The Missing Piece in Biden’s Convention Speech

 

ATLANTIC, RONALD BROWNSTEIN

Last night, Joe Biden capped a Democratic convention like no other by underscoring the themes that dominated the gathering from the beginning: empathy, national unity, racial justice, and President Donald Trump’s failures in managing the coronavirus.

Now the question is whether those messages, which largely eclipsed a direct economic appeal to struggling families, can protect Biden’s consistent lead in national polls against the ideological counterattack from the GOP that’s certain to reach a new peak at next week’s Republican convention.

Biden projected passion, energy, and solidity in remarks that more closely resembled a grave presidential address from the Oval Office than the typical raucous convention speech. In his manner as much as his words, Biden offered a contrast to Trump’s belligerent volatility—and to the GOP’s portrayal of him as in decline both physically and mentally.

Biden projected passion, energy, and solidity in remarks that more closely resembled a grave presidential address from the Oval Office than the typical raucous convention speech. In his manner as much as his words, Biden offered a contrast to Trump’s belligerent volatility—and to the GOP’s portrayal of him as in decline both physically and mentally.

He devoted much more energy to indicting Trump on the outbreak and encouraging national unity than he did questioning the president’s commitment to the middle class or arguing that he himself had better plans to bolster it.

Alex Conant, a GOP public-affairs consultant and former communications director for Marco Rubio, says the Democrats’ choice to downplay discussion of their plans through the week reflected their determination to keep the focus on Trump. At the end of the day, they want this to be a referendum on Trump’s four years in office, not a choice between their vision of the future and Trump’s.”

The risk for Democrats, Conant said, is that this approach leaves more room for Trump to define Biden’s agenda. “If I were Trump, I’d spend all next week and hundreds of millions of dollars in September telling you Biden is going to give you single-payer [health care], higher taxes, and the Green New Deal, which would ruin any chance for the economy to recover,” Conant said. “And force Democrats to have that economic debate.”

Even if Biden emerges from the convention with a boost in the polls, his choice to focus less on economic appeals and more on sweeping themes and social issues, particularly racial justice, raises some of the same questions that surfaced after the Democrats’ last national meeting. Though Hillary Clinton’s 2016 convention drew strong reviews, it too emphasized the party’s embrace of diversity, the breadth of her coalition, and Trump’s deficiencies of character without delivering a clearly delineated economic agenda for working families. Those choices faced pointed second-guessing after Election Day, when Trump’s huge margins among non-college-educated white voters allowed him to dislodge the Rust Belt battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin from the Democrats’ “blue wall” and claim his narrow victory.

Ahead of Biden’s speech last night, the longtime Democratic strategist James Carville, the campaign manager for Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 race, feared that Democrats might be heading down a similar path again this week. He gave high marks to the convention’s personal introduction of Biden and its outreach to young people, but he worried that the event wasn’t following the formula Democrats used to win the House in 2018: Minimize discussion of Trump and emphasize bread-and-butter economic concerns, such as defending the Affordable Care Act and its protections for Americans with preexisting health conditions.

As Elaine Kamarck, a longtime Democratic aide who is now the director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution, wrote this morning, “Given the choice between policy and character, Democrats focused on character and the contrast between Joe Biden as a person and Donald Trump as a person.”

“Had Donald Trump been a normal Republican president, we would have heard a great deal more about the Republican tax bill, Trump’s single largest domestic accomplishment,” she explained. “But even though it is a huge contributor to the income inequality that most Democrats have railed against for many years, the tax bill was barely mentioned.”

The longest stretch of policy discussion, in an extended sequence on Wednesday, focused on gun control, climate change, citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and women’s rights, not jobs, wages, or retirement. (One caveat: The climate discussion focused on the possibility of creating green jobs.)

One senior Biden adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to talk frankly, told me that the issues highlighted during that sequence reflect the priorities of the party’s modern base, as the campaign sees it: young people (guns and climate), suburban women (guns and women’s rights), and people of color (racial justice and immigration).

