President Biden’s inner circle has spent a lot of time thinking about how to sell his $ 1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan nationwide – long after he sanctioned it this week.
Why does it matter: The total opposition of the Republicans elected in Washington makes public popularity and bipartisanship in the United States vital to maintaining support for the president’s agenda.
Details: The Biden team is planning a large and long-lasting sales campaign, including outreach to the local media and the cultivation of coalition media campaigns.
- Cabinet officials will join White House advisers in publicly selling the impact of the package – in schools, delivering vaccines and providing food to poor families, a senior government official told Axios.
- Cedric Richmond, director of the White House’s Office of Public Engagement, is tasked with mobilizing the myriad outside groups that make up the Democratic coalition. Your job will be to ensure that communities connect the aid they are receiving to the federal government.
- A White House official familiar with the planning said he will leverage the groups and leaders who endorsed the package, “including more than 400 bipartisan mayors and governors, organized work and the business community, as well as economists and experts from across the political spectrum. . “
Behind the scenes: Biden considers it strategically important for Americans to understand that the checks and other forms of assistance they will receive are products of the new law.
- The fact that he cannot claim that he achieved a bipartisan agreement in Washington makes it essential that he maintain broad public support for the package.
- The goal is not just short-term political gain – like a boost in the middle of the 2022 term – but for Biden to develop legislation and make it more difficult for the next Republican president to unwind.
The big picture: The Biden team’s hope is that this strategy will bring new political rewards to President Obama that President Obama never saw in his 2009 financial recovery package.
- Biden felt that Obama should have made a big victory lap after passing the $ 840 billion package and does not plan to repeat this political mistake.
- Currently, about 70% of Americans support Biden’s rescue plan. It is much more popular than Obama’s plan, although it has more than twice the cost.
- Last year, several senior Democrats told Axios that they could learn a few things about retail policy from Donald Trump. The ex-president loudly took credit for his stimulus projects, including the requirement that his name be added to checks sent to Americans.
- White House press secretary, Jen Psaki said Tuesday that Biden’s name will not appear on the new $ 1,400 stimulus checks, but his team will not be ashamed of claiming credit in other ways.
The end result: For the very definition of a Washington insider, Joe Biden might consider his outside game as his political lifeline while in the White House.