Biden is not welcome in all parts of the country

The End of Journalism: A Conversation with Lt. Gov. M. McGowan about the State of the State and the Future of the World

Politicians who eat at diners know the deal. In exchange for photos establishing their working-class bona fides, they must cheerfully accept heaping portions of unsolicited advice.

But on Tuesday at Monty’s Blue Plate Diner here in Madison, one of the first people to approach Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Wisconsin, took the tradition to a new level, presenting him with a typed-up list of concerns about his campaign.

Barnes’ backers were concerned that he wouldn’t be able to prevent attack ads from Senator Ron Johnson and his Republican allies.

McGowan’s belief that Democrats will win if she can simply get more people to vote isn’t outlandish, but it depends hugely on which voters are turned out where. That they will trend left is a piece of Democratic conventional wisdom, not a fact of life. The biggest gamble is that people will turn out if only they have more fairly dry information and only vaguely ideological thrust.

This summer, McGowan had a meeting with White House chief of staff Ron Klain. (“An old friend,” Klain calls McGowan in an email.) She told me she sees the president clinging to an old model of breaking through with the public, where he can win over a few national reporters in order to get the attention of the public. “He still lives in a world a lot of the people I meet live in, which is, ‘It was better before. She thinks that it would be a good idea for us to do that again.

She wanted to ask if the White House would allow journalists from the newspaper to look into the impacts of the infrastructure bill, things of that nature. She says that she came out of the meeting with Klain feeling like the administration’s messaging struggles are an opportunity for her if she can convince top progressives.

The stakes are higher. The future of journalism and cynicism are not the same thing. McGowan is trying to figure out if it is still possible to combat the noise that fills Americans’ heads and convince them that apathy is a reasonable response to the state of the world. The option of fated citizens growing disconnected from the news and the country’s future is almost too distressing to contemplate.

Biden’s 2003 Western Swing at Union Hall: A Candidate Who Can Open the Door to Oregon’s First Republican Governor’s Seat

At a Union Hall in Portland, Ore., volunteers with the state’s Democratic Party sat shoulder to shoulder at long tables, dialing voters on their cellphones, when in walked President Biden holding a pink and white box of doughnuts.

The Western swing was Biden’s longest trip to date, but it was low key. There were no rallies, just small audience speeches about his accomplishments thus far, and a couple of fundraisers.

In areas where Biden is not welcome, there are many competitive races. Like many presidents before him at this point in their first terms, Biden has found his approval ratings underwater. His approval is at just over 40% according to recent polls. That means there are a lot of races where he could hurt more than he helps.

The books show that an incumbent president is not a boost to the party in the elections. If Jesus Christ were an incumbent president, he would most likely be stiff-armed by his political party in the election, according to a Democratic strategist.

Biden won the presidential election inOregon, but it is a very blue state. Biden told the volunteers it was nice to win by 16 points.

Two years later, Democrats are nervous about the tough three-way race for governor. There’s an independent candidate — a former Democrat — who could peel off enough Democratic votes to open the door for the first Republican governor of Oregon in more than a generation.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/17/1129524093/biden-2022-midterm-elections-the-campaign-trail

Joe Biden’s first rodeo: Helping Democrats in the midterms by designating a national monument for World War II training site Camp Hale

The next day, Biden attended a grassroots fundraiser for Kotek and the pair stopped at a Baskin-Robbins for some ice cream. There, as he waited for his double scoop of chocolate chip in a waffle cone, Biden said he was confident Kotek would win.

Brendan Davies, a politics professor at the U.S. Naval Academy, said that it’s a shift from his predecessors, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, who held more traditional rallies in their first terms.

“Biden has held many official events with campaign undertones. Other presidents did this too, but for Biden, it’s his principal mode of campaigning in the leadup to the midterms,” Doherty said.

And by raising money for party committees rather than individual congressional candidates, Biden is helping candidates without being directly tied to them.

Some Democratic candidates have claimed scheduling conflicts when Biden comes to town, conflicts that preclude joint appearances. Republicans mocked Biden and the party for this. But Democratic strategist Lis Smith, author of campaign memoir The democrats are being smart, said Any Given Tuesday.

This is not Joe Biden’s first rodeo. Smith said that he lived through the 2010 election in which Barack Obama was visible and hurt the Democrats. “So, he’s trying to learn from the mistakes of the past, put his ego in the back seat. It’s the greatest thing for the party as a whole.

