My first full emersion into debate preparation occurred in 1984 during President Reagan’s reelection campaign. Somehow these sessions have become a kind of Super Bowl in the presidential election contest.

There are four distinct time frames around which a candidate and his team strategize: the run-up to the debate; the pre-game commentary; the debate itself; and, of course the spin room spinning to tell reporters what they just witnessed.

Run-Up

Right now, a week out, we’re into the run-up. Somewhat predictably, the Biden campaign’s intention seems focused on getting under the thin skin of Donald Trump. A huge campaign ad buy reminds voters in all the close states that Trump is a convicted felon.

I get it. I just hope they don’t stick with this approach since it is not giving voters anything new to think about.

Pre-Game

The pre-game commentary is used to set the stage and to set expectations. The Trump campaign will be hard put to lower expectation with regard to their candidates performance. Just ask him. He’s the greatest debater ever.

It’s trickier for the Biden campaign. While they clearly do not want to set expectations too high, they do not want to suggest they doubt the President’s ability to engage.

Were it me, I’d suggest making every attempt to define what a successful debate would look like. And, I’d focus on substance. If President Biden makes some solid points about the economy, immigration, abortion rights and a touch of foreign policy, he will have succeeded. And, Trump will not likely go to substance; thus, the Biden team can claim Trump missed a huge opportunity to tell us what he favors.

The Debate

Neither Biden nor Trump have debated anyone in some time. That is a shared disadvantage. There is no audience; and, Trump likes to play to an audience. Also, the CNN team will reportedly utilize a kill switch on microphones if things get out of hand.

The real question is what tact does President Biden take.

Since he cannot over rant Donald Trump, I think he should bring substance to the table and, if the chance arrives, seek to humiliate. In other words go to substantive places where Trump just cannot go.

Biden could ask what the unemployment rate was for minorities when Trump left office. Ask him if he knows the number. Spoiler alert, minority unemployment was higher then than it is today.

Biden could share some content about his recent summit meeting. He could indicate he had a very meaningful conversation with the leader of Italy. Then, ask Trump if he knows the leader’s name.

No matter how much preparation the Trump team provides, it is very hard to imagine that Donald Trump will use his time to do anything other than lash out. He will hit at Hunter Biden’s conviction. He will challenge the President’s cognitive ability. He will attack the Justice Department and crooked judges.

Post-Debate Spin

In a large room near the stage where the debate occurs, numbers of prearranged Biden surrogates and Trump surrogates will be at the ready with talking points in hand BEFORE the debate even ends. iPhone technology will allow for updating, but each campaign will know what it wants to say before the debate ends.

What cannot be underestimated is the drama on stage. There is likely to be more than in past years, and you can’t sell reporters on something they did not see. I’ve always questioned the usefulness of the spin room and this year it may be of less value than ever before.

The other place the spin occurs is with the cable news channels. Anchors and commentators will be getting texts from both campaigns in real time exclaiming the brilliance of the retorts by their candidate. Again, you can’t make anyone unsee something or come to appreciate something that did not happen.

So friends, get ready for the first big event of Campaign 2024 coming at 9:00 PM EDT on June 27th from the CNN studios in Atlanta.

Oh, in case you are wondering about the unemployment statistics…according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics:

2020 / Overall unemployment: 8.1% / African Americans: 11.4% / Hispanic: 10.4%

May 2024/ Overall: 4.0% / African Americans: 6.1% / Hispanic: 5.0 %

Craig Fuller served four years in the White House as assistant to President Reagan for Cabinet Affairs, followed by four years as chief of staff to Vice President George H.W. Bush. Having been engaged in five presidential campaigns and running public affairs firms and associations in Washington, D.C., he now resides on the Eastern Shore and publishes DECADE SEVEN on Substack.

Highlights of a comprehensive Harris Poll on where Americans’ perceptions are regarding the economy

There is an old saying in Washington, D.C. that “perception is reality.”

When it comes to the economy, this describes one of two major problems facing the Biden Administration. What people think about the economy – it’s not good – establishes their thoughts on what remains the top national issue for voters in 2024. How people answer that troubling question, “Are you better off,” is based on perceptions that are mostly wrong.

And, if that’s not bad enough, the second problem makes it worse. Two out of three Americans according to the Harris survey no longer know who they can trust when it comes to economic information.

So, while the President of the United States continues to hold the most significant bully pulpit around, what he says goes to an ever doubting audience. This makes perception, to the extent it is wrong, extremely difficult to change in the time remaining between now and the Election Day in November.

I will share the survey results below, but before you read the results take two minutes and test your perception. In a very clever interactive quiz, you get to share your perceptions across a few important economic metrics. Warning: feedback is immediate!

