TDS Strategy Memos
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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February 26: Tanden Confirmation Fight Not an Existential Threat for Biden Administration
This year’s big media narrative has been the confirmation saga of Neera Tanden, Biden’s nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget. At New York I wrote about how over-heated the talk surrounding Tanden has become.
Okay, folks, this is getting ridiculous. When a vote in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on the nomination of Neera Tanden was postponed earlier this week, you would have thought it presented an existential threat to the Biden presidency. “Scrutiny over Tanden’s selection has continued to build as the story over her uneven reception on Capitol Hill stretched through the week,” said one Washington Post story. Politico Playbook suggested that if Tanden didn’t recover, the brouhaha “has the potential to be what Biden might call a BFD.” There’s been all sorts of unintentionally funny speculation about whether the White House is playing some sort of “three-dimensional chess” in its handling of the confirmation, disguising a nefarious plan B or C.
Perhaps it reflects the law of supply and demand, which requires the inflation of any bit of trouble for Biden into a crisis. After all, his Cabinet nominees have been approved by the Senate with a minimum of 56 votes; the second-lowest level of support was 64 votes. One nominee who was the subject of all sorts of initial shrieking, Tom Vilsack, was confirmed with 92 Senate votes. Meanwhile, Congress is on track to approve the largest package of legislation moved by any president since at least the Reagan budget of 1981, with a lot of the work on it being conducted quietly in both chambers. Maybe if the bill hits some sort of roadblock, or if Republican fury at HHS nominee Xavier Becerra (whose confirmation has predictably become the big fundraising and mobilization vehicle for the GOP’s very loud anti-abortion constituency) reaches a certain decibel level, Tanden can get out of the spotlight for a bit.
But what’s really unfair — and beyond that, surreal — is the extent to which this confirmation is being treated as more important than all the others combined, or indeed, as a make-or-break moment for a presidency that has barely begun. It’s not. If Tanden cannot get confirmed, the Biden administration won’t miss a beat, and I am reasonably sure she will still have a distinguished future in public affairs (though perhaps one without much of a social-media presence). And if she is confirmed, we’ll all forget about the brouhaha and begin focusing on how she does the job, which she is, by all accounts, qualified to perform.
The worst thing the Democrats could do is run as a Republican-lite party. National issues are going to be healthcare, taxes, corruption, and jobs, and the Democrats can make it work if they adopt Medicare-For-All, repeal tax cuts on bug business, continue to point out the naked corruption in the GOP/Trump run Washington, and push for a federal jobs guarantee.
There’s no need to play into “white identity politics.” There’s no need to roll back anything having to do with equal rights, protecting Dreamers, gay rights, or majority supported gun restrictions, or anything else. There’s absolutely no need to sit here and play to people who are ultimately going to just see the “Republican-lite” strategy as just a weak alternative to the “real thing.”
I thought we werent supposed to be backtracking about the previous election. How about not trying to make a kinder version of the Republican party? You got to go outside of their boxes if you want to get anywhere. Don’t be Republican lite, that is ultimately advertising yourself as 2nd choice and empowering them to go further.
The Democrat Party should be the party of family values – all families.
(I would also like to see it be antiwar, for those very same reasons–at least seeking a way out of this. There is no national conversation) their policies should be explained as how they are good for all families because that makes the most sense and has the highest priority.
Healthcare, the safety net, environment, education and so on.
The Republican party can try to use those words but everyone knows they are very selective in who they want to serve and how.
On the race issue and how some who identify as white working class judge the democrat party: politicians and their political parties job description doesnt involve choosing who they serve or decide who they won’t, certainly not for judging an individual or groups religion, who they marry, what color their skin is, what language they speak, what job they have or do not.
We don’t need a government to serve as the judge and executioner for religion, race, sex, language, nature. Democrats don’t want to be that.
There is no shame in a politician or political party working for all Americans
And also lets not forget being qualified for a job has never meant that you shouldn’t have the job. Who hires someone that says they’re going to destroy your business?
I was interested in your newletter and adovocacy efforts until I read the word “White”. Racism of any kind is not ok. Consequently, I’m unsubscribing.