It appears that is the strategy rolled out to clam the complaining within the Democratic Party that Joe Biden has shied away from confronting his opponent directly….
“When he lost in 2020, something snapped in him,” Biden said, a bumper sticker slogan he has been repeating ever since.
The notion that the former president changed — becoming more self-obsessed, more dangerous and more extreme — has since been seeded throughout Biden’s campaign, the result of months of polling, focus groups and ad testing, his advisers say. Independent Democratic groups that plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to help reelect Biden have come to similar conclusions in their own research, according to people familiar with that work who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the strategy.
The message is aimed not just at 2020 Biden voters who have since wandered away, but also at the significant group of swing voters who oppose both major-party candidates. Faced with dim approval ratingsand more Americans with favorable views of Trump’s presidency than his own, Biden is making his case to those who don’t want to choose:
The other guy is worse than you realize…..
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The frame has since become explicit in daily communications, paid advertising and the torrent of digital communication that the campaign puts out every week. It echoes a similar decision by President Barack Obama and his allies in early 2012 to aim their firepower at a single story they told for months on the stump and in advertising about Romney, the Republican presidential nominee: He is a predatory businessman who has hurt the middle class and will do so again….
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The Biden approach embraces the typical reelection campaign strategy for sitting presidents — to turn attention onto their opponent. The campaign plans to continue some positive advertising at the same time, especially in ads aimed at convincing Black, Latino and younger voters that Biden has achieved significant policy wins that benefit them. But unlike 2020, when Biden ran a largely positive advertising effort, this cycle is expected to be far more negative….
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“He’s not only obsessed with losing in 2020; he’s clearly a little bit unhinged right now,” Biden continued. “No, I’m being serious.”…
image…President Biden delivers remarks Tuesday at the White House during an event marking the 12th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. (Michael A. McCoy for The Washington Post)
New Yorker’s Schumer and Suozzi standing behind Biden in the photo….