House Democrat Speaks Out Against Biden's Strategy as Red Wave Looms: 'That Was a Mistake'
President Joe Biden’s attempt to demonize Republicans in last week’s address aimed at rallying Democrats was one more in a series of campaign mistakes, according to many Democrats themselves.
In his address, Biden said, “extreme MAGA Republicans aim to question not only the legitimacy of past elections but elections being held now and into the future,” according to the White House.
“The extreme MAGA element of the Republican Party — which is a minority of that party, as I said earlier, but is its driving force — is trying to succeed where they failed in 2020 to suppress the rights of voters and subvert the electoral system itself,” he said.
our democracy will end in just five days according to Joe Biden . Who knew???
— Malcolm Burn (@mburnmusic) November 3, 2022
Some say Biden’s pitch was the wrong tactic to revive sagging Democratic hopes.
“That was a mistake,” Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California said, according to USA Today. “I’ve been saying for months that we need to frame this election as an economic choice.”
Khanna noted that the “consultant class” that framed the Democratic Party’s focus on abortion and calling the elections a referendum on democracy steered the party wrong, according to The New York Times.
“Consultants, they looked at it, said, ‘Well, we’re down on the economy, well, maybe we shouldn’t talk about it,’” he said. “That’s a mistake! No, we need to press our case.”
“The truth is, Democrats have done a poor job of communicating our approach to the economy,” Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan said.
“I have no idea if I’m going to win my election — it’s going to be a nail biter. But if you can’t speak directly to people’s pocketbook and talk about our vision for the economy, you’re just having half a conversation,” she said.
Preaching horror at the potential of a GOP gain could have flopped with Americans who recall nothing bad the last time Republicans were in charge, said Lynn Vavreck, professor of American Politics and Public Policy at UCLA, according to USA Today.
“It’s sort of like saying, ‘Trust me, this time it’ll be really different if they take over. The country will never be the same,'” Vavreck said. “It’s a lot of hyperbole. And you’re asking voters to believe something that the past suggests may not be true.”
Robert Gibbs, an Obama-era White House press secretary, said reality trumps the hypothetical in the minds of voters.
“It’s just tough to make the argument of, ‘If these guys get into power, here’s the things they’ll end up doing’ versus, ‘Hey, bread was really expensive in Aisle Four,'” he said
Hilary Rosen, a longtime Democratic consultant, said Democrats failed to understand the voters’ mood.
“I’m a loyal Democrat, but I am not happy. I just think that we are — we did not listen to voters in this election. And I think we’re going to have a bad night,” Rosen said, according to CNN
“And this conversation is not going to have much impact on Tuesday, but I hope it has an impact going forward, because when voters tell you over and over and over again that they care mostly about the economy, listen to them. Stop talking about democracy being at stake,” she said.
In a piece in the Atlantic titled “Democrats’ Long Goodbye to the Working Class,” Ruy Teixeira said the problem is deeper than Biden’s words.
“As we move into the endgame of the 2022 election, the Democrats face a familiar problem. America’s historical party of the working class keeps losing working-class support. And not just among white voters. Not only has the emerging Democratic majority I once predicted failed to materialize, but many of the nonwhite voters who were supposed to deliver it are instead voting for Republicans,” Teixiera wrote.
“This year, Democrats have chosen to run a campaign focused on three things: abortion rights, gun control and safeguarding democracy — issues with strong appeal to socially liberal, college-educated voters. But these issues have much less appeal to working-class voters. They are instead focused on the economy, inflation and crime, and they are skeptical of the Democratic Party’s performance in all three realms.”
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