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 It’s an article of faith among Democrats that their party is deeply hampered by its inability or unwillingness to tout its own accomplishments. But what if that conventional wisdom wasn’t just wrong but terribly, harmfully so? That’s the warning being issued by one of the party’s most seasoned pollsters, STAN GREENBERG . In memos, private communications and interviews, Greenberg has been imploring the party to — let’s put this bluntly — shut the hell up about all the work it’s done. It’s not that voters don’t care. He says voters actively turn against Democrats when they hear it. “It’s our worst performing message,” Greenberg told West Wing Playbook. “I’ve tested it. I did Biden’s exact words, his exact speech. And that’s the test where we lost all of our leads… It said to the voters that this election is about my accomplishments as a leader and not about the challenges you’re experiencing.” Greenberg has some authority to speak to non-effective midterm messaging. He was BILL CLINTON’s pollster leading up to the 1994 Democratic blood bath. He famously delivered a scorcher of a post-mortem that laid blame at the feet of BARACK OBAMA and his White House for midterm losses in 2010. This go-around, he’s offering a pre-mortem of sorts, though similarly blistering. “I’m stunned about how much of the Democratic commentary is winging it,” he said in an interview. "[Republicans are] hitting us on crime and border and inflation…. That has huge power. And we have the self-satisfied message of how much we’ve accomplished rather than being focused on what is happening to people.” Asked if President JOE BIDEN himself had it right, he didn’t flinch. “Nope,” said Greenberg. “I saw their visuals when they were campaigning with the West in which they were talking about helping families with high costs. So they’ve made a turn with addressing it but they’re also combining it with a message of how great a job they’re doing.” Biden’s remarks Friday, which took place after our interview with Greenberg, notably focused more on future battles over the debt ceiling, entitlement programs and which party is best situated to tackle inflation. He’s also called recently for capping the price of insulin for kids and codifying abortion rights soon in the next Congress. Greenberg’s advice for Democrats is not to completely ignore the legislation they’ve passed, but to present it as useful remedies for tackling the problems of the future. Tout student debt relief and prescription drug price reforms, but only “in the context of how it is helping them with the cost of living, not as a means of boasting about your accomplishments.” For all his saltiness about the current state of his party’s affairs, Greenberg is not entirely nihilistic about the upcoming election. He described himself as “bearish” but “keeping the door open” to the possibility of a decent night for Democrats, citing intense polarization, the registration wave of women voters and DONALD TRUMP’s lingering presence in the national conversation as factors that would undoubtedly help. “It’s amazing that this is a competitive election at all,” he said. Ultimately, though, Greenberg warns that Democrats need a new object to present voters rather than one that’s done and dusted. And on that front, the data he’s crunched for Democracy Corps, the firm he started with fellow Clinton strategist JAMES CARVILLE, shows an unambiguous winner: revive the expanded child tax credit. The policy, which provided $3,000 to $3,600 per child for families that made $150,000 per couple or $112,500 per single parent unit, had been a major component of Biden’s Covid-relief package. But it lapsed and talks to renew it have completely stalled. Greenberg urged his fellow party members to push for reviving it in the next few weeks, even if it leads to pushback ( questionable as it may be ) that the policy is inflationary. “They’re elites and live in a world of college educated voters who didn’t have it as a lifeline. They think our own base responds to identity politics rather than economics,” he said. “If your goal is to win an economic argument, go on ‘Morning Joe.' If the goal is to win an election, look at the fucking data.” MESSAGE US — Are you JAMIE KEENE , deputy director of racial and economic justice? We want to hear from you! And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com .
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