RACINE: Andrea Dyess, 57, was already a Joe Biden fan, but after meeting him in her neighborhood of Racine, Wisconsin, in May, she has been talking to anyone who will listen about giving him four more years in the White House.
Dyess was on a street corner with her two young grandchildren trying to catch a glimpse of Biden’s motorcade, when a campaign worker invited her to join the president at a nearby community center.
Biden listened attentively as she told him about surviving cancer and how the Affordable Care Act, which Biden helped push as Barack Obama’s vice president, saved her life.
“I told him, just keep fighting the fight,” she said,
Since then, Dyess says she has shared her “once in a lifetime moment” directly with dozens of friends and relatives, at a church revival, at her grandkids’ school and on her neighborhood walks. She’s also been urging her 20-year-old son’s friends to register to vote.
Campaign officials say the encounter is exactly what they are hoping to replicate around the country with a series of small-scale campaign events.
Biden, 81, has spent decades honing his ‘retail’ politician style of wooing voters. Big, thundering speeches have never been his style but he lights up when meeting people one-on-one, thumping shoulders, hugging strangers and FaceTiming people’s moms.
In sharp contrast to the
mass rallies
hosted by Republican rival Donald Trump — heavy on stagecraft with classic rock playlists, anti-immigration rhetoric and mostly white audiences — Biden meets with small, more diverse groups of voters for personal conversations.
Those
smaller events
are arranged with friendly invitation-only audiences, and often publicized only at the last minute to avoid pro-Palestinian protests that have dogged Biden’s appearances for months.
It’s part of a broader campaign strategy that includes celebrity endorsements, a slew of political surrogates, traditional ads and official events to showcase Biden’s support for NATO, infrastructure funding and other key policies.
The campaign is under heavy pressure as Biden wobbles in the polls.
Despite strong economic growth and stock market highs, his approval ratings are near two-year lows, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed, and other polls show Trump ahead in several of the battleground states that Biden narrowly won in 2020.
Campaign and Democratic party officials say that is in part because voters are still smarting from higher prices and don’t know enough about what Biden has done to reduce costs of prescription drugs and other essentials, or his backing of unions fighting for higher wages.
They say US media is too “fractured” to be an effective way of reaching voters on these issues. So they’re enlisting friend networks, super-surrogates, small business groups, podcasts, new media and TikTok stars who they hope will talk issues and policies as they try to convince millions of Americans to back Biden in November.
Charles Franklin, who directs polling at Wisconsin’s Marquette University Law School, said that because Biden doesn’t have “groupies” like Trump, these smaller events are a better bet. “If they both got the same stadium and did back to back events, [I’m] pretty confident that Trump would have the bigger turnout for that,” Franklin said.
Republicans, who ridiculed Biden’s 2020 campaign for being run “from his basement,” say the lack of big Biden rallies in 2024 is further evidence of his physical and political fragility.
Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, described Biden’s strategy as “tiny, staged, 15-minute snooze-fests,” and said “Team Trump’s campaign events will continue to get bigger and better.”
Before events like the one in Racine, the campaign combs its databases for local people who care about a specific issue Biden’s policies have addressed or are part of a demographic he hopes to reach, and invites them to meet Biden. Sometimes they find unexpected guests like Dyess.
The interactions are filmed by the campaign for YouTube video and campaign ads, and followed by local and national media. Ideally, participants make their own social media posts and those go viral, reaching more voters, the campaign says.
“One of the strategies around any visit is not just to have the perfect room and create the conditions for serendipity, but also to make sure that what happens in the room doesn’t stay in the room,” said Ben Wikler, head of Wisconsin’s Democratic Party.
In Milwaukee in March, for example, Biden met 9-year-old Harry Abramson, who had written to Biden about his stutter.
Biden, who stuttered as a child, shared his strategy for dealing with difficult words. The interaction was picked up by the local Fox affiliate and other TV stations, digital and print media, and Biden’s campaign put it on Facebook and other accounts. It went viral, bouncing around chat rooms, TikTok and Reddit.
“Grandpa’s gonna Grandpa. Imagine telling your friends you got speech lessons from the president of the United States,” one Reddit user wrote under a video of the interaction on “Made Me Smile,” a group with 9.5 million members.
