Member Newsletter
With a day’s reflection my thoughts on last night’s State of the Union are pretty similar to what they were right afterwards. As I was telling my sons this morning, there are all sorts of objective standards about what counts as a good speech, good communication, good organization, etc. But those aren’t usually that relevant in a political context. It’s better to be a good public speaker than not, of course. But what’s good or not good really only has any meaning in a specific political context and as it relates to trying to achieve a certain goal.
Joe Biden and his advisors had a bunch of boxes they wanted to check in this speech. I think most of them they checked pretty well. But there was one overwhelming sina qua non objective and that was to demonstrate that Biden is vigorous, up to the fight and can deliver on the key requirements of running a national campaign. Delivering of course has literal and more elusive meanings. But it means most importantly that at the key moments, in the clutch, you’re going to show up and deliver.
It’s clear that there’s been this big amorphous anxiety hanging over Democrats. Some of that is the sheer stakes of this campaign. Some is the polls that show Biden at least a little behind. Concerns about his age and his vigor are both a real thing in themselves but also a kind of magnet, a receptacle for all for the free-floating anxiety emanating, pulsing from those other issues. We’ve got this atmosphere full of Democratic hang-wringing. On top of that you’ve got Republican criticism and agitprop. And on top of all that you’ve got the kind of self-fulfilling dynamics of a political campaign. Once word got out that Ron DeSantis was a weird socially awkward freak, and once that gelled as a popular impression, he was basically doomed. Then every public appearance became a spectator sport to watch and see Ron be weird. (It helped that he didn’t disappoint. Ever.) Would it be the same for Biden? Finally, you’ve had this chorus of influencers and commentators spinning out these fairy tales of open conventions and Biden up and deciding not to run. As I and others have tried to argue, it doesn’t even matter if you think there’s some knight in shining armor candidate who’s going to change everything. That whole thing is not happening. So it’s a distraction. But a lot of people still have questions: how do you know? Is this all a big mistake? Is there a better way? Am I missing something?
Take all of this together and many Democrats have spent a few months in a fugue of worry, uncertainty and paralysis. Biden and his advisors needed to turn in a performance that signaled, “I’m solid; I’m up to this; and I’m actually pumped for this fight.” And that’s really what he did. I’ve been surprised at the extent of the effect that it’s had on a lot of Democrats just overnight.
Biden’s obviously still an old guy. And I don’t think anybody thinks the election is in the bag. But in tough moments people really need to know their guy is going to show up and that there aren’t going to be any surprises. They don’t want to be worrying that maybe they were chumps and missed some big thing. I think Biden removed a lot of doubts for his partisans and those solidly within the Democratic coalition. And that seems to have allowed many of them to move out of that mood of paralysis. Okay, this is what we’re doing and I’m ready to do it.
The other factor is more elusive and marginal. But it’s still very important. Republicans and some Democrats did Biden a major solid by setting the bar incredibly low. If you’re just someone not very tethered to the national political dialog — which is really the critical floating pool of voters — you’ve been being told for months that Biden is in some kind of steep physical and cognitive declined and being protected and hidden by a cordon of advisors struggling to keep that under wraps.
I think if you saw last nights speech, that just doesn’t square with what you saw. And that is important too.
I think he checked a number of those subsidiary boxes too — planting a flag on a lot of economic and pocket book policy issues, framing the border debate around Republicans killing what amounted to their own bill. But sending the message that Biden’s up to the campaign really was the sina qua non goal. And he got that done.