Yet unless Biden can win across a wide range of Sun Belt states, he’s unlikely to reach 270 Electoral College votes without improving at least somewhat among working-class white voters in the key Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. And analysts have long observed that many older Latino and African American voters in particular are more motivated to turn out to the polls by concrete plans to improve their life than by broad promises of confronting discrimination.

Biden certainly has more plans on every conceivable issue than does Trump, who has been almost entirely incapable of explaining what he might do in a second term. And polls over the next few days are likely to show Biden emerging from his convention in a stronger position than any challenger to an incumbent president since Bill Clinton in 1992. With the warm endorsements offered by public figures who span the ideological spectrum, the week also demonstrated Biden’s potential to construct an unusually expansive coalition against Trump—what some have seen as the modern equivalent of the popular front against fascism during the 1930s.

Even most Republicans agree that Trump, by this point, has almost no realistic pathway to winning the popular vote. But even most Democrats agree that he might still squeeze out an Electoral College majority by maximizing margins and turnout among his core group of older, rural, non-college-educated white voters in a few closely balanced states. If he does, Democrats may again rue the choice not to direct a more targeted economic appeal at the voters Trump is relying on most.

 

 

Biden Promises 'Light' After Trump's 'Darkness': 7 Takeaways From The DNC

 DOMENICO MONTANARO

Win McNamee/Getty Images

 Democrats have to be very happy with what they were able to accomplish this week with their convention.

Their production of the first all-virtual convention went off mostly without a hitch. At times, the last night seemed like whiplash with a serious segment on faith and forgiveness followed by snark from emcee Julia Louis-Dreyfus, for example.
But none of that will be remembered. What will be, and perhaps for a very long time, was the speech Joe Biden was able to deliver. Biden gave a lot of thunderous speeches on the floor of the U.S. Senate when he was a senator and he has appeared at conventions before, but no speech he has ever made was as important, and perhaps as well-delivered, as this one.

With that, here are seven takeaways from a consequential week:

1. Biden may have delivered the best speech of his career
It was more fireside chat than convention barn burner, and he has never been an arena orator like the man he worked for, Barack Obama. But, frankly, it worked for Biden.
He delivered a sober and urgent speech directly to the American people with a clarity of message, one of light versus dark. Biden, a devout Irish Catholic, seemingly channeled years of homilies about good versus evil, right versus wrong. If he wins, it will be a speech for the ages.
"Here and now, I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst," he said. "I will be an ally of the light, not the darkness."
The Trump campaign might regret setting the bar so low to the point where as long as Biden got through the speech, he would dispel questions of his mental acuity. But he did far more than that. For the first time, perhaps even since he began this campaign, Biden showed why he should be president for reasons other than simply being not Trump.
2. Democrats offered a different choice
Even before Biden's speech, Democrats were able to lay out a different choice, a different version of what the country could be, for those disaffected by Trump.
Look, Trump's supporters are locked in. But Democrats took aim at that sliver of truly persuadable voters and tried to win them over. Democrats' vision for America is one that celebrates diversity, adheres to norms and will change direction.
Change is one of the most powerful motivators in politics, and it particularly sticks when things aren't going well in the country. Think Ronald Reagan following Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton after George H.W. Bush and Barack Obama after George W. Bush. If Americans are looking for change again, Democrats presented it.
It's up to Trump and Republicans next week to try to sell steadiness to right the course. That's something that can work for presidents seeking reelection, though it's made tougher by Trump's volatility.

Jill and Joe Biden, wearing face masks, watch fireworks outside the Chase Center in Wilmington, Del., after Biden's acceptance speech for the Democratic presidential nomination.

