The 2016 Presidential Pendulum Swing Revisited: The Message from Biden to the House and Senate, and the Status of the Democrat Party

In Washington, a sharper message was delivered by Biden and not on stage next to Democratic hopefuls in heated races across the country.

The moment provided a brief window into the president’s high-stakes theory of the case – one that appeared exceedingly aspirational given his party’s narrow congressional majorities and staunch GOP opposition. As this year began, Biden and his team were trying to break free of a series of crises and the cornerstone of his agenda, a sweeping bill that included many administration priorities, appeared in disarray.

Biden, in the last four days, has candidly summarized the pendulum swing of the last several months that drove the political narrative from a looming Republican wave, to Democratic momentum, to the current moment of Republicans again eying majorities in the House and Senate.

“The polls have been all over the place,” Biden said Monday in remarks at the Democratic National Committee. The Republicans are ahead. Democrats ahead. Republicans are ahead. But it’s going to close, I think, with seeing one more shift: Democrats ahead in the closing days.”

It was a candid acknowledgment of a moment that finds Democrats once again scrambling to zero in on a message to blunt GOP momentum, a reality exacerbated by divergent views inside the party of where that message should actually land.

But Biden’s public comments also reflect the view, two weeks from the day votes will be counted, that has Democrats “very much still in the game,” one Democratic official said.

It is the definitive outstanding question if that will hold, particularly in a home stretch in which undecided voters historically break from the party out of power.

The official said that the campaign has managed to suck itself back into the firing squad. It isn’t as bad as people think it is and it wasn’t great at the end of the summer. It could be if we can’t pull it together.

The weight of that history, not to mention the acute headwinds created by economic unease that continues to rank first among voter concerns in poll after poll, aren’t lost on Biden or his advisers.

Even though Biden has approval ratings that are slightly ahead of where Obama and Trump were at this time last year, his own standing is not.

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That will start to change in the days ahead, advisers say, with continued insistence that he will hit the road for bigger campaign events after weeks of intentionally smaller scale official events designed to highlight legislative accomplishments.

They point to two factors specifically on that front: gas prices, which have been on a steady downward trajectory for the last two weeks, and the third quarter GDP report, which analysts expect to show robust growth after two quarters of contraction.

Despite legislative achievements, and a historically quick recovery from the downturn, the economy is not going to get back to its pre-pandemic state in 14 days.

They see an opportunity to make gains, or at least fight to a DRAW, with undecided voters, who might vote at all, in the closing days because of the correlation between gas prices and Democratic electoral prospects over the last several months.

It is one that officials say has been laid bare in a particularly acute manner by Republicans in recent weeks, whether on abortion, popular programs like Social Security and Medicare, or proposals to undo many of the individual provisions enacted by Biden that polls in the favor of Democrats when taken in isolation.

Biden has been trying to highlight individual issues that are important to the officials that see abortion rights and student loan forgiveness as key motivators in turning out base voters.

Many in the West Wing were of the opinion that the burst of optimism after the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a key abortion law was overly optimistic.

Democrats are playing defense in blue-state strongholds like New York, Washington and Oregon and are waging a longshot struggle to cling to the House of Representatives. The Republicans need a net gain of five seats to regain control. A handful of swing state showdowns will decide the destiny of the Senate, currently split 50-50, including in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Democrats and Republicans are showing renewed interest in the race for governor in New Hampshire. The Democrats label the pro-Trump candidate an election-denying Extremist.

Most of the Democratic Senate candidates are polling within striking distance. The pathway to hold onto the Senate exists, even if a sharp break away from Democrats could imperil several of the party’s biggest new stars.

Do voters view this election as a choice or a referendum? If it’s the latter, Biden is staring at the next two years in office with Republicans in control of the House and Senate.

The President was on the road Thursday – not in one of the most pivotal Senate swing states – but in New York to tout semiconductor manufacturing. It shows how low his approval ratings limit his capacity to help his party climb out of a hole, as evidenced by the fact that he showed up in a state he won two years ago.

