-analysis. it may be beyond most readers math level, but he does several million calcualtions and calculates the probability of every possible outcome and then does a 50th-percentile (expected) outcome, as well as a 95-percent confidence interval.
for today its
Predicted median with undecideds: Kerry 307 EV, Bush 231 EV (probability map)
Median outcome, decided voters only: Kerry 259 EV, Bush 279 EV
Among decided voters: Bush leads Kerry by 0.5%
so the election is very close with just decideds, taking into account undecideds Kerry is way ahead.
There is encouraging news Monday from two tracking polls that have had Bush ahead for weeks and weeks until today. Kerry now leads Bush in the just updated Washington Post tracking poll and the Rasmussen tracking poll. No doubt these polls have their flaws, but as relative measures (relative to themsleves) they are both showing a clear tend over the last three days of Kerry picking up strenghth. I belive it’s starting to break pretty clearly for Kerry.
Re: zogby
why do people keep insisting on treating one pollster as if they are the end all- be all of polling on either the left or right? There are multiple polls so why not take the approach of reading ALL polls in context. Now, as one poster here mentions below, the problem comes when its hard to figure out the context.
from electoral-vote.com website: highlighting wild swings in current polling.
In contrast to previous Mondays, there are many new polls today, with 19 states getting new numbers (although most didn’t change sides). In addition to the ususual polls, Zogby has begun daily tracking polls in 10 battleground states, which I will also toss into the hopper. According to Zogby’s polls, conducted Oct. 21-24, Bush is currently leading in six states (FL, NM, NV, WI, IA, and OH), while Kerry is leading in four states (CO, MN, PA, MI). Some of these results are very surprising. Is Kerry really leading by 4% in Colorado? Is Bush really leading by 5% in New Mexico? I don’t believe either of those. They are in conflict with too many other polls. Another example: the current Ohio University poll gives Kerry a 6% lead in that state, whereas Zogby puts Bush ahead by 5%. The MoE on these polls is 4%, so an 11% change in a couple of days in a state with so few undecideds is impossible. I think there are serious problems with the all the polls.
What you have to remember about electoral-vote.com is that he only uses the most recent
poll as opposed to doing any averaging or tracking.
Also, he doesn’t do things which I do as a
matter of course: 1) subtract 2 points from
Bush on all SUSA, Rasmussen, Strategic Vision,
and Mason-Dixon polls and give them to Kerry;
2) Throw out Gallup polls altogether; 3) simulate new-for-this-election voters by giving a net 2% to Kerry where applicable; and 4) give
undecideds to Kerry by a large margin
(67%/75%/80%/86%, to see the effects of each).
This is a good blog, but annoyingly one-sided at times. I always need to hold my nose and browse the ‘winger blogs for the polls and news Ruy does *not* mention. It seems this week’s Monday hasn’t been a good day for Kerry in the state polls; Slate, electoral-vote.com, PollingReport.com and (of course-) the right-wing pair of FederalReview.com and ElectionProjection.com all report “Shrub” is ahead, albeit not by much. But thanks to “Shrub’s” gains in the smaller Mid-Western states and the Southwest (including Hawaii of all places!), there are now reasonably credible scenarios where Kerry wins *all* three major battleground states (PA, OH, FL) and still loses. I don’t like this at all.
—
I don’t think this signals the beginning of a trend (last week was generally pretty good) since the poll movements have been fairly small. But I will be nervously watching the President’s approval ratings during this week. If they suddenly start moving above the 50% mark, it’s not a very good sign for Nov.2.
MARCU$
Are the polls accurate? Is Bush really up by 2-3 points? Zogby has Bush up by 2, for instance. I went over to 2.004k.com and counted up sure state winners for Kerry. I came up with 253 electoral votes without even trying. That leaves Florida, Iowa (my state, where early voting gives Kerry the lead, and GOTV in heavily Democratic Johnson County alone is going on 24/7), Colorado, Hawaii, and Arkansas…what am I forgetting?–all states Kerry could easily win. Anyone?
Wow!
Kerry leads Bush by 2 in the latest Rasmussen. Anyone have any idea why there is a disconnect between Rasmussen and Zogby? And, yes I remain obsessed!
Jody
Alan is right, these tracking polls are nuts. Rasmussen has Kerry two points ahead, Zogby has Bush ahead +3, and TIPP has Bush up by +8! The ABC and WaPost are not out yet but yesterday they had Bush a mere +1.
I always believed the tracking polls provided a better snapshop of public opinion but it seems the survey polls are more consistent lately.
It will be fascinating to see how the news about the 380 tons of missing pure high explosives impacts the final days of the race.
Whoa! Rasmussen today shows a 2-point lead for Kerry! This seems to run counter to the Zogby poll today, which shows Bush’s lead expanding to 3 points…but I think GW had an unusually good day of Zogby polling on Friday or Saturday.
