President Joe Biden launched his reelection campaign with a video and a TV ad – but that doesn’t mean his bide to stay in the White House will consist only of a low-key ‘Rose Garden Strategy,’ one of his top advisors says.
‘Nobody loves working union hall, a diner, a garage a fire company more than Joe Biden. He struggled with how little he was able to travel in ’20. I mean, it was almost perfect agony, watching him, you know, the night that he was declared the president-elect in Delaware,’ Biden campaign co-chair Sen. Chris Coons told DailyMail.com.
‘I mean, like, here’s a guy who gets energy out of diving into crowd, so I expect to see him campaign robustly,’ he said.
But on a day when Biden was, in fact, holding an event in the White House Rose Garden with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, Coons indicated that fulfilling the job of president would be an implicit part of Biden’s reelection.
He never promised you a Rose Garden: President Joe Biden will ‘campaign robustly,’ says campaign co-chair Sen. Chris Coons. He said it was ‘agony’ for Biden to be kept off the trail in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic
‘But I also expect him I mean he takes the job of being President very seriously. I expect him to do a lot of being President. That is also in my view, the best way to run for reelection was to show what you’re getting done as president.’
Former President Jimmy Carter used the ‘Rose Garden Strategy’ tag as a pejorative to criticize incumbent Gerald Ford of capitalizing on the perks of office. In Biden’s case, using the White House allows him to both stress his accomplishments and issue new executive orders, diminish his rivals, while allowing the candidate, 80, to stay off the campaign trail and avoid opportunities for gaffes.
Potential rematch rival Donald Trump mocked Biden even Monday for being ‘in the basement’ in 2020, and accused him of using the campaing video to avoid blunders. ‘This way he can do it four or five times so he gets it right,’ said Trump.
Biden’s campaign launch week hasn’t included a political event, although he did speak to the powerful North America’s Building Trades Unions group in D.C. Tuesday.
To pull it all off, Biden is going to need money, and he has already assembled a team of boosters including Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Biden’s last campaign broke the $1 billion barrier, and senior Democrats are saying this effort could equal or surpass it.
But Coons doesn’t yet have his marching order: He says Biden phoned him 20 seconds before he was set to go live on the air with MSBNC’s Andrea Mitchell the day of Biden’s campaign announcement.
Vice president Kamala Harris held an event at Howard University Tuesday night, and Biden spoke to a union in D.C., but has yet to hold a political event since his announcement
Staying in the White House lets Biden use the power of the office, while avoiding gaffes and minimizing long haul travel
‘Nobody loves working union hall, a diner, a garage a fire company more than Joe Biden,’ said Sen. Chris Coons, who said Biden would not be employing a ‘Rose Garden Strategy’ of staying put
Biden took a pair of questions in the Rose Garden Wednesday, after failing to hold a formal press conference on his trip to Ireland this month
‘I’m like: Mr. President, I’m live in 20, in 19, in 18, I’m going to hang up now.
‘He’s like, “Just calling to say you’re doing a great job,”‘ Coons said, mimicking his former Senate colleague from Delaware.
He said Biden has not provided a target number for how much needs to be raised, as he prepares to face off against Donald Trump or another Republican.
This will be a robust and hard fought campaign. And I think all of us are going to need to pitch in with every possible way that we can support and contribute to the reelection of our president,’ he said.
‘We don’t know who the Republicans are going to put up, but remember, this is not a coronation, it’s a contrast,’ said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), after Biden opened his campaign video with a shot of January 6.
‘We know that MAGA has an incredible influence on the Republican Party,’ he said.
‘I’m frustrated by the cost of campaigns. I wish they didn’t cost anywhere near this,’ he said. ‘I just hope there’s a lot of presidential debates and a minimal amount of trying to be cute about how you spend campaign monies,’ he said, referencing debates between the two major party nominees.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke about the money battle shaping up, hours after he announced he would support Biden and would seek to try to stop Trump, whom he called a ‘right-wing demagogue.’
‘Of course it will be a big money campaign. Look, we have a corrupt political system. There are super PACs controlled by billionaires who can spend as much money as they want. Am I concerned about it? I think it’s outrageous, and I think it has to be reformed,’ he told DailyMail.com.
Asked if he was prepared to use his email list to help Biden, Sanders responded: ‘I have not thought about it.’
Even on a crisp spring day within the confines of the the Rose Garden, which is steps from the Oval Office, Biden couldn’t avoid a question about his age at a press conference with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.
‘With regard to age, I can’t even say – I guess how old I am, I can’t even say the number, it doesn’t register with me,’ he said.