Liberal Democrats warned they would wage a pressure campaign on Joe Biden if he won the White House, and they’re not waiting until Inauguration Day.
Though President Trump has declined to concede, liberals are busy needling Biden about appointing like-minded Democrats to his Cabinet and other administration posts. And they’re putting the president-elect in a bind.
Biden appears to have won more than 270 electoral votes thanks, in part, to the support and activism of more liberal Democrats who “settled” for him over Trump. But centrist Democrats, independents, and disenchanted Republicans are also members of his broad coalition.
And if both the Senate Democratic candidates running in Georgia’s runoffs are defeated in January, as history predicts, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will preside over Biden’s confirmation processes.
Republican strategist Alex Conant, who advised Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign on communications, said Biden’s apparent victory earned him political capital with Democrats.
“But that doesn’t change the fact that there are real divisions within the Democratic Party. Keeping his party unified will be an ongoing challenge for his presidency,” Conant told the Washington Examiner.
And it’s not just Republicans who foresee problems.
Democratic strategist Stefan Hankin, a pollster for former President Barack Obama who shares Biden’s more centrist approach to politics, was adamant that lawmakers, such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania, “need to kind of shut the hell up and start figuring out how to work together.” The Democrats got into a war of words over whether liberals hurt their colleagues with slogans, including “defund the police,” weakening their bargaining power.
“Because we’re Democrats, we’re morons. What did we take? Like four days, two days, for us to start infighting,” Hankin said. “I hate to even call it fighting because it’s all ridiculous. The stupidity part is both sides are correct.”
Despite Hankin’s frustrations — he compared the factions to bickering children — he was convinced Biden would assemble a team with diverse backgrounds and ideas. Biden is a consummate dealmaker and really more of a pragmatist, he said. Though he resisted one liberal request.
“I would say that the more progressive view of anyone that has had anything to do with a company or a consulting firm shouldn’t be in the Cabinet … I think you have to get over it,” he said.
SKDKnickerbocker managing director Jon Reinish downplayed the intraparty squabbling. This happens to the winning party every cycle, whether it’s jostling for a person, a piece of legislation, or a certain perspective, he said.
“He will put together the Cabinet, the administration, the White House staff, the agency staff that’s going to execute his vision,” Reinish said of Biden.
Biden’s first appointments, however, have come from his inner, centrist circle.
Last week, Biden chose longtime confidant Ron Klain as his White House chief of staff, attracting praise from Democrats across the spectrum given Klain’s reputation for at least listening to liberals. But Biden’s decision Tuesday to tap Steve Ricchetti to become a presidential counselor wasn’t so warmly welcomed. Biden’s campaign chairman, who, like Klain, was one of Biden’s chiefs of staff when he was vice president, is an ex-lobbyist. Richetti’s brother Jeff still boosts pharmaceutical companies.
Reinish didn’t consider it an issue. Instead, he cautioned Biden against making decisions to please “somebody else,” saying the president-elect had a mandate.
“If they are going to have the drama-free, leak-free, disciplined, organized, effective administration that Biden and Obama had, you’re going to tend to pick from the people who you know the best, who you trust, and who are like family to you,” he said.
NDN’s Simon Rosenberg held another opinion.
When asked whether McConnell provided political cover for Biden to select centrists, Rosenberg dismissed speculation the Kentucky Republican posed any real threat. There wasn’t precedent for McConnell to “assert some degree of ideological control over who gets in,” Rosenberg said.
“It doesn’t mean that Mitch won’t do it,” he said. “I think the question of whether somebody can get through a confirmation process is always kind of live, but it has to do with can we sell this person?”
Rosenberg advised Biden to “stay committed” to the different factions he had brought together.
“What makes coalitions work is that people get the sense that they may not win all the time, but that they win sometimes,” he said. “Every part of the family, including moderate Republicans, will probably get something out of this leadership team and the administration.”
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee and the Progressive Change Institute, an affiliate, are two of the more vocal groups pushing Biden to appoint liberals. Co-founders Adam Green and Stephanie Taylor have repeatedly reminded Biden that their energized membership proved crucial in helping him take back the White House and will be a pivotal constituency in the 2022 midterm elections.
The organizations, which aligned early with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren during the primary, handed Biden’s transition aides a list of 400 personnel recommendations, from Cabinet officials to under-secretaries, even a potential Patent and Trademark Office director, on behalf of 40 partners.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has publicly advocated to become labor secretary, doesn’t appear on their list. Vermont’s Republican Gov. Phil Scott has indicated he would name an independent replacement to caucus with Senate Democrats if he needed to fill Sanders’s seat temporarily. Republican Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker hasn’t made the same promise for Warren, who’s reportedly interested in heading up the Treasury.
