Prominent union endorses Biden
Former vice president draws Trump’s attention
WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Joe Biden continued to campaign across Iowa on Wednesday, showcasing his union support and steering clear of the liberal policy debates firing up the Democratic base.
From the White House, President Donald Trump watched — and tweeted — as Biden earned the endorsement of a prominent International Association of Fire Fighters and secured a spot at the top of Democratic polls.
Trump blasted out more than 50 tweets and retweets about Biden before 7 a.m. Wednesday. Trump followed up by calling him “Sleepy Joe” in an interview with Boston Herald Radio on Wednesday, adding of Democrats, “They’re all pretty heavy leaning left, including him.”
Biden had said earlier Wednesday of Trump: “I’ve had his attention for a while.”
Biden’s swift rise in a crowded Democratic field tests the Trump campaign’s theory that no candidate can win the Democratic nomination without first embracing a slew of progressive policies that would appeal to the party’s base in the primaries but put Trump in a stronger position once he has a general-election opponent he can pillory as outside the American mainstream.
“The great challenge for every campaign is to define your opponent,” but Democrats are doing that work for Trump, said Republican strategist Josh Holmes. “The things that Bernie Sanders talked about in 2016 have been adopted by virtually every Democratic candidate for president. They’re the admission for entry to being competitive in this race.”
While Biden has begun laying out positions that tack with the direction of his party on health care, education and taxes, he has taken care to avoid embracing the more drastic proposals backed by the Vermont senator and others on issues including “Medicare for All” and the Green New Deal.
Republicans, for their part, are hard at work trying to erode that image.
“Joe Biden is no moderate, just ask him,” tweeted Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Mcdaniel. “Biden proudly claims he ‘was never labeled as a moderate’ in Delaware. And in a sea of 2020 socialists, Biden says he’s ‘the most progressive’ person running. Don’t be fooled: Biden and his policies are too liberal for most Americans.”
Biden’s education position and rhetoric are well short of that laid out by another 2020 presidential candidate, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is championing debt-free college, and Sanders, who supports government-paid undergraduate tuition.
Biden has been promoting an “affordable” goal, guaranteed paid twoyear community college for those who qualify. The effect would be, he said in Dubuque, Iowa, on Tuesday, “cutting in half the cost of a four-year college because your state universities accept transfers of the credit.”
The Trump campaign is papering over such distinctions.
“The Democrat 2020 primary field is little more than a homogenous group of socialist extremists,” said Kayleigh Mcenany, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary. “Their policies threaten the very fabric of American society and will never compete with President Trump’s soaring economy, rising wages, renewed trade deals, Constitution-abiding judges, long-awaited criminal justice reform, strong border security, and America leading on the world stage.”