Joe Biden's Crystallizing Speech

Biden won the night, the week and made it more likely he will win the election

Maybe you did this as a kid. You dangle a string in a glass of sugary water. Then you wait. After a while, usually when you’re not looking, the water crystallizes and you have a string of beautiful rock candy.

That’s how I feel about the Biden campaign.

For the last couple of months, I, like many anxious Democrats, worried about Joe Biden. I talked with my good friend, Robb, about it several times a week. We both spent years working in the House and are very familiar with the grind of politics and campaigns. We both felt the fundamentals of this campaign favored Biden and tilted against a Trump victory. But we were worried; everything was in flux.

The State of the Union address crystallized the moment. Joltin’ Joe Biden came out swinging. In just over an hour he demonstrated his vigor, empathy and competence. He united the party, cowed the opposition and brilliantly illuminated the stark choice America faces. In just the first two minutes, Biden set the campaign agenda, citing the crucial need to defend Ukraine, speak the truth about January 6 and defeat threats to women's rights. In short: Protect Democracy and Freedom at Home and Abroad.

“President Joe Biden energetically presented a vibrant progressive agenda and repeatedly stuck it to Donald Trump,” wrote Mother Jones Washington Bureau Chief David Corn. “Yes, there were stumbles and linguistic slips, but Biden portrayed a vigor at odds with the caricatures that are constantly promoted by Trump and Biden detractors.”

Biden quoted FDR, then said: “President Roosevelt’s purpose was to wake up the Congress and alert the American people that this was no ordinary moment. Freedom and democracy were under assault in the world… My purpose tonight is to both wake up this Congress and alert the American people that this is no ordinary moment either.”

Then, after the address, his campaign swung into action. As if to answer pundits who praised the speech but counseled that this is what Biden has to do in speeches all across the country,  Biden hit the road to give speeches all across the country.

He started in swing states Pennsylvania on Friday and Georgia on Saturday. Vice-President Kamal Harris flew to Arizona to deliver the message, while dozens of Cabinet members and others surrogates fanned out to other states.

They are backed up by a $30 million ad campaign in key states over the next six weeks. (Click on the image above to watch one of the first ads.) Campaign aides say they expect to hire 350 new staff members and open 100 offices across battleground states in the next month.  

The election is eight months away and a lot could happen. It may well be the nail-biter many expect. But this week, Biden stopped the second-guessing, rallied the party, took the wraps off his carefully constructed campaign plan and impressed voters around the country. It was as good a start to a presidential campaign as anyone could want and much better than most expected.

Many of the arrows are pointing in his direction. The economy is strong and getting stronger with the benefits of high job growth and lower inflation beginning to be felt by the American public. If interest rates decline as expected, small business owners and homeowners will get relief. The administration’s policy on Israel’s war on Gaza is finally shifting, easing a core criticism, though much more must be done. The Democratic National Committee is strong, competent and flush with cash. The campaign set a fund-raising record in the first hour of Biden’s speech, then set a new one in the second hour. The Party is united, determined and - dare I say this about Democrats? - disciplined.

Veteran political strategist Simon Rosenberg (if you think I’m optimistic, you should read his Hopium Chronicles on Substack) says:

Even before his powerful State of The Union speech, the President has had his best week of polling in some time. Four new, national polls show him leading. He made meaningful gains in all of them, and all 4 had more interviews than the most recent NYT poll (you can find the polls at 538). Here they are, Biden-Trump:

• 47%-44% Kaiser Family Foundation (7 pt Biden gain since last poll)

• 51%-49% Emerson (3 pt Biden gain since last poll)

• 44%-43% Morning Consult (5 pt Biden gain over past month)

• 43%-42% TIPP (3 pt Biden gain since last poll)

“A central reason I’ve been so optimistic about us winning in November,” Rosenberg says, “is that I always believed that when it became clear to voters that it was Biden vs Trump, and the Biden campaign began in earnest, a big chunk of our wandering coalition would come home. Biden would then gain 3-4 points and open up a small but meaningful lead in national polling. It’s possible that is what we were seeing now.”

The arrows for Trump point the other way. Even with the delays in his trials granted him by his Supreme Court, he faces a grim gauntlet of criminal and civil trials for the next eight months. He has substantial financial problems and his scramble to find money to pay over a half billion dollars in fines and legal penalties are raising serious questions about who is lending him the money. The Republican National Committee has only $8 million on hand (compared to $21 million held by the DNC) and is undergoing a radical leadership transformation as the Trump family takes over the top jobs, with purges of key staff to follow. The new RNC co-chair, Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, says the committee will use its funds to pay Trump’s mounting legal bills, likely starving state and local races of the usual resources they get from the national level.

While Biden has a hugely popular agenda — with issues like health care, reproductive rights, improving education, defending Ukraine and preserving NATO getting 60 to 80 percent approval — Trump has no real agenda beyond grifting, grabbing power and staying out of jail. His white supremacy message appeals to the Christian nationalist base but not many others.

Senator Katie Britt demonstrated both the incompetence of Republicans and the limited appeal of their message with her widely mocked response to Biden on Thursday night. “It’s one of our biggest disasters ever,” an unnamed Republican strategist told the Daily Beast.

GOP operatives took a well-regarded rising star in the party, stripped her of all professional accomplishments, dressed her as a tradwife in a green silk blouse unbuttoned to prominently display her cross necklace, then put her in a kitchen where she clumsily acted out an overwrought script of grievances and false claims. It was somewhere between The Stepford Wives and The Handmaid’s Tale.

There is a long way to go. It will take everything we’ve got to defeat Trump and the corporate and foreign interests backing him and to ensure a free and fair election. But Biden and his campaign are heading in the right direction.

His speech clearly and convincingly crystalized the stakes involved and the winning strategy. He created the guideline to string together the electoral victories needed to keep the White House and the Senate and win back the House. If it works, it will be sweeter than any rock candy ever made.