3. A unified Democratic Party was on display
One advantage of a virtual convention is the boos aren't magnified. Past conventions have featured at least some unrest within the base.
That was certainly true in 2016 with Bernie Sanders supporters who did not go gently into that good night. And it was true of Sen. Ted Cruz supporters at the Republican National Convention the same year.
But it wasn't just the lack of in-person delegates, it was the clear and present threat of Donald Trump for progressives. Sanders spoke strongly on Biden's behalf; and single-payer advocate Ady Barkan, who has ALS, praised Biden and promoted progress over purity.
Sure, there was some grumbling about who got time, who didn't and who got more, but this is a far more unified Democratic Party coming out of this convention than the one taking on Trump the last time.
4. It wasn't all about Trump
For as much as this election is all about Trump and as much as Biden's supporters are mostly motivated by antipathy for Trump, the convention did buoy Biden personally and made an affirmative case for Biden's vision for the country.
It became pretty clear, if it wasn't going in, that a message Democrats wanted to get across was: The Bidens are decent people, people you can trust and who care about people like you.
But as his speech showed, don't mistake kindness for weakness. It's almost as if one message was — he'll fight for kindness.
5. Kamala Harris is the heir apparent

Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris speaks during the third day of the Democratic National Convention.  Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

If you had any doubt that Harris was the right pick, she proved she's ready for prime time. She delivered a solid speech and has hit all the right notes since being announced as Biden's running mate.
Being a Black and South Asian woman, she highlights the diversity of the Democratic Party and of America. Her simply being on the ballot is a statement against Trump. But she has shown, throughout her career and highlighted this week, she is far more than that. 

 She's sharp, can deliver a punch and has provided some needed energy to the Biden candidacy. At the end of the day, Biden won the Democratic primary, in part, because he was seen as the most likely to beat Trump. But it's clear, given that he has said he would be a transitional president that he is a bridge and Harris is on the other side.

Democrats Question Whether Postmaster General's Hiring Skirted Background Checks
6. An economic message didn't break through
Biden has led Trump in almost every issue area consistently and by a lot, except when it comes to the economy. Democrats didn't seem to do anything to break through with an economic message, beyond saying that the pandemic had to be solved and other boilerplate Democratic points, like securing the social safety net and having the rich pay their "fair share."
Biden was involved in one segment Thursday dealing with the economy, where he talked with workers. At one point, he said that he believed the auto industry could be revitalized back to its peak in the 1940s and 1950s. But no economist thinks that's possible.
He also said he wants to invest $2 trillion in infrastructure, something every president says he wants to invest in but has been unable to get the parties to agree on how to pay for it.
It sounded as if Harris was on track to pivoting to a new emphasis on the economy when she was picked to be Biden's running mate when she talked about Trump spoiling the economy he inherited from Obama. But that was not something much talked about during these four days.
7. It's about voting, voting, voting

Former first lady Michelle Obama, and her necklace, urged viewers to vote on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention. Chris Delmas /AFP via Getty Images

If there was one message Democrats hope people take away from this week it was that people need to go vote.
While wearing a V-O-T-E necklace, former first lady Michelle Obama implored people get on their "comfortable shoes" and bring their dinners, maybe even breakfasts and wait for as long as it takes.
Her husband, former President Barack Obama, ended his speech with a similar urgency:

WATCH: Barack Obama's Address To The Democratic National Convention

"We have to get busy building it up by pouring all our efforts into these 76 days and by voting like never before for Joe and Kamala and candidates up and down the ticket," he said, "so that we leave no doubt about what this country that we love stands for today and for all our days to come."
Democrats really feel if everyone votes, and if all their votes are counted, they win.
And now it's on to the Republican convention starting Monday, where it will be interesting to see whether there are any new ways that Trump frames the argument for why he feels he deserves four more years.

What President Joe Biden would do to stop Covid-19

VOX 

I asked some experts last month how Biden’s proposed Covid-19 response differs from what the current federal government has done. They pointed to a few specific provisions in his plans:

• Establishing a public-private “pandemic testing board” to scale up and allocate testing across the country. (“This would deal with one of the problems we still seem to have, that supply and demand are out of sync,” says Jennifer Kates with the Kaiser Family Foundation.)
• Creating a state and local government emergency fund that would pay for medical supplies, hiring more health care workers, and providing overtime pay for certain essential workers.
• Eliminating cost-sharing for Covid-19 testing and treatment — and changing the law so that provision would apply to future public health emergencies.
• Setting minimum standards for the number of testing sites in each state, including 10 mobile or drive-through sites.
• Establishing a national public health jobs corps, which would employ at least 100,000 people to do contact tracing.