It’s a reality that has undercut efforts by the administrationto take advantage of what officials view as a robust record. The economy is strong as hell, said Biden when asked about it last week.

Democrats are in danger of losing their control of the House of Representatives as their hopes of clinging onto the Senate appear to ebb, and his approach reflected the extremely testing election environment facing them.

Biden and Obama tried to convince Fetterman to support the Democratic nominee in the Pennsylvania Senate race, which is crucial to the party’s hopes of defeating the Republicans in the Senate. But Democrats are under fierce pressure in states like Arizona and Nevada that could flip the chamber to the GOP. Republicans need a single seat to win majority.

If Republicans win back the house, they will have the ability to impose a vise on Biden’s legislative program and make it harder for him to pass legislation. They are promising hearings and investigations into everything from the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the surge of migrants across the southern border to Biden’s son, Hunter.

There is sufficient uncertainty in polling following recent elections that it is far too early to properly judge the state of the race. But Biden’s speech on Thursday reflected Democrats’ burden in this election and suggested that the historical pattern of first-term presidents getting a midterm election drubbing may be reasserting itself, after his party nursed hopes of bucking the trend this summer in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

His speech showed that it is impossible to discuss positive aspects of the economy, like GDP growth and a historically low unemployment rate when inflation is at 40-year highs.

If the political control of Washington is split between the Democrats and the Republicans, there will be fights over entitlements and government spending, which may be acrimony in years to come.

“They’re going to shut down the government, refuse to pay America’s bills for the first time in American history to put America in default… unless we yield to their demands to cut Social Security and Medicare.”

The president admitted that Democrats always try to charge that Social Security is at risk in elections but also argued that proposals by Republican senators really do threaten the retirement program.

All of those measures will not be felt in the election due to the fact that they won’t succeed. There is a possibility that they could help Biden if he runs for reelection, but it is not something that they want to do.

Some 47% of voters in Wisconsin, 46% in Michigan and 44% in Pennsylvania said that the economy and inflation was the most important issue affecting their vote. In each state, this more than doubled the number of those most exercised about the next-highest-ranking issue – abortion. Democrats had hoped outrage over the Supreme Court decision would have neutralized their economic liabilities heading into the November 8 election.

The latter has even made the gubernatorial race in New York – which hasn’t elected a Republican statewide in two decades – unexpectedly competitive. Hochul and Biden were in Syracuse, which is home to a competitive House race.

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The President is in a tough spot trying to claim credit for the good things in the economy while empathizing with the pain many Americans are feeling. When he was vice president in the Obama administration, the White House faced a similar problem. Many Americans didn’t feel that the economy was coming back at a time of high unemployment. While campaigning for the 2010 election, Barack Obama thought that giving control of congress to the Republicans was like giving the keys to the people who drove the car into a ditch. Republicans took control of the House, and made gains in the Senate.

But she admitted, “Inflation is very high – it’s unacceptably high and Americans feel that every day,” in the interview broadcast on “Erin Burnett OutFront.”

It is expected that a voter will look for scapegoats if their income does not keep up with their costs, like meat, bread, eggs and gasoline. And Biden, as the president in power, gets the blame.

The Democrats used the phrase “Putin’s price hike” to try and mitigate the damage caused by the war in Ukraine. There were also scattershot attempts at whacking Corporate America for “price-gouging” — meatpackers and oil companies being among the main villains — although some liberal economists questioned the logic.

In an interview with Phil Mattingly of CNN, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen talked about the administration’s policies and said that many of the measures will take time to come on line.

People are struggling with inflation. In a virtual fundraiser this week, Vice President Joe Biden talked about growing up in a place where his dad used to say, “If you don’t cover your expenses, then you’re in real trouble.”

There is a growing second guessing over Democrats’ strategy and whether or not they are talking to voters about the most important issues. Biden has said that he wants to save democracy from pro- Trump candidates. It does nothing to ease fears about the cost of groceries or gas.

