The Pandemic Forced Joe Biden to Think Bigger. Meet the Economists Who Got Him There.

[catbyte]

Fixing the economy might be his biggest challenge if he wins, and the wonks shaping that agenda offer clues for how he’ll do it.

Kara Voght
42 mins ago

Joe Biden’s euphoric campaign staff had overtaken Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center. It was March 10, and Biden’s three primary victories that night, with two more on the way, all but confirmed he would be the Democratic nominee. The celebration for the momentous feat was supposed to be at a large rally in Ohio, not in a foyer in a museum down the street from his campaign headquarters, but as the coronavirus gained a toehold in a few US cities, a large gathering was deemed too dangerous. The shift in venue, for the moment, did nothing to dampen staffers’ spirits as they rushed to embrace one another and danced awkwardly to a Whitney Houston remix that blared through the speakers after their boss finished his victory speech.

Back at Biden HQ, the quartet of television screens hung along an office wall began to broadcast grim news about the staggering rate of infections and possible death toll. The next day, the World Health Organization would declare COVID-19 a pandemic, and smaller gatherings, too, would soon be scrapped. The outbreak would not only curtail future campaign events, but plunge the nation into a public health crisis, the likes of which the country hadn’t experienced in a century.

Up until that point, Biden had threaded the primary gauntlet with a message based on big picture themes—electability, experience, and his frequent campaign trail pledge to restore America’s “soul.” For much of the campaign, his policy shop consisted of just three to four generalists huddled at a few desks near the communications team in Biden HQ; they produced a platform that largely hewed to Democrats’ consensus agenda. But as the coronavirus spread misery and death through the month of March, it became clear that the nation’s soul might not be the first thing that needed saving in a Biden presidency.

By April, the Biden team had begun fleshing out its policy ranks with dozens of outside advisers. Jake Sullivan, who became Biden’s senior policy adviser this summer, organized two daily Zoom briefings for the presumptive Democratic nominee: One with public health experts, and another with economists. But just as Biden assumed the mantle of the Democratic Party, Bloomberg reported that one of those advisers was Larry Summers, the Harvard economist who served as Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration and as the chair of the National Economic Council—which drives the White House’s economic strategy—under Obama. A reviled figure on the left, he epitomized a coziness with Wall Street that they had hoped to purge from the party. Among progressives who had favored Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Summers’ apparent role confirmed that Biden was the status quo candidate they had believed him to be. In May, more than two dozen left-leaning groups—from MoveOn to Greenpeace to the Justice Democrats—signed a letter demanding Summers’ removal from the campaign.

snip

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/10/joe-biden-economy-jared-bernstein-ben-harris-heather-boushey/

[lagomorph777]

1. Thanks for this. It's encouraging to read the full article.

[wryter2000]

2. Larry Effing Summers

Aside from being a major-league a-hole, Summers is also an infamous misogynist. I'm glad he's no longer with Biden.