When the best politics must be about the past

With a nothing-doing Congress, Biden's accomplishments are behind him. Trump's unprecedented legal woes will force his 2024 campaign to be about the chaos that was -- rather than what could be.

John Cornyn, the Republican senator from Texas, uttered the quiet part out loud the other day, when describing a phone call with Mitch McConnell, who remains on the Senate DL list as he recovers from a fall in early March.

“I told him not to be in a big hurry,” Cornyn recounted, “because we’re not doing anything here.”

He isn’t wrong.

Congress is out of town again this week – off on another two-week recess.

But would it matter much if they were meandering under the Capitol dome as an early whiff of summer temperatures puncture April’s blossoms?

The Democratic-led Senate isn’t trying to move any weighty legislation right now, knowing full well its doomed fate if it reaches the Republican-commanded House. Speaker Kevin McCarthy faces a double-barreled barricade on anything he can clear out of his chamber. Even in the unlikely instance a GOP House bill earned a Senate stamp of approval, it would still require President Biden’s signature. 

House Republican oil drilling legislation that includes a rollback of Biden’s climate policies is the most prescient example of this predicament. It ain’t going anywhere – except the inside of its own party press releases to say … something… has been done to beat back Biden’s build back better.

Truth is, we’re sitting in a legislative dead zone. For awhile.

It’s essentially what Americans asked for in casting their votes for divided government in last November’s midterm elections.

So what’s a party to do when its policy aims are hamstrung by a recalcitrant legislative branch?

For Democrats in 2023, it’s to go home and sell the goods from the first two years of the Biden administration.

Crane back — and hard.

The glass-half-full mantra declares that politics is about the future, but Biden’s own re-election is much more tethered to Democrats’ ability to explain the past.

"I'm focused on 2024, when we will take the House back,” said Florida Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, making no effort to shield her political aims for this session in the minority. “In the meantime, my speeches, my press releases, my press conferences, my committee work will be about bragging about what this president has done."

Meaning, all the dollars they OK’d in 2021 and 2022 for bridges and semiconductors and climate subsidies and tax credits and Medicaid expansion.

“The idea that much of our focus this term is going to be realizing the benefits and achieving the aspirations of the legislation passed last term is absolutely on target,” Illinois Democratic Congressman Brad Schneider told me in his office in the Cannon Building on a recent morning.

The challenge is they are playing catch-up and pitching leafs of details of jargon-heavy bills like THE INFLATION REDUCTION ACT to a weary public still feeling price hikes amid a wage crunch.

The sheer number of grab bag treats in the $700 billion mega INFLATION REDUCTION bill has made it difficult for Democrats to break down and explain in a simple, tangible slogan.

Insulin patients for Joe?

Eh, maybe?

There’s perhaps a kernel of truth in the copout that Biden’s bills are too big to explain.

“You could almost argue that President Biden, this last Congress, was almost too successful,” professed Rep. Lori Trahan, a Massachusetts Democrat.  

~ Listen: Lori Trahan on the burden of Biden’s success ~

That’s one clever way to spin it.

Or you could contend that Democrats have proven to be lousy marketers of their legislative triumphs. Biden’s approval rating has basically been stuck at 40% for months on end, with no single event able to shake that stubborn sense of suspended mediocrity.  

~ Read: The Permanent Unpopularity of the American President ~

POTUS is trying. He’s galloping around the country to remind people of the billions about to drop into their laps, due to Democrats’ run of success that overcame political odds and deep doubts and most crucially, Joe Manchin.

On Monday, it was a power generation plant in Minnesota, which will begin manufacturing electrolyzers to help produce clean American hydrogen – for the very first time (!)

Electrolyzers.

Sounds pretty important to reduce our carbon footprint over time. Seems like it’ll produce new, sustainable jobs.

But damn – electrolyzers – that’s hard to make sexy, or print on a campaign placard or win a headline on the New York tabs.

(Remember, the story must compete with “TRUMP has been indicted” … Trump has XXX, etc… etc…)

But again, they are out there.

Like Biden, House Democrats have fanned out in their districts trying to sell these invisible earmarked dollars.

Rep. Norma Torres, a California Democrat, even skipped the House Democratic retreat to prioritize being present in her district to prepare her communities for the deluge of money. She’s happy