I spoke to the Boston Globe’s Sam Brodey for his piece about Project 2025 and its utility for the embattled Biden campaign.
Some Republicans see the political calculations at play and grant they could be effective. Liam Donovan, a longtime GOP staffer and lobbyist, said the focus on Project 2025 could “keep the heat off [Biden] long enough to get him through this stretch.”If Biden does, Donovan predicted Project 2025 could remain a Democratic rallying cry. “It’s like it’s, Remember the Alamo, right?” he said. “It’s going to be a pithy phrase that serves as a call to, ‘I don’t care how you feel about Joe Biden or whether you feel like voting … it’s too important because of Project 2025.’”
This deserves its own post, because the hysteria over what is a pretty standard, public facing, and transparent thought leadership effort by a well-known and well-credentialed think tank is totally over the top, but the strategy is clear, and rather clever. Rather than handwaving about the fate of democracy or other cringe hyperbole, Dems now have a shorthand for how to point to the policy stakes of this election, a single phrase that can redirect from frustration with Biden to fear of Trump. It has clearly found traction on the left, and the Trump campaign is not taking any chances, distancing themselves from the exercise, as they have done with all unsanctioned transition efforts as far back as last year. One thing I haven’t seen noted elsewhere as the story picks up steam is that the official Trump Transition will be up and running soon, with a team sanctioned both by the campaign, and by the U.S. Government via the Presidential Transition Act. Not as much fun as the Heritage bogeyman, but at some level more revealing.