When selling his agenda, President Biden has the gift of gab.
Yesterday, President Joe Biden announced from the White House that U.S. COVID vaccinations will reach 100 million today, more than six weeks ahead of Biden’s previously set goal of 100 million COVID doses in the first 100 days of his presidency. This remarkable achievement follows President Biden’s successful signing of the American Rescue Plan (ARP), with his full proposed $1.9 trillion in relief, into law. Biden’s signing of the ARP was followed by an extremely effective White House speech where he announced direct stimulus payments of up to $1,400 to many Americans (a large number of which have already been received), as well as strong steps to combat the Coronavirus pandemic, including increased purchasing and distribution of vaccines, and assistance to states and businesses.
Perhaps it should not be surprising that President Biden has been so good at touting his administration’s achievements. After all, Biden is the one who, as U.S. Vice President, came up with the bumper sticker of the year for the 2012 elections:
If you are looking for a bumper sticker to sum up how President Obama has handled what we inherited, it’s pretty simple: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.
Meanwhile, Republicans are flummoxed and in disarray, with neither a message nor a messenger to deliver it. The Republicans have been caught on the wrong side of the Democrats’ highly popular COVID relief, with no GOP members of Congress voting for the ARP. Even worse, the Republicans found themselves in the clueless, out of touch position of railing against Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head while desperate American voters, including many Republican voters, strongly embraced the Democratic Coronavirus relief package as a potential life-saver. As President Biden actively fights this deadly pandemic on what he called a “war footing,” all the Republicans have is their inane Culture War. The way things are going, and with Republican U.S. Senator Roy Blunt’s additional announcement that he will not seek reelection in 2022, the GOP could be in a world of hurt in the 2022 and 2024 elections.
Meanwhile, it is quite refreshing to have a president who (a) unabashedly espouses Democratic solutions to our nation’s problems, (b) has the ability to see those solutions through via passage and signing of legislation, and (c), can effectively sell these solutions directly to the American people. We would need to go back to Lyndon Johnson, or perhaps even Franklin Roosevelt, for a previous example of such Democratic early presidential strength.
Photo by Maryland GovPics, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/yt7eUx
