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The People Who Said Biden Isn’t Smart Are Looking a Bit Dumb
In the nick of time, he draws on five lessons to revive his presidency.
President Joe Biden speaks during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House.
Biden is now belatedly passing the Rickey test — smart and lucky are re-enforcing each other, as shown in recent polls. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo
By JOHN F. HARRIS
09/08/2022 04:30 AM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/09/08/biden-smart-00055378
John Harris is founding editor of Politico. His Altitude column offers a regular perspective on politics in a moment of radical disruption
President Joseph Biden is striding out of summer 2022 in better position in almost every respect than when he slumped into it three months ago. Many in the political class, who had been consigning him to the electoral equivalent of hospice care, are squinting to find a root cause.
The old saw that it is better to be lucky than smart is partly true. Among the events that have helped Biden make the case for himself and his party, even as they were mostly or entirely out of his control, are the Supreme Court’s decision revoking abortion rights, the global retreat of gas prices from their peaks earlier in the year, and former President Donald Trump’s mounting legal problems and flailing response to them. Even recent legislative successes seemed powered by Democratic brokers on Capitol Hill rather than by the president’s engagement.
But let’s remember another sturdy maxim. “Good luck is what is left over after intelligence and effort have combined at their best,” said baseball legend Branch Rickey. “Luck is the residue of design.”
In the opening phase of his presidency, Biden often seemed to be acting without any credible strategic design — the opposite of smart. To the extent he had a theory of the case, it amounted to, We will swiftly pass a bunch of big stuff and people will like it and the Trump era will quickly fade away. All three assumptions proved wobbly.
Biden is now belatedly passing the Rickey test — smart and lucky are reinforcing each other, as shown in recent polls. In particular, there are five strategic insights that were missing from his early presidency on clear display in his recent revival.
In the nick of time, he draws on five lessons to revive his presidency.
President Joe Biden speaks during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House.
Biden is now belatedly passing the Rickey test — smart and lucky are re-enforcing each other, as shown in recent polls. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo
By JOHN F. HARRIS
09/08/2022 04:30 AM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/09/08/biden-smart-00055378
John Harris is founding editor of Politico. His Altitude column offers a regular perspective on politics in a moment of radical disruption
President Joseph Biden is striding out of summer 2022 in better position in almost every respect than when he slumped into it three months ago. Many in the political class, who had been consigning him to the electoral equivalent of hospice care, are squinting to find a root cause.
The old saw that it is better to be lucky than smart is partly true. Among the events that have helped Biden make the case for himself and his party, even as they were mostly or entirely out of his control, are the Supreme Court’s decision revoking abortion rights, the global retreat of gas prices from their peaks earlier in the year, and former President Donald Trump’s mounting legal problems and flailing response to them. Even recent legislative successes seemed powered by Democratic brokers on Capitol Hill rather than by the president’s engagement.
But let’s remember another sturdy maxim. “Good luck is what is left over after intelligence and effort have combined at their best,” said baseball legend Branch Rickey. “Luck is the residue of design.”
In the opening phase of his presidency, Biden often seemed to be acting without any credible strategic design — the opposite of smart. To the extent he had a theory of the case, it amounted to, We will swiftly pass a bunch of big stuff and people will like it and the Trump era will quickly fade away. All three assumptions proved wobbly.
Biden is now belatedly passing the Rickey test — smart and lucky are reinforcing each other, as shown in recent polls. In particular, there are five strategic insights that were missing from his early presidency on clear display in his recent revival.
