President Joe Biden, left, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom
By Kerry Eleveld for Daily Kos
Daily Kos Staff
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REPUBLISHED BY:
RCalifornia Gov. Gavin Newsom delivered a messaging masterclass over the weekend on NBC's "Meet The Press," beating back questions about whether President Joe Biden, 81, is too old to serve a second term.
Yes, Donald Trump is 77. But Newsom doesn't waste a moment on that. Instead, he demonstrated how Biden's age—and the wisdom that comes with it—is the reason he has notched so many important legislative successes as president.
NBC News’ Kristen Welker posited, "Do you think it's responsible for Democrats to put [Biden] at the top of the ticket given those concerns?"
"Responsible? I revere his record," Newsom began. "What he's done in three years has been a masterclass—close to 15 million jobs, that's eight times more than the last three Republican presidents combined."
"The economy is booming, inflation is cooling," Newsom continued. "We have American manufacturing coming back home—all because of Biden's wisdom, because of his temperance, his capacity to lead in a bipartisan manner, which is an underrepresented point. And so I have great confidence moving forward. So the answer is: Absolutely—all in, in terms of the next four years."
Newsom's delivery was, quite frankly, performance art. All his points were solid, succinct, and informative. But his tone and assuredness inspired confidence not just in how he felt but also in how voters should feel.
Polls routinely suggest that Americans are more concerned about Biden's age than Trump's. But as Daily Kos has reported, that discrepancy is largely driven by the fact that Democratic voters willingly admit their concern about Biden's age, while Republican voters wouldn't dare admit the same about Trump. (Most Republican voters also view Trump as fit for office, so their sense of judgment is objectively questionable.)
Nonetheless, Democrats must accept that the age of these two candidates will be an issue in the upcoming election.
Of course, there's more than one way to combat the age issue. Another is to point out that Biden may be old, but he ain't crazy—an approach that The Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell took after Trump suggested he would let Russia do "whatever the hell they want" to America's NATO allies.
"Yeah, Biden’s old. But he doesn’t say things like this," Longwell tweeted.
But Newsom's argument works on several levels, educating the public about Biden's successes and building pride among Democrats about what Biden has accomplished—not in spite of his age but because of it. Wisdom, temperance, and bipartisan leadership are three perfect qualities to invoke as crucial to Biden's successes—because Trump has exactly none of them.
Drawing contrasts, as Longwell did, is important. But drawing contrasts that generate enthusiasm for Biden is better. It won't be good enough this cycle for Biden to simply capture anti-Trump protest votes among independents and even some Republicans. Team Biden will also have to give some voters—particularly Democrats—a reason to vote affirmatively for him.
Newsom's answer, if replicated by a wide swath of younger Biden surrogates, will inspire Democratic participation in November.
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