Dem
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GOP
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It has become increasingly clear that a key part of Joe Biden's reelection strategy will be to be emphasize his numerous legislative achievements. Oddly enough, this could put him on the same page during the primaries as Ron DeSantis, with both of them saying: "I achieved a lot and Donald Trump was a failure and achieved nothing." Each of them has his own reasons for making Trump look weak and a failure.
Biden and other members of his administration are starting a 3-week tour touting all the new laws the President signed. On Tuesday, for example, he was at the semiconductor manufacturer Wolfspeed in Durham, NC. There will be a $5-billion investment in new plant there. North Carolina, especially the Research Triangle area, which includes three top universities (Duke, the University of North Carolina, and North Carolina State) has many tech start-ups that will benefit from the new laws. It is a key swing state that Biden is sure to visit over and over pitching how many good jobs his laws will create. The three cities that bound the Triangle—Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill—are only an hour's flying time from D.C. so Biden can zip over to one of them in the morning, give a speech, and be back in the White House in time for lunch. That's not true of Atlanta and certainly not true of Phoenix.
Biden isn't the only one who will pitch his achievements. Pete Buttigieg is going to "campaign" in multiple states talking about the infrastructure upgrades in the infrastructure law Biden signed. He will talk about improvements to local airports, roads, water systems, and other infrastructure in the bill. People can understand things like: "Your local airport will get safer, repaved runways or a new terminal building on account of the bill Joe Biden signed."
The vice president, first lady, and second gentleman are also hitting the hustings in 20 states to pitch Biden's accomplishments. All the battleground states, including Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia, will get visits from some of them. High-profile visitors always get lots of attention and interviews on local television stations and local newspapers.
Another thing Biden is going to do is use the full power of incumbency. He just agreed to allow more oil drilling in Alaska and is planning to auction off the rights to drill for oil in a huge area of the Gulf of Mexico. Environmentalists will go apopletic, but Biden knows the Republicans will hit him on energy policy, so he wants to show that he is solidly behind getting more energy from domestic sources to reduce the residual dependence on foreign sources. He will also say that in the long run, more American energy sources means lower gas prices, something else that will drive environmentalists crazy. But they have nowhere to go as the Republican policies are 100x worse.
Biden understands that being an incumbent allows you to actually get stuff done and then talk about it. That will be much tougher for Trump since he didn't get much accomplished in his 4 years as president and can't get in the news with new achievements now, as Biden can—and will. (V)