Meet the most optimistic Dem online

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Aug 03, 2022 View in browser   By Max Tani and Alex Thompson Presented by Welcome to POLITICO's West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice.  Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Max SIMON ROSENBERG is pleased. For months, he has been the oracle of Democratic midterm optimism, metaphorically perched atop his think tank tower, examining public polling and insisting: No, no, no. A blue wave is coming! Up until now, he's stood alone. But recently, a smattering of journalists and political pundits seem to be coming around to his view that JOE BIDEN and his party are better positioned for the upcoming elections than they previously thought. "I may have caught this a little bit early, but it's becoming conventional wisdom," Rosenberg, the founder of the group NDN, said in a phone call with West Wing Playbook. A former Clinton administration staffer and top advisor to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Rosenberg has been one of the only pundits making the public case that the party isn't about to get creamed in the midterms. He's argued this even as gas prices skyrocketed and inflation rose to levels not seen in decades, as Biden's approval ratings tanked and the right track/wrong track dial for voters grew unimaginably bleak. On his think tank blog and with relentlessly cheerful Twitter posts, Rosenberg has made the case that a combination of factors have started tipping the midterms to Democrats. Among them, the damage to DONALD TRUMP's political fortunes by the revelations from the Jan. 6 hearings, outrage over the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, disgust at a spate of horrific mass shootings, and slightly more positive economic indicators like declining gas prices. "The election is moving, it's not static. It could continue to move in Democrats' direction, I think it will," he said. Most major polling outfits suggest Republicans are likely to take the House and are locked with Democrats in a tight battle for the Senate. But Rosenberg does his own math. He said some polling aggregators are skewed by biased Republican polls and older surveys when Biden was less popular (some aggregators take into account a pollster's lean and reputation as well as the date of the surveys). After tossing several polls by overtly right-leaning outfits, Rosenberg says his calculations put Democrats "in striking distance" of Republicans in the House. "I think the landscape will get more favorable to Democrats in the coming months," he said, adding he thinks the party also will retain the Senate. "We're ending this with momentum and the wind at our back, and Republicans are ending this with struggle. That's why I'd rather be us than them right now." On the surface, such proclamations would carry profound reputational risk. History is on the side of big Republican wins this cycle. If that were to happen, Rosenberg could be spending a fair bit of time wiping the egg bits off his face. But politics has a way of rewarding the audacious and counterintuitive. In addition to this profile you're now reading, Rosenberg's midterm optimism has earned him coverage elsewhere . It's also found fans among some of his party's most powerful figures, including White House chief of staff RON KLAIN, a friend of Rosenberg's who retweets his sunny views on the status of the economy several times a week. Rosenberg said he knows many top Biden administration officials but he wouldn't get into specifics with West Wing Playbook about his conversations with them, other than to note he has shared his forecasts for the midterms widely. "The White House is very aware of the arguments I'm making," he said. "I've known most of the senior White House staff for years. These are all of my friends. We're part of the same family, we all talk. That's all I'm going to say." Even with some of the political victories Biden has racked up in the last several weeks, Rosenberg remains in the minority of strategists who believe Democrats are on a winning track this fall. He's regularly taken heat on Twitter from those who feel his analysis is essentially wishcasting cloaked in the veneer of poll analysis. But Rosenberg is hardly deterred. And now, he believes, the real world is finally catching up to him. Asked by West Wing Playbook whether he felt vindicated by the results of the Kansas referendum on abortion on Tuesday, Rosenberg succinctly replied: "Yes." MESSAGE US — Are you VANESSA LION, the White House's deputy policy director? We want to hear from you! And we'll keep you anonymous if you'd like. Or if you think we missed something in today's edition, let us know and we may include it tomorrow. Email us at westwingtips@politico.com . A message from Meta: The metaverse may be virtual, but the impact will be real In the metaverse, biology students will have a larger-than-life view of microscopic organisms—transforming what is possible for science education, research and medical breakthroughs. Learn how Meta is helping build the metaverse.   POTUS PUZZLER This one is from Allie. Who was the first president to ride in a helicopter? (Answer at bottom.) The Oval FITN STRIKES BACK: New Hampshire's Republican governor, CHRIS SUNUNU is, we choose to believe, an avid West Wing Playbook reader! Asked about our report yesterday that Biden had mused about moving Delaware up on the primary calendar, potentially even ahead of New Hampshire, Sununu snapped at WMUR's ADAM SEXTON . "It's unbelievable. The fact that the president of the United States is now going to say, 'Well I'll just bring it to my home state, because that sounds like a good idea.' That sounds to me that a president that doesn't appreciate the value of having a primary system that works, that has integrity, where you can get a very high voter turnout, where you have integrity in the results." Mr. President, your response? (Our DMs are open). WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ : A bunch of local news stories about the winners of the Commerce Department's $500 million "Good Jobs Challenge," funded by the American Rescue Plan. The Washington Student Achievement Council in Seattle received $23.5 million to help match people with jobs in health care, tech, financial services and other industries, per Seattle's Fox 13 . Connecticut's Office of Workforce Strategy won $24 million for job training programs, according to the CT Mirror . And so on. National Economic Council Director BRIAN DEESE also highlighted other stories on Twitter.  WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN'T WANT YOU TO READ: This Reuters story about OPEC+ set to raise the oil output goal by only 100,000 barrels a day , or about 0.1 percent of global demand, even after Biden's trip last month to the Middle East. "That is so little as to be meaningless," said Raad Alkadiri, managing director for energy, climate, and sustainability at Eurasia Group. POOL DUTY : Several sources with knowledge of the situation told West Wing Playbook that the White House Correspondents Association was left scrambling this morning after the outlet responsible for filing the "pool report" — BuzzFeed News — informed the organization it did not have a journalist available to fill the role. The WHCA promptly found a replacement. It's not totally uncommon for an outlet to miss a pool day accidentally. A certain West Wing Playbook author once missed a rotation. But the incident underscored the tough spot Buzzfeed found itself in. The outlet has had a regular White House presence for the past decade and an assigned seat in the briefing room. But the most recent round of buyouts and departures have left it without a full-time White House reporter.   STAY UP TO DATE WITH CONGRESS MINUTES: Need to follow the action on Capitol Hill blow-by-blow? Check out Minutes, POLITICO's platform that delivers the latest exclusives, twists and much more in real time. Get it on your desktop or download the POLITICO mobile app for iOS or Android . CHECK OUT CONGRESS MINUTES HERE.     THE BUREAUCRATS FIRST IN WEST WING PLAYBOOK: SHANI SPIVAK is now director for emerging technology and secure digital innovation at the National Security Council, DANIEL LIPPMAN has learned. She most recently was a science and technology adviser at the FBI. Agenda Setting GIVING IT ANOTHER GO: The EU will attempt to revive the Iran nuclear deal talks this week , as diplomats from the U.S., Iran, China, Russia, Germany, Britain, France, and the EU, plan to meet Thursday in Vienna, POLITICO EU's STEPHANIE LIECHTENSTEIN reports. The meeting comes months after talks of restoring the 2015 nuclear agreement fell apart earlier this year and people expressed caution with the outcome, as it is unclear if Iran has changed its position since then. ROB MALLEY, the U.S. special envoy for Iran, will attend this week's meeting. EDGARTOWN TRAFFIC ALERT: Vice President KAMALA HARRIS is heading to Boston to meet with state legislators and abortion rights advocates, the Boston Globe reported . She's also heading out to the Vineyard for a fundraising swing. Unclear if she will get the coveted spot at the Chilmark Library series .   A message from Meta:   What We're Reading FTC Under Khan Faulted by Watchdog on Hiring Unpaid Experts (Bloomberg's Leah Nylen) Pelosi's Taiwan Trip Left a Fuming White House Scrambling for a Plan (Bloomberg's Jenny Leonard and Billy House) The Oppo Book BRENDA JONES, a speechwriter for the president, wrote a four-book series called "Queens of the Resistance" highlighting the work of Sen. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-Mass.), Reps. ALEXANDRA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-N.Y.), MAXINE WATERS (D-Calif.) and House Speaker NANCY PELOSI (D-Calif.). In an interview about the books, Jones was asked if she's a BEYONCÉ fan, as the artist is often referenced as "Queen Bey." Jones admitted she was, though not as much as her series co-author, KRISHAN TROTMAN. "I think she's probably more of a Beyoncé fan than I am, but I do love and respect Beyoncé, in terms of her work as an artist," Jones said in a 2021 interview with the Woodrow Wilson House . "I probably veer more toward jazz, in terms of my interests." We take it Jones hasn't listened to the artist's new heavy house and dance album, Renaissance …   INTRODUCING POWER SWITCH: The energy landscape is profoundly transforming. Power Switch is a daily newsletter that unlocks the most important stories driving the energy sector and the political forces shaping critical decisions about your energy future, from production to storage, distribution to consumption. Don't miss out on Power Switch, your guide to the politics of energy transformation in America and around the world. SUBSCRIBE TODAY .     POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER On July 12, 1957, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER became the first president to ride in a helicopter. Up until that year, helicopters were primarily reserved for the military, but the president thought to use them for quick trips to and from the White House. Eisenhower "suggested the idea to the Secret Service, which approved of the new mode of transportation, seeing it as safer and more efficient than the traditional limousine motorcade," according to History.com . A CALL OUT — Do you have a harder trivia question? Send us your best one about the presidents with a citation and we may feature it. Edited by Eun Kyung Kim and Sam Stein. A message from Meta: The metaverse will help future aviation mechanics gain skills In the metaverse, aviation mechanics will have an immersive way to learn and master their work from any location—helping them better prepare to keep us all moving. The metaverse may be virtual, but the impact will be real. Learn how Meta is helping build the metaverse.     Follow us on Twitter Alex Thompson @AlexThomp Maxwell Tani @maxwelltani Allie Bice @alliebice   Follow us

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