(Headline USA) Facing dire midterm prospects, Democrat operatives and their media allies have frantically sought to spin a series of mediocre achievements from the Biden administration as major victories, touting the fact that things are less bad than they had been.
Democrats are “in a better position to compete because Joe Biden put us there,” claimed said Biden pollster John Anzalone.
“It doesn’t mean that the wind’s at our back,” Anzalone added. “But we have more of a breeze than what felt like a gale hurricane in our face.”
Capitalizing on this artificial sense of momentum, buoyed by professional gaslighters, the White House announced a kickoff rally Thursday to launch the general-election campaign season.
The event—sponsored by the Democratic National Committee in the safely Democrat Washington suburb of Rockville, Maryland—is meant to ease Biden into what White House aides say will be an aggressive season of championing his policy victories and aiding his party’s candidates.
Starting with Biden’s rally on Thursday, the president and members of his Cabinet are set to embark on what the White House has billed as the “Building a Better America Tour,” according to a memo from White House chief of staff Ron Klain.
Its goal is to promote “the benefits of the President’s accomplishments and the Inflation Reduction Act to the American people and highlight the contrast with Congressional Republicans’ vision.”
However, many of the apparent achievements being touted by the White House involved little political skill or finesse, relying instead on audacious executive overreach and unconstitutional abuse of power.
Moreover, most of involved spending massive amounts of additional taxpayer money, which economists readily admit will lead to more inflation.
BIDEN’S DUBIOUS ACHIEVEMENTS
Among the legislative “victories” he now takes ownership of are:
- a bipartisan gun-control bill that codified unconstitutional “red-flag” laws in the wake of a series of shocking mass-shooting incidents
- a bill to help spur the semiconductor industry, which was overshadowed by a controversy surrounding House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s apparent insider trading
- the $740 billion so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which controversially funnels some $80 billion into hiring 87,000 militarized IRS auditors to target middle-class taxpayers
Additionally, Biden’s spending of at least $13.6 billion on military aid to Ukraine—for a quagmire with no end in sight—has drawn mixed reactions.
Although many support the effort to keep Russian aggression in check, Biden’s family history of profiting off Ukrainian business interests and the country’s reputation as a hotbed for corruption and political money-laundering have fueled suspicions that the war effort might involve another quid pro quo deal like the prior Burisma scandal that ensnared his son Hunter.
While inflation and gas prices remain persistently high, Biden—after having blamed the self-inflicted price surge on Russian President Vladimir Putin and many other scapegoats—has taken credit for recent reductions, creating a false sense of economic stability.
Nonetheless, Biden’s gambit this week to bribe millennial voters with some $300-400 billion in student-loan amnesty is likely to further compound existing economic woes.
“President Biden’s inflation is crushing working families, and his answer is to give away even more government money to elites with higher salaries,” said Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell. “Democrats are literally using working Americans’ money to try to buy themselves some enthusiasm from their political base.”
RALLYING THE BASE
Most importantly, perhaps, Biden Democrats are likely to campaign on the Supreme Court’s reversal of the federal abortion mandate established by the nearly 50-year-old Roe v. Wade decision.
Since the June Supreme Court ruling, Democrats have seen a boost in donations, polling and performance in special elections for open congressional seats.
The latest came Tuesday in a Hudson Valley swing district that, in a Republican wave year, might have given the GOP an opportunity to flip a House seat. Instead, Democratic Ulster County executive Pat Ryan, who campaigned on a platform of standing up for abortion, defeated his Republican counterpart from Duchess County, Marc Molinaro.
Meanwhile, Democrats claim they have benefited from Republican candidates who won primaries but are struggling in the general campaign.
Trump-backed Senate candidates have complicated the GOP’s chances in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona, while several Trump-aligned candidates in House races were not always the party’s first choice.
Democrats hope to use a series of contrived political and legal attacks on former President Donald Trump—including the partisan Jan. 6 committee and a recent FBI raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home—as fodder to smear critics as “ultra-MAGA” criminals and extremists.
JB Poersch, the president of Senate Majority Project, an outside group that is working to elect Democrats to the Senate, claimed the Republican candidates are “getting caught up in the Trump tornado once again—that is exactly what voters of both parties don’t want.”
Where Trump—a likely 2024 presidential contender—has proven to have retained strong appeal among his base, Biden remains politically toxic to a large degree.
Yet, a clear shift in Democrats’ messaging is beginning to emerge, with some candidates doubling down—at least in their rhetoric—on an embrace of the unpopular president.
ALBATROSS NO MORE?
Months ago, Democratic lawmakers facing tough reelection fights sought to make themselves scarce when Biden came to town, though White House aides said Biden was still an asset to them by elevating issues that resonate with voters and sharpening the distinction with Republicans.
Now allies see the fortunes beginning to change and the president as more of a direct asset to campaigns.
Newly annointed Florida gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist—a former Republican governor who switched parties in 2018 to challenge current Gov. Ron DeSantis—was one of the those heaping hyperbolic praise onto the 79-year-old president.
On the same day that Crist announced he did not want the votes of anyone who supported DeSantis, he declared Biden to be an “exceptional” candidate.
Charlie Crist just now: Biden is an “exceptional” president. “Look what he’s done for our country. Look what he’s done for the world.” 🤔
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) August 24, 2022
In Maryland, Biden was set to be joined by gubernatorial candidate Wes Moore and a host of other officials on the ballot.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who is up for reelection, was missing it, according to a spokesperson, because of a long-planned wedding anniversary trip with his wife, but he recorded a video welcoming Biden to his state that would play at the rally.
Cedric Richmond, the former Louisiana congressman and Biden senior adviser who now advises the DNC, claimed if he were a candidate, he’d rush to have Biden at his side.
“I’d get in front of the van and become the drum major and talk about all the accomplishments that have been happened under the leadership of Biden,” Richmond said Wednesday. “You have a president who just keeps his head down and gets the work done and I think voters, as we kick off this campaign season, will see and appreciate that.”
He acknowledged some Democrats might opt against “bringing Washington to their district.”
“There are probably a few cases where that may make sense when you don’t even want to be associated with Washington,” Richmond said. “That has nothing to do with the president. That has everything to do with the typical dysfunction of Washington.”
He added, “The important point to stress is you don’t have that dysfunction right now because of President Biden.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