As NPR reported, right now most states do not have enough people to perform that job. 

“Contact tracing has been mostly ignored at the federal level, and states have been left to prioritize as they see fit,” Joshua Michaud at the Kaiser Family Foundation told me. “Which means that some have done more and others have done much less.”

The on-and-off supply shortages that lead to test results being delayed to the point that they are nearly worthless for contact tracing also reflect the lack of a national coordinated strategy. State and local governments are going to need another injection of stimulus to fend off debilitating staff and service cuts, but the latest stimulus talks have stalled out because Democrats want to put more money in the package but the Trump White House wants less.

Biden is promising much more aggressive federal intervention. As he said in his acceptance speech, concluding his list of Covid-19 policies: "In short, we'll do what we should have done from the very beginning."

"I KNOW WHAT A PREDATOR LOOKS LIKE"

 

 4 takeaways from the third night of the Democratic National Convention

WASHINGTON POST

Democrats on Wednesday night formally nominated Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) as Joe Biden’s vice-presidential nominee, making her the first woman of color on a major-party ticket, while the last Democratic president, Barack Obama, issued an extraordinary rebuke of his successor, President Trump.

Wednesday night’s acceptance speech was an opportunity for Harris to redefine herself — after her 2020 primary campaign flamed out early and at a time in which she’s not just vital to Democrats’ 2020 hopes, but is set up to be their standard-bearer in future presidential elections.

Two lines stood out: “I know a predator when I see one,” and “There is no vaccine for racism.”

“I have fought for children and survivors of sexual assault,” Harris said. “I fought against transnational criminal organizations. I took on the biggest banks and helped take down one of the biggest for-profit colleges. I know a predator when I see one.”

That line, which is similar to one she used when campaigning for herself, came before Harris’s address explicitly turned to President Trump, but it was clearly intended to paint a picture. It was a subtly delivered but not terribly subtle allusion to the character of the man who occupies the Oval Office. In fact, Harris has previously followed up similar comments by directly invoking Trump, saying, “And we have a predator in the White House right now.” Harris also uttered it while talking about her past as a prosecutor — seeking to turn something of a liability with progressives into a positive.

Harris later described racial injustice as a “virus,” likening it to the coronavirus pandemic.

“This virus, it has no eyes, and yet it knows exactly how we see each other and how we treat each other,” Harris said. “And let’s be clear: There is no vaccine for racism.”

The speech was short on direct attacks on Trump — the traditional role of a running mate. But it seemed to pave a path for doing so next.

2. Obama’s big break with history

For years, Trump built his political career by using Obama as a boogeyman — mostly as the lead public face of the racist birther movement. Despite this, Obama in 2016 initially offered Trump the kind of well wishes we expect during a peaceful transfer of power. He even called their post-election conversation “excellent” and professed to be “encouraged” by it.

On Wednesday night, Obama was done putting anything amounting to a good face on things, utterly departing from traditional post-presidential protocol. While Obama has increasingly criticized Trump, on Wednesday he went further.

In his speech, Obama said that the man he hoped would rise to the task had utterly failed — and didn’t really even try.

“He never did,” Obama said. “For close to four years now, he’s shown no interest in putting in the work, no interest in finding common ground, no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends, no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.

“Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t. And the consequences of that failure are severe: 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone while those at the top take in more than ever.”

The comments echoed former first lady Michelle Obama’s speech Monday night, when she said Trump “cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us.”

Barack Obama also suggested that Trump used law enforcement as political pawns and averted “facts and science and logic” in favor of “just making stuff up.”

“None of this should be controversial,” Obama said, before alluding to his 2004 convention speech: “These shouldn’t be Republican principles or Democratic principles. They’re American principles. But at this moment, this president and those who enable him have shown they don’t believe in these things.”

