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 Peering into an audience last week in Philadelphia, President JOE BIDEN offered a dark assessment of what’s at stake in the midterms. It wasn’t just the future of Democrats’ domestic agenda, he warned, but the trajectory of the Ukrainian war and even democracy itself. “If we lose this off-year election, we’re in real trouble,” Biden said. But that urgent call to arms never had a chance of reaching the bulk of Democratic voters. Rather, Biden was unloading his anxieties to a small group of donors at a closed-door fundraiser, where only a handful of reporters were allowed and video and audio recording were strictly prohibited. It was a stark shift from earlier in the day, when Biden — with cameras rolling — punctuated his standard stump speech with a different conclusion. “I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future,” he told the crowd in Pittsburgh. "There's nothing beyond our capacity if we work together." Biden is hardly the only politician to deliver tonally different messages to donors and voters. What’s atypical is how rare he uses modern media — mainly, television — for reaching and influencing the electorate. The Biden presidency has not been a made-for-TV experience. That’s not to say the president has forsworn the medium. He often holds televised events during the week and occasionally will be spotted on it over weekends. But those events are almost always scripted, brief affairs. (In a new Biden-ism, he promised his Pittsburgh audience his speech would be "painfully short.") Strikingly few iconic photos or memorable clips have emerged from this presidency. Indeed, the newsiest bits from the trail rarely include actual video. When Biden warned of nuclear armageddon in the current standoff in Ukraine, it came via a pool report of his address at a fundraiser. All of this has frustrated television outlets tasked with covering the presidency. But others see virtue in the approach. While Biden’s immediate predecessors — BARACK OBAMA and DONALD TRUMP — both had immense comfort in front of the cameras, it wasn’t a universally productive experience. Biden, for one, has yet to suggest the public inject bleach to stop Covid. But Biden’s performance can be shaky and even minor missteps captured by camera have been turned into online maelstroms. There’s strategy at play, too. At a time when access to traditional media platforms has never been lower and the incentive structure for grabbing attention has never been higher, Biden’s consistent pitch to voters has been he’d take politics out of the TV room, or at least try to. “It’s a pretty clear reaction against Trump,” said KAREN MCNALLY, a senior lecturer in film and television studies at London Metropolitan University and editor of the book, “American Television during a Television Presidency.” “Trump was the exploiter of the idea of the pseudo event for no purpose whatsoever except for being in front of the public. Biden is reacting against that, in part, I think, by knowing that the public is exhausted.” The manifestation of this approach has not just been in the form of limited TV availability. From Sept. 1 through Oct. 25, Biden traveled 21 days, hitting 14 states (15 if you include Puerto Rico), according to data collected by BRENDAN DOHERTY, author of “The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign.” Biden also held 13 fundraisers, including three in D.C. In that same span in 2010, Obama was on the road for 28 days, made stops in 21 states and held 30 fundraisers. Trump in 2018 traveled for 26 days to 23 states, and held 14 fundraisers. “We clearly have different definitions of what constitutes a major event,” White House spokesperson ROBYN PATTERSON told us, pointing to Biden’s New York trip Thursday and other recent public events, including those about abortion rights and student debt relief. “Presidents look for the ways in which they can be helpful to their fellow party members, and Biden has taken the approach of holding fundraisers as well as official events that trumpet the messages he would like to communicate, but not campaign rallies,” Doherty said. The White House and its allies have said that Biden’s merely doing what the candidates have asked, that his utility is in setting the tone and raising the cash, and that there is no logic in replicating discredited approaches. “I don’t think it should surprise anyone that we’re not using the strategy that failed in 2010 and the strategy that failed in 2018,” chief of staff RON KLAIN recently said. All of that may be true, but it’s also a gamble that less visibility will lead to more political success, and that the reaction to Trump won’t produce an equally pronounced counterreaction. Not everyone’s so sure. “I think people are tired but I think it is of the moment,” said McNally. “I don’t think that’s going to last.” MESSAGE US — Are you GREG TRAINOR , director of special projects for presidential correspondence? We want to hear from you! And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com .
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