In politics, you’re either on message or you’re losing. Let’s get to it.
Welcome to On Message, a weekly look at where the battle lines are drawn and who is winning the war of words.
This week… Tone and Style.
President Joe Biden made his first address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. That’s what they call it in a President’s first year in office, in lieu of a State of the Union address.
It also wasn’t much of a joint session as the chamber was about one-quarter full thanks to the ongoing pandemic.
This was President Biden’s first big speech in several weeks and maybe his most important since his inauguration just 99 days prior.
I’m kind of a nerd for big speeches like these and a few things stood out.
The first was President Biden’s style. He comes across as more comfortable in this setting than any President I can remember. While Presidents Reagan and Obama were both masterful with prepared remarks, Biden seemed at ease and his body language gave me the impression he was in a comfortable setting speaking more off the cuff than he actually was.
Like all presidents in my lifetime, Biden used a TelePrompter, but this was the first speech by a commander in chief in this setting that made me think he was really using it to prompt his remarks, rather than reading them verbatim. He put his hand in his pocket and he turned to speak to people in the chamber. It gave viewers the sense he was in command of the room and the subject matter.
And that’s an interesting point because, dating back to the campaign, conservative pundits and even President Trump have been quick to mock Biden for mistakes in speeches, calling into question Biden’s mental fitness. The problem with that tactic is that most Americans hear from this president far less frequently than they did from his predecessor… and, when they do, in big speeches like this one, he has been really sharp. Fox News pundits set the bar very low and President Biden continues to clear it easily on his biggest stages. I just don’t see this as a winning argument even if it gives your base a shot of dopamine.
As for the speech itself, it showed the Biden communication team is not wavering from the main thing that makes them successful.
In an age when cable news networks and major outlets have all picked a side to carry water for (driving the political discussion to the extremes) one of the two parties was bound to eventually stumble onto the obvious benefits of speaking to the middle of the political bell curve.
What I mean by that is that, despite the general consensus that we are a divided nation, the bell curve shows how few people live on each end of the political spectrum. The truth is, the vast majority of Americans – both left and right of center – want a country that can stop squabbling and get something done. Winning a party nomination often forces candidates to cater to the fringe… but the middle of that bell curve is where national elections are won.
And that’s the audience the Biden team is locked in on.
Throughout his address, the president mentioned few policy-wonkish details. There were big ideas with big price tags, to be sure. But he talked about problems and presented his solutions clearly. He mostly stayed above the partisan fray, not calling out his opposition too harshly, other than to ask them to work with him.
He had in his sights American’s who think we can do better as a country than we are right now and want to see the gridlock turn into action – even if they won’t agree with one hundred percent of it.
Like it or not, he’s staking out the high ground and going to great lengths not to cede it.
For a party out of power, it’s politically frustrating. But for a party in power, that’s a winning strategy.
That’s it for this week.
More On Message in the next issue of the Utah Political Underground.
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