Obama added: “This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that’s what it takes for them to win.”

The former president spent most of his speech on the kind of high-minded rhetoric that characterized his 2004 speech and on vouching for his former vice president. But his decision to go so hard on Trump was surely one he arrived at after years of Trump laying waste to so many of the other norms of American politics. Democrats have trodden uneasily around just how much to go down that path themselves, and that made this a significant moment.

3. Hillary Clinton turns her disappointment into a call to action

Ever since unexpectedly losing the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton has blamed various factors — many of them credibly, given the narrowness of her loss — often re-litigating things even as some Democrats wanted to turn the page.

But on Wednesday night, she found a way to turn her disappointment into a perhaps more fruitful call to action. Reflecting on her own loss, Clinton implored Democrats not to be overconfident or take things for granted.

“For four years, people have told me, ‘I didn’t realize how dangerous he was,’ ‘I wish I could do it all over’ or worse: ‘I should have voted,’” Clinton said. “Look, this can’t be another woulda, coulda, shoulda election.”

She added later: “And don’t forget, Joe and Kamala can win by 3 million votes and still lose — take it from me. So we need numbers overwhelming, so Trump can’t sneak or steal his way to victory.”

That last line could be read as an allusion to Russian interference and other factors that Clinton has suggested made Trump’s win illegitimate. It could also be read as an allusion to Trump’s 2020 maneuvers with the post office. But the practical impact is probably the same.

4. Sidelining the left-wing insurgency

Around the time the convention began Monday, a quarrel broke out between Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and former Ohio governor John Kasich (R). Kasich, who would speak that night, had suggested that Ocasio-Cortez’s role in the modern Democratic Party was overstated, and she hit back hard. For a party that has largely tamped down tensions between its left wing and the establishment since Biden emerged as its nominee, it threatened to be an unhappy sideshow.

Since then, though, it’s been “kumbaya.”

For the third night in a row, a leader of the liberal movement in the United States spoke at the convention — Bernie Sanders on Monday, Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday and Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday. But there has been almost no real dissension expressed. Sanders even offered an enthusiastic endorsement of Biden’s health-care plan, which he had attacked in the 2020 primaries.

Criticism of Biden — or even a hint of it — was never going to happen in such a prepackaged virtual convention. But that doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be avenues for dissension about the future of the party — as Monday showed. Thus far, there’s almost no indication of that. Apart from grumbling about the likes of Kasich and Colin Powell speaking, it’s the picture of a party united behind a common cause — at least for now.

Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country.’ Michelle Obama unleashes on Trump accusing him of ‘utter lack of empathy’ and saying a second term ‘can and will be worse’ – then mocks him for saying ‘It is what it is’ about COVID crisis

 

Michelle Obama gives searing keynote: ‘We have got to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.’

Sanders warns 'authoritarianism has taken root in this country' as he begs his supporters to back Joe Biden to oust 'not normal' Donald Trump.“ The future of our democracy is at stake.”

Democrats opened the most extraordinary presidential nominating convention in recent history on Monday night with a program that spanned the gamut from democratic socialists to Republicans, from the relatives of George Floyd to family members of those killed by the coronavirus, in a two-hour event that was a striking departure from the traditional summer pageant of American democracy.

 

Capping the evening was an urgent plea from Michelle Obama. Breaking through the stilted online format, Mrs. Obama provided the emotional high point of the night as she confronted the president directly. “Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country,” she said. “He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment.” In her withering assessment, she accused Trump of creating “chaos,” sowing “division” and governing “with a total and utter lack of empathy.”

Mrs. Obama, the former first lady, spoke emphatically into the camera and gave a scathing, point-by-point analysis of Mr. Trump’s presidency in an urgent summons for Democratic voters to cast ballots in any way they could, even if it meant waiting in long lines to do so.

She began by questioning the very legitimacy of Mr. Trump’s election in 2016, pointing out that he had lost the popular tally by “three million votes.”