“Look, what we’re seeing right now is solid growth this quarter. Growth has obviously slowed following a very rapid recovery from high unemployment,” Yellen said when asked about whether the latest GDP data assuaged any recession concerns. We are at a full employment economy. It’s very natural that growth would slow. It has been ok over the first three quarters this year. There is a strong labor market. I don’t think there is a recession in this economy at the moment.

But Yellen agreed with the President’s assessment that the economy remains strong, standing out in comparison to how other economies around the world are fairing.

Gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic activity — rose by an annualized rate of 2.6% during the third quarter, according to initial estimates released Thursday by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The decline in the first quarter and the second quarter was 1.6% and 0.6%, respectively.

Jeremy Yellen and the United States Economic Recession: Where Do We Stand? Where Are We Going? What Are We going to be? Where are we going?

But Yellen’s view also underscored the complex balancing act President Joe Biden and his top economic officials have attempted over the course of this year, as they seek to highlight a rapid economic recovery and major legislative victories while also pledging to tackle soaring prices.

Yellen also acknowledged frustration inside the administration that the efforts to pull the US economy out of crisis haven’t received the credit officials believe is merited.

“There were several problems that we could have had, and difficulties many families American families could have faced,” Yellen said. These are not problems we have because of what the Biden administration has done. Often, one doesn’t get credit for problems that don’t exist.

Yellen traveled to Cleveland as part of an administration push to highlight the major legislative wins – and the tens of billions of dollars in private sector investment those policies have driven toward manufacturing around the country.

It’s a critical piece of an economic strategy designed to address many of the vulnerabilities and failings laid bare as Covid-19 ravaged the world, with significant federal investments in infrastructure and shoring up – or creating from scratch – key pieces of critical supply chains.

Listing off a series of major private sector investments, including the $20 billion Intel plant opened a few hours drive outside of Columbus, Yellen said they were “real tangible investments happening now,” even as she acknowledged they would take time to full take effect.

Not every bridge is going to be online soon, but you are seeing it soon. Many communities are going to see roads improved, bridges repaired that have been falling apart. Money going into research and development is an important source of long term strength to the American economy. And America’s strength is going to increase and we’re going to become a more competitive economy,” she said.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/27/politics/janet-yellen-gdp-recession-cnntv/index.html

Obama and Biden as Messengers of the Make America Great Again Movement: Resolving the Washington Debt Problem with Economic Growth and Climate Change

Yellen also addressed the battle lines that have been drawn this week over raising the debt ceiling, a now-perpetual Washington crisis of its own making that House Republicans have once again pledged to utilize for leverage should they take the majority.

But Yellen, who has long highlighted the “destructive” nature of the showdowns, has also backed doing away with the debt limit altogether through legislation. Biden did not support the idea that a group of House Democrats wrote to him about.

As the administration moves toward a time period that traditionally leads top officials to leave an administration, she made clear she did not plan to be one of them. According to the reports, she informed the White House she wanted to stay into next year.

“I feel very excited by the program that we talked about,” Yellen said. “And I see in it great strengthening of economic growth and addressing climate change and strengthening American households. I want to be a part of that.

When incumbent presidents are unpopular, midterm elections are usually about them. But in a unique twist this year, two ex-presidents who lost control of the House while in office have turned into their parties’ closing messengers.

Both Barack Obama and Donald Trump have differing visions of how America should be viewed, and both are fighting for the future of the country.

Obama remains an avatar of progressive change and an increasingly diverse nation, who’s far more popular than current Democratic President Joe Biden. He’s the most sought-after political fireman for Democrats struggling to survive tight swing state races and is being used to energize young, minority and suburban middle-class voters.

Trump has mobilized his Make America Great Again movement, which first emerged as a backlash to the first Black presidency and is built around the notion that the cultural values of a largely White, working-class nation is under siege from political correctness, undocumented migration, experts and the establishment.

