Biden in Madison: A typical campaign rally at an atypical moment
Biden in Madison: A typical campaign rally at an atypical moment
The president came to Wisconsin for his second campaign event since the debate. Our report from the scene.
The Recombobulation Area is a thirteen-time Milwaukee Press Club award-winning weekly opinion column and online publication founded by longtime Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer. Learn more about it here.
It was, in many ways, a normal campaign rally.
Supporters filled the room, holding signs for their candidate. Lines of people wound through the parking lot outside of the building where the event would take place. The usual sort of soundtrack you hear at political events filled the room. The television media gathered on risers.
A series of speakers — state and local elected officials, mostly — took turns at the lectern, talking about their candidate. They talked about the work he was doing to make the state and country a better one; they criticized their candidate’s opponent in the race. The candidate delivered a stump speech, peppered with a few local references and anecdotes on the swing state he was speaking in. Supporters stuck around to catch a glimpse of the president, a few on stage took photos with him before he departed. People cheered. Chants of “Four more years!” rang out.
Of course, this was anything but a normal campaign rally, arriving at the most abnormal of moments.
“This has been the kind of week where everyone needed to recombobulate a little bit, and that’s exactly what happened here today,” Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said to me in a brief interview following the president’s speech.
The eight days from Thursday, June 27 (the day of the debate), to Friday, July 5 (the day of the rally), were rather discombobulating — for the president, for Democrats, for nervous voters in swing states like here in Wisconsin who justifiably fear a second Trump term. This was just the second campaign rally since the president’s disastrous debate performance, happening on the same day (and in the same location) where a highly-publicized television interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos would take place.
“You probably heard I had a little debate last week,” said President Joe Biden, within the first few minutes of his speech. “I can’t say it was my best performance. But ever since then, there’s been a lot of speculation — what’s Joe going to do? Is he going to stay in this race? Is he going to drop out? What’s he going to do? Well here’s my answer: I am running and going to win again.”
Biden continued, reiterating the point: “Let me say this as clearly as I can: I’m staying in the race. I learned long ago that when you get knocked down, you get back up. I’m not going to let one 90-minute debate wipe out three-and-a-half years of work.”
Biden delivered a solid speech. He talked about his accomplishments — which are numerous, and he is not wrong in the suggestion that he doesn’t get enough credit for what his administration has been able to accomplish. He also incorporated criticisms of his age into this part of the speech.
“I’ve also noticed a lot of discussion about my age,” he said. “I know I look 40 (laughs). I do see all those stories about being too old. Let me say something. I wasn’t too old to create over 15 million new jobs. To make sure more than 21 million Americans are insured under the Affordable Care Act. To beat big pharma, the first ones to ever do that, and lower the cost of insulin to $35. I wasn’t too old to eliminate student debt for more than five million Americans and grow the economy. I wasn’t too old to put the first Black woman on the Supreme Court of the United State of America. To sign the Respect for Marriage Act. Was I too old to sign the most significant gun safety law in 30 years? To sign the biggest climate bill in the history of the world?”
To Wikler, this was an important moment in the president’s speech.
“You could kind of feel the click in that moment,” he said. “Joe Biden, who has been defeating MAGA extremism in 2020 and 2022, is going to do the same thing in 2024 and rebuild American democracy in 2025, 6, 7 and 8.”
Biden also talked a whole lot about Donald Trump during his speech, and the clear contrast between him and his opponent, and the danger the Republican nominee presents. Biden also talked about the “dangerous precedent” set in the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling from earlier this week, and how that connects to this campaign.
“(Trump) really could become the dictator that he promised to be on day one,” said Biden. “For over two centuries, America has been a free, democratic nation. And I’ll be damned if in the year 2024, just two years before our 250th anniversary as a nation, I’ll let Donald Trump take this away. Folks, this is not hyperbole. This race is about our freedom. It’s about our democracy. It’s about the very soul of America. Are we preparing to fight for that? I know I am and I will.”
Lines like these resonated with the crowd gathered at Sherman Middle School in Madison, Wisconsin. Several people in attendance who I spoke with after the speech were pleased with the president’s speech and delivery.
One attendee, Andrew Rose, said “the debate definitely raised some questions,” but that he came away “impressed” with Biden after the speech.”
“I was here to hear the president speak, mostly looking for – is he staying in the race? Is he dropping out? What’s the plan?” he said. “And I think he answered that pretty clearly…I’m happy. I’m really happy with what he had to say today.”
State Senator Melissa Agard, who is running for Dane County Executive, was in attendance at the event. She said the president’s debate performance was “disappointing,” but had a positive reaction to his speech in Madison.
