“Speaking of Corvettes, I'm on Jay Leno's show tonight at 10 o'clock Eastern time. And I'm driving my ‘67 Corvette 118 miles an hour,” Biden said during virtual political reception for Iowa’s Cindy Axne tonight pic.twitter.com/YAdxqUhk4q
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) October 27, 2022
Biden targets hidden 'junk fees' from banks, cable TV, concert tickets https://t.co/GO7TkbZabJ pic.twitter.com/hGyMeeEedn
— Reuters (@Reuters) October 27, 2022
Why we hate junk fees, which make prices confusing, exploit traps for the unwary, and are used to extract billions https://t.co/Nv5I4f9KQF
— Tim Wu (@superwuster) October 26, 2022
?? https://t.co/eCluSJ8s84 pic.twitter.com/ynh11Cqsw5
— Ian Sams (@IanSams46) October 26, 2022
One handshake, one hug and one selfie at a time, President Joe Biden is on a mission to connect with everyday Americans. https://t.co/tSGMep6cb6
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) October 24, 2022
Our Very Serious Media has trouble with this concept. Imagine — a president who actually likes people!
… Biden has never been at his best in big speeches, where his delivery can be stilted, his stories sometimes meandering. It’s the end of his speech that often marks the beginning of Biden’s favorite part of an event — the rope line, in the parlance of political operatives. He whirls around, scans the crowd and zeroes in on his first target for a one-on-one connection.
It might be with someone like Tim Eichinger, a Milwaukee brewery owner who asked Biden a question during a TV town hall 20 months ago, and has since had a one-on-one videoconference with the president and seen Biden send a couple of letters to his grandson.
It might be a small child — Biden likes to carry some cash so he can discretely slip kids a few dollars and encourage them to buy ice cream. It might be someone who stutters — they come in for special attention from the president.
After Biden gave a speech on student loans on Friday at Delaware State University, there were plentiful handshakes and photos with the students on stage. Last Tuesday, at a Democratic National Committee event in Washington, Biden invited one audience member backstage for a private photo, autographed some of the abortion rights signs that participants had been waving and mugged in a handful of selfies…
Biden, aides said, seems to detect when someone may be going through a personal or family crisis — perhaps informed by his own experiences with grief and challenge: the death of his first wife and daughter in a car crash, the loss of his son to cancer, his recovery from a pair of life-threatening brain aneurysms, a decades-long struggle to overcome a stutter.
“He just instinctually knows how to show up for what that person needs in whatever way that is,” said O’Malley Dillon.
Goepfert followed steps behind Biden at hundreds of events during the campaign and in the White House before he left in August. “I’ve seen him comfort people who were in tears talking about their personal hardships, console somebody who’s recently been diagnosed with cancer, honor a veteran servicemember with a handshake and one of his challenge coins, and also give a young person money for ice cream just for sitting through the speech — and all in the same rope line,” he said.
As Biden works his way through a crowd, he’ll often summon an aide to take someone backstage for a photo, collect their information for follow-up, or jot down the phone number of a loved one who couldn’t be there for a surprise call from the president.
In his armored limousine after an event, Biden “is ready to follow up with the people he met, and he’s already making those phone calls,” said Goepfert…
Speaking of politicians who genuinely love their jobs…
Zayde Chuck is my problematic fave. https://t.co/hsV79qaZkS
— Leonid Baezhnev ?? (@rev_avocado) October 25, 2022
Two weeks to go until Election Day.
My cheat sheet of what races to be tracking has more than 100 ballot measures — on top of elections for Congress, statehouses, or judgeships.
Save & dig in!! https://t.co/JSwC12JPOd
— Taniel (@Taniel) October 24, 2022
Not to pick a scab, but good for Rep. Raskin:
This whole statement by Raskin is pretty damn solid. Worth the minute it takes to read.https://t.co/4U8UFQQIlP
— Peter Wolf (@peterawolf) October 26, 2022
… “I am glad to learn of the withdrawal of the letter of October 24, 2022, which—because of its unfortunate timing and other flaws—led to the conflation of growing Republican opposition to support for Ukraine, as exemplified by recent statements of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, with the polar-opposite position of dozens of Democrats like me who have passionately supported every package of military, strategic and economic assistance to the Ukrainian people and are determined to see the Ukrainian people win victory over Vladimir Putin and expel his imperialist forces from their country.
“In the eight months since Russia began its atrocity-filled and illegal war of aggression against the people of Ukraine, the Ukrainian people have given Americans not just the chance to defend the values of national sovereignty, democracy and pluralism but also great hope for the world’s future. Had Ukrainians been quickly defeated by Putin’s army, as so many people expected, had Volodymyr Zelensky fled the country, as so many people expected, then a dangerous tyranny would have destroyed a nascent democracy, and prospects for democratic causes everywhere in the world would have darkened. Large countries would have felt emboldened to attack small countries everywhere.
“But today there is hope because of the strength of President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people, and the cause of democracy and freedom in Ukraine is the cause of the democratic world. We should unite around this just struggle and stay focused on it.
“Ukraine has given the world a lesson in anti-imperialism and how to fight a just war of self-defense even amidst enormous civilian suffering. Putin has claimed, as European colonizers did for hundreds of years, that the Ukrainian state and the Ukrainian nation do not exist. This obvious lie has been his rationale for an increasingly genocidal war of destruction, the openly avowed goal of which is the destruction of the Ukrainian people as such. These last weeks and days, Russian propagandists have repeatedly appeared on television to urge the murder of Ukrainian children and violence against the Ukrainian population…
“Ukrainians provide us with an example of courage in defense of national sovereignty and democracy. They are defending their democratic right to choose their own leaders and live in freedom and peace, and they are doing so at great risk and staggering personal cost.
“Ukrainians today give the democratic world a chance for a critical and historic victory, and we must rally to their side. It is important to be on the right side of a just war, and it is even more important to be on the right side and win. Just as Ukrainian resistance gives us hope, a Ukrainian victory would give us an opening to a much better future for all humanity. All champions of democracy over autocracy—whether they call themselves progressives, conservatives or liberals—should be doing whatever we can to ensure that Ukraine wins this just war as quickly as possible. Diplomacy by the Biden administration will inevitably follow as sustained diplomacy always marks the conclusion of war—even with tyrants and despots. But first Ukraine must win—let us continue to unite as Americans and focus on that central and historic imperative.”
Thursday Morning Open Thread: Moving Fast, But PrudentlyPost + Comments (163)