(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Biden and finishing the job: on running, and his speech to North America's Building Trades Unions [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-26 Biden speaking at North America's Building Trades Unions Legislative Conference April 25, 2023 at the Washington Hilton. If the American people have put Biden’s approval ratings for his job performance at less that desired levels, part of that is because Biden has been busy doing his job, instead of constantly promoting himself like the former guy. Doing, not talking in other words. That’s changing. With Republican lunatics in charge of the House, the odds of new significant legislation are dim. Paradoxically that frees Biden to spend time and energy on promoting what he has accomplished, what more he plans to do, and on pushing back against the lunacy of the MAGA fanatics who are ready to burn the country down if their debt-ceiling demands are not met. Sh*t is getting real. Charlie Pierce had a great piece the other day: His great strength is that he loves politics and everything about them. He loves the rituals and customs. He loves meeting the folks and checking out the new farm equipment. So the president's re-election campaign began on Tuesday with the dawn. He released a video, which is the way you do things these days, I guess. It restates the themes from his 2020 campaign — "fighting for the soul of America" and all that. The video begins with scenes of the Capitol riot — which, it should be recalled, happened after the 2020 fight for America's soul allegedly was over. “Every generation of Americans has faced a moment when they’ve had to defend democracy, stand up for our personal freedoms, and stand up for our right to vote and our civil rights. This is ours. Let’s finish the job.” Here’s the video. While the format and style is typical of the kind of messaging that has become almost a cliché these days — inspiring music, lots of patriotic images passing in rapid succession, emotional triggers and such — there’s also Biden’s message summarized for easy absorption. We have challenges; our freedoms are in danger, and it’s from the MAGA threat. Under Biden much has been accomplished, and we can do more so let’s finish the job together. All this in three minutes. Pierce notes the press coverage response to this message, which focused on the numbers: Across eight national polls in 2022 and 2023, an average of 38 percent of Democrats said they wanted Biden to be the party’s presidential nominee in 2024, while 57 percent wanted to nominate someone else. During Trump’s first term, an average of 73 percent of Republicans wanted the GOP to renominate him, and an average of 75 percent of Democrats wanted to renominate Barack Obama during his first presidential term. [Speaking of ratings...] The comparisons are hardly fair. Obama was a once-in-a-generation political phenomenon and the Republican Party has lost what was left of its mind. Biden is a grinder. He can't do it any other way. He is never going to be a great speaker, nor will he ever light up a room, and he's not going to go out of his way to provoke or inflame. His great strength is that he loves politics and everything about them. He loves the rituals and customs. He loves meeting the folks and checking out the new farm equipment. He loves pancake breakfasts and chicken dinners. It is his great strength that he can do all this and not seem in anyway artificial. emphasis added Pierce brings up the obvious, but points out what never seems to get mentioned. “I am concerned about his age, although my concern is tempered by the fact that the Republican frontrunner is pushing 80, and often can't get from a subject to a verb without spraining his ankle.” emphasis added Pierce addresses what is, in his words, truly shameful — the other concern people have about his candidacy. I will never understand the hostility with which some Democrats regard the vice-president. (OK, there are some easily understood reasons for it.) Granted, there was a lot of misplaced anger circulating in the 2020 primary field, but it seemed to take on a particular virulence when directed at Harris, who did, after all, call out the president in a debate for his long-ago flirtation with anti-busing politics. This, frankly, I thought was pretty brave. That the president picked Harris as his running mate anyway makes me think he felt much the same way. But I would bet a shiny buffalo nickel that a lot of the "unease" about the president's age is tied in with a profound unease regarding a Harris succession. It is quite clear, however, that the president is comfortable with the choice he made three years ago. And he's off again, in the last campaign of his life. I think. To put it bluntly, how many people will not vote for Biden because they would rather have Trump back in the White House than risk a woman of Asian and African descent becoming president? It’s not a question that can be ignored, unfortunately, but it says more about what’s wrong with America than it does about Biden and Harris. You don’t defeat ageism, sexism, and racism by ignoring it or allowing it to set your limits. To quote another leader facing great challenges: “Fear only exists for one purpose — to be conquered.” To paraphrase General Grant, Republicans should be far more worried about what we are going to do to them, rather than us obsessing over what they will do. The choice has never been more stark, the differences never greater, not since the Civil War. The contrast in the record of accomplishment is clear. Frank Bruni at The New York Times had another take on Biden’s candidacy: ...And there should never have been much mystery about what President Joe Biden, who released a video announcing his re-election campaign early Tuesday, would decide. A person doesn’t just saunter away from adulation and affirmation on a scale this monumental — at least not the kind of person who wanted them enough to pursue the presidency in the first place. It’s no secret that the thought leaders at the Gray Lady are upset with Biden because they expected him to be just a transitional one-term president, someone to make it possible to turn away from Trump and then go back to political business as usual. Instead, his substantial accomplishments to date and his potential to be a truly transformative president has triggered their fear of the country going too far left in their lizard brains. (I expect the prospect of a President Harris truly has their knickers in a twist.) Bruni is trying to make it all about ego as the primary reason Biden is running again. You can tell he’s reaching when he conflates both W. Bush and Obama as being unable to resist the perks of the office, while glossing over their very different motivations. Here’s what I wrote in response in a comment: Nobody goes into politics without a certain amount of ego. It’s essential to put up with the competition with everyone who thinks they are the best possible candidate - or at least better than the other choices. It would be unnatural if Biden didn’t enjoy the perks that go with the presidency - because the demands of the job are pretty extreme too. Biden - in stark contrast with the former guy - doesn’t go out of his way to glory in the office. He seemed honestly surprised by the adulation he got from the crowds on his recent trip to Ireland. (A reminder that Biden’s presidency matters to a larger constituency than America. The world is watching, both friend and foe.). [see this from Digby-xaxnar] Biden has something that adds to his presidency: personal experience with loss and tragedy, a reminder that being President doesn’t make someone invulnerable to human failings or events. His father’s struggles to provide for his family, the loss of his first wife and child in an accident, the loss of his eldest son to cancer, the struggles of his remaining children to find their own footing in the world, the political defeats cited in this commentary - all of this has shaped him into the president he is. By all rights, if he was bitter and grasping for some kind of recompense, it would be understandable. Instead he has learned and grown from those experiences. Against all evidence to the contrary, he still believes America can be better than it is - and is working to make it so. It’s what we need. I’m going to disagree with Pierce on one thing. Biden can light up a room. Odds are you only saw a highlight or two from Biden’s speech yesterday to the North American Building Trades Unions. It’s a bit over a half hour, but Biden evokes frequent cheers from the crowd, being greeted with “Let’s go Joe” and even a “Four More Years” chant at about the 20 minute mark. He puts a lot of time into explaining how all the key legislation he got passed is going to start showing up across the country in a variety of ways. He talks about the good union jobs that will be created, the impacts for people on a personal level, and so on, making connections. (There’s a reason to talk about the need for good union jobs, and not just the ‘elite’ college degree economy although that gets covered too.) At one point he asks “How many people here know someone with diabetes — raise your hand.” Most of the crowd raised hands. Biden spelled out how insulin prices have been brought down on his watch, and how that’s going to continue, along with other caps on drug costs. He draws on his personal experience with the high cost of cancer drugs and how that’s going to be tackled. He calls on his own family history to make points, which serves to emphasize how he can relate to ordinary Americans. He does this over and over and does it effectively. A lot of Democrats focus just on policy; Biden translates it into how policy directly affects people on a personal level — asking for example how many people worry about how much they’ll have left at the end of the month after all the bills have been paid. (You can get some idea of how tired Biden must be getting of having his record of accomplishment dismissed/ignored by the media. He frequently punctuates the talk of his achievements in this speech with “That’s not a joke” because people have apparently not even heard of them.) He addresses what he calls MAGA Republicans in the speech and describes how they want to take the country backwards. The MAGA label is going to be used as a wedge — it’s intended to attack what the Republican Party has become while allowing people who still consider themselves good Republicans to separate themselves from the targets of attack. Everyone in that room got a clear message that Republican plans will cost them dearly. (And they chuckled when Biden referred to MAGA as just being the same old trickle-down economics. Biden repeatedly hits “trickle-down’ as the scam it is.) Biden closes with his regular messaging about having confidence in America, and calls out to “Let’s finish the job. Find time to watch the video of his NABTU speech, or at the very least sample it in spots. It shows that while Biden is not the most polished speaker — he stumbles a bit from time to time — he retains his focus, and his sincerity, energy, and determination are on full display. He can even quote Reagan and Trump to his advantage. Four more years! 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