Pirate's Cove

See, Biden has been consumed, consumed! with what’s going on in Ukraine. You remember, the war Brandon helped push Putin to start. So, now he wants to

Biden’s been consumed by Ukraine. His team wants to bring the focus back home.

The rest of the world might not allow it. But Joe Biden wants to return his focus to matters happening at home.

With the war in Ukraine entering its second month and continuing to dominate global headlines, White House allies are expressing concern that voters may see the president as more consumed by international affairs than domestic ones.

I’d think most consumers simply see Biden as checked out all around. I doubt they see him as consumed, when he does little during the week and heads to either his Delaware beach house or Camp David almost every single weekend.

The White House itself is keenly aware that voters’ perceptions about the economy are still likely to determine the outcome of November’s midterm elections. And as they warily watch the president’s poor poll numbers, two senior administration officials said a concerted effort is being launched to reemphasize to Americans that the president understands their pain and is trying to help.

In the coming weeks, Biden will travel more inside the country and further stress that Russia’s invasion isn’t some far-off crisis but one with deep economic ramifications in the United States.

“Voters, as sympathetic as they are to Ukraine, are getting a little fatigued,” said Celinda Lake, a veteran Democratic pollster. “And they’re wondering: We’re spending all this money abroad, but what are we spending here at home?”

They must have some internal polling about this. Whether it’s correct or not is questionable. It sure looks like Brandon will travel around trying to Blame Putin for all the economic troubles, most of which started before Russia invaded Ukraine, in order to not get blown out in November.

Lake said it was imperative that the president spend the seven months remaining before the midterms explaining his record and promising to do more. “Half of voters,” she suggested, still don’t know what Biden has accomplished to date.

That’s because he hasn’t done much of anything positive.

“They don’t know what’s in the infrastructure package. They don’t know the full extent of the rescue package. They don’t know the executive orders that he’s taken on inflation,” she said, referring to the coronavirus stimulus money sent to states, and the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law to rebuild roads, bridges and more.

The scope of Biden’s presidency will be impacted by Democrats’ ability to keep control of at least one, if not both, chambers of Congress this November. And the White House knows it needs to both hammer home Biden’s accomplishments and show Americans it is trying to do more, even at the margins.

Might not want to focus on the executive orders on inflation, since it has gotten worse, and is one of the highest in the developed world.

As it looks to refocus on domestic issues, the White House is eyeing faster, tangible actions to tackle kitchen table issues, namely inflation. This month, Biden issued executive orders allowing the use of an ethanol blend this summer to lower gas prices and to jumpstart a new regulation fixing the Affordable Care Act’s so-called family glitch, which would lower health insurance costs for millions. And late last week, the administration announced plans to resume the sale of leases for oil and gas drilling on federal lands.

The ethanol one won’t change the dynamic much, nor will the silly ACA “fix”, and there are poison pills in the oil and gas drilling order. The article then spends lots of time trying to say what Biden has done and will do, which is why his ratings are terrible. Like CNN+. And CNN.

“Democrats have one overriding political communications priority now – we have to convince voters that things are better because of our time in power,” said Simon Rosenberg, a longtime Democratic operative, who is advising campaigns and party committees to ramp up now. “If people come to believe by this summer that things are better we will be competitive this fall. If they don’t, we won’t.”

Better? Are most people looking around and saying “things are better?”