The president began his tour of small companies in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, this year, admiring a bicycle store's assortment and talking to a running specialty shop owner to illustrate the impact of his economic policies. Biden, a sweet tooth, asked a neighboring coffee shop clerk whether they made smoothies, and one was made for him.
It's not just soft politics. Biden aides said they want the president or those he meets with to spread his message. In Emmaus, Biden told reporters that one company owner told him, “I can look at my kid now and say: ‘It's going to be OK. We’ll succeed.’
"I left feeling comfortable that our work has had an impact not only in Eastern Pennsylvania but nationwide. We’ll do more,” he said. “The job is unfinished.” Two weeks later, in a taproom in Superior, Wisconsin, the teetotal Biden chatted with roughly two dozen customers, some drinking beer, after speaking at a nearby brewery on the economy's comeback.
“Doing these stops allows the campaign to showcase this side of Biden that has always broken through the noise for voters who aren't glued to cable news,” said Kate Berner, Biden's former White House deputy communications director.
Prior to the Feb. 3 Democratic primary in South Carolina, Biden met with barbers, staff, and customers at the Black-owned Regal Lounge in Columbia. Secret Service instructed one barber to put down his blade when the president was within reach, eliciting sideways glances and laughter. The Biden campaign provided a local businessman a trip in the president's armored vehicle from the airport alongside Air Force One to a restaurant in Michigan last week before the Feb. 27 election.
On Monday, a day before Nevada's primary, Biden visited an Asian American-owned boba tea store and a strip motel to meet a small group of the state's important culinary union members. Democratic strategist Teddy Goff, an Obama campaign veteran, said Biden's staff understands that “you're fighting for people's attention and you're not just fighting against Donald Trump.”
“You’re also playing against ESPN and very funny people on TikTok and whatever else people might casually watch in their spare time,” he said. Unauthentic candidates might turn off viewers, he noted.
“You got to figure out a way that works for you for someone to pay attention to you in that environment where they’d literally be doing anything else other than listening to a politician.” The team aims to leverage on Biden's “specific advantage” over Trump in retail politicking, which Flaherty dubbed his strength.
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