Obama is lambasting politicians, celebrities and sports stars who peddle conspiracy theories, fear and social media “garbage” of which Trump is the most prominent exponent. And he’s delivering searing take-downs of the 45th president’s proteges who are running for election on the platform of his 2020 election falsehoods – like Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

“Why would you vote for somebody who you know is not telling the truth about something? I mean, on something that important, I don’t care how nicely they say it. I don’t care how poised they are or how well-lit they are,” Obama said of the former local TV news anchor, who has emerged as a rising MAGA star, in Arizona on Wednesday.

When truth isn’t important anymore, what happens? Obama said something. It’s okay if you repeat something over and over again, it’s a lie, and your side is saying it.

It was exactly that tactic that Trump adopted in his return to the campaign trail in Iowa on Thursday Night, in what was billed as an appearance for Veteran GOP Sen. ChuckGrassley.

“Your favorite president got screwed,” Trump told his crowd on a frigid night in Sioux City, in which he repeated false conspiracies that Obama spied on his campaign in 2016.

Trump had his crowd in stitches in a digression from his otherwise dreary speech as a stiff wind blew around the teleprompters showing his prepared remarks

When did the 44th president run for office? It was a fight for the presidency, but not for the party. The case of Don Axelrod

“He fought for this. His adult children bought three planes because they did not want to be using the same plane. I mean you need three. Obama joked.

It’s easy to tell when the 44th president doesn’t have his heart in his task. He didn’t approach top form in his Virginia event last year, and in the early rallies of the 2012 election campaign, he was tired and sleepy.

Former Obama political strategist David Axelrod, who is now a CNN commentator, said that this onetime boss is being used by his party on a specific electoral mission.

“In the main, this is the time when you try and get your base out and for Democrats this is really important because the reason why incumbent parties generally lose in midterm elections is that their base is not as motivated as the out-of-office party which tends to come and vote its grievances,” Axelrod said. In the polls, there is a gap between Republicans and Democrats.

The most recent ex-president has demonstrated his hold on the GOP by promoting and endorsing candidates that he does not approve of. It is unclear whether Trump’s role in orchestrating young and extreme nominees, like Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and Herschel Walker in Georgia, will cost his party control of the Senate in swing states.

Republican officials have worried all election cycle about the former president putting his own political ambitions ahead of his party. Many still blame his false claims of voter fraud for helping two Democrats, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, win Senate seats in Georgia runoffs, which enabled their party to control the 50-50 chamber with the help of the tie-breaking vote cast by Vice President Kamala Harris.

While he’s heading out in to the country again, Trump has not been doing his normal routine of multiple rallies in the most closely contested states. The GOP has succeeded in the last few weeks in returning the focus of the election to Biden, high inflation and the economic anxieties that are spooking voters.

But there are increasing signs that Trump may not wait much longer to announce a 2024 bid, not least because he has already signaled he would use a presidential campaign to brand legal investigations he faces related to his hoarding of classified documents in his home in Mar-a-Lago and his conduct leading up to the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, as proof of political persecution.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/04/politics/obama-trump-campaign-trail-return/index.html

The ultra-MAGA Agenda: Why Biden is Too Intrinsic to the GOP, and How he is attempting to convince the Dems

Donald Trump accused Democrats of weaponizing the Justice Department because he himself was guilty of a crime when he was in the White House.

Former Trump White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway praised the former president for not taking the focus off the GOP’s midterm message, a decision that may repay him with a radical Republican House majority that he could use to weaken Biden in the run-up to the 2024 election.

He wants to have done it already. … I think you can expect him to announce it soon,” Conway said of Trump’s anticipated campaign launch. Some people want him to have a surprise in November.

Donald Trump is just getting started. I think you should keep your cellphone on,” Conway told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast on Thursday.

There were costly communications mistakes along the way. In the spring of last year, administration economists said that inflation would be gradual. That assessment proved to be wildly optimistic, and Republicans have not let voters forget it.

In remarks on inflation in May, Biden tried out a new phrase: “the ultra-MAGA agenda,” referring to a plan by Senator Rick Scott of Florida that would require Congress to reauthorize spending for Social Security and Medicare. Republicans, including Scott, have distanced themselves from the idea.

