Biden Hits the Road to Sell His Agenda

Playbook: “Biden will pause the intra-party diplomacy after the meeting with moderates and fly to a swing district in Michigan to promote his agenda.”

“Administration officials have also been exasperated that BBB has been defined by its price tag rather than its (mostly popular) component parts, and hope the trip will begin to change that.”

“Our ears perk up when we hear these accounts of how the president will use the bully pulpit to rally the public behind his agenda. Most politicians want to believe that it’s possible to do that. But there’s a decades-long history of research that shows … it almost never works.”

“In fact, it often backfires, because a big presidential policy speech can sometimes serve to do more to harden the opposition against his policy than to persuade voters to change their minds.”