“It was clear that President Biden came out fired up and delivered a message that he’s in it for the long haul, and outlined really what’s on the line here for our country — democracy, freedom, and liberty for the people that live here, a moral frame of lifting each other up, and taking care of one another,” she said. “Or, the alternative, a felon who lies and is untrustable and frankly doesn’t care about anyone other than his own ratings. I’m ready to do everything I can to make sure Joe Biden crosses the finish line. Our nation and our democracy depend on it.”
Agard said the week since the debate has shown “momentum” from the president, but these past few days included some important conversations about accountability.
“We’re asking questions,” she said. “That’s part of a democracy is being able to ask questions and hold our leaders accountable. But what I heard from President Biden today was, hold me accountable. And also look at the bigger picture.”
Biden’s future in the race was the topic of discussion throughout the event. Before the speech, one attendee, Jennifer Brady, said she was there specifically to “see how he looks” following the debate.
“I’m kind of hoping that he’ll make some big announcement here and that I’ll be here for it,” she said.
That didn’t happen, of course. And for a time during the campaign rally, it was easy to forget about the context of the moment and the swirl of uncertainty surrounding the president’s re-election campaign. The outline of what an event might look like had that debate not occurred was present.
Congressman Mark Pocan talked about this being the “most consequential election of our lifetime.” He talked about the “contest where on one side stands a twice-impeached, 34-time felon who is unable to tell the truth and wants to be a dictator, and thanks to his appointments on the Supreme Court, if not a dictator, a lawless king.”
Gov. Tony Evers, who Biden called “one of the best governors I've ever worked with,” talked about the differences between Trump and Biden on a host of issues, including economic development projects like the failed Foxconn project under Trump and former governor Scott Walker to this past week’s news of Wisconsin’s selection as a Regional Tech Hub, and the $49 million grant made possible through the Biden-backed CHIPS and Science Act, helped along by Sen. Tammy Baldwin.
“I’ve been governor under both Joe Biden and Donald Trump and let me tell you, the choice this November is absolutely clear,” said Evers. “There’s only one president who has consistently delivered for Wisconsin and his name is Joe Biden.”
It was clear that Democrats would love nothing more than to talk about policy, talk about the stark contrast between Biden and Trump, talk about the danger of the right’s “Project 2025.” Trump is an awful candidate with a poor record and increasingly unhinged rhetoric, who is also eminently beatable in this election, and that’s where so many would like to steer the conversation. It’s one they are more than ready to have.
But whether or not Biden is the one who can defeat Trump in 2024, as he did in 2020, is a legitimate question. Frankly, there are a whole lot of questions here about the president and his candidacy, with few clear answers. I certainly have more questions than answers at the moment, even if I believe Joe Biden is an infinitely better president and better option in this election than Trump, who is a genuine threat to the future of American democracy.
But the criticisms of Trump made at this particular event were quite similar, and sometimes even word-for-word identical, to ones made a month ago at the WisDems convention in Milwaukee in early June, while questions about Biden and his ability to win this campaign at his age are fresh in the minds of the millions of Americans who watched Biden’s awful debate performance. Speakers did not shy away from referencing the debate. Just about everyone brought it up — Wikler’s opening remarks during the speaking portion of the event referenced the “rough debate” in its first minute. And even before the debate, the latest Marquette University Law School Poll showed that more than 75% of all voters said “too old to be president” is a phrase that describes Joe Biden. His age was a mammoth issue before the debate, and an entirely unavoidable one now. One way or another, this is a challenge that Democrats must overcome.
In a July 4 interview with the president on the Civic Media network, host Earl Ingram spoke positively about Biden and there was warmth in the conversation. This is part of the equation, too. Democratic voters like Joe Biden and think he’s been a good president and want to see him re-elected.
Beyond just wanting to defeat Trump, it’s possible that some voters really want Biden to overcome this moment and emerge victorious in November, too. This is not outside of the realm of possibility, even after an especially difficult week. Wisconsin is still a toss-up state, after all.
As the rally came to a close, a moment from President Biden stood out. He had finished his prepared remarks and was greeting supporters on stage. He then turned around, returned to the lectern as the crowd cheered, and said, “I won’t forget this. God love you.”
Brief as it was, it was a moment that carried weight, an earnest and unscripted remark that conveyed the appreciation the president had for his supporters in that room in Madison. Only time will tell what kind of gravity that moment will carry in the weeks and months to come.
Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes The Recombobulation Area. He’s also written for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Heartland Signal, Belt Magazine, WisPolitics, and Milwaukee Record. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, Seattle Business Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 18 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on Twitter at @DanRShafer.
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"But whether or not Biden is the one who can defeat Trump in 2024, as he did in 2020, is a legitimate question."
Not only is it a legitimate question, it is the *only* question we should be (collectively) asking right now. Everything else flows from there.
And tbh, I get picking Madison for a rally--it's an incredibly safe bet, and made for decent optics. But an invite only event organized by Wis Dems is not an accurate barometer of the campaign's health.
Dan, how many attended the rally?