The inflation reduction act helped Democrats to argue that the rising costs of families would be addressed by the act. The legislation included price caps for insulin and provisions allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs, for instance. Polls showed those policies were very popular.

But that sentiment may have been an illusion: Polls also indicated that only a third of voters had heard of the new law and that the majority did not believe it would reduce inflation.

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Biden has spoken about the economy in speeches far more often than any other subject; he has made 22 appearances since August for midterm-related events, according my count. Progressives think Democratic candidates don’t put enough energy into promoting achievements or punishing Republicans for their own positions.

The president’s approval rating hovered around the low 40s for many months, making it hard for Democrats to stand up to him.

The Republicans are bullish on winning large in Tuesday’s election as they slam Democrats over inflation and crime while Biden is warning of the dangers of GOP election deniers.

In an exclusive interview with CNN, the potential next Republican House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, laid out his plans for power and vowed to tackle inflation, border security and rising crime. He promised a wide-ranging investigation against the Biden administration on matters such as the Afghanistan withdrawal, the origins of the Covid-19 vaccine and the dealing with parents and school board meetings. And he didn’t rule out an eventual push to impeach Biden.

The presidents of the US took to the campaign trail over the weekend to demonstrate their support for each other in a time when Democrats are growing increasingly frustrated with one another.

Ex-President Trump, edging ever closer to announcing a 2024 White House bid, will wrap up a campaign he used to show his enduring magnetism among grassroots Republicans, in Ohio, with a rally for Senate nominee J.D. Vance on Monday. In a speech that concluded in pouring rain for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on Sunday, Trump predicted voters would “elect an incredible slate of true MAGA warriors to Congress.”

Biden warned about the nation’s core values being in danger from Republicans who denied the truth about the US Capitol insurrection and the attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul.

Democracy is on the ballot. This is a defining moment for the nation. Regardless of our party, we must speak with one voice. There’s no place in America for political violence,” Biden said.

The president will end his effort to stave off a rebuke from voters at a Democratic event in Maryland. The fact that he will be in a liberal bastion and not trying to boost an endangered lawmaker in a key race on the final night reflects his compromised standing in an election that has reverted to a referendum on his tattered credibility and low approval ratings.

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Ronna McDaniel of the Republican National Committee said on CNN that her party would win the Senate and the House, and that Biden was ignoring the economic anxiety of Americans with his warnings about democracy.

In Pittsburgh, the president and Obama both claimed that the GOP would cut Medicare and Social Security as a result of their control of Congress.

Biden pushed for policies to address short-term incentives that had driven jobs away and wages down, taking the role of a kind of middle class evangelist. Those speeches and discussions served as a roadmap of sorts for an agenda that is now largely law. Major infrastructure investments and incentivizing research and development were detailed by them. There were broad outlines of nascent ideas to connect hollowed out manufacturing centers and communities to new opportunities. Biden proposed changes to the tax code that tracked near where his administration would eventually land as it sought to finance spending plans.

The first national vote since Trump refused to accept the result of the last presidential election sparked chaos and violence and there are fear among Republicans that they may try to defy voters if they don’t win. Ron Johnson raised concerns about the integrity of the vote.

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On Sunday, a staffer at the headquarters of the pro- Trump candidate for governor in Arizona opened a letter containing suspicious white powder. Lake’s opponent, current Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, condemned the incident as “incredibly concerning.”

The first major clashes of the 2024 GOP nominating contest, meanwhile, broke out in Florida with Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis holding dueling rallies Sunday night. The ex-president, who is expected to launch a third White House bid within days, coined a new nickname Saturday for the man who could prove to be his toughest primary opponent: “Ron DeSanctimonious.”

But the Florida governor chose not to engage, turning his ire instead on Biden and calling his Democratic opponent, Charlie Crist, “a donkey” while taking credit for defying Washington officials and experts during the pandemic.

As he rallied for Rubio, who is seeking reelection, Trump didn’t repeat his mockery of DeSantis on Sunday but again teased the likelihood of a presidential run. In another sign the next presidential race is stirring, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, who has long eyed higher office, announced he would not join the Republican primary.

