Conventional Wisdom VI

As I noted yesterday, the first night of the Democratic National Convention turned into a pretty defiant and pretty impressive union rally. And that was crystal clear even before the incumbent president took the stage and basked in chants of “Union Joe!”

Not surprisingly, President Biden gave one of the strongest endorsements of unions in his address:

American manufacturing is back. Where those to say we wouldn’t lead the world in manufacturing? 800,000 new manufacturing jobs. Our Republican friends, and others, made sure they’d go abroad to get the cheapest labor. We used to import products and export jobs, now we export American products and create American jobs. Right here in America, where jobs belong.  

With every new job, with every new factory, pride and hope is being brought back to communities throughout the country that were left behind. You know, you’re from them many of you, you know what it’s like when that factory closed, where your mother, your father, your grandmother, grandfather worked, and now you’re back, providing once again, proving that Wall Street didn’t built America, the middle class built America and unions, unions built the middle class.  

It's been my view since I came to the Senate. That's why I’m proud to have been the first president to walk the picket line and be labeled the most pro-union president in history. And I accept it. It's a fact. Because when unions do well, we all do well.

I’m just going to assume the president was talking about my post yesterday there.

That was just part of the address, which was a fairly unusual one for an incumbent. It’s rare, of course, for a president to be in a position to hand off the baton to a successor, and even rarer for that president to be popular enough that the successor wants them around to do that.

In 2008, John McCain’s convention put a restraining order on George W. Bush and had him send a video message instead of appearing on stage. In sharp contrast, in 2016, Barack Obama was still popular enough, certainly with Democrats, that his address was a highlight of the convention. And given the importance, he was given a major spot in prime time on Wednesday night, the night before Hillary Clinton accepted the nomination.

Biden’s place at the 2024 DNC fell somewhere between those two extremes — still given a prime in-person spot in the convention schedule, but scheduled on the first day of the convention where he wouldn’t overshadow the successor. In this way, he’s repeating the role Bill Clinton had at the 2000 DNC, when Al Gore wanted credit for the administration’s economic agenda but felt the need to distance himself from the president’s personal failings. Clinton kicked off that convention with a Monday night address of his own, receiving the thanks of his party for what he’d done and also some thanks for getting out of the way.

And the party’s gratitude for Biden seemed legitimate, especially as he’d given them a chance to separate their appreciation for what he did in his first term from their growing apprehension that he might not be able to win a second one.

The Democrats are still the Democrats, of course, so the set up for Biden’s big moment was slightly botched. They intended to have him on during the 10pm eastern hour, when the networks were carrying it live and most Americans would be able to watch, but of course he didn’t take the stage until after 11pm. (Again, this is all part of a distinguished Democratic tradition, most notably in 1972 when George McGovern didn’t get to deliver his acceptance speech until 2am eastern.)

And then, right after Senator Raphael Warnock practically burned the city of Chicago down with a fiery, impassioned stemwinder of a speech, they brought out Senator Chris Coons to extinguish the flames with the speech equivalent of unflavored ice milk served at room temperature. I didn’t think it would be possible to screw up a simple chant of “We Love Joe!” but Coons was determined to teach that crowd to clap on the one and three, then the one and five, and then the one and pi …

Whatever. Joe Biden finally took the stage and got a long, warm welcome, with repeated interruptions from the convention center. He had his stumbles, of course, but for once the entire party wasn’t on edge watching for verbal stumbles and could just enjoy the man and the message.

As I watched it, one passage stood out to me:

“It's been the honor of my lifetime to serve as your president. I love the job, but I love my country more.”

Nothing better sums up the contrast between this president and the one he replaced and who’s running to replace him again. Donald Trump has never loved anything more than himself and his own spotlight.

Biden’s made the handoff. We’ll see how Harris and Walz run it from here.