OPINION | This article contains commentary that reflects the author's opinion.
White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt acknowledged the strong economic recovery under President Biden but noted the challenge of communicating that to the public.
He drew parallels to the 2012 reelection campaign when average viewers watched more entertainment than news.
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough asked, “Ben, how frustrating is it for you, we’ll just say for you, personally, that you’ve got these numbers, you’ve got — and the numbers are extraordinary, if you compare them, not only to our allies in Europe, but people who consider themselves to be our enemies in Beijing and Moscow, the numbers are over the top great compared to most other countries across the world?”
LaBolt said Biden is taking his case directly to voters through extensive travel and a variety of event formats, from large rallies to intimate family meetings.
LaBolt stressed no one takes reelection for granted and Biden is maintaining a vigorous campaign schedule of multiple events per day, radio appearances targeting key constituencies, and interviews with major media outlets to make his case and record known ahead of the 2022 midterms.
LaBolt said, “There’s no doubt that here in the United States we’ve seen the strongest economic recovery of anywhere on the planet, and certainly one of the fastest coming out of what could have been a very significant, very long-term recession if the President didn’t make the policy decisions that he did, passing things like the American Rescue Plan. Look, we’ve come out of a difficult time, a pandemic, a global supply chain crisis. The President put in motion this recovery. But I heard you all talking about the Obama-Biden re-elect in 2012 and comparisons to that. Well, I was the press secretary for that effort.”
“I was sitting in Chicago. And the moment we’re at right now reminds me of that moment, where you spend a year re-connecting with your supporters across the country, and then, starting with the State of the Union Address, you have the chance to go make your case to the country. And the average person across the country — in 2020, for persuadable voters, the number one television show that they watched was ‘The Bachelor,’ right? People are busy in their lives. They’re not watching the news throughout the day. And so, we have to be creative about how we reach people,” he said.
He added, “The President’s taking his case on the road. Just in the past two weeks, he’s been to Arizona and Michigan and Wisconsin and Georgia and New Hampshire and Nevada and Texas. And he’s making his case about his record, what he’s done, his plan for the future, lowering the cost of housing, for example, building these semiconductor plants. And he’s in big settings and small settings, sitting down with a family in Saginaw, MI, talking about their daily lives.”
“And look, it’s going to be a big year. No one here, no one at the campaign takes anything for granted. The President is certainly doing multiple events a day, talking to key constituencies. He’s calling into black radio multiple times a week. This week, he called into Spanish radio. He sat down with the largest Spanish-speaking television network. So, that’s the pace at which he’s attacking these things,” he said.
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