The “Scrum” Is Almost Over. The Campaign Starts Thursday With the SOTU

All that’s happened for months, and even Super Tuesday will take a backseat come Thursday, March 7 when President Biden appears before a joint session of Congress to deliver the State of the Union address. This by the way is the latest this event has taken place in ninety years. It’s a given that after Tuesday Trump will be the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party. It’s been assumed all along he’d have the delegates needed to lock it up on March 5 and he will. So it will be “official” despite primaries yet to come. Biden vs. Trump.

If you’re wondering about the title picture it’s what’s called a Scrum in Rugby. Players from the opposing teams interlock heads and their arms around their teammates waiting for the ball to be fed into the center. Except in practice the team who’s player feeds in the ball tend to give his/her (women play too) an edge – that team gets the ball something like ninety percent of the time. If you’ve ever watched it it’s quite the struggle for position to be able to get control and pop the ball out to one of your “backs” to start advancing towards the goal.  And that is what I mean when I say all up until now and even Tuesday has been a “political scrum.”  Come Wednesday, Biden gets the chance to feed in the ball and have it pop out to him and the Democratic “side.”

It’s a grand, and massive opportunity and if you’re like me you remember last year when the President gave a rock-star worthy performance. Even maneuvered the GOP into having to sign off on one of  his priorities, right there live on national TV.  Seeing an opening and doing an on-the-spot bit of improvisation. I for one have my fingers crossed  he’ll do it again. Maybe even more than once. Some in the GOP have worried about that very thing. In fact I’ve seen a couple of articles about certain Congress Critters pressing Speaker Johnson to rescind the invitation to Biden to speak. (For those who don’t know or have forgotten the Speaker must formally invite a President to deliver a speech, any speech from the podium of the House Chamber)

However, the speech is on and the GOP has even chosen someone for the “Official Response” which often has been a career crippler if not killer.  The stakes couldn’t be higher. That’s likely why it was Vice-President Kamala Harris down in Selma today to speak for the administration on the anniversary of “Bloody Sunday”, that appalling attack on those who tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge to march to Birmingham to press for the right to vote.  Biden is practicing, and working with his team to perfect Thursday’s speech.

Naturally there is considerable speculation about how things will go down. And plenty of suggestions. For example MSNBC says the President should rework the format we’ve grown accustomed to. For starters, make it like the Jan. 6 Committee and instead of speaking for an hour interject his speech with video of others making some of the points. The idea is a change of pace and using people who will “connect” with two key voting blocks. Young people who this year don’t seem nearly as inclined to vote as they were in 2018, 2020 and 2022. The other is older voters, senior citizens who are the most reliable bloc of voters.

The MSNBC article explains things in clear terms:

On nearly every issue both our generations care about — from climate change to the burden of student loans to reducing gun violence, improving our stature in the world order, and securing voting rights at home — Biden and his administration have delivered. Their agenda for a second term matches the values of these groups.

But that doesn’t matter unless the message gets through, and more messaging to television viewers and newspaper readers about the facts is not the answer for either group. Instead, the message must be delivered in a way that voters from both our generations will hear, believe, and feel matters to their lives.

They go on to note how with younger voters in particular a TV address, even spectacle like we’ll see Thursday simply won’t be enough. That’s where their suggestions about using a J6 Committee style approach come from.  If Biden and his team have been working on anything like that I’m sure we’d have heard about it. After all it would have to be coordinated with people over on Capitol Hill so Speaker Johnson would know all about it which means journalists would too. So don’t count on that. However something else they suggested, getting items out on social media platforms in real time and afterward, and using people that will resonate with voters, especially young ones can happen. And frankly should.

CNN also weighed in (so have others) about both the opportunities for President Biden and referencing how, if he can repeat what he did last year set the tone for the what will seem never ending months of the campaign yet to come. From CNN:

Again, show — don’t tell. And this week, Biden will have the opportunity to do just that. On Thursday, he takes center stage at the State of the Union, the perfect vehicle to show his vigor and mental acuity to the American people. With the nation watching, the president can mollify any concerns over his age or cognitive skills while delivering a bold, powerful and at least occasionally amusing address.

That’s what Biden did with great success last year. His 2023 State of the Union speech was a master class in which he perfectly handled GOP hecklers.

When GOP lawmakers like Marjorie Taylor Green and others booed Biden after he stated that some Republicans wanted to cut Social Security and Medicare, he didn’t become flustered. Instead, he addressed the hecklers directly, saying, “So folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right?” This prompted a loud cheer from even Republicans.

Biden responded, “We’ve got unanimity,” adding jokingly, “I enjoy conversion.” A CNN flash poll found that 72% of those watching had a positive view of the speech.

CNN goes on to say that same combination of grasp of policy and wit is what Biden needs to show again Thursday. They also noted Biden’s talk show quip about his and Trump’s closeness of age and how Trump couldn’t seem to remember his own wife’s name. (Remember Trump’s meltdown over that?) The point is that President Biden still has a sharp wit and can come up with something “in the moment.” The article goes on to say:

After the laughs died down, Biden pivoted to more substantive issues, dismissing age as a major impediment to doing the job of president. “It’s about how old your ideas are,” he said before lambasting Trump. “Look, this is a guy who wants to take us back. He wants to take us back on Roe v. Wade. He wants to take us back on a whole range of issues that are — 50, 60 years, they’ve been solid American positions.”

That’s the perfect approach: Biden delivered a joke addressing his age then quickly turned the focus of the discussion to issues that will help Democrats win at the ballot box, such as protecting reproductive freedom. By contrast, Trump has frequently bragged about terminating Roe v. Wade, which for five decades protected a woman’s right to abortion access.

So yes, Biden has the ability to use self-depreciation and wit to score points and he should do so Thursday. However, as with any SOTU he needs to lay out a clear and bold vision. And do so in a way that even lazy azzed journalists will have talking points with which to frame stories. Can Biden feed the proverbial ball into the scrum, position himself to receive it when it pops out and do some broken field running towards the goal line? We shall see.

However I’ll end where I began. Everything prior to Thursday has been/is nothing more than an old-fashioned rugby scrum. Opponents locked together pushing for an advantage in position to gain control of the ball.  Let’s all hope the President has some magic left in those political legs. I’m betting he does. Especially if he lets Dark Brandon out for a romp but that’s something I’ll talk about in the days ahead.