President Biden’s policy agenda is incredibly popular, much more popular than his opponent’s. But Biden the man? Not so much.
The question now is whom to blame for the approval gap between the president and his agenda: voters, the media or Biden himself.
Democrats have long argued that their policies are more popular than those of Republicans. In a recent blind test conducted by YouGov, that was unmistakably true. The polling organization asked Americans what they thought about major policies proposed by Biden and Donald Trump without specifying who proposed them. The idea was to see how the public perceived ideas when stripped of tribal associations.
Biden’s agenda was the winner, hands down.
Of the 28 Biden proposals YouGov asked about, 27 were supported by more people than opposed them. Impressively, 24 received support from more than 50 percent of respondents.
President is two jobs. One is policy driven. One is being a leader. All president’s have to do both, but arguably the latter is more important as president’s can leave policy to aides and congress (and formerly the federal agencies, but that’s gone now). The president is a communicator. Yes most voters like Biden policies, but they don’t know they are Biden policies because Biden does not communicate that. In fact, in many congressional districts the Dem candidates are outperforming Biden while running on the same policies. You can’t blame voters already burdened with living in this capitalist hell hole for not devoting hours into researching candidate policies.
In presidential politics, at the end of the day the buck stops with the candidate. Campaign aids and paid advertising and surrogates on TV can only do so much. You need the candidate to deliver, to speak directly to the voters, to make the case for why voters should choose them and their policies over the alternative. Biden is incapable of that.
It’s Bidens fault.
Biden is a solid administrator, but a terrible campaigner / salesman. And the older he gets, the worse he gets at the latter. He’s always been bad at it, but these days he’s extra bad at it.