Former President Bill Clinton was also called into action on Saturday, stumping for New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in Brooklyn. The Empire state should be safe territory for his party but Hochul’s closer-than-expected reelection race against Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin underscores the toughness of the national environment for Democrats.

Your life is on the line, so your election rally is just a meaningless exercise in futility. For young people in the audience, your life is on the line,” Clinton said.

Eighteen months after those meetings in Europe, Biden departed Washington on Tuesday for his year-end vacation, riding the momentum of historic legislative success and the defiance of political gravity that has reshaped the expectations for the critical months – and decisions – ahead. It’s a moment that Biden never seemed to doubt would come, even as his party – and some inside the White House – questioned or outright urged a change in approach to address political and economic headwinds driven primarily by soaring inflation that threatened to drag down his presidency.

Biden, Putin, and the 2021 January 6 Insurrection: Why Do We Need a Trump? What Do We Want to Do About Them?

A GOP majority would contain scores of candidates in Trump’s extreme image and would be weaponized to damage the president as much as possible ahead of a potential rematch with Trump in 2024. And a Republican Senate would frustrate Biden’s hopes of balancing out the judiciary after four years of Trump nominating conservative judges.

He was met with polite appreciation from his foreign counterparts. His commitment to the idea that was often pilloried during the campaign was underscored by the deep skepticism he displayed. Biden would note that the only real reassurance was that he would deliver on his promises.

During those 2021 meetings in England and Belgium, Biden found a group of allies genuinely shaken by the January 6 insurrection and the events that led to it. But the president tried to reassure them that the visceral divides that culminated in the violence that day would heal and the bleak moment in US politics would pass.

“That’s why it’s so important that I succeed in my agenda, whether it’s dealing with the vaccine, the economy, infrastructure,” Biden told reporters in Brussels shortly before he boarded Air Force One for a flight to Switzerland and a sit down with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “It’s important that we demonstrate we can make progress and continue to make progress. I think we can do that.

Biden’s anticipated final major action before the end of 2022 serves as an almost poetic coda for his first two years. The new president will sign a $1.7 trillion bipartisan spending package, as well as an amendment to the law that his predecessor cited prior to the January 6 riot.

Biden and his economic advisers zeroed in on an intensive manufacturing and supply chain agenda that grew aggressive and transformational as a once- in-a-century pandemic gripped the country. They saw it as the key to reverse the accelerants at the heart of the atmosphere that created the opening for Donald Trump to reach the Oval Office.

One of Biden’s closest and longest serving advisers told CNN that if Biden says he’s going to do something, he does it.

One White House official told me that a campaign promise or commitment has tipped internal debates on policy decisions more than once.

The perspective that Biden has is important as the White House prepares to confront him upon his return from a family vacation in the US Virgin Islands.

“The whole idea of showing people government can work – we were mocked for that in some corners,” a Biden adviser said. “That’s literally what’s happening now.”

There are still challenges to be overcome. Even if inflation appears to be coming down, it’s still high. Advisers to Biden expect growth to slow in the quarters ahead, but they are still optimistic that a recession can be avoided.

The State of Union address that will come early next year will be underpinned by Biden’s overarching approach which guides the early- stage planning for the legislative and political implications of a new House Republican majority.

White House officials view the political salience of his agenda as both an underappreciated element of their ability to defy the expectations of sweeping GOP gains in the midterms and as a critical piece of what comes next. The agenda that is now in the implementation phase has little affect on it, despite the prospect of divided government.

As the nation heads into the New Year, it forms the basis for even stronger achievements, wrote Mike Donilon, the White House senior adviser and long-standing member of Biden’s inner circle.

Advisers said Biden has laid down strict directives to aide and Cabinet officials on the necessity of efficient implementation in the months ahead.

A senior administration official said that the message was from the top. We need to fix it and we should be prepared in the moment to explain it.

According to a report by CNN, an aide to the former vice president who served as the 2020 campaign policy director said that a lot of people told him it wouldn’t work.

