Our Midterm Advice for President Biden: Bring Those Fightin’ Words!
Hello Hackaroos!
Well, there’s the old saying, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Well, in President Biden’s case, it’s time for him to get going before things get really tough by November. We give President Biden some fighting words and then turn to some of the midterms where his predecessor has been trying to flex his orange muscles.
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Let’s begin…
What’s the First Rule of Fight Club? In Biden’s Case: Talk about Fight Club!
MANDEL NGAN / Getty Images / Collection: AFP
MURPHY: As the war in the Ukraine rages, COVID cases creep upwards once again and inflation continues to, well, inflate, President Biden's political standing shows little sign of improving. Democrats, as usual, are nervous and twitchy but for once they have a really good reason to reach for the worry beads. This succinct Op-Ed piece by Charles Blow in the New York Times Monday says it well. “There is an old saying that is some variation of ‘People will forget what you said, but they won’t forget how you made them feel.’ Biden isn’t constantly tweeting and hamming it up for the cameras — in fact, too often, he has shied away from interviews — and his reticence has left a void of emotional connection to him.” Well said Charles. On the same op-ed page, liberal siren Senator Elizabeth Warren also had an opinion piece making an argument for how the Democrats can fight their way out of the hole. While I disagree – shocker – with most of her lefty (OK crackpot actually but I digress) policy ideas, she does have an admirable instinct to always go on offense and fight. (She’d fit right in on the Ukraine front lines these days). The big wisdom behind Warren’s argument is that when you're in a hole like Biden, fighting is far better than just imitating a piñata. While I naturally think Biden would be well advised to fight for a center-left agenda with wider appeal than Warren’s manifesto, her instinct to turn a pummeling into a brawl is a good one. Democrats should take her aggressiveness and meld it into a more Biden-esque center left policy on things like prescription drugs and childcare and start a battle if they hope to at least have a fighting chance to lessen the wreckage from their looming midterm disaster. What do you say, Gibbs?
GIBBS: What do I think? I think the NYT op-ed page is reading this newsletter! We’ve talked all year about the fact that people felt uneasy and felt anxious about the country and the world around them. For too long, the American people felt like this Presidency was buffeted by events rather than shaping them. In fairness, few, if any, of our nation’s past chief executives have faced anything near the scale Joe Biden faced coming into office. And, frankly, nothing in the last six weeks has done anything but make them feel that even more. And, as for a fight about something, again, we’ve counseled that route for Team Biden for a while. The Warren op-ed reads like wanting that fight but the size of what she has outlined isn’t happening, as we saw last Fall when Build Back Better went bust. However, there are fights to be had on many of the issues she outlines, but time is ticking away fast. If people are going to feel less anxious and felt more like the President is on their side, he’d better move very, very quickly.
TIDBITS
MURPHY: We're tidbit heavy this week because so much fun Hack-a-palooze stuff is going on as the first wave of 2022 primaries quickly approach. Lots of chatter in Republican circles over new private polling – from multiple places – showing Georgia incumbent GOP Governor Brian Kemp with a strong 20+ point lead over former Senator David Perdue. Why does this matter? Perdue – until last November a sitting GOP Senator – is Donald Trump's hand-picked challenger to Gov. Kemp, the top name on Trump’s get-even list. When Perdue entered CW immediately assumed Kemp was a goner. After all, isn’t Trump an unstoppable Thanos-like force in GOP primaries. Well, and as I’ve been saying our Hacks on Tap podcast for months, don’t count Gov. Kemp out. He is a savvy pol and very comfortable operating within the populist/conservative wing of the GOP. Check out this ad from his first gubernatorial race in 2018:
So now, with the May 24th GA primary approaching and Trump all in… he’s losing and losing big. Kemp is beating Perdue like a slow mule. If Kemp does win big, it’ll start to reset the thinking inside the GOP about Trump’s actual – instead of perceived – power in GOP primaries. This is not to say Trump cannot be a factor, but it is becoming clear that SuperOrangeMan may not be able to lift locomotives after all.
