Joe Biden’s campaign should focus on Donald Trump as threat to ‘middle-class life’: Democratic strategist Paul Begala

Democratic strategist Paul Begala said Tuesday that President Biden’s campaign should capitalize on people’s fears and present former President Trump as a threat to their way of life.

“There are only two ways to run for office: you run unopposed, or you run out of fear, and I think the Biden team should be afraid,” Begala, a political commentator, told CNN.

“I think he’s done a great job, but I think obsessing over getting credit is the wrong way to go about it,” he continued. “Bill Clinton didn’t get credit for the economy until Newt Gingrich shut down the government. Barack Obama didn’t get credit for Obamacare until Republicans tried to repeal it.”

“What the Biden team needs to do is go on the attack, and their attack shouldn’t be, ‘Oh, Trump is a con man,’ but ‘Trump is a threat,'” Begala added.

Polls have consistently shown that voters are unaware of many of Biden’s signature accomplishments, nor do they credit him for the nation’s economic recovery. Biden’s campaign has sought to inform voters of those victories while also acknowledging their enduring struggles.

Begala said he thinks that’s the wrong approach.

Begala argued that Biden should instead focus on highlighting what he calls Trump’s threats to specific policies he has signed into law or passed by executive order.

For example, “Biden should say, ‘We’re going to work together to bring the price of insulin down from $300 to $35.’ Trump is threatening that and will repeal it. We expanded health care and cut health insurance premiums. Trump wants to repeal that. We’re producing more energy than ever before without sacrificing our environmental laws. Trump is selling it to big oil, letting them jack up prices and pollute the environment,” Begala said.

Begala argued that the best strategy would be to “attack Trump as a threat to Biden’s performance,” which would give Biden proper credit for his administration’s performance and dissuade voters from voting for Trump.

Begala argued that the Biden campaign’s current strategy of “saying, ‘Give me a gold star,’ is the wrong way to frame the showdown.”

“The point should simply be that Trump is a threat to middle-class life,” he said.