Biden visited the Fitts’ family home in North Carolina in January, part of a ‘kitchen table’ visit to regular families in swing states. Afterward, teenaged Christian Fitts posted a video on TikTok showing the President admiring school photos on his refrigerator and sharing french fries at the kitchen table.
The post got over one million “likes” and thousands of comments that attracted millions more views. Many were incredulous, rather than outright endorsements of Biden. “HIM JUST STANDING AT THE FRIDGE IS SENDING ME” one user wrote. Nearly 50,000 people liked the comment.
Tracking the digital impact of this strategy is difficult, political experts say. New tools to track TikTok content are still not reliable, most Facebook posts are private, and there’s no way to know how many of those who comment will actually vote.
Teddy Goff, co-founder of marketing firm Precision Strategies, believes the smaller events are a smart play.
“They’re going to wind up in the local news, local newspaper, local TV, and in all likelihood, will get seen by more people than might have been to that Trump rally,” said Goff, digital director of former President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, referring to an April rally by Trump in Green Bay that drew a crowd of 3,200.
Relying on individuals to share the Biden message can be unpredictable.
Sheree Robinson, a Black mother of five from Racine who says funding from Biden’s American Rescue Plan helped her earn her a High School Equivalency Diploma, was invited to ride in Biden’s limousine during his May Wisconsin visit.
She posted a video on Facebook showing her smiling next to a bemused-looking Biden, as he gets detailed instructions on what to expect at the next event. In her comment, she used an obscenity to tout herself as a “big ... deal,” without any praise of Biden.
Later, however, she called into a local radio program to share what she called an “awesome” experience, and plugged Biden’s policy that helped her get a degree. The Wisconsin Democratic party is featuring her in digital ads it will use around the state.
Social media tends to embrace more negative or awkward moments, like a stumble or fall, Goff noted, rather than a tiny event like the recent one in Racine.
Biden’s campaign is outspending Trump’s on digital media in Wisconsin, according to an analysis by Priorities USA. It spent $2.2 million on digital ads in the state alone since January, compared to $1,500 spent by Trump.
So far, though, a FiveThirtyEight compilation of Wisconsin polls still shows Trump with a slight lead in the state.
Biden campaign taps friend groups, social media, with unpredictable results
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Biden campaign taps friend groups, social media, with unpredictable results
- Biden listened attentively as she told him about surviving cancer and how the Affordable Care Act, which Biden helped push as Barack Obama’s vice president, saved her life
8 arrested after gruesome murder of Indian politician
NEW DELHI: Eight people were arrested in India on Saturday for the murder of a politician who championed the rights of lower-caste Indians, police said.
K. Armstrong, the state boss of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), was hacked to death with machetes and sickles near his home in the southern city of Chennai on Friday night.
Six men traveling on motorbikes attacked Armstrong while he was “chatting with friends and supporters” near his home in the Tamil Nadu state capital, the Indian Express newspaper reported.
The men reportedly escaped before anyone could intervene.
Several of Armstrong’s supporters took to the streets later in the evening to protest his assassination and demand justice.
Senior Chennai police officer Asra Garg said eight suspects were being interrogated after a “preliminary investigation.”
Mayawati, the national head of Armstrong’s BSP, who uses one name, said the attack was “highly deplorable and condemnable.”
“The state government must punish the guilty,” she said in a post on social media platform X.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin also urged police to speedily conclude the investigation.
“Armstrong’s assassination is shocking and deeply saddening,” he said.
Airports, Wall Street and Olympics in crosshairs of climate activists
- Last 12 months have been the hottest ever, with swathes of world blanketed in extreme heat
- Campaigners say they have heavy-polluting corporations and business interests in their sights
PARIS: Climate activists in the United States and Europe are planning protests at airports, banks and the Olympic Games in a summer of stunts they have defended as necessary even if their tactics differ.
From blocking highways to spray painting jets and the megaliths at Stonehenge, and throwing food at artworks, some climate activists have turned to more provocative tactics since the Covid-19 pandemic put an abrupt end to the mass marches spurred by Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future movement.
The last 12 months have been the hottest ever recorded and with swathes of the world blanketed in extreme heat, campaigners have heavy-polluting corporations and business interests in their sights.
A22 Network, an alliance of activist groups committed to non-violent protest, said it was planning to disrupt airports in eight countries over the northern hemisphere summer.
Protests are planned in the UK, Austria, Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, US, Scotland and Norway, UK-based activists from the alliance told AFP.
Global aviation is responsible for around 2.5 percent of global carbon emissions, more than the annual carbon footprint of Brazil and France combined.
“Our resistance will put the spotlight on the heaviest users of fossil fuels and call everyone into action with us,” Just Stop Oil, one of the groups that embraced more controversial forms of protests, said in a statement.
UK police said they pre-emptively arrested 27 supporters from Just Stop Oil before the protest had even begun under laws that make it illegal to conspire to disrupt national infrastructure.
But Gabriella Ditton, a spokesperson for the group, said the arrests hadn’t deterred them.
“While we face the massive crisis that we are in, we can’t stop,” she told AFP.
They are demanding governments sign the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, which seeks a halt to the expansion of fossil fuels and the phasing out of coal, oil and gas.
In the US, activists have been targeting Wall Street and barricading the entrances to major banks and firms that finance, insure and invest in fossil fuel companies.
Organizers of “The Summer of Heat” campaign have vowed “joyful, relentless non-violent direct action to end fossil fuel financing” over the coming months.
Notably in Europe, Extinction Rebellion (XR), once notorious for shutting down bridges over the Thames River in London, have shifted their main focus from mass civil disobedience to building an inclusive grassroots movement.
This summer, they are calling on governments in the UK and France to establish citizen assemblies on climate and nature, while picketing the companies insuring the fossil fuel industry.
Gail Bradbrook, XR’s co-founder, told AFP their new-look approach to climate activism strived “to reach more mainstream folks” and do “the deeper work of local organizing.”
They are, however, planning “mass occupations” over the summer — including one at the start of the Olympic Games opening in Paris on 26 July.
Organizers in France say this could last several days but would be “more visible than disruptive,” but have not offered further planning details.
Which approach is best at grabbing attention — and which is better at driving change — has been the subject of debate, particularly following polarizing stunts targeting famous landmarks.
When two Just Stop Oil activists threw orange cornflour on Stonehenge in June “they got a heck more media attention than by spraying paint on airfields,” said Dana Fisher, a sociologist at American University in Washington DC.
The goal of these “shock” actions “is to make people mad,” Fisher said. The more people talked about the protest, the more they discussed the climate issue, she added.
Several studies in the UK and Germany showed that public concern about climate change stayed the same — or even increased — after acts of civil disobedience even if most people were unsupportive of such stunts.
“Historically, there is substantial evidence that shows that the radical flank drives support for the cause and moderate factions,” said Fisher.
But between “glueing yourself to something, blocking a bank or throwing soup, which is more effective, we do not know yet,” she added.
For Jamie Henn, co-founder of campaign group 350.org and director of Fossil Free Media, “confrontational tactics work best when they’re confronting the source of the problem.”
“Mainstreaming the idea that we can finally go fossil free needs to be a top priority for the climate movement,” he said.
Laura Thomas-Walters, a social scientist at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, said political change was achieved “by targeting the people of power propping up the status quo, and we need to do it in a sustained way.”
Biden dismisses age questions in interview as he tries to salvage reelection effort
- The 81-year-old Biden made it through the 22-minute interview without any major blunders
MADISON, Wisconsin: President Joe Biden, fighting to save his endangered reelection effort, used a highly anticipated TV interview Friday to repeatedly reject taking an independent medical evaluation that would show voters he is up for serving another term in office while blaming his disastrous debate performance on a “bad episode” and saying there were “no indications of any serious condition.”
“Look, I have a cognitive test every single day,” Biden told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, referring to the tasks he faces daily in a rigorous job. “Every day, I have that test. Everything I do. You know, not only am I campaigning, but I’m running the world.”
The 81-year-old Biden made it through the 22-minute interview without any major blunders that would inflict further damage to his imperiled candidacy, but it appeared unlikely to fully tamp down concerns about his age and fitness for another four years and his ability to defeat Donald Trump in November.