Here's a new public poll with the same dire result for Trump. (I’m sure there is screaming in Trump HQ and probably some plotting to see if they can dump Perdue as they did Rep. Mo Brooks in Alabama. Tougher here, since Trump has been so deeply involved with the Perdue challenge and there is no other anti-Kemp candidate for Trump to slither over to.)
GIBBS: Georgia! Georgia! Georgia! The most important political state in 2022 is now just five weeks away and Perdue is not looking good. In truth, Kemp has run a pretty good race on the GOP side, effectively using the perch of an incumbent Governor to outline and pass his agenda, as draconian as that may be. Honestly, Perdue was flawed from the start and showed it when he lost his Senate seat. But, while it isn’t surprising to me that he's behind, there’s no doubt this one could be ugly for The Donald to explain.
So, that must mean Trump is pulling back slightly and trimming his sails?! Not a chance! In many ways, he’s doubling down hard. He’s now gone all in for bestselling author and one-time very vocal Never Trumper J.D. Vance in Ohio, ahead of that heated primary race, now just two weeks away. While no candidate in the field to replace incumbent Senator Rob Portman has gained a ton of traction, Vance likely sat outside of the top 2 when the endorsement came down. Again, a big bet for Trump just a week after jumping into the Pennsylvania race. It will be interesting to see what happens in these races and how the story gets written in a few weeks as to the scorecard for Trump’s many endorsements. Lots of angles for that to take, with clarity starting to come into focus very quickly.
MURPHY:
Polls had shown Vance in third or fourth place. But he has benefited from a huge independent expenditure effort from his billionaire pal Silicon Valley Trumpster Peter Thiel. But Vance is definitely creeping up; a new Trafalgar poll shows Vance shooting up to a close second behind famed opportunist Josh Mandel. Meanwhile, self-funding business tycoon Mike Gibbons is dropping fast. (With Gibbons think Dave Thomas trying to be Bear Bryant with a touch of George Wallace thrown in for spice.) Check out one of his growling ads here:
I am happy to see the one smart, sane, candidate – State Senator Matt Dolan – also moving up in the latest polling. Dolan would easily win the November general election, which of course means he has a real uphill road in the primary. But he is moving up. I’m for him.
Another Trump battleground of great interest is within the Michigan GOP. Trump has a full slate of election-denying candidates who are running for down ballot offices. As the state convention, which will choose, among others, the GOP candidate for attorney general, a fierce battle is waging between hard-core Trumpy and Biden election outcome denier Matt DePerno and conservative former MI House Speaker Tom Leonard. Normally cranks do well in convention battles, but Michigan still has regulars and they're putting up a strong fight.
About a week ago county conventions were held to choose delegates for the state convention. There was plenty of turmoil and one interesting clue. In feisty Macomb County, north of Detroit (home of the fabled the “Reagan Democrats” that many a political reporter in the eighties obsessed over) the ultra-Trumpy County Chairman Mark Forton was defeated in a vote that wasn't close. Yes, it's possible you can be too nutty even for today's Republican Party and even more notable to Michigan political observers, too nutty for the Macomb County GOP. That’s a tell. Was this a harbinger of things to come where Leonard may actually beat DePerno at the state convention? It's going to be close, but again, like Georgia, another sign to watch.
MURPHY: Finally, it’s super PAC season in the primaries and a great chart from our friends at Axios tells the story. It helps to have wealthy pals these days.
GIBBS: Murphy, that doesn’t even count the $141 million in media reservations (not a typo!) that the Mitch McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund Super PAC just laid down. That total includes $37 million in Georgia, $27 million in North Carolina and $24 million in Pennsylvania. It really is sort of stunning the amount that candidates (Raphael Warnock raised more than $13 million in the year’s first fundraising quarter, giving him almost $26 million in the bank) and Super PACs are raising and spending these days. One thing that’s changed in a big way from my days inside a Senate race is absolutely no one with an even half decent chance is losing because they lack money. Crazy times…
See you next time!
Murphy and Gibbs