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.
the correct link for WSJ’s battleground poll results page is this one:
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-battleground04-frameset.html
On the Truman-Dewey race in 1948.
This is a classic that has long been taught in survey research courses — and there are some interesting points that suggest things to consider this year.
First of all, the last Gallup poll was conducted in mid October. It did not pick up Harry Truman’s passionate late campaign by rail, and it did not pick up the near collapse of the Wallace campaign in the last weeks. Remember, 1948 was a 4 way campaign, Truman and Dewey, plus Strom Thurmon on the Dixiecrat ticket, and Henry Wallace running as a progressive.
But the real polling era was Gallup’s — they had not considered the need to adjust their polling results to the vast demographic changes that were the result of World War II. In many respects, they still operated off demographics from the 1940 census — and the War had changed lots of things.
In particular, Northern Industrial States had many precincts that were 3-4 times as populus post war as pre-war. But housing was scarse, and people were living doubled and tripled up. THIS WAS PARTICULARLY TRUE IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY. With the labor movement putting massive effort into registeration and GOTV that year — Industrial worker precincts were way underpolled given their population.
But it was really the Black Community that made the critical difference. In fact, Gallup did not really poll blacks, and it employed no black interviewers, and apparently they just assumed Blacks were Republican. But that wasn’t true any more. Blacks who had migrated from the South — from can’t vote states to places like illinois and PA where the CIO would actually take them down to register after work — fully understood Truman had started to integrate the services, supported Fair Employment Practices, had voted in the Senate for the anti-Lynching laws — and most important, had the courtesy to ask for votes. It’s the moment of the “big switch” which had been underway for some years. Blacks turned out big time in 1948, and provided the margin in Industrial States that put them over the top for Truman.
In many ways this election could be somewhat parallel to 48 in that the technology change from land lines to cell phones could be systematicly missing a significant segment of the electorate. Likewise, I am not certain we yet know how the GOTV strategies of this year are going to work.
Bill,
I’m not sure why, but it takes time for changes in national polling to be reflected in polling from individual states. The states usually lag the national trends. However, electoral-vote.com, for what it’s worth, has it Kerry 253 Bush 264. Not bad.
Actually, Kerry’s further ahead in the electoral college than he is in the general population.
Things are looking better for Kerry in the polls but he still shows quite a bit behind in the electorial college. It seems like if he is nearly tied in the polls he should be tied in the college.
I know this blog is for polling, but below is an interesting article that I think sums up the campaign from here on out:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1322354,00.html
Also, demtom, back in 1948 they basically didn’t poll undecideds, and many of the national polls vastly overrepresented the pro-Dewey northeast.
Thoughtful comment Ramdan and I would add that it all depends on the distribution of a relatively small number of voters in a small number of swing states. A nail biter, at this point anyway.
I certainly hope the tightness of the race is giving Nader voters pause.
More pro Kerry polls for Iowa, Minnesota, Florida, Wisconsin and New Mexico…
http://actforvictory.org/act.php/truth/articles/new_swing_state_polling_from_america_coming_together/
Enjoy.
-DS
This is going to be a breakout year for voting. High registration, high motivation (on both sides) and improved GOTV efforts will result in the highest participation we have seen.
Polls aren’t able to track the new voters that only have cell phones, or don’t meet the likely voter filter. Frankly, that filter is clogged, and needs to be cleaned. This year is nog going to conform to the model of previous years.
It’s close now, but the momentum has shifted. Be careful of pitfalls, and watch out for an Octuba surprise.
Bush basically has done a terrible job in the last 4 years, so he doesn’t have much to run on. This week his best reason for invading Iraq was blown out of the water. His post invasion strategy was shown to be flawed. And he showed his ugly scowl to over 60,000,000 on tv.
The Los Angeles Times had an editorial on Thursday, October 7, 2004 saying
“Is He a Dope?
Although neither group likes to say so, some Americans who support President Bush and many who don’t support him have concluded over four years that he may not be very bright. This suspicion was not allayed by Bush’s answers in the first presidential debate a week ago.”
There’s no good news for Bush in this poll. None.
Waiting for some comments on the WSJ-Zogby Battleground Poll completed yesterday:
http://ad.doubleclick.net/adi/interactive.wsj.com/us_business_news;famil=news;s0=;s1=;s2=;u=ThuOct7120553EDT2004019722341;meta=DEN;sz=120×600;ptile=1;ord=11385113851138511385
Adding in all leaners within margin of error gives Kerry the win with 322 to Bush’s 216. Removing the states within the margin of error puts it Kerry: 243 electoral votes to Bush: 189. This appears to be the largest number of electoral votes outside of the margin of error for either candidate since Kerry’s 252 on 7/12. (Other previous bests are 235 for Kerry on 8/2 to Bush’s 225 on 8/23.)
WSJ’s analysis basically tries to undermine some of the poll they sponsored. Interesting.
-DS
using this poll and all other nationals polls via pollingreport.com
Difference of 1.16%
bush 47.6
kerry 46.5
not using polls if they are greater than 2 STDEVs from mean
bush 47.33
kerry 46.66
its a 0.66% difference. if we expect 110,000,000 voters than thats a difference of just 730,000 people
I think Bush is very close to the “tipping point” where things will quickly start to unravel. If Kerry crushes Bush in Friday’s debate, which i believe he will, the momentum might be unstoppable. As GWB’s platform is built upon a bed of lies, his campaign might crash harder than all of us suspect.
Well, this is certainly encouraging news for Kerry, although I don’t know what to think about the reason(s) for it. Too late for a post-debate bounce from last week. Is there any such thing as a pre-debate bounce?
This has been a week from hell for the GOP on Iraq. Meanwhile, Bush and Cheney continue to insist that Saddam might not have had weapons or the means to develop them, but he WANTED them, so the war was the right thing to do. And, by the way, everything’s goin’ fine. Maybe LVs and RVs across the country are starting to think that the president and vice-president have actually lost their minds.
I’ll tell you what, though. This polling roller coaster is starting to drive me crazy. November 2 can’t get here fast enough. I can’t take much more of this.
Has anyone created an algorithm that translates a popluar vote into the most probable electoral vote? Is that even possible?
Are we supposed to be looking at poll results from likely voters or not? Isn’t Bush over 50% in any poll bad news….
I’ve asked this question elsewhere and never got an answer: has there ever been a time when an incumbent trailed in a serious presidential poll this close to an election and came back to win? I suppose Truman would be one case, though apparently, back then, pollsters stopped surveying right after Labor Day, believing opinion was solidified by then. It strikes me as a very ominous sign for Bush.
It’s hard to find any polls at this point that give Bush 50% or better; the only distinction among the varoius polls is how low Bush’s number goes (somewhere from 45 to 49), and how much of the opposition has so far declared for Kerry. Zogby, for instance, has it Bush 46/Kerry 44, but his profile of the undecided makes it clear they’re most Kerry votes waiting to happen.
Meantime, the reports of new registrations read like a DNC fantasy. If these numbers translate into real turnout gains in November, we could be looking at something extraordinary.
Okay, note to self: turn off the excitement meter and hunker down. 26 grueling days to go.