In Joe Biden\u2019s first visit to South Carolina as a presidential candidate, the former vice president kept it light: He spoke at a public rally and a private fundraiser on a Saturday, attended a church service on a Sunday, and then was gone.<\/p>\n
There was no Elizabeth Warren-style town hall with questions from the audience, no swing through multiple media markets like Cory Booker or Kamala Harris, no frenzied schedule of events like Beto O\u2019Rourke.<\/p>\n
There was no need. According to the most recent poll in the state, Biden already has a commanding lead there.<\/p>\n
As his opponents in a sprawling primary field scramble to build their early-state profiles, the Biden campaign is taking a different, more deliberate approach. The number of events per day are limited. The size of the venues are modest. Careful attention has been paid to his exposure to the press, with a slow ramp up of his availability to the media over time.<\/p>\n
So far, it\u2019s paying off.<\/p>\n
Biden has led in every national poll taken since he announced his candidacy. He\u2019s also established wide early-state leads in New Hampshire<\/u> and South Carolina<\/u>, while lapping up endorsements. And he\u2019s done it with a measured, Rose Garden-style strategy that has played to his strengths while concealing his potential flaws.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor Biden, direction is more important than speed. It\u2019s a marathon, not a sprint. And managing expectations will be the key,\u201d said Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist who worked for Hillary Clinton\u2019s 2016 and 2008 campaigns in South Carolina. \u201cThere are some in the party who think he\u2019s too old, or that he has too many miles on his political engine, or that it\u2019s a woman\u2019s time. But in his case, a slow and steady pace will win the race.\u201d<\/p>\n
By dictating his own tempo and setting his own terms of engagement, Biden has only underscored his stature as a party eminence \u2014 and subtly reinforced his status as the field\u2019s front-runner. <\/p>\n
The signs of it permeate his campaign. His team provides White House-style \u201cdaily guidance\u201d to the media. His private fundraisers are covered in pool reports detailing every bit of news from behind closed doors. He largely ignores his 21 rivals for the nomination as if he were already running a general election campaign against Donald Trump. <\/p>\n
Trump, in return, has directed his recent attacks at Biden, enhancing Biden\u2019s visibility in the opening weeks of his bid and also intimating that the former vice president is a rival Trump views as a threat.<\/p>\n
Biden\u2019s careful rollout, marked initially by limited interactions with the press, has served another function: it minimized the chances that the candidate known for his gaffe-prone ways would go off-script, while slowly reacquainting him with the demands of the 24\/7 news cycle. <\/p>\n
The former vice president started modestly \u2014 with interviews on \u201cGood Morning America\u201d and Radio Iowa on the day after his announcement \u2014 followed by remarks with two pool reporters chosen by the campaign at an ice cream joint in Monticello, Iowa.<\/p>\n
About a week later, though, the training wheels were off and Biden was answering off-the-cuff questions posed by reporters outside a taco joint in Los Angeles. By Monday of this week, Biden was in full campaign mode in New Hampshire, engaging in a lengthy question-and-answer session with the press.<\/p>\n
His schedule has also kept him fresh and sharp at his appearances \u2014 always a concern for politicians of advanced age, but especially relevant for a 76-year-old candidate facing questions about the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to discount the value of having a packed schedule but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s the worst thing in the world to have a limited schedule,\u201d said Jeff Link, a longtime Iowa Democratic strategist. And there\u2019s already an argument it\u2019s working. \u201cHe looks mature and seasoned, not old and tired.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biden\u2019s campaign advisers insist that the first leg of his campaign schedule is aggressive in nature, noting that from the candidate\u2019s April launch to a major rally scheduled in Philadelphia, he will have had two major rallies, traveled to all four early states and California, in addition to attending at least five private fundraisers.<\/p>\n
But they also see little value in front-loading Biden\u2019s travel with a litany of events this early in the primary season, especially with a candidate who needs no introduction.<\/p>\n
The campaign, several advisers told POLITICO, is taking an \u201ceverybody knows Joe\u201d strategy, banking on Biden\u2019s name ID and high favorable ratings as built-in advantages that give him far more flexibility with his schedule than other candidates. <\/p>\n
\u201cVoters know Joe Biden. They know his values and his character,\u201d a Biden campaign spokesman said. \u201cWhat you\u2019re seeing is events where he can meet voters, understand their concerns and demonstrate what he\u2019ll do about it. And people are responding to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dante Scala, an expert in New Hampshire\u2019s first-in-the-nation primary mechanics and a University of New Hampshire professor, said it\u2019s understandable Biden has initially kept a relatively light schedule bereft of numerous town halls and stops \u2014 but it can\u2019t last.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the outset, he doesn\u2019t have to work as hard as a Cory Booker, for example,\u201d Scala said. \u201cBut the concern, and it\u2019s not an immediate concern, but down the road if you keep your schedule light in New Hampshire to avoid a lot of direct questioning from voters, that\u2019s when the watchdogs of the process \u2014 the local media, the national media, the voters themselves \u2014 start weighing in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biden himself seems to recognize the demands of early-state voters accustomed to close and frequent attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll see me in this state until you\u2019re sick of me,\u2019\u201d longtime supporter Betty Brim-Hunter said Biden told her and her husband earlier this month in Iowa.<\/p>\n
Iowa won\u2019t settle for less, she said: \u201cOlder Iowans especially expect to have a few minutes with the candidate to have a conversation, rather than just sitting and listening.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mark Longabaugh, a former adviser to Bernie Sanders, says in New Hampshire, where voters have a tradition of asking candidates questions themselves in diners and town halls, there are similar expectations of frequent appearances.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody\u2019s going to get a free pass. The activists and voters there won\u2019t tolerate it,\u201d Longabaugh said.<\/p>\n
Even in South Carolina, where a recent poll<\/u> shows Biden 31 points ahead of his closest rival, he\u2019ll probably have to spend more time in the state in future stops, said Scott Hogan, former campaign manager for the Democrats\u2019 2018 gubernatorial nominee, James Smith.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re going to have to show up. You\u2019re going to have to develop that grassroots energy, that grassroots base and excitement,\u201d Hogan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s no secret how you win South Carolina or any of these early states: You show up early, and you show up often, and you go everywhere,\u201d he said. \u201cThe vice president just has a long history of doing so in South Carolina.\u201d<\/p>\n