It left Biden in a standoff against a not-insignificant faction of his party with four months to go until Election Day, and with just weeks until the Democratic National Convention. The drawn-out spectacle could benefit Biden’s efforts to remain in the race by limiting the party’s options to replace him. But it also could be a distraction from vital efforts to frame the 2024 race as a referendum on Trump.
During the interview, Biden insisted he was not more frail than earlier in his presidency. He said he undergoes “ongoing assessment” by his personal doctors and they “don’t hesitate to tell me” if something is wrong.
“Can I run the 100 in 10 flat? No. But I’m still in good shape,” Biden said.
As for the debate, “I didn’t listen to my instincts in terms of preparing,” Biden said.
Biden suggested that Trump’s disruptions — from just a few feet away — had flustered him: “I realized that, even when I was answering a question and they turned his mic off, he was still shouting and I let it distract me. I’m not blaming it on that. But I realized that I just wasn’t in control.”
At times, Biden rambled during the interview, which ABC said aired in full and without edits. At one point, he started to explain his debate performance, then veered to a New York Times poll, then pivoted to the lies Trump told during the debate. Biden also referred to the midterm “red wave” as occurring in 2020, rather than 2022.
Asked how he might turn the race around, Biden argued that one key would be large and energetic rallies like the one he held Friday in Wisconsin. When reminded that Trump routinely draws larger crowds, the president laid into his opponent.
“Trump is a pathological liar,” Biden said, accusing Trump of bungling the federal response to the COVID pandemic and failing to create jobs. “You ever see something that Trump did that benefited someone else and not him?”
The interview, paired with a weekend campaign in battleground Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, was part of Biden’s rigorous effort to course correct from his rocky debate performance. But internal party frustrations continue to fester, with one influential Democratic senator working on a nascent push to encourage the president to exit the race and Democrats quietly chatting about where they would go next if the president drops out — or what it would mean if he stays in.
“It’s President Biden’s decision whether or not he remains in the race. Voters select our nominee and they chose him,” said California Rep. Ro Khanna, a member of the Biden campaign’s national advisory board that works as a gathering of his top surrogates. “Now, he needs to prove to those voters that he is up to the job and that will require more than just this one interview.”
One Democrat who watched said they found Biden to be still shaky under controlled conditions and predicted more will call on him to leave the race.
Still, in Wisconsin, Biden was focused on proving his capacity to serve another term. When asked whether he would halt his campaign, he told reporters he was “completely ruling that out” and said he is “positive” he could serve another four years. At a rally in front of hundreds of supporters he acknowledged his subpar debate performance but insisted, “I am running, and I’m going to win again.”
While private angst among Democratic lawmakers, donors and strategists has been running deep since the debate, most in the party have held public fire as they wait to see if the president can restore confidence with his weekend travel and his handling of the interview. Top Biden campaign officials were texting lawmakers encouraging them to refrain from public comments about the situation and give the president a chance to respond, according to a Democrat granted anonymity to discuss the situation.
To that end, Sen. Mark Warner reached out to fellow senators throughout this week to discuss whether to ask Biden to exit the race, according to three people familiar with the effort who requested anonymity to talk about private conversations. The Virginia Democrat’s moves are notable given his chairmanship of the Senate Intelligence Committee and his reputation as a lawmaker who is supportive of Biden and has working relationships with colleagues in both parties. Warner’s effort was first reported by The Washington Post.
The strategy remains fluid. One of the people with knowledge of Warner’s effort said there are enough Senate Democrats concerned enough about Biden’s capacity to run for reelection to take some sort of action, although there was yet no consensus on what that plan would be. Some of the Democratic senators could meet as soon as Monday on how to move forward.
The top Democrats on House committees are planning to meet virtually Sunday to discuss the situation, according to a person familiar with the gathering granted anonymity to talk about it.
At least four House Democrats have called for Biden to step down as the nominee. While not going that far, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said in a carefully worded statement Friday that Biden now has a decision to make on “the best way forward.”
“I urge him to listen to the American people and carefully evaluate whether he remains our best hope to defeat Donald Trump,” Healey said.
In the interview, Biden was asked how he might be persuaded to leave the race. He laughed and replied, “If the Lord Almighty comes down and tells me that, I might do that.”
