This podcast with the New Yorker’s Susan Glasser, Jane Mayer and former GOP strategist Sarah Longwell was quite fascinating. Longwell is all over the media sharing the information about the focus groups she holds with swing voters. In this, though, she shares her advice for the Democrats about how to reach them and I thought it was excellent.
The one piece of advice that really sounds smart to me is the idea that if Biden’s big weakness is his age, they should roll out all the surrogates from around the country, like Governors Whitmer, Newsom, Shapiro etc to show there is a strong Democratic bench that’s young and vital. It reflects on the party rather than Biden but its useful in any case. And she says they should go to lengths to show that he has young an vital people all around him. She didn’t advise it, but I wondered if they should show some cabinet meetings. Obviously, they don’t have to do it like Trump did with all the sycophants making fools of themselves over Dear Leader. But it might be useful for the public to see the people in the administration who back Biden up day to day.
I’m sure that sticks in Biden’s craw but he should do it anyway. People just need to be reminded that the presidency is more than just one person and they can count on Biden’s excellent personnel choices in important roles almost all of whom are still in the jobs for which they were hired, unlike the massive turnover in Trump’s term.
I think this makes sense. Democratic surrogates should be fanning out everywhere, all the time, making the case. Nothing is more important.