Biden has very little to run on for re-election but it is the job of his re-election campaign to convince voters otherwise. Biden administration officials and flacks pretend that his is a historic administration filled with many accomplishments. It's all smoke and mirrors. Voters are not stupid. 

Are the lives of voters better now than they were four years ago? The COVID-19 pandemic crushed the economy and our lives, in general, and it was devastating. However, the economy was showing green sprouts and was slowly on the mend when Joe Biden took office. Then Biden reversed Trump's policies on everything - the economy, the southern border, cultural issues, and so on, just to prove he was not Trump. 

The truth is that bridges and infrastructure are not particularly interesting to most voters. Sure, the voters in Baltimore, for example, want to hear how the bridge will be repaired and made functional again. Most of the country, though, is focused on their everyday lives. It's a smack in the face every time they go to the grocery store or a gas pump, not to mention trying to buy a home or pay rent. 

For example, this morning the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report was released. In March, inflation rose to 3.5%. That is higher than expected. Inflation is inching back up, wiping out the progress Klain and other Democrats would like to boast about in the economy. 

Prices are not falling. Consumers are being told to just get used to the prices they pay in the grocery store now. It's the new reality in Biden's America. 

Klain noted that infrastructure is an important subject but Biden isn't running for Congress. 

“I think the president is out there too much talking about bridges,” Klain said, according to audio exclusively obtained by POLITICO. “He does two or three events a week where he’s cutting a ribbon on a bridge. And here’s a bridge. Like I tell you, if you go into the grocery store, you go to the grocery store and, you know, eggs and milk are expensive, the fact that there’s a fucking bridge is not [inaudible].”

“He’s not a congressman. He’s not running for Congress,” said Klain. “I think it’s kind of a fool’s errand. I think that [it] also doesn’t get covered that much because, look, it’s a fucking bridge. Like it’s a bridge, and how interesting is the bridge? It’s a little interesting but it’s not a lot interesting.”

Later Klain tried to temper his tone a bit. He said Biden should focus on the future, not on his alleged accomplishments. 

“The president’s most effective economic message is contrast around whose side are you on, and compassion for the [pinch] of family budgets, and his agenda to bring down costs and raise incomes — and that lauding achievements — especially ones with abstract benefits — is less persuasive with voters,” Klain said.

I think it is hard for Biden to focus on the future, though. He is building his legacy at the end of a 50-year career in policy. He has no clear accomplishments and offers no way forward in a second term. Instead, he is reminiscing, whether it is his alleged success in the Senate or in the Obama administration, or his own time in the White House. That is what old people do. Joe Biden is deteriorating before our eyes, physically and mentally. He is 81-years-old. Do we think he will last for another four-year term in the most stressful job in the world? I don't. The thought of President Harris is horrifying. She is less popular than Joe Biden and that is understandable. 

Klain is known for his focus on consumer prices. He left the White House in February but he was laser-focused on the price of gas, for example, during his time there. The White House said there they are on the same page as Klain.

“Although inflation has moderated, prices are still high, the price of gasoline is still high, other prices are still high, and people feel that pinch,” Klain said on MSNBC recently. “And though wages have gone up, and the statistics say wages have gone up faster than prices, people still feel pinched in their pocketbooks. And so, I think the president needs to make more progress on that.”

Reached for comment, the White House said it sees no daylight between what it’s doing and what Klain is suggesting.

“As Ron says, President Biden is crisscrossing the country building on his State of the Union message, highlighting that he is fighting to grow the middle class and lower costs like prescription drugs while blocking the trickle-down agenda Republican officials have proposed on behalf of rich special interests, including Medicare cuts and tax giveaways to big corporations,” said White House Deputy Press Secretary and Senior Communications Adviser Andrew Bates. “The President repeated that message in his Univision interview yesterday and will not let up.”

Other Biden advisers see things differently than Klain. Don't focus on the economy because voters aren't feeling better about it, they say. Take David Axelrod. He was on Bill Kristol's podcast and said that it drives him crazy when Biden talks about how great the U.S. economy is now. 

"I wouldn’t go out there and extol the miracle of the Biden economy. It just drives me crazy when he does that," Axelrod said.

Axelrod noted Biden's Easter interview with Al Roker, arguing that his touting the "strongest economy in the world" was the wrong strategy. 

"Instead of sort of doing what you’d expect Joe Biden to do because he’s a person of empathy who grew up in a working-class circumstance, and identified with the concern, he said, ‘You know, I’d tell them we’ve got the strongest economy in the world and, you know, we’re...’ — and he continues to do that. That is the wrong strategy," Axelrod said. 

"The right strategy is to say, ‘Look, we’ve made a lot of progress from the day I walked in the door as a country and I’m proud of our country for fighting through this pandemic and getting her back to where we’ve got this much employment. But the fact is, the way people experience this economy is the way I did when I was growing up in Scranton, Pennsylvania. How much did you pay for the groceries? How do you afford the gas and the rent? And these continue to be a problem and I’m fighting that fight'… So I think he needs to put himself on the side of working people in their economic fight here," Axelrod said. 

The problem with the whole empathy lie about Biden's personality is that it doesn't work. Biden is the man looking at this watch at Dover Air Base as coffins of American soldiers pass by him. He refused to go to East Palestine, Ohio for more than a year. He has weaponized federal agencies against ordinary Americans who attend school board meetings. Biden's alleged empathy only goes one way, for himself and his political ambitions. 

There is a malaise in Biden's America that hasn't been felt since the days of Jimmy Carter. Biden has lost the plot on some serious issues, especially on national security. He's giving Israel the back of his hand. He is sending trillions of tax dollars to Ukraine without requirements of accountability for taxpayers to see. The U.S.-Mexico border is wide open. He defies the Supreme Court on student loan forgiveness, another kick in the teeth to taxpayers. 

Biden must lose the election in November. It is essential that a new president comes in and turns things around. Trump can do that, as he proved in 2016. Biden will be more of the same and that's unsustainable.