Biden Shouldn't Try to Be All Things to All People
The president's budget previews a bad reelection strategy: trying to be a progressive, a moderate, a populist, a deficit hawk, and more all the same time.
Yesterday, Biden released his budget proposal for the 2024 fiscal year. The first thing to understand about this document is that it will never become law. Instead, it’s an opportunity for Biden to lay out his vision for the country without all the downsides that would accompany actually implementing it. In other words, it’s about politics, not policy.
For that reason, I usually think presidential budgets are not worth that much attention. But this one is different. Because Biden is in the process of positioning himself for reelection, the contents of the proposal give us a preview of his 2024 campaign message.
When I initially read the proposal, I was honestly a bit bewildered. Whatever message Biden was trying to put down, I was not picking it up. Depending on the paragraph, the document could seem progressive or moderate; partisan or bipartisan; internationalist or protectionist, and so on.
Eventually, I realized that the ambiguity was not an accident. The White House seemed to be trying to avoid pigeonholing Biden in a way that would alienate any potential voters. Why limit Biden to being seen as just a moderate or a progressive or a populist or a deficit hawk, etc., etc. — when instead he could be all things to all people? To progressives, he can be Progressive Joe! To moderates, Moderate Joe! To populists, Populist Joe!
To demonstrate this, you don’t even need to get into the weeds of the budget. All you really need to do is to look at the document’s introduction. (If you’d rather read the whole proposal, you can do that here.)
This, for example, is the second paragraph of the introduction. In it, Biden jumps directly into his Middle-Class Joe persona:
After that, Biden discusses his bipartisan accomplishments, shapeshifting slightly to become Bipartisan Joe:
Several paragraphs down, Biden takes a sharp turn to become Progressive Joe as he lays out all the budget’s new spending and federal programs:
Then he drops Progressive Joe in favor of Foreign Policy Hawk/Internationalist Joe:
And finally, Biden introduces Deficit Hawk Joe together with Populist Joe, touting how much the budget will reduce the deficit while making the rich pay their fair share:
I have to say that I’m pretty skeptical about this “be all things to all people” strategy if it is indeed the one Biden plans to rely on for reelection. Biden’s shapeshifting seems more likely to frustrate potential supporters than to attract new ones. Progressives will be irritated with the military spending, deficit reduction, and appeals to bipartisanship; moderates and deficit hawks will be put off by the trillions of dollars in new federal spending; and populists will be annoyed at Ukraine funding and the internationalist foreign policy. In the end, no faction is happy, and Biden looks evasive and inauthentic.
Instead, if Biden wants to win reelection, I think he’d be better off with a less ambitious strategy more narrowly tailored to win over key constituencies. Personally, I’d want to see him hone in on a message of bipartisanship and moderation. That has the benefit of 1) playing to Biden’s natural strengths, 2) appealing to swing voters, and 3) making the GOP look even more extreme than it already does.
Fundamentally, however, the most important thing from a strategic perspective is that Biden picks a clear and compelling message. Admittedly, that may be more conventional than the “be all things to all people” strategy Biden previewed in his budget. But conventions become conventions for a reason: because they work. And in the end, it’s better to win as a boring candidate than to lose as an exciting one.
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