Classic Motor Museum board member Mike Iandolo joined in a conversation with the Spy’s Craig Fuller at the end of last week, soon after closing on acquiring new property in St. Michaels for the Museum.

 Mike Iandolo talks about the journey they have been on during this first phase of a project to renovate and restore the property leading into the Town of St. Michaels to its earlier appearance as a 1950s-style service station.

When completed, the new facility will provide service bays as a hands-on classroom for the Museum’s automotive apprenticeship program.  Further renovation will provide exhibition and storage space.

This video is approximately ten minutes in length. More about the work of the Museum and a look at some of the vehicles now on exhibit can be found on their website:  classicmotormuseum.org

After anticipation of President Biden’s withdrawal stretching for weeks, the fact of it occurring less than 24 hours ago feels stunning. However, the stunning part may be how fast events are moving to anoint and fund Vice President Kamala Harris.

President Biden had a choice and he wasted no time with an immediate endorsement of Vice President Harris, claiming his selection of her to be Vice President was the best decision he’d made.

Just as importantly, the Biden campaign followed up yesterday evening by transferring the nearly $96 million in the Biden campaign to Vice President Harris. And, that was topped off by what is reportedly the largest one day fundraising record of this election cycle as the Harris campaign raised $46.7 million. Larger amounts are being pledged by the Super PAC funders and one report indicated that President Biden would hit the road to raise money where he will be welcomed as a hero during every event at which he appears.

The “hill” for any other Democrat thinking of running just became very, very steep!

Ironically, while many hoped President Biden’s decision would have come sooner, the urgency of getting everything sorted immediately may prove very helpful. Very little time is left, even if the process remains “open,” for anyone to emerge as a viable Democratic candidate as long as Vice President Harris steps forward effectively.

And, a word about her.

Regardless of how one views her politics, the discipline shown throughout the entire term, but especially over the past few weeks, to let events play themselves out while remaining loyal to the President is impressive.

Having had a front-row seat with Vice President Bush, I can only say that the role of Vice President for someone who has campaigned successfully for elected office in the past and finds themselves playing a supporting role to the President is extremely difficult.

By no means is this campaign close to being over, but it is rapidly being reset in a way that makes the contest much more competitive.

Craig Fuller served four years in the White House as assistant to President Reagan for Cabinet Affairs, followed by four years as chief of staff to Vice President George H.W. Bush. Having been engaged in five presidential campaigns and running public affairs firms and associations in Washington, D.C., he now resides on the Eastern Shore and publishes DECADE SEVEN on Substack.

One of the best lessons I learned during my eight years on the White House staff was the importance of two factors: how one spends their time; and, who they spend it with.

A President and Vice President have the opportunity to meet with pretty much anyone with whom they wish visit. Hence, I always thought one of my most important responsibilities as chief of staff to Vice President George Bush was to make the best use of his time and to insure he had opportunities with the best informed, clear and honest experts on critical issues.

In the mid-1980s, one of those issues was HIV/AIDS and there was no one better suited to help senior officials understand a disease spreading throughout the population than Dr. Tony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). He did not have the rank of a cabinet officer, nor did he run the National Institutes of Health (NIH). What he did have was total dedication to ridding us of, or reducing the threat from HIV/AIDS for millions of people throughout the world.

Having learned about his role, it seemed the best way for then Vice President Bush to understand the battle that Dr. Fauci and his team were waging would be to go to him for a briefing at NIAID in Bethesda, MD. While it broke with some protocol, the visit proved fateful. What the Vice President saw and heard left a strong impression. However, the most important part of the visit, I thought at the time, was that Bush found someone he could trust on the most challenging of health care matter.

After reading Dr. Tony Fauci’s book, On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service, I came to realize how incredibly important Dr. Fauci’s work has been to millions of people around the world. I also came to appreciate how that successful first briefing proved vital to providing Dr. Fauci with the support he would need to wage the battle.

Years later, Dr. Fauci would say in an interview something that makes this point so much better than I can. In a Miller Center interview, Dr. Fauci said about President George H.W. Bush,

Although he had a strong conservative base, he was driