Bracing for Losses, Democrats Look to Biden for a Reset
By: The New York Times - Jonathan Weisman contributed
Brace away LOL
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
P HILADELPHIA — House Democrats planned a retreat here this week hoping for a reset after a difficult period during which President Biden has been buffeted by rising gas prices, soaring inflation and sagging approval ratings.
Instead, they arrived in buses in the middle of the night after the president’s latest coronavirus aid package collapsed in Congress late Wednesday, a grim reminder that his legislative agenda has stalled on Capitol Hill as they head into a midterm election season in which they are bracing for big losses.
One year to the day after the enactment of Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan — a law that remains broadly popular even if the president, at the moment, is not — Democrats are toiling to retool their message and refocus their agenda. They are worried that the accomplishments they helped deliver to Mr. Biden are being drowned out by concern over the rising price of gas and a focus on their legislative failures.
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And they are looking to the president, who addressed them at the retreat on Friday, to help them reframe the conversation.
“This may be the most important off-year election in modern history,” Mr. Biden told lawmakers on Friday afternoon. If Democrats lose their majorities in the House and the Senate, he said, “the only thing I’ll have then is a veto pen.”
The president outlined his administration’s achievements over the past year, noting that few pieces of legislation have had the impact of the stimulus plan he proposed during his first month in office. He criticized Republicans for wrongly blaming him for gas prices.
But it was not clear from his remarks how Mr. Biden planned to help his party refashion its message before November.
Gone was the talk of a transformative agenda to remake the country’s social safety net, which was once a centerpiece of Democrats’ sales pitch to voters. The words “build back better” were all but forbidden among the groggy lawmakers who arrived in Philadelphia in the wee hours of Thursday morning.
Speaking to reporters, Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, joked that the slogan for Mr. Biden’s defunct social policy and climate bill had become like the evil Voldemort in “Harry Potter”: that which must not be named.
Instead, after a year of supporting his agenda, House Democrats have pivoted to beseeching Mr. Biden to act on his own through executive actions to address the outstanding issues they care about before they face voters in November.
Ms. Jayapal said the president could pass executive actions to cap the price of insulin, raise the overtime eligibility threshold to increase wages for tens of millions of people, and fix the so-called family glitch in the Affordable Care Act, which can make it impossible for some workers with modest incomes to afford health insurance.
Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat, said he recently met with White House officials to discuss executive actions that Mr. Biden could take to protect voting rights and overhaul policing after the demise of his efforts to pass major legislation tackling both issues. And Representative Raul Ruiz, Democrat of California and the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said he wanted the president to use his executive power to raise the cap on the number of refugees who can be resettled in the United States this year.
Other lawmakers said they hoped a shift to the center debuted at Mr. Biden’s State of the Union address last week, along with strong support for his handling of the war in Ukraine, would be enough to persuade voters that Democrats were focused on kitchen-table issues .
“We care about everyday Americans, and they don’t,” Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said when asked to sum up his party’s pitch to voters.
The retreat was the group’s first in-person gathering in three years and a chance for Democrats — who have seen 31 colleagues opt to retire — to talk up their achievements and compare notes on how to move forward.
“We have passed two major pieces of legislation that, in any other Congress, would have been historic in and of themselves,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, referring to the American Rescue Plan and the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
He acknowledged that the landscape might look bleak, but he said the political environment this summer would matter more.
“The polls don’t look particularly good now,” Mr. Hoyer said, “but that’s happened in the past.”
Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said on Thursday that keeping the majority depended on speaking to voters in a way that was not too preachy or condescending.
“We spent a bunch of time talking about attributes in addition to issues,” Mr. Maloney said of a closed-door presentation he delivered on Thursday. “Whether voters think we care about them, whether they think we share their values, whether we have the right priorities.”
Every vulnerable Democrat, Mr. Maloney said, was “in the business of having to say, ‘You may not like everything about my political party, but I’m getting it done.’”
Some of the moderate Democrats whose seats are most at risk said the tone of the president’s State of the Union address — in which he underscored funding the police, capping the cost of insulin and fighting the opioid epidemic — raised their hopes that he had moved away from simply championing progressive proposals that pleased the party’s left flank but could alienate constituents in conservative-leaning districts like theirs.
“Veterans, opioids, these are things we can come together on,” said Representative Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, one of the 32 Democrats identified by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee as running for re-election in a competitive seat. “Ukraine is part of the unity message. That is what I think our caucus is hungry for, especially those of us who believe in the value of reaching out to Democrats and Republicans, and it’s certainly what we’re hearing back at home.”
That appeared to be the administration’s focus before Mr. Biden's appearance in Philadelphia on Friday, as his team worked to highlight positive economic indicators.
On Tuesday night, administration officials circulated among House Democrats a slide show about deficit reduction, noting that Mr. Biden had lowered it by $360 billion in 2021. White House officials have also been promoting record job growth, while making clear that getting prices under control remains the president’s top priority.
Still, vulnerable Democrats said that was not necessarily enough to bolster their political fortunes.
“The metrics are strong — employment, wages — but that doesn’t matter,” said Representative Dean Phillips, who represents a suburban Minneapolis district that was long held by Republicans. “What matters is how people feel.”
Mr. Biden’s new message has also angered and concerned some progressives, who fear that their priorities were being pushed to the margins.
“People say the speech was unifying — unifying because it brought white moderates and white independents back,” said Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York, who is Black, referring to Mr. Biden’s State of the Union address. “I was sitting there, like, ‘Damn, again?’”
He added: “George Floyd is dead. There’s no national database for police misconduct.”
“It’s lazy and unacceptable for the president of the United States to only keep the conversation at that shallow level,” Mr. Bowman said of the discussion about supporting law enforcement. “It’s deeper than that.”
Feelings were still raw in Philadelphia this week about the demise of Mr. Biden’s emergency request for Covid-19 aid, which Democratic leaders had stripped from a $1.5 trillion spending bill amid disputes over how to finance it. The money will have to move separately, and Democrats will need Republican support to win its approval.
“I would have preferred to just pause for another 24 hours and try to figure out” how to move forward, Ms. Jayapal said in an interview. “I’m not in control.”
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haha HAHA Get ready LOL
Trump and his supporters are off topic. Those who respond to themselves to avoid keyboard cooties by actually replying to the person they are quoting/mocking/refuting will have their comments removed at the moderator's discretion. Comments MUST be directed at whom you are responding Off Topic posts are subject to same.
Come on, Biden. Push that big red button.
At least Biden is up front about refusing to compromise with Republicans.
Democrats need not worry too much. There is plenty of time for Republicans to screw it up. Republicans always do; that's as predictable as the weather.
Unfortunately that is the nature of our two party systems. Both sides are allowed an infinite capacity to fuck things up; and they take every opportunity to do so. I mean what are you going to do; throw away your vote and go 3rd party? It is going to be the lesser of two evils for the foreseeable future.
That's the only thing you've ever said that's true.
They screw it up and leave it to the Democrats/Progressives/Liberals to clean it up.
Democrats/Progressives/Liberals clean anything up? They can't even clean the mess they have made of things over the last two years. Just because the Ukraine/Russia war is dominating media coverage doesn't mean we have forgotten all of the left's fuck ups over the last two years.
Now you come back with the only retort the left have, "But Trruuummmmppppp!!!!!" It is pathetic as all hell; but it is the only battle cry the left have.
No, no....
Some still use "I don't answer to you".
Whatever the Democrats losses are at midterms it will not nearly be enough to teach them the lesson they so richly deserve.
"Brace away LOL"
For what?
"instead, they arrived in buses in the middle of the night after the president’s latest coronavirus aid package collapsed in Congress late Wednesday, a grim reminder that his legislative agenda has stalled on Capitol Hill as they head into a midterm election season in which they are bracing for big losses."
Why do y'all think it's us that are bracing for such big losses?
You should tell those DINO's Manchin and Sinema to stop obstructing progress.
I did read the 'article'.
"One of the BEST things the GOP has going for it is public perception of which party can fix some of out problems."
All they're worried about is how fast they can rape, loot and pillage the treasury and their supporters.