There were also a few signs of discontent at Biden’s campaign rally Friday, with one person onstage waving a sign that read “Pass the torch Joe” as the president came out. His motorcade was also greeted at the middle school by a few people urging him to move on.
But Rebecca Green, a 52-year-old environmental scientist from Madison, said she found Biden’s energy reassuring. “We were just waiting for him to come out strong and fighting again, the way we know he is.”
Many Democratic lawmakers, who are hearing from constituents at home during the holiday week, are deeply frustrated and split on whether Biden should stay or go. Privately, discussions among the House Democrats flared this week as word spread that some of them were drafting public letters suggesting the president should quit the race.
Biden appears to have pulled his family closer while attempting to prove that he’s still the Democrats’ best option.
The ubiquitous presence of Hunter Biden in the West Wing since the debate has become an uncomfortable dynamic for many staffers, according to two Democrats close to the White House who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
For many staffers, the sight of Hunter Biden, just weeks after his conviction on felony gun charges, taking a larger role in advising his father has been unsettling and a questionable choice, they said.
In a hastily organized gathering with more than 20 Democratic governors Wednesday evening, Biden acknowledged he needs to sleep more and limit evening events so he can be rested for the job. In trying to explain away those comments, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stressed that Biden “works around the clock” but that he “also recognizes the importance of striking a balance and taking care of himself.”
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who attended the meeting, said Biden “certainly engaged with us on complicated matters.”
“But then again, this is something that he needs to not just reassure Democratic governors on, but he needs to reassure the American people,” Beshear said.
China anchors ‘monster ship’ in South China Sea, Philippine coast guard says
MANILA: The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said on Saturday that China’s largest coast guard vessel has anchored in Manila’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the South China Sea, and is meant to intimidate its smaller Asian neighbor.
The China coast guard’s 165-meter ‘monster ship’ entered Manila’s 200-nautical mile EEZ on July 2, spokesperson for the PCG Jay Tarriela told a news forum.
The PCG warned the Chinese vessel it was in the Philippine’s EEZ and asked about their intentions, he said.
“It’s an intimidation on the part of the China Coast Guard,” Tarriela said. “We’re not going to pull out and we’re not going to be intimidated.”
China’s embassy in Manila and the Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. China’s coast guard has no publicly available contact information.
The Chinese ship, which has also deployed a small boat, was anchored 800 yards away from the PCG’s vessel, Tarriela said.
In May, the PCG deployed a ship to the Sabina shoal to deter small-scale reclamation by China, which denied the claim. China has carried out extensive land reclamation on some islands in the South China Sea, building air force and other military facilities, causing concern in Washington and around the region.
China claims most of the South China Sea, a key conduit for $3 trillion of annual ship-borne trade, as its own territory. Beijing rejects the 2016 ruling by The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration which said its expansive maritime claims had no legal basis.
Following a high-level dialogue, the Philippines and China agreed on Tuesday for the need to “restore trust” and “rebuild confidence” to better manage maritime disputes.
The Philippines has turned down offers from the United States, its treaty ally, to assist operations in the South China Sea, despite a flare-up with China over routing resupply missions to Filipino troops on a contested shoal.
India stampede: main organizer of religious event surrenders to police
NEW DELHI: The chief organizer of an Indian preacher’s event where a stampede killed 121 people this week surrendered to police on Friday, a lawyer for the preacher said, after police had launched a manhunt.
Devprakash Madhukar was named a key suspect in an initial report registered by police under charges including attempted culpable homicide. Police had announced a reward of 100,000 rupees ($1,200) for information leading to his arrest.
A.P. Singh, lawyer for self-styled godman Bhole Baba, said Madhukar was the main organizer of the Hindu religious event on Tuesday attended by about 250,000 people in a village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. District authorities had permitted an event of only 80,000 people.
“He has surrendered from Delhi. We are not seeking an anticipatory bail,” Singh told reporters. He denied any wrongdoing by the event’s organizers and said Devprakash was getting medical treatment in a hospital after the stampede.
The preacher said on Saturday he was saddened by the incident and his aides would help the injured and families of the deceased.
“I have faith that anyone who created the chaos will not be spared,” he told Indian news agency ANI, in which Reuters has a minority stake.
($1 = 83.47 Indian rupees)
