WASHINGTON (AP) — No honking geese are likely to interrupt his speeches this time. As President Joe Biden seeks a second term, he won’t have to depend on…
No honking geese are likely to interrupt his speeches this time.
As President Joe Biden seeks a second term, he won’t have to depend on glitchy Zoom connections, or deliver remarks in largely vacant theaters with attendees in chairs ringed by circle markings on the floor to ensure enough social distancing. His advisors won’t scrutinize the 1918 flu outbreak for clues on pandemic-era voting.
With the country increasingly back to normal, Biden can fly to crowded campaign events on Air Force One, make policy announcements from the Rose Garden and shape not only the presidential race but global affairs with his actions.
Just as the 2024 campaign will be vastly different from the coronavirus-marred 2020 edition, Biden won’t be able to hold on to the White House by running in the same way he won it three years ago. Virtual events offered from a basement rec room he converted into a studio in his Delaware home and avoiding travel for months at a stretch won’t cut it this time.
A return to more typical campaign rhythms presents both opportunities and potential challenges for Biden.
Lockdowns made the 2020 campaign far less grueling, so much so that Donald Trump frequently accused Biden, now 80, of ignoring voters. But avoiding crowds also often made it harder for Biden to ignite supporter enthusiasm. He also averted the kind of spontaneous interactions with the public and the press that led to memorable gaffes in the past, but sometimes created endearing moments.
“If any presidential candidate benefited from the virtual mold of 2020, it was Joe,” said Democratic strategist Nicole Brener-Schmitz. “But he’s shown over the course of his presidency that he’s perfectly capable of the travel and the rallies and the events and the town halls. There shouldn’t be any concern about there being a ‘normal’ campaign and the American public going, ‘Oh no.’”
Biden advisers say that among the many societal changes wrought by the pandemic, campaigning changed too. Voters adapted to using different platforms to engage with politics and candidates. Biden’s team also notes that the president is the only successful national candidate so far in that new environment, and his advisers aim to build on the lessons of 2020, finding novel ways to deliver the most effective message to individual voters.
Biden himself likely won’t miss campaigning online. When giving one of his first virtual addresses in March 2020, he lost his place in his prepared remarks and gestured awkwardly to staff standing out of frame. Two months later, as Biden virtually addressed members of the Asian American and Pacific Islanders Victory Fund, a more jarring off-camera distraction came from the Canada geese clustered around a pond in his back yard.
