In seeking their party’s presidential nomination, candidates generally stress positions that appeal to its ideological base — and then try to move back to the center to target “swing” voters in the general election.
But an incumbent seeking re-election — especially one with only token opposition — can get an early head start in positioning himself for the general election.
That’s what is happening now, in both parties. Most Republican presidential hopefuls are sounding more or less like clones of former President Donald Trump in ways that might help their primary chances but could create later complications.
Meanwhile, despite grousing from some party liberals, President Joe Biden has moved to reestablish his centrist bona fides in three areas where his party has been vulnerable in recent elections — crime, immigration and energy development.
He has hardly been subtle, as he gears up to do what most presidents do in their third year in office: prepare to seek a second term.
Of the three areas, Biden’s clearest move was on crime, where he signed a bill initiated by congressional Republicans to block a measure liberalizing criminal penalties that was passed by the District of Columbia government.
Biden has never been one of the “defund the police” crowd, and he signified his willingness to limit the capital city’s elected government to make a point on an issue of national importance.
The bill would have eased penalties for crimes like armed carjackings. Ironically, the city council passed it over the veto of Mayor Muriel Bowser, who shared some of Biden’s concerns that it sent the wrong signal at a time when many voters are concerned about soaring crime rates.
The second area is immigration, where Biden moved to reinstate more restrictive measures to curb illegal entries along the country’s Southern border but without reviving some of the Trump administration’s harsher tactics like detaining children.
Specifically, he moved to prevent immigrants from seeking asylum unless they first applied to another country; speed deportation of those unable to show why they were seeking asylum; and limit immigrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti unless they applied for asylum before arriving at the border.
In the ensuing weeks, CBS News reported, the number of illegal border crossings dropped to the lowest level of the Biden administration. But it will take more than a few weeks to determine if the drop is meaningful.
What’s really needed, of course, is for Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration measure combining a path to citizenship with tightened border restrictions.
The third area in which Biden moved to the center was by easing his administration’s curbs on new fossil fuel energy exploration and production. To the chagrin of environmentalists, he recently opened the way for a major ConocoPhillips oil drilling project in the North Slope of Alaska. But he balanced that by barring drilling in 3 million acres of the Beaufort Sea and limiting it in 13 million acres of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve.
While Biden has sought to strengthen the centrist credentials that were crucial in his winning the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, his prospective Republican opponents have stumbled in efforts to separate themselves from Trump’s domination of the GOP.
The GOP base favors strongly supporting Trump at a time when he faces prosecution in several cases. Candidates’ support of Trump could limit their appeal to non-Trump Republicans and independent general election voters, including praise for the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.
The potential political problem is that polls show a majority of Americans oppose the Supreme Court decision, which is likely to be a major Democratic campaign issue next year.
The challenge for GOP hopefuls will be to win the nomination without jeopardizing their general election chances.
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