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It might have the intended effect. But if this is the most reassuring version of Biden’s reelection strategy, then I’d love to know what the worrisome one looks like.
To be fair, the point of Messina’s much-emailed slide-show wasn’t so much the substance as the hopeful tone. The message is that a respected party strategist thinks Biden is in pretty good shape, so everyone should just chill. Biden, Messina promises us, is “in a better position than most people realize.” (Most people being, I guess, Washington Democrats.)
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Substance matters, though — especially if it reflects the thinking of those around the president. And what we do know is that merely a third of Americans in the latest polling think Biden is capably handling the economy, which is several points lower than his anemic overall approval rating.
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No worries here! “The economy is strong,” the memo blares, “and the Biden team is working to ensure voters feel that way.” How? By trotting out all kinds of data to prove that they really should feel that way. Also by pushing “Bidenomics,” because when lots of data points don’t persuade people of how good they have it, slogans usually do the trick.
(A note to the Biden White House: The term “Reaganomics” turned out be an asset because President Ronald Reagan attached himself to an economic theory, however harebrained, that broke with a half century of orthodoxy in both parties. What you’ve got here is really just economics as espoused by Democrats since the beginning of time. It’s like me calling my columns “Baipinion.” Cringy.)
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All of this gets to a problem with Democratic campaigns generally, which is the eggheaded idea that people will be happy with your policies if you just keep telling them how happy they really ought to be. I’ve sometimes referred to this as the “turn up the volume” theory of campaigning. If you don’t like my music, I must not be playing it loud enough.
In fact, pollsters will tell you that most people feel pretty good about their own economic situation — they just don’t much like the Biden agenda. Why? For one thing, most independent and conservative-leaning voters are conditioned to be deeply skeptical of large-scale government spending, period. (If you can’t understand why, then you probably didn’t grow up near a 20th-century housing project or a neighborhood cleaved by an interstate.)
Second, these voters tend to think all these Democratic polices are mainly aimed at poorer and historically underrepresented people, rather than at the mostly White, middle-class voters who populate exurban and rural counties and who have plenty of thwarted aspirations of their own.
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I sympathize with the frustration Biden must feel. His public investments have been bold and forward-looking, by and large. And we know the economy has generally performed better and more fairly under Democratic presidents than under Republicans; this is a matter of statistics, not ideology.
But the general insecurity people feel about the postindustrial economy is now a permanent feature of the political terrain. There’s probably not much any president can do to allay it.
I won’t pretend I have some pithy answer to the dilemma here; I’m not sure there is one. But it seems to me Biden’s best bet isn’t to keep insisting that the economy is better than you think it is. Rather, he should talk more about the country’s long-term trajectory than about comforting statistics from the last quarter. Voters don’t really believe the economic realities in their lives will change much in the short term, anyway — they’re more interested in how your policies are going to change reality for their kids and grandkids. (Democrats told exactly that kind of overarching story when Obama won reelection in 2012 — even if it wasn’t Obama who did the explaining, but rather his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton.)
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And, of course, Biden needs to make sure the economic debate becomes a choice between competing visions, rather than a Yelp review of the Biden presidency. Voters might recoil at profligate government, but they’re not exactly wild about cruelty and corporate tax cuts, either.
Biden can absolutely win, if he really insists on running again. But you won’t get there by being that irritating guy at the office who goes around on Monday morning telling everyone to smile more.
Voters get to decide how they’re feeling about the economy. Presidents only decide what to do about it.
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Democrats spent the last weeks of summer rending their linen shirts over President Biden’s low approval ratings and the state of the 2024 campaign. Which is apparently why Jim Messina, the strategist who ran President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012, felt the need last week to produce an upbeat, 21-page strategy memo that would, as he told Politico’s Playbook, calm all the “bedwetters” in his party.
It might have the intended effect. But if this is the most reassuring version of Biden’s reelection strategy, then I’d love to know what the worrisome one looks like.
To be fair, the point of Messina’s much-emailed slide-show wasn’t so much the substance as the hopeful tone. The message is that a respected party strategist thinks Biden is in pretty good shape, so everyone should just chill. Biden, Messina promises us, is “in a better position than most people realize.” (Most people being, I guess, Washington Democrats.)
Substance matters, though — especially if it reflects the thinking of those around the president. And what we do know is that merely a third of Americans in the latest polling think Biden is capably handling the economy, which is several points lower than his anemic overall approval rating.
No worries here! “The economy is strong,” the memo blares, “and the Biden team is working to ensure voters feel that way.” How? By trotting out all kinds of data to prove that they really should feel that way. Also by pushing “Bidenomics,” because when lots of data points don’t persuade people of how good they have it, slogans usually do the trick.
(A note to the Biden White House: The term “Reaganomics” turned out be an asset because President Ronald Reagan attached himself to an economic theory, however harebrained, that broke with a half century of orthodoxy in both parties. What you’ve got here is really just economics as espoused by Democrats since the beginning of time. It’s like me calling my columns “Baipinion.” Cringy.)
All of this gets to a problem with Democratic campaigns generally, which is the eggheaded idea that people will be happy with your policies if you just keep telling them how happy they really ought to be. I’ve sometimes referred to this as the “turn up the volume” theory of campaigning. If you don’t like my music, I must not be playing it loud enough.
In fact, pollsters will tell you that most people feel pretty good about their own economic situation — they just don’t much like the Biden agenda. Why? For one thing, most independent and conservative-leaning voters are conditioned to be deeply skeptical of large-scale government spending, period. (If you can’t understand why, then you probably didn’t grow up near a 20th-century housing project or a neighborhood cleaved by an interstate.)
Second, these voters tend to think all these Democratic polices are mainly aimed at poorer and historically underrepresented people, rather than at the mostly White, middle-class voters who populate exurban and rural counties and who have plenty of thwarted aspirations of their own.
I sympathize with the frustration Biden must feel. His public investments have been bold and forward-looking, by and large. And we know the economy has generally performed better and more fairly under Democratic presidents than under Republicans; this is a matter of statistics, not ideology.
But the general insecurity people feel about the postindustrial economy is now a permanent feature of the political terrain. There’s probably not much any president can do to allay it.
I won’t pretend I have some pithy answer to the dilemma here; I’m not sure there is one. But it seems to me Biden’s best bet isn’t to keep insisting that the economy is better than you think it is. Rather, he should talk more about the country’s long-term trajectory than about comforting statistics from the last quarter. Voters don’t really believe the economic realities in their lives will change much in the short term, anyway — they’re more interested in how your policies are going to change reality for their kids and grandkids. (Democrats told exactly that kind of overarching story when Obama won reelection in 2012 — even if it wasn’t Obama who did the explaining, but rather his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton.)
And, of course, Biden needs to make sure the economic debate becomes a choice between competing visions, rather than a Yelp review of the Biden presidency. Voters might recoil at profligate government, but they’re not exactly wild about cruelty and corporate tax cuts, either.
Biden can absolutely win, if he really insists on running again. But you won’t get there by being that irritating guy at the office who goes around on Monday morning telling everyone to smile more.
Voters get to decide how they’re feeling about the economy. Presidents only decide what to do about it.
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