Informative, I hope.

Here’s what the recent Harris Poll discovered (full article).

• • 55% believe the economy is shrinking, and 56% think the US is experiencing a recession, though the broadest measure of the economy, gross domestic product (GDP), has been growing.
  • 49% believe the S&P 500 stock market index is down for the year, though the index went up about 24% in 2023 and is up more than 12% this year.
  • 49% believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high, though the unemployment rate has been under 4%, a near 50-year low.
  • 72%, indicated they think inflation is increasing. In reality, the rate of inflation has fallen sharply from its post-Covid peak of 9.1% and has been fluctuating between 3% and 4% a year.
  • In April, the inflation rate went down from 3.5% to 3.4% – far from inflation’s 40-year peak of 9.1% in June 2022 – triggering a stock market rally that pushed the Dow Jones index to a record high.
  • Unemployment has also hit historic lows, wages have been going up and consumer spending has been strong.
  • In the poll, 55% think the economy is only getting worse.
  • Republicans were much more likely to report feeling down about the economy than Democrats. The vast majority of Republicans believe that the economy is shrinking, inflation is increasing and the economy is getting worse overall. A significant but smaller percentage of Democrats, less than 40%, believed the same.
  • Something both Republicans and Democrats agree on: they don’t know who to trust when it comes to learning about the economy. In both September and May, a majority of respondents – more than 60% – indicated skepticism over economic news.
  • “What Americans are saying in this data is: ‘Economists may say things are getting better, but we’re not feeling it where I live,’” said John Gerzema, CEO of the Harris Poll. “Unwinding four years of uncertainty takes time.”

This last statement is absolutely correct, but without trust and with too little time, the task for the Biden Administration remains extremely difficult.

The full article and the quiz appear in THE GUARDIAN

Craig Fuller served four years in the White House as assistant to President Reagan for Cabinet Affairs, followed by four years as chief of staff to Vice President George H.W. Bush. Having been engaged in five presidential campaigns and running public affairs firms and associations in Washington, D.C., he now resides on the Eastern Shore and publishes DECADE SEVEN on Substack.

This commentary by Craig Fuller first appeared in DECADE SEVEN.

A summit was reached this week that has never been visited before.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 40,000 for the first time in history. A record possible only because of the outlook investors have in the economy of the United States. Seems like not everyone bemoans the nation’s economy as reported daily.

How to explain this?

Into my mailbox came posts by an American historian, Heather Cox Richardson, that put a spotlight on facts seldom reported these days. By way of introduction, I should say that Professor Richardson writes one of the most widely read newsletters around, Letters from an American. Reaching over one million subscribers, here is Professor Richardson’s point of view as she describes it, “I’m a history professor interested in the contrast between image and reality in American politics.”

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts, is a phrase I’ve always found useful when people are sharing an opinion with facts wildly at odds with reality. Professor Richardson compiled a set of current economic facts that just might explain why some are more optimistic than others.

Excerpts from Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American:

About the Dow above 40,000…

This extraordinary performance means investors have confidence the Federal Reserve will get inflation under control without throwing the country into a recession.

About inflation….

Driving the hike in the stock market, most likely, is the information released…. by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Labor Department saying that inflation eased in April. Investors are guessing this makes it more likely that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates this year. 

About a just released CBO report….

….a report released yesterday from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, [is] an important addition to the news from the stock market. It concludes that the goods and services an American household consumed in 2019 were cheaper in 2023 than they were four years before, because incomes grew faster than prices over that four-year period. That finding was true for all levels of the economy.

About purchasing power….

That is, “for all income groups…the portion of household income required to purchase the same bundle of goods and services declined.” Those in the bottom 20% found that the share of their income required to purchase the same bundle dropped by 2%. For those in the top 20%, the share of their income required to purchase as they did in 2019 dropped by 6.3%. 

About employment….

These statistics come on top of unemployment below 4% for a record 27 months, and more than 15 million jobs created since Biden took office, including 789,000 in manufacturing. According to Politifact, three-quarters of those jobs represented a return to the conditions before the coronavirus pandemic, but the rest are new. 

About America’s economic recovery….

Politifact noted that it is so rare for manufacturing jobs to bounce back at all, that the only economic recovery since World War II that beats the current one was in 1949, making the recovery under the Biden-Harris administration the strongest in 72 years.

Lastly, about the stock market….

In comparison to the breathless coverage of the stock market during Trump’s administration, this milestone is getting very little coverage. Under Trump, the stock market had the highest annualized gain of any Republican president since Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s, but at 11.8%, that annualized gain was lower than the annualized return under Democratic presidents Barack Obama (12.1%) and Bill Clinton (15.9%). Biden’s annualized return passed Trump’s in April 2024, as well. 

