Biden wanted to unify his party. He’s failing.

Some political scientists argue that campaigns don’t matter – that economic indicators determine the outcome of elections and everything a candidate does or says is pretty much irrelevant.

But even if you buy that (and I don’t), this much is clear: The way you campaign has an awful lot to do with how you ultimately have to govern if you ZLQ $QG 3UHVLGHQW -RH %LGHQ LV ¿QGLQJ that out right now.

Biden had decisions to make in the spring of 2020 after he roared back from near-obsolescence to secure the Democratic nomination. In an impresVLYH VKRZ RI UHVROYH %LGHQ KDG ÀDW RXW UHMHFWHG WKH IDGGLVK SRVLWLRQV LQ KLV SDUty – defunding police, Medicare-for-all, free college – that most of his rivals had HPEUDFHG RU WULHG WR ¿QHVVH

He had earned the right, at that point, to tell the loud populists in his party that he’d won the primaries, they’d lost, and he was going to run a campaign aimed straight at the broad center of the country.

In fact, Biden made that very argument on the debate stage when Donald Trump tried to portray him as a tool of the socialist left. He presented himself, to the broad electorate, as a stabilizing presence who would restore integrity and normalcy to the White House.

At the same time, though, Biden and his team foresaw a problem. If the passionate leftists in his party couldn’t be rallied to his cause, he might lose enough votes to meet the same fate as Al Gore and Hillary Clinton before him.

And so Biden tried to have it both ways; even as he stressed his moderation and desire for bipartisanship in speeches and interviews, he set about mollifying the activists. His campaign VHW XS D MRLQW SROLF\ FRPPLWWHH ZLWK Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and encouraged stories in elite news outlets signaling his newfound love for huge, transformational social programs.

Borrowing from his primary campaign rhetoric, Biden called his agenda “Build Back Better,” which had the EHQH¿W RI EHLQJ WRWDOO\ PHDQLQJOHVV DQG WKXV UHÀHFWLQJ QRQH RI WKH KDUG FKRLFHV to come.

When it came time to choose a running mate for vice president, Biden opted for someone who would satisfy all the identity requirements of his activist EDVH ± .DPDOD +DUULV ZRXOG EH WKH ¿UVW ZRPDQ WR KROG WKH MRE WKH ¿UVW %ODFN and Asian American – rather than someone who had demonstrated any notable strength as a campaigner or legislator.

I’m not suggesting that these weren’t sensible or even necessary decisions at the time. The overriding priority of the moment was unseating Trump before the country sunk irrevocably into an existential crisis. Biden’s team ran a brilliant campaign.

But brilliant campaign strategies don’t necessarily make for workable governing agendas. In fact, the two things are often incompatible.

Biden’s dueling promises – to be a Gerald Ford-type normalizer for most voters and a Franklin D. Roosevelt-like change agent for his base – were never going to be reconciled. His strategy to VRPHKRZ EH ERWK WKLQJV RQFH LQ R൶FH E\ PRYLQJ WZR GL൵HUHQW VSHQGLQJ ELOOV WDLORUHG WR WZR GL൵HUHQW FRQVWLWXHQFLHV at the same time, fell under the category RI ³VR FUD]\ LW MXVW PLJKW ZRUN ´ 2U PD\EH MXVW FUD]\

The smarter move was always to EUHDN R൵ D IHZ RI WKH ZRUWKLHVW DQG most widely supported spending priorities in the massive Build Back Better bill – climate investment and child care, say – and try to pass a more modest program alongside the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that Biden signed into law this past month.

But that would have required Biden to backtrack on the more expansive program he telegraphed this past year when all he was thinking about was unifying the party. He was boxed in.

So here we are: Moderate voters are furious at Biden for springing on them an agenda meant to evoke the New Deal, and leftists are angry because they seem unlikely to remake the entire social contract in the brief window they have before the voters kick them out again.

The weaker Biden gets politically, the closer his party gets to fracturing among the various camps eyeing 2024, which could essentially reduce him to a spectator in his own presidency. That might not be a problem right now had he decided to choose a running mate who seemed clearly prepared to take the reins of the party and win the next election, but he didn’t.

Instead, the second year of Biden’s presidency will start out with potential candidates in Washington and in statehouses around the country thinking mostly about what comes after the midterms and how they can position themselves to be the one who emerges from the ruins to lead the party.

As they ponder that question, potential successors should bear in mind the main lesson of Biden’s predicament: You can’t govern on your own terms if you couldn’t take the risk of winning on them.