She went on to attack the president’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and said that the strong economy Mr. Trump inherited from her husband four years ago was “in shambles.” She also said Mr. Trump’s divisive approach on race relations had emboldened “torch-bearing white supremacists,” and ripped him for a lack of “leadership or consolation or any semblance of steadiness.”

Mrs. Obama’s speech, which aired in the final hour, has been in the can for at least a week, according to people familiar with the matter. The speech was prerecorded because event planners did not want to risk running it live, in anticipation of opening-night technical glitches.

Mrs. Obama, reaching the end of her 20-minute time slot, cast the race not as merely the most important election of her lifetime, but as a last chance, of sorts, to redeem the nation from the steep moral, political and economic decline precipitated by Mr. Trump.

“So, if you take one thing from my words tonight, it is this: If you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can; and they will if we don’t make a change in this election,” Mrs. Obama said. “If we have any hope of ending this chaos, we have got to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.”

With no arena, and no loudspeaker to introduce the presenters, Democrats turned to an M.C. of sorts, the actress Eva Longoria, who kept the evening moving between prerecorded and live video presentations. A lineup of political luminaries delivered remarks in rapid-fire format and only a few of them — Mrs. Obama, for one, and Mr. Sanders — possessed the sheer star power to linger in the perception of the audience.

Perhaps the most searing critique of Mr. Trump came not from an elected official but from Kristin Urquiza, [above] a young woman whose father, a Trump supporter, died of the coronavirus. Speaking briefly and in raw terms about her loss, Ms. Urquiza said of her father, “His only pre-existing condition was trusting Donald Trump, and for that he paid with his life.”

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on Monday portrayed it as an imperative to defeat President Trump, offering a call for unity to progressive voters who supported him during the primary.

“Many of the ideas we fought for that just a few years ago were considered radical are now mainstream,” he said. “But let us be clear. If Donald Trump is re-elected, all the progress we have made will be in jeopardy....At its most basic,” he added, “this election is about preserving our democracy.” 

Cuomo accuses Trump of politicizing the coronavirus.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York unloaded on President Trump for his response to the coronavirus that savaged his state this spring, accusing the White House of first trying to “ignore” the crisis then fumbling the response by “trying to politicize it.”

New Yorkers, and viewers of cable news, have seen this performance before: His daily news briefings became must-see television, suddenly making Mr. Cuomo one of the most prominent Democrats in the country.

  Cuomo, whose initial actions during the pandemic have come under criticism, accused Mr. Trump of “learning absolutely nothing” from the lessons of the outbreak, and said Democrats wear masks “because we are smart.”

“Americans learned a critical lesson, how vulnerable we are when we are divided,” he said. “And how many lives can be lost when our government is incompetent. Donald Trump didn’t create the initial division. The division created Trump. He only made it worse,” he added.

James Clyburn, whose endorsement lifted Biden, calls him ‘as good a man as he is a leader.’

Mr. Clyburn, the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, recalled that endorsement in brief remarks from Charleston. Mr. Biden, he declared, “will always be an adopted son of South Carolina.”

“Joe Biden is as good a man as he is a leader,” Mr. Clyburn said. “I have said before and wish to reiterate tonight, we know Joe. But more importantly, Joe knows us.”

George Floyd’s brothers lead a moment of silence.

The Floyds’ presence underscored the message behind the protests — one of equality and the need to fight systemic racism, something Mr. Biden emphasized during a follow-up discussion with the parents of victims of police violence. The intensity of emotion evoked by the moment of silence, the speeches and the testimonials by parents heightened the sense of urgency in an online event that began in a smooth but somewhat antiseptic fashion.

While discussing police reform in a virtual round table, Biden himself echoed a police chief who said there are more good police than bad ones. “Most cops are good,” Biden said. “But the fact is the bad ones have to be identified and prosecuted and out, period.” While not perhaps a groundbreaking or terribly controversial statement, it was an interesting inclusion, given that it may not be a sentiment some on the left would like to see emphasized at this particular moment.