adplus-dvertising
Connect with us

Politics

Low-key campaign launch fits Biden strategy for chaotic political era: ANALYSIS

Published

 on

By the standards of the wild past decade-plus, not to mention the tumult of the last few weeks, the launch was utterly conventional and outright normal — a throwback in tone and format that fits the person if not necessarily the era he happens to lead in.

President Joe Biden is, as of Tuesday, officially a candidate for reelection in 2024. It ends an extended period of will-he-or-won’t-he speculation leavened by no small amount of should-he-or-shouldn’t-he Democratic angst, unusual in part given that no incumbent president eligible for an additional term has chosen not to seek it in more than half a century.

Biden, of course, has been in public life nearly that long. In announcing in a low-key manner, on a date with meaning for few beyond the superstitious, he served notice once again that he’s not about to change.

“The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead, we have more freedom or less freedom, more rights or fewer,” Biden said in a campaign launch video, paid for by the Democratic National Committee and released early Tuesday morning. “I know what I want the answer to be, and I think you do too.”

300x250x1

President Joe Biden is seen in this still image taken from his official campaign launch video published on April 25, 2023.

Social Media via Reuters

With the video drop, Biden chose to formally enter the race for the presidency the same way and on the same date he did four years prior. The announcement also comes on a day both he and Vice President Kamala Harris are holding official events that speak to their reelection strategy — Biden speaking at a union gathering to tout legislative achievements, Harris addressing abortion rights at her alma mater, Howard University.

The last time Biden ran, of course, he won, despite voices inside and outside his party wondering if he was too old or out of touch for the moment. If the president himself hasn’t changed all that much since, consider how the world around him has.

PHOTO: President Joe Biden is seen with Vice President Kamala Harris in this still image taken from his official campaign launch video published on April 25, 2023.

President Joe Biden is seen with Vice President Kamala Harris in this still image taken from his official campaign launch video published on April 25, 2023.

Social Media via Reuters

The COVID pandemic has come and gone; Russia’s war in Ukraine came and stayed; inflation has sapped paychecks and perceptions around the economy; a conservative Supreme Court majority ended a constitutional right to abortion; the last president lost an election, refused to admit it, and is still contesting the results even as he runs to win his job back.

The tumult appears to have taken a toll. Biden’s long-term low-50s approval rating disappeared in his first summer in office and is has been stuck underwater for 20 months and counting, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling averages.

An NBC News poll released over the weekend found that 70% of Americans overall believe Biden should not run for a second term. That includes a bare majority — 51% — of Democrats who don’t think he should run, with many citing his age as a major reason they believe he should step aside.

That has contributed to an unusual degree of worry from inside the Democratic Party about whether the incumbent Democratic president should be running again. The biggest names in the party are passing on a primary challenge, though at least two other Democrats — a prominent author who qualified for a 2020 primary debate, and an activist who hails from one of the most politically prominent families in the country — have announced that they are running.

There’s no reason to think Biden has to worry about winning Democratic primaries, and his team is seeking to change the states’ voting order to benefit him just in case. But there are growing reasons for Democrats to worry about hitching their futures to a candidate who is past his 80th birthday, while Republicans gear up for a bruising race.

PHOTO: President Joe Biden speaks in this still image taken from his official campaign launch video published on April 25, 2023.

President Joe Biden speaks in this still image taken from his official campaign launch video published on April 25, 2023.

Social Media via Reuters

New polling released Monday by the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s Kennedy School underscores Biden’s challenges. Despite strong and broad support for Biden’s policies among voters and potential voters under 30, the president’s approval rating among that group is stuck in the mid-30s.

“We honestly do see this gaping disconnect between approval of the president and approval of the party, and the policies and the values that they stand for,” said John Della Volpe, the poll’s director and a former Biden pollster. “That needs to be addressed before 2024.”

Della Volpe, who took a leave of absence from his current job to work for Biden’s 2020 campaign, noted that Biden’s approval rating was relatively weak among younger Americans at the start of that race. But those same voters ended up being a key driver in his victory over then-President Donald Trump after months of persistent messaging.

Now, he said, Biden’s challenge is to sell his achievements — on the environment, gun control, infrastructure, health care and more — and signal that he understands why voters continue to be frustrated.

It’s worked in the past — in 2020, when Biden beat a wide range of younger candidates to become the nominee, and then to defeat Trump. His party also managed to beat expectations in the 2022 midterms, gaining a seat in the Senate and just barely losing control of the House of Representatives.

PHOTO: President Joe Biden speaks in this still image taken from his official campaign launch video published on April 25, 2023.

President Joe Biden speaks in this still image taken from his official campaign launch video published on April 25, 2023.

Social Media via Reuters

One thing Biden may still have going for him, at least politically: Trump. In his 2019 launch video, Biden predicted that the four years of the Trump presidency would go down as an “aberrant moment in time.”

