Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Tina Outside groups that have spent millions to support President JOE BIDEN’s domestic spending plan are getting impatient. While optimism remains in certain quarters heading into Democrats’ self-imposed Halloween deadline, elsewhere it is fleeting. From unions to environmental justice groups, a growing anticipation of disappointment is taking hold as Biden continues to negotiate with Congress on the social safety net legislation as well as a smaller companion infrastructure bill. “If they don’t have something done by November 1, it’ll be a Democratic civil war. And going into Thanksgiving, that’s not a good thing,” a prominent super PAC operative told us. “Climate groups and labor, they know their clock is ticking. The closer this gets to the midterms, the harder it is for them.” For many of these groups, the reconciliation bill is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to achieve long sought goals. And if the party blows it, it won’t just be a psychic shock but a financial waste. These groups bolstered Biden’s agenda throughout his campaign and have spent heavily to elect members of Congress, run issue ads and lobby lawmakers. Now they want to see action. “I just think it’s a slow march to a clusterf---, and that’s a scary thing,” the operative said. Since Biden’s inauguration, Climate Power and League of Conservation Voters have spent more than $40.5 million dollars on advertising— $27.7 million on TV and $12.8 million on digital and print — to promote the Build Back Better agenda. Building Back Together, the Biden-backed outside group promoting his plan, has also poured in millions of dollars in television ads that are running in some battleground districts. The grassroots climate group Sunrise Movement is squarely targeting Biden as well as his two most prominent holdouts: Sens. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.) and KYRSTEN SINEMA (D-Ariz.). The group says it’s staging a five-person hunger strike outside the White House beginning Wednesday morning to push for the fullest possible legislative effort to combat climate change. It’s also urging lawmakers aligned with their agenda to reject the deal if it doesn’t contain the full package, including the $150 billion Clean Electricity Performance Program that Manchin has signaled he will oppose. “I think we’re really asking ourselves right now who the president is. Is it Joe Manchin or is it Joe Biden?” Sunrise Movement spokesman JOHN PAUL MEJIA said. “Progressives and movements have been really upholding and defending the Biden agenda for the things that we were able to influence within it. And now we are urging the president to fight hard for his own agenda.” The CEPP program is part of Biden’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent, based on 2005 levels, by 2030. Democrats and the White House are discussing changes to the key climate element that would allow gas and coal power plants with carbon capture to participate — an attempt to woo Manchin, POLITICO’s ZACK COLMAN reported. Manchin has raised issues with the program both publicly and privately. Environmental advocates who have backed the plan with millions in ads say the strategy right now is to fight like hell to keep all components of the climate package in. Not everyone is convinced that the final product will be toothless. Even without the CEPP, they say the 10-year extension of the tax credits for clean energy, job creation and environmental justice provisions would be a victory, albeit on a smaller scale. Union officials, meanwhile, said they remained supportive of Biden’s agenda and are focused on getting the discrepancies in the spending bill resolved. “The problem is you don’t have any other thing to do other than just keep pushing forward. I don’t think we’re in a position to start turning on Biden or trying to cut anybody’s throats,” one labor leader told us. “We are putting our shoulder behind it and we want to continue pushing forward.” Still, the question now squarely facing these operatives and organizations — one they’ve largely put off entertaining — is what happens if nothing gets done at all? Can they turn back to their members and ask them to remain committed? Can they continue to ask for money for a mission that failed at a critical juncture? What proactive case can be made when the power they were granted was wasted? “Unfortunately, we have to play with the hand we got, and the hand we have has Joe Manchin in it,” a top Democratic operative said. “Without getting this done, I’d say 2022 is a bloodbath that everybody already expects it to be without a doubt. And 2024 looks really, really hard, if not impossible. We have 50 Democratic senators, and it sucks. We need more.” Do you work in the Biden administration? Are you in touch with the White House? Are you JENNY GAO, the chief of staff in the staff secretary’s office? We want to hear from you — and we’ll keep you anonymous: westwingtips@politico.com. Or if you want to stay really anonymous send us a tip through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram, or Whatsapp here. | 
