Nicholas A. Loukianoff
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Kim gives Trump sound advice and the new campaign manager is the right man but is he too late?
The Campaign Finally Begins
Trump and Biden have started talking about issues other than the coronavirus and race.
Memo to the Washington press corps: This presidential election isn’t over. Quite the opposite—
this week it began.
The headlines of late proceed from the premise that Joe Biden is on a glide path to the White
House. Stories highlight polls showing President Trump losing key swing states, even GOP
strongholds. Texas is in play! Georgia is at risk! Journalists explain that Mr. Biden is banking
money, while the Trump campaign’s leadership team is in chaos. They feature congressional race
trackers, who rate more Republicans as vulnerable. All that’s left is for Jill Biden to pick the
curtains.
There is no doubt Mr. Trump is at risk of losing. This is in part the result of the president’s
uneven response to 2020’s two big crises—the coronavirus and racial unrest. Yet as big a part is
the weirdness of a campaign cycle that has so far been dominated by only two stories. The press
has doggedly and daily blamed Mr. Trump for a novel pandemic and for violence in liberal cities,
and to ensure that the election boils down to a referendum on only those questions. The president
has too often aided the media in that sabotage.
But this isn’t the way of elections, and there’s no reason to think this dynamic will reign through
November. Surprising though it may be to CNN, Americans have concerns far beyond Arizona’s
hospital capacity or Seattle’s East Precinct. Polls show they remain focused on the issues that
traditionally define elections—jobs, taxes, health care, energy prices, trade, Supreme Court
nominees. To date, they have heard almost nothing about the candidates’ differences on these
topics.
Yet that began to change this week, with a contrast of the sort that could redefine this race. On
Tuesday Mr. Biden released his $2 trillion climate-change plan—one of the few times he’s
produced a detail on anything. It is radical—no surprise, since it is the product of a task force co-
chaired by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Mr. Biden vows to outlaw all use of coal and natural
gas to generate electricity within 15 years. He’d ban oil and gas production on federal land and
offshore. He’d drive to “zero emissions” cars. He’d apply “aggressive” new “appliance- and
building-efficiency standards.” He’d create a new “Environmental and Climate Justice Division”
of the Justice Department to mete out “jail time” to corporate officials whose businesses
“continue to pollute” communities.
Mr. Biden is promising to delete the jobs of millions of Americans—at a time of soaring
unemployment. A study by the National Ocean Industries Association finds that a ban on
offshore drilling alone would cost 200,000 jobs, damaging regional economies. Mr. Biden would
overrun the nation with solar panels, wind turbines and charging stations. Basic consumer choice
would disappear for vehicles, dishwashers, even homes. The Justice Department would become a
weapon against businessmen who run afoul of fast-changing progressive standards.
To make this happen, Mr. Biden endorsed a plan to kill the Senate filibuster, which requires 60
votes to move most legislation forward and has long served as a guardrail against drastic partisan
proposals. He joined progressives this week in calling on a prospective Democratic majority to
abolish it if Republicans don’t go along with his plans.
The Trump White House used the week to lay out a competing vision. At a UPS facility in
Georgia Wednesday, the president announced a “top-to-bottom overhaul” of the federal
environmental review process, which stands in the way of nearly every infrastructure project in
the country. Transformation of that permitting regime would clear the way for new highways,
ports, bridges, pipelines and tunnels. That would create millions of jobs, attract more business to
America and make the country more competitive. “Biden wants to massively re-regulate the
energy economy,” Mr. Trump said, drawing the contrast. “We want to get things built.”
Try as the press did to stay on virus topic, even the
New York Times was forced to admit: “With
Dueling Environmental Events, Trump and Biden Define the Race.” The president made news
with an additional contrast this week, highlighting his endorsement by the National Association
of Police Organizations, a union-backed group that in 2008 and 2012 endorsed the Obama-Biden
ticket. The Trump team is meanwhile dramatically ramping up its outreach; it’s placed more than
$140 million on bookings for future broadcast and cable TV ads. In the past week alone it has
spent $4 million on
Facebook campaigns to begin putting real issues in front of voters.
The media will attempt to deep-six as much of the substance as it can and to ignore Mr. Biden’s
radical agenda. Mr. Trump’s job is to make that evasion impossible—by using his pulpit to focus
relentlessly on the choices in this election, as well as a second-term agenda centered on
opportunity, jobs and economic growth. This week offered voters their first view of the normal
campaign dynamic. If Mr. Trump wants to win, every week until November needs to provide
more.
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