The site (www.electoral-vote.com) does swing widely. They use a number of polls that are paid by political parties (notably, the Strategic Vision poll paid for by Republicans). These tend to favor the people paying for the polls.
Zogby’s battleground state polls out today seem to be throwing everything towards Republicans. However, the numbers are out of whack with conventional wisdom (undecideds going toward Bush, Hispanics towards Bush, etc.?). I am not ready to accept those numbers. It’s almost like they got something backwards (????). I know based on the phone calls I made in San Diego County for the Kerry/Edwards campaign, I did not have a single Hispanic out of 30 that said they favored Bush. I think we need to see a few more days worth of data before we believe those numbers.
Is it me or has Zogby’s polls gone crazy in the last week?Bush’s lead is widening, Kerry’s support is dropping out among all groups. He has this quote today
“The President has opened up a 12-point lead among Independents and now also leads among those voters with active passports.”
Virtually every other poll I’ve seen has Kerry ahead by 10 points or so among independent voters. What does the active passports comment have to do with anything, anyway? I have no idea what influence voters with passports have.
To make things more strange, Kerry’s down in almost all the swing states. The ones that seem most strange to me are the 4 point lead in Colorado (Kerry 49, Bush 45), and Bush’s 5 point lead in Ohio (Kerry 42, Bush 47).
I had been believing Zogby’s numbers were more reliable than most, as he and CBS were the only ones to predict the 2000 election for Gore. The also always had the race closer than the rest of the polls. These numbers just keep getting more bizarre though.
Any thoughts?
Justin
Electoral-Vote.com is a good site. Which is why after visiting it this morning and seeing Bush jump ahead signifincantly in their prediction, I had to come here to make sense of it.
There is one thing that bothers me though. Sure, we keep on saying that the undecideds generally go to the challenger this close to the election. Also, we’ve been complaining about the LV qualifications and questions in that they underrepresent minorites and youth. But couldn’t LV question underrepresent unintellectual Bush voters as well? Say they only get 3 out of the 7 questions wrong and so the pollster doesn’t consider them likely, that doesn’t mean they AREN’T voting for Bush. Both sides have quite an energized base. And I think we’ve almost reached the point that undecideds really aren’t going to be deciding this election, “base turnout” will.
He sure does have a link section, scroll down, it’s on the right.
I certainly empathize with the unemployed in Ohio, and understand that the official unemployment rate is lower than the real unemployment rate; but I wonder how they would like to try on the unemployment rate here in central California–it is typically double the current rate in Ohio *when times are good.* When times are bad, it goes over 20%. And the area votes Republican (big surprise).
I keep seeing references to campaign “internal polls”. How can these really be different from the published ones? Aren’t they taken by the same doofusses, and subject to the same rather larger errors? Don’t organizations like Zogby also do internal or private polling for politicians? I wish someone could shed some light on this.
I’ve been checking out this site lately and they have gone from Kerry in the lead to swinging wide for Bush with the recent polls. As he says himself, he isn’t sure he believes most of them.
Interestingly, he is taking undecided voters into account; saying that they usually go for the challenger.
http://www.electoral-vote.com
Ruy, you should do a post (or have a link section) with all of the poll data sites you are aware of (or, the good ones anyway.) Its nice to see how different people read the tea leaves.
Ruy, you say, “And, not to pile on, but…”
As far as I’m concerned, on this subject you can pile on all you’d like. And more.
🙂
Zogby has Bush turning it around in OH….Any info on the Zogby detail — party ID, etc.?
Eric
Quite possibly, something very real might lie behind the disparity between the head-to-heads in the battleground states and the head-to-heads nationally.
It may be, for example, that the message that gets out to voters in the battleground states is qualitatively (and perhaps quantitatively) different from what gets through to voters in other states. One obvious difference is that the battleground states get more information, because there are so many campaign events and so much advertising, while in the other states it is only the free media that communicates anything at all. Moreover, the message of the candidates is also mainly geared to the circumstances and concerns of the battleground states.
It’s quite possible that the Kerry message that gets through to voters in battleground states is just distinctly more effective than the message that the free media communicates in the other states.
If true, one very curious consequence might very well be that there will a large gap between the popular voter and the electoral vote, with Bush doing very well, perhaps even winning, the popular vote, by running up the vote in non-battleground states (in both the states he will certainly lose and the states he will certainly win), but losing decisively nonetheless in the electoral vote.
I would like to know what bloggers and the like can do the make explosives-gate as important a political issue as possible.
Explosives-gate is, of course, the recent reports that over 350 tons of high explosives were taken from an unsecured ammunition facility and that the ***Bush administration attempted to keep news about this from being released*** until after the election.
I think this should really dent Bush’s perception that he can be trusted to wage either the war in Iraq or the war on terror.