Yet Trump’s movement remains strong enough to make him the current frontrunner for the GOP nomination in 2024. Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., all make brief appearances in Biden’s campaign-launch video — along with images from Jan. 6, 2021.

For whatever else is said about him, Biden is the one politician who can say he defeated Trump. His low-key launch is at least an implicit reminder of what he is not — and in the end, that may be as effective a campaign rationale as there needs to be.

Back in December 2016, with his party reeling from a shocking election defeat and Trump still president-elect, then-Vice President Joe Biden deflected on his plans for the next election with a well-worn adage: “Four years is a lifetime in politics,” Biden said at the time.

He couldn’t have known then how many lives would be shaped inside the timespan of a single presidential term. Now, his party’s hopes rest on the calculation that he will again be right for the political climate, even if events swirl faster than he may like.

“This is our moment,” the president said.

 

728x90x4

Source link

Politics

Opinion: Canada's foreign policy and its domestic politics on Israel's war against Hamas are shifting – The Globe and Mail

Published

 on


The vote in the House of Commons last week on Israel’s war against Hamas represents a shift in both Canada’s foreign policy and its domestic politics.

The Liberal government is now markedly more supportive of the rights of Palestinians and less supportive of the state of Israel than in the past. That shift mirrors changing demographics, and the increasing importance of Muslim voters within the Liberal coalition.

Both the Liberal and Conservative parties once voiced unqualified support for Israel’s right to defend itself from hostile neighbours. But the Muslim community is growing in Canada. Today it represents 5 per cent of the population, compared with 1 per cent who identify as Jewish.

300x250x1

Although data is sparse prior to 2015, it is believed that Muslim Canadians tended to prefer the Liberal Party over the Conservative Party. They were also less likely to vote than the general population.

But the Conservative Party under Stephen Harper deeply angered the community with talk about “barbaric cultural practices” and musing during the 2015 election campaign about banning public servants from wearing the niqab. Meanwhile, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau was promising to bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada if elected.

These factors galvanized community groups to encourage Muslims to vote. And they did. According to an Environics poll, 79 per cent of eligible Muslims cast a ballot in the 2015 election, compared with an overall turnout of 68 per cent. Sixty-five per cent of Muslim voters cast ballots for the Liberal Party, compared with 10 per cent who voted for the NDP and just 2 per cent for the Conservatives. (Telephone interviews of 600 adults across Canada who self-identified as Muslim, were conducted between Nov. 19, 2015 and Jan. 23, 2016, with an expected margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points 19 times out of 20.)

Muslim Canadians also strongly supported the Liberals in the elections of 2019 and 2021. The party is understandably anxious not to lose that support. I’m told that Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly often mentions the large Muslim community in her Montreal riding. (According to the 2021 census, 18 per cent of the people in Ahuntsic-Cartierville identify as Muslim.)

This is one reason why the Liberal leadership laboured so mightily to find a way to support last week’s NDP motion that would, among other measures, have recognized the state of Palestine. The Liberal caucus was deeply divided on the issue. My colleague Marieke Walsh reports that dozens of Liberal MPs were prepared to vote for the NDP motion.

In the end, almost all Liberal MPs ended up voting for a watered-down version of the motion – statehood recognition was taken off the table – while three Liberal MPs voted against it. One of them, Anthony Housefather, is considering whether to remain inside the Liberal caucus.

This is not simply a question of political calculation. Many Canadians are deeply concerned over the sufferings of the people in Gaza as the Israel Defence Forces seek to root out Hamas fighters.

The Conservatives enjoy the moral clarity of their unreserved support for the state of Israel in this conflict. The NDP place greater emphasis on supporting the rights of Palestinians.

The Liberals have tried to keep both Jewish and Muslim constituencies onside. But as last week’s vote suggests, they increasingly accord a high priority to the rights of Palestinians and to the Muslim community in Canada.

As with other religious communities, Muslims are hardly monolithic. Someone who comes to Canada from Senegal may have different values and priorities than a Canadian who comes from Syria or Pakistan or Indonesia.

And the plight of Palestinians in Gaza may not be the only issue influencing Muslims, who struggle with inflation, interest rates and housing affordability as much as other voters.

Many new Canadians come from societies that are socially conservative. Some Muslim voters may be uncomfortable with the Liberal Party’s strong support for the rights of LGBTQ Canadians.

Finally, Muslim voters for whom supporting the rights of Palestinians is the ballot question may be drawn more to the NDP than the Liberals.

Regardless, the days of Liberal/Conservative bipartisan consensus in support of Israel are over. This is the new lay of the land.

Adblock test (Why?)

728x90x4

Source link

Continue Reading

Politics

Recall Gondek group planned to launch its own petition before political novice did – CBC.ca

Published

 on


The third-party group helping promote the recall campaign against Mayor Jyoti Gondek had devised plans to launch its own petition drive, as part of a broader mission to make Calgary council more conservative.