As the saying goes….“just the facts!”

Craig Fuller served four years in the White House as assistant to President Reagan for Cabinet Affairs, followed by four years as chief of staff to Vice President George H.W. Bush. Having been engaged in five presidential campaigns and running public affairs firms and associations in Washington, D.C., he now resides on the Eastern Shore and publishes DECADE SEVEN on Substack.

The biggest winner or loser in Maryland this November won’t have his name on the ballot.

Governor Wes Moore could not have been more clear last night while speaking at Angela Alsobrooks victory celebration as she was projected to have defeated David Trone to win the contest.

Saying the “battle” had been won in the primary victory for Alsobrooks, Governor Moore declared the “war” starts today, suggesting anything short of victory for Alsobrooks is unacceptable.

Governor Moore’s all out primary support for Alsobrooks proved the determinative obstacle for David Trone who spent over $62 million of his own money to win. So, Moore has the candidate he wanted to challenge former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan who handily won the Republican primary.

While pundits are suggesting the race could favor the popular former Republican governor, I think Hogan’s path is decidedly different than anything he faced before and much more challenging.

First, Larry Hogan has never been on a ballot where Donald Trump also appears. The governor’s race is held in the off years, so Hogan ran at the top of the ticket where he clearly succeeded by pulling independent and middle of the road Democratic votes in the past.

Of course, this year, Trump will most likely be the top Republican on the ballot. The problem is that looking at primary vote counts, once again Trump did not get Republican voters out in numbers comparable to prior years. And, one out of five voters who did come out to vote in the Republican primary, voted against Trump for Nikki Haley who dropped out of the contest two months ago. Hogan must have every possible Republican voter to have any chance of victory.

Perhaps more important, former Governor Hogan has never run against the current and popular Governor, Wes Moore. Governor Moore’s determination to see Angela Alsobrooks emerge as the winner last night means he is all in for an Alsobrooks’ victory in November. And, it means more than having a strong ally in the United States Senate.

If Governor Moore succeeds in building a victory for Alsobrooks, he will earn the respect and support of his party which, by his efforts, just might hold on to its Senate majority. So, by defeating a past Maryland governor, the current Maryland governor will be catapulted to new heights in an already rapid political climb; and, he will do it without his name on the ballot.

Craig Fuller served four years in the White House as assistant to President Reagan for Cabinet Affairs, followed by four years as chief of staff to Vice President George H.W. Bush. Having been engaged in five presidential campaigns and running public affairs firms and associations in Washington, D.C., he now resides on the Eastern Shore and publishes DECADE SEVEN on Substack.

Here come the Iowa Caucuses.

Curious minds ask, will they really matter?

Not all that much based on the past 20+ years.

Since 1972, Iowa has been holding some version of the caucuses. People must actually show up at neighborhood locations and declare their support for the primary candidates. Only Iowans may participate. The results determine to whom Iowa’s forty delegates go.

In the next couple of weeks, a massive effort will be underway to get supporters to turn out to the gatherings held on January 15th. During this same period, hours of news commentary will interpret the meaning of it all. They’ll ask if Donald Trump is going to win by a substantial enough margin or not. In Iowa, a win could be a loss for the front runner. People will be ready to write-off Ron DeSantis if he can’t come in second. And, any respectable finish for Nikki Haley can only suggest new momentum.

There is just one little problem.

If the Iowa caucuses for Republican candidates counted all that much, then we would be reading about President Mike Huckabee. He won in 2008. Or, how about President Rick Santorum, now a frequent cable news commentator? He won the Iowa caucuses in 2012. And, then we have the administration of President Ted Cruz who won in Iowa in 2016.

Of course, none of them capitalized on their Iowa victories to go on to win the presidency.

However, political careers do go on after Iowa. Former President George H.W. Bush won the Iowa caucus in 1980 before withdrawing from the presidential campaign. He became President Reagan’s Vice President and went on to win the presidency in 1988. But, guess what. That year in Iowa he finished behind Bob Dole and Pat Robertson. I was there and it was painful.

So, as political entertainment, Iowa is right up there as we start the 2024 election year. As a predictor of how things will end, it’s not all that reliable.

Stay tuned for what happens when voters cast ballots in New Hampshire on January 23rd and in the South Carolina on February 24th. Until then, I’m sure Al From and I will have a thing or two to say each Thursday afternoon. I mean, what else is there to talk about?

Craig Fuller served four years in the White House as assistant to President Reagan for Cabinet Affairs, followed by four years as chief of staff to Vice President George H.W. Bush. Having been engaged in five presidential campaigns and run public affairs firms and associations in Washington, D.C., he now resides on the Eastern Shore.