But there are places where Biden can help the Democrats on the ballot: places where Democrats have a strong advantage in voter registration. In Colorado, Biden designated an important World War II training site, Camp Hale, as a new national monument. And at the picture-perfect site, he made sure to give a little extra love to Sen. Michael Bennet, who is running for reelection in a tougher than expected race.

“I want Michael to come back up here a second,” Biden said before regaling the crowd with a story about Bennet’s hard sell to get Biden to designate the monument.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/17/1129524093/biden-2022-midterm-elections-the-campaign-trail

Greeting the Mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, as he walks down the stairs on Air Force One with his signature Robin’s egg Blue Plane

In Los Angeles, the local officials lined up on the tarmac to greet the president as he walked down the stairs of Air Force One. Karen Bass, the Democratic congresswoman running for LA mayor, got a well-documented hug with the signature robin’s egg blue plane in the background.

The next day, Biden touted the infrastructure law at a construction site for a new metro line, calling Bass the “soon-to-be Ms. Mayor” in a speech where he delivered the core of his midterm message.

We have an election in a month. Voters have to decide,” Biden said. “Democrats are working to bring down the cost of things … that are talked about around the kitchen table, from prescription drugs, to health insurance, to energy bills, and so much more.”

“We’re always getting incoming requests,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters traveling with the president on Air Force One. “Of course.” Of course. We have a bunch of good things to talk about.

What Do Liberals Really Know About the Democrat Party, and How They Won’t Get Their Hands: Why They Think They Can’t Succeed

The plan was in place. And it succeeded. The Democratic Party was defeated by the New Democrats. They were given a lot of chances to rule. They were searching for grand bargains. In the future, deregulated Wall Street, a devitalized heartland, and college diplomas are seen as the answer to all problems, as they built their celebrated bridge. The Democrats turned their backs on populism and didn’t take the opportunity to remake the financial system that came about from the financial crisis. Instead, some of them came to identify with that system.

In some ways, liberalism from the top down has worked out as intended. The highly educated are now solidly Democratic, and the wealthy are moving rapidly our way. Today the party’s candidates often raise more money than Republicans. The 1990s strategy of courting the learning class, wining the affluent suburbanites, and talking about innovation seems to still apply today, despite President Biden’s intermittent blue-collar sympathies. And despite inspiring victories like John Fetterman’s in Pennsylvania, according to exit polls, the party continues to hemorrhage working-class votes.

The combination of high net worth and high moral virtue that the Democrats offer is a richly satisfying blend for some voters, a perfect summary of how they see themselves. For party leaders, it has meant something even better: lucrative second careers at Silicon Valley behemoths, compounds on Martha’s Vineyard and presidential libraries that surpass those of the Republicans in soaring monumentalism. If perpetual stalemate is the price the country must pay for such things, maybe it’s a bargain.

These things are obvious when viewed from a certain distance, but liberals, intoxicated by their own righteousness, can never figure it out. They keep expecting the right to die off, as if poisoned by its diet of wickedness, and yet the Republicans persist, dreaming up new culture wars against the “liberal elite,” radicalizing themselves continually along the way, refusing to succumb.

What do liberals do? We dig in. We cheer for ourselves and demand that everyone else does the same. We go on social media to scold people who aren’t up to our standards, if they don’t begin their analysis by ascribing Satanism to G.O.P. This is no strategy at all. It is fandom.

A Conversation With David Pritzker: What he Learned When I Was Leaving Chicago with a Families: Working With a Diverse Political Team

David Axelrod, who watches Mr. Pritzker as a political consultant, said the absence of a father and mother made up for the lack of resources. He has had many advantages but has also been affected emotionally.

He made his first push into politics at 33, when he put $500,000 of his own money into a race for a House seat in the North Shore suburbs of Chicago. From there, he devoted himself to business, a venture capital firm, a technology start-up incubator and Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s business and technology council in Chicago.

He returned to politics in the year after Bruce Rauner was re-elected. Mr. Pritzker built a political team of seasoned veterans, led by Anne Caprara, who had been executive director of the Democratic super PAC Priorities USA, and Quentin Fulks, who went on to lead Senator Raphael Warnock’s successful re-election campaign in Georgia last year.

That ability to recruit a diverse and potent team may be Mr. Pritzker’s most powerful skill, and one that keeps him in the conversation as Democrats wait for Mr. Biden to begin his campaign.

Bob is president of the Chicago Federation of Labor and an ally of the governor. He was taking office when I watched him scoop up political and policy talent. His ability to put together teams was impressive, even though they were in different places.