Biden viewed his infrastructure proposal, in particular, as a central policy plank of his campaign as Democratic primary opponents raced to outdo one another with transformational progressive proposals – none of which included a viable way to pass a bitterly divided Congress.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/28/politics/joe-biden-2022/index.html

A Conversation with Joe Biden during his First Two Years at the White House: How the Foundation for Modern American Industrial Strategy Developed and Implemented

This was the perfect time for his theory of the case. He could apply some of the principles he has been guiding throughout his career.

Those principles have largely stayed with Biden through his time as a senator and vice president and were refined during the critical two years spent out of office as he weighed yet another run for the presidency.

The Council of Economic Advisers sits with the Vice President and his Chief Economist, who said that Biden differentiates between the long- and short-term values of consumption and investment. These have always been important to his economic thinking.

Biden’s 2020 campaign only deviated from the key themes outlined in a 22 page memo he drafted as he weighed a run for the presidency.

Even the anecdotes from the period, even the one about Chinese leader Xi Jinping and American politeness or the importance of breathing room, are the same that populate his speeches as president.

During the time that Biden was a senator, and the first two years that he was a vice president, the counselor to the president pointed to a clear line from his days as a lawmaker to his times as president.

Biden wrote a book detailing his decision not to run for president as he dealt with the pain of his son Beau’s fight with, and eventual death from, brain cancer. That process and the book tour that followed are viewed by Biden’s inner circle as an essential experience in the eventual decision to run in 2020.

If the effort to turn that foundation into a coherent policy agenda was accelerated and expanded in the final months of the campaign, it was turbocharged during a transition that saw Democrats take control of the Senate majority.

The infrastructure, manufacturing, research and development, climate and equity proposals were put in interlocking pieces to work in tandem even if they were scaled back during the legislative process.

National Economic Council Chairman Brian Deese said in an interview that the power of the strategy is that it works together.

It is clear that the term “industrial policy” isn’t universally embraced. Even Deese, who has driven and defined its core elements, prefers “Modern American Industrial Strategy.” The idea of crowd in private investment is what it’s all about, according to Deese.

Funding for research and development has risen in recent times. Significant public investments for national and economic security. Labor unions have a focus on bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/28/politics/joe-biden-2022/index.html

The case for CHIPS: President Biden at the onset of the midterm elections confronted by the rise of China during the recent pandemic

These are politically popular, and they’re not exclusive to Biden. They’re also exceedingly difficult to turn into policy. At least until the pandemic.

The bipartisan need for the CHIPS law was driven by the tiny chips essential for everything from cars and washing machines to advanced weapons systems. It shows the salience of an issue that scrambled traditional political dynamics and that Senator Todd Young drove the effort on Capitol Hill.

Young, who had pressed for legislation around the issue a year before Biden entered the White House, was not interested in embracing a broad shift in economic policy or addressing the fact that China had pursued it for a decade or longer. The law that Young and 17 other Senate Republicans voted for had driven private sector investment or commitments in the last several months.

The pandemic. The rise of China as key feature of policy making in both parties. A president animated by the idea of long-term economic incentives crafted to connect workers and communities left behind for decades.

“There’s a confidence that comes from knowing what you’re doing,” said Kaufman, the former Delaware senator, longtime Biden Senate chief of staff and one of the president’s closest friends. “This is a guy who is so incredibly well qualified to be president because of experience.”

In a way it’s both an implicit acknowledgment of the unprecedented factors – most notably Trump, but in some ways the pandemic as well – that created an opening to the presidency for Biden. Another incumbent, or another moment, and advisers note that it wouldn’t be a question of if Biden would win. He wouldn’t have even run.

In the months leading up to the midterm elections, Biden had started regularly recounting the experience with his foreign counterparts on that first foreign trip in an effort to underscore the stakes.

He stood against the backdrop of a new factory in Arizona to celebrate an announcement by a Taiwanese chip maker, which would mark the largest foreign investment in US history, and was ready to provide an updated version.

In the meetings, it was shown that the US is in a better shape to lead the world economy in the future than any other nation.