Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Max Putin’s price hike. Ultra-MAGA. That's President JOE BIDEN’s go-to framing when pressed on high inflation and gas prices, and when he tries to draw contrasts with Republicans. But many Democrats think those catch phrases are, well, bad. “I think ‘ultra-MAGA’ is not a good talking point,” Rep. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-Ariz) told West Wing Playbook. “We should just call them a bunch of weirdos. Anyone obsessed that much with any politician by nature is kind of weird.” Several Democratic strategists agreed the White House lines were not resonating with the public. “On ‘Putin’s price hike,’ it’s not meeting voters where they are,” said one strategist working on several competitive races this fall. “It’s much more important to feel their pain than explain it.” Others argued it sounds more like blame-shifting than problem-solving. Congressional Democrats are more divided on using “ultra MAGA.” The term partly resulted from polling by the liberal Center for American Progress and Global Strategy Group, which found "a new extreme MAGA agenda" moved voters more than hitting Republicans on "lower taxes for the rich." Even so, Democrats in the most competitive races have largely avoided both phrases. The Democratic nominees in the eight most competitive Senate races have not tweeted either catchphrase from their campaign accounts or included the language on their website. It’s the same for the two leading Democratic candidates in the Wisconsin Senate primary. A review of the campaign Twitter feeds for all 37 House “frontliners” — the members in the most competitive seats, as deemed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) – found that none of them have tweeted those descriptions. In fact, the only time they really used “ultra,” if at all, was to talk about the “ultra-wealthy” or “ultra-rich.” Many of them had discussed Putin with regards to the war in Ukraine but often not in the context of gas prices. One of the few who did cast blame on Putin, Rep. MIKE LEVIN, did it in a larger context of what he called the “Three P’s: the pandemic, Putin, and price gouging by Big Oil.” The White House declined to comment. The DCCC and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee did not respond for comment. While some have stayed away from a White House script they think is in need of a rewrite, other lawmakers have crafted their own messaging because they are eager to keep their distance between themselves and the White House. Biden’s approval rating has fallen below 40 percent, and tensions have grown between the White House and Hill Democrats over gloomy electoral prospects this November. “Voters don’t want the same talking points, they don’t want you parroting what the White House is saying,” one House Democratic aide said. “They want you being your authentic self.” Many members of Congress were frustrated by a recent presentation from top White House aides about the economy and the White House political strategy that they felt offered little path for gaining ground. The aides arrived late, prompting Speaker NANCY PELOSI to quip to her members: "I’ll just vamp until the White House shows up," according to two people familiar with her remark. The aides stayed late after the briefing to make up for their tardiness. That frustration was echoed by progressive Democrats over how Biden responded to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade after having a month to prepare following the publication of the draft opinion. “He made a strong statement the day of,” Rep. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-Wash.), who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told our colleagues in a new piece this afternoon . “I would have liked to see some more specific actions rolled out…We all knew this was coming.” TEXT US — Are you ALANA MOUNCE, who is joining the White House political shop? We want to hear from you! And we’ll keep you anonymous if you’d like. Or if you think we missed something in today’s edition, let us know and we may include it tomorrow. Email us at westwingtips@politico.com or you can text/Signal/Wickr Alex at 8183240098.
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