Waiting for Joe Biden’s speech to a joint session of Congress to begin this week, I observed at New York that Republicans were struggling to define him consistently, which felt like a familiar problem for them:
When Bill Clinton was at the pre-Lewinsky peak of his powers, he drove Republicans nuts. They alternated between accusing him of “stealing our issues” with his triangulating pitches on welfare reform and crime and the size of government, and of being “liberal, liberal, liberal!” — a sort of boomer love child of George McGovern and Janis Joplin in a deceptive deep-fried southern packaging. Eventually the opportunity to depict him as a lying sexual predator solved the conservative dilemma, though you could argue he never stopped throwing them off-balance.
Republicans are similarly having problems getting a clear focus on Joe Biden, as the Los Angeles Times’ Noah Bierman observes:
“Alex Conant, a Republican consultant who has advised Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, [says] that his party’s two main messages about Biden are at odds with each other, blunting their impact. ‘The thing you hear Republicans say most is that he’s too old for the job, which isn’t consistent with saying he’s doing too much,’ Conant said. ‘You can’t effectively argue that he’s incompetent and that he’s too effective.'”
This dual framing of Biden was evident during the 2020 campaign, when Trump called him “Sleepy Joe” and with his usual lack of subtlety suggested his opponent was senile, even as he assailed Biden’s party of radical socialist aims. The 45th president and his surrogates squared the circle by treating Biden as the half-there puppet of the real powers, particularly the “communist” Kamala Harris.
But now, 100 days into the Biden-Harris administration, even though the new president has kept an unusually low profile, there are no signs of Harris or anyone else manipulating him. Indeed, so far his White House has been remarkably free of the factionalism that often undermines clear presidential leadership. With Clinton as president you had a White House staff famously divided (ironically, given the later reputations of the First Lady and the veep) into progressive “Rodhams” and centrist “Gores” who jockeyed for position and placed their varying stamps on administration policies. George W. Bush’s presidency was also marked by competing power centers (e.g., his terrifying vice-president and the “Boy Genius” Karl Rove); to a lesser extent, so was Obama’s. As for Donald Trump, hardly a week passed without someone — particularly his rotating cast of chiefs-of-staff — being described by “insiders” as the real power behind the throne or perhaps as the wild man’s lion-tamer.
Trump, of course, created some of the same problems for Democrats that Clinton — and now Biden — posed for Republicans. Was he the “toddler president” who ran a hollowed-out administration with no real core of convictions or goals? Or was he a putative Il Duce craftily planning an authoritarian takeover of the country? Up until the day he left office there was evidence for both descriptions. Indeed, the coda of his presidency, the January 6 Capitol riot, was variously regarded as a fascist coup attempt and a clown show.
Trump’s successor will have an opportunity in his first address to a joint session of Congress to add to the impression that he is quietly but firmly in charge of the executive branch, and has imposed order on his fractious party as he unveils yet another massive proposal. Kamala Harris will be sitting (and often standing and applauding) behind him, likely looking more like an adoring protégée than any sort of puppet-master. But if he stumbles at all, or looks tired, or says things that supposedly centrist Democrats like him don’t believe, the knees of many elephants will jerk and out will come the mockery of the old man who is a reassuring front for the Marxists actually running the country.
Such confusion if it continues will be of great service to Biden, much like the current Republican tendency to focus on irrelevant culture-war themes while a mostly united Democratic Party enacts legislative initiatives of a magnitude we haven’t seen since Ronald Reagan’s first year in office. For all their political gifts, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — who, lest we forget, both had a much more firmly Democratic Senate and House the first two years of their presidencies — couldn’t come close to the mastery of Congress Biden has exhibited up until now. As Republicans watch Biden’s speech, they should soberly realize that before long it may not matter that much if they bust up the Democratic trifecta in 2022. The damage to GOP policies and priorities wrought by “Uncle Joe” and his “senile socialist regime” could be too large to reverse by then. While Republicans fret about Trump and rage about “cancel culture,” Biden is eating their lunch.
Oh! people, Kerry did not lose CO by 5% points. The vote was stolen! It is alled Voter Fraud and American needs to undestand that it happened in Colorado too!
I would not be surprised to see Ken Salazar of Colorado in the VP slot in 2008. A former Attorney General of CO and newly elected senator, Salazar is just what the party needs. He would, of course, help excite the Latino community-particularly the Mexican and Central and South American communities-but his appeal goes far beyond that: A farmer who appeals to the populist leanings of the west, Salazar is far removed from the “liberal” and “elitist” northeastern political environment. He has a gentle ruggedness that appeals to people and he exudes sincerity. He is considered, for the most part, a moderate BUT HAS taken some pretty strong stands on the environment and farmers’ rights. He is pro-choice but strongly opposes PBAs and strongly favors parental notification of minors who wish to terminate a pregnancy. He has stated that though he believes marriage is between a man and a woman, he will vehemently oppose any effort to amend the constitution in this matter. The voters of CO knew all this when they selected him on Nov 2nd.
Whereas Kerry lost CO by 5 points, Salazar beat Coors and won his senate seat by 6 points! Both Kerry and Salazar did very well in the large cities like Boulder and Denver but Salazar did far better than Kerry in the smaller towns. He bested Kerry by an average of 10 points in many of these towns. He still didn’t beat Coors in these small towns but he did better than any Democrat there in recent history. Ken’s brother won his house seat as well. In fact, in a bright spot for Democrats in this election, CO Dems took control of both state legislatures for the first time in 44 years!
Something is happening in Colorado and I think the Coloradan Democrats can teach the Democratic party a thing or two on how to win elections. I think the national party should take a close look at how the Democrats in CO have turned things around and see what can be applied nationally.
I really like the quote in the article:
Colorado Democrats say their success carries a lesson for the national party. “We campaigned on pragmatism,” state Democratic Chairman Christopher Gates said. “We set ourselves up as the problem solvers, while the Republicans were hung up on a bunch of fringe social issues like gay marriage and the Pledge of Allegiance.
“The notion that moral issues won the 2004 election was disproven in Colorado,” Gates continued. “We offered solutions, not ideology, and won almost everything.”
Liberals used to be known as the pragmatists of American politics, the problem solvers. Being known as a liberal bacame a liability in national politics (as both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry clearly believed in the debates) when liberalism became an ideology rather than a way of thinking about problems.