Ticker Views
All politics is national | ticker VIEWS
The legendary Democratic Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Thomas P. (“Tip”) O’Neill, was fond of saying, “All politics is local”
That was the key to his leading his members of the House: to understand them and win their vote, you had to understand their home base, and shape your objectives to meet their politics.
It worked for Tip in delivering bills for President Jimmy Carter and holding Democrats to curb the worst excesses of President Ronald Reagan.
But a new era is upon us: In the US, all politics is national.
Multi-channel 24/7 cable news, multi-platform social media, Facetime/Zoom and the dark web: they feed a homogenised bath of politics, rhetoric, cultural hot buttons and reference points.
Everyone is playing with race, crime immigration, abortion, guns and voting rights in the same sandbox.
There were two elections for governor last week:
Virginia in the south and New Jersey in the north – but the trends were virtually identical.
Biden carried those states a year ago by 10 and 16 points, respectively.
Virginia saw a swing to the Republican winner of 12 points; in New Jersey it was 14 – but the Democrat barely held on. In both states, last year’s anti-Trump suburban and independent voters shifted back to the Republicans.
What happened to Biden and the Democrats?
He had an excellent start in January. Relief that Trump was gone, a big initial economic recovery program, and unleashing the vaccine campaign.
But as a former Ohio Republican congressman said, “You’ve had the debacle in Afghanistan, inflation, product shortages, and as a proxy for all of that, the fact that gas prices have skyrocketed.” And Delta staggered a return to normal.
Last week Biden was at 42% approval (he had been as high as 55%) and over 50% disapproval. A near-record 70% of the country felt that America was on the wrong track.
No president can win for himself or his party from that position.
The whole Biden agenda was adrift too. Weeks without progress. Nothing was getting done. EJ Dionne of Brookings wrote:
“The warning signs were there for months. Democrats buried a series of popular initiatives under a debate over how big the program should be. They bickered and dawdled while the president’s approval ratings burned, obsessing about adversaries within while ignoring the partisan enemy outside the gates,
“Is it any wonder that so many among the party’s supporters failed to show up on Tuesday?”
As your Political Note outlined last week, the message of the Democratic setbacks was crystal clear:
“Democrats! You damn fools! If you cannot govern you cannot win elections! How many times do we have to learn this lesson? You didn’t pass Obamacare early and lost the House in 2010. So let’s pass these bills! And nothing on voting rights! If you have any hope of holding the House, what the hell are you waiting for?”
And guess what: Biden got it. At his day-after press conference, Biden understood: “People want us to get things done… we should produce for the American people… people need a little breathing room… we have to produce results for them.”
And he underscored this yesterday in the White House:
“The American people have made clear one overwhelming thing, I think — and I really mean it — all the talk about the elections and what do they mean and everything: They want us to deliver. They want us to deliver,
Democrats, they want us to deliver. Last night, we proved we can.
On one big item, we delivered … But I think the one message that came across was: Get something done. It’s time to get something done. Stop — you all stop talking. Get something done.”
And that is why the infrastructure bill had to pass. If the exquisite differences in ideological positioning among the Democrats had prevailed, and that bill had gone down, the Biden presidency would have been over. The Democrats in the House finally got that too.
But winning that battle does not mean the war is won. Hardly.
The $2 trillion social programs and climate bill is up next. There will be zero Republican votes for it. Republicans want to keep the benefits of that huge package – universal pre-k, expanded health care, senior care, clean energy and climate programs, child and earned income tax credits, affordable housing – from reaching voters.
If Democrats fail to unite and pass it, they are eminently beatable next November, and the Republicans can take back control of Congress, and then work to get the White House back in 2024.
Biden’s most consequential battles are still ahead.
And all politics is national.