Project YYC had planned with other conservative political organizations to gather signatures demanding Calgary’s mayor be removed, says group leader Roy Beyer. But their drive would have begun later in the year, when nicer weather made for easier canvassing for supporters, he said.

Those efforts were stymied when Landon Johnston, an HVAC contractor largely unknown in local politics, applied at city hall to launch his own recall drive in early February. Since provincial recall laws allow only one recall attempt per politician per term, Project YYC chose to lend support to Johnston’s bid.

300x250x1

“Now we have to try to do door-knocking in the winter, and there’s a lot of preparation that you have to contemplate prior to starting. And Landon didn’t do that,” Beyer told CBC News in an interview.

Project YYC has helped gather signatures, created a website and erected large, anti-Gondek signs around town. It has supplied organizational heft that Johnston admits to lacking.

Their task is daunting.

According to provincial law, in order to force a recall plebiscite to oust the mayor before the term is up, they have two months to gather more than 514,000 signatures, an amount equal to 40 per cent of Calgary’s population in 2019.

They have until April 4 to collect that many signatures, and by March 21 had only 42,000.

Beyer criticizes the victory threshold for recall petition as so high that it’s “a joke,” and the province may as well not have politician recall laws.

So if he thinks it’s an impossible pursuit, why is he involved with this?

“You can send a message to the mayor that she should be sitting down and resigning … without achieving those numbers,” Beyer said.

Project YYC founder Roy Beyer, from a Take Back Alberta video in 2022. He is no longer with that provincial activist group. (royjbeyer screenshot/Rumble)

He likened it to former premier Jason Kenney getting 52 per cent support in a UCP leadership review — enough to technically continue as leader, but a lousy enough show of confidence that he announced immediately he would step down.

Gondek has given no indication she’ll voluntarily leave before her term is up next year. But she did emerge from a meeting last week with Johnston to admit the petition has resonated with many Calgarians and is a signal she must work harder to listen to public concerns and explain council’s decisions.

The mayor also told the Calgary Sun this week that she’s undecided about running for re-election in 2025. 

“There used to be this thing where if you’re the mayor, of course you’re going to run for another term because there’s unfinished business,” Gondek told the newspaper.

“And yes, there will be unfinished business, but the times are not what they were. You need to make sure you’re the right leader for the times you’re in.”

The last several Calgary mayors have enjoyed multiple terms in office, going back to Ralph Klein in the 1980s. The last one-term mayor was Ross Alger, the man Klein defeated in 1980.

Beyer and fellow conservative organizers launched Project YYC before the recall campaign. The goal was to elect a conservative mayor and councillors — “a common-sense city council, instead of what we currently have,” he said.

Beyer is one of a few former activists with the provincial pressure group Take Back Alberta to have latched themselves to the recall bid and Project YYC, along with some United Conservative Party riding officials in Calgary. 

Beyer’s acknowledgment of his group’s broader mission comes as Premier Danielle Smith and her cabinet ministers have said they want to introduce political party politics in large municipalities — even though most civic politicians have said they don’t want to bring clear partisanship into city halls.

Although Beyer admits Project YYC’s own recall campaign would have been a coalition effort with other conservative groups, he wouldn’t specify which ones. He did insist that Take Back Alberta wasn’t one of them.

A man in a grey baseball cap speaks to reporters.
Calgary business owner Landon Johnston speaks to reporters at City Hall on March 22 following his 15-minute conversation with Mayor Jyoti Gondek. (Laurence Taschereau/CBC)

Johnston says he was approached by Beyer’s group shortly after applying to recall Gondek, and gave them $3,000 from donations he’d raised.

He initially denied any knowledge of Project YYC when documents first emerged about that group’s role in the recall, but later said he didn’t initially realize that was the organizational name of his campaign allies.

“They said they could get me signatures, so I said, ‘OK, if you can do it by the book, here’s some money.’ And it’s worked,” he said.

Johnston has said he’s new to politics but simply wants to remove Gondek because of policies he’s disagreed with, like the soon-to-be-ended ban on single-use plastics and bags at restaurant takeouts and drive-thrus.

He’s no steadfast conservative, either. He told CBC’s Calgary Eyeopener that he voted for Rachel Notley’s NDP because one of its green-renovation incentives helped his HVAC business.

Adblock test (Why?)

728x90x4

Source link

Continue Reading

Politics

Larry David shares how he feels about Trump – CNN

Published

 on


Larry David shares how he feels about Trump

“Curb Your Enthusiasm” star Larry David shares how he feels about former President Donald Trump and the 2020 election. Watch the full episode of “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace,” streaming March 29 on Max.


03:21

– Source:
CNN

Adblock test (Why?)

300x250x1

728x90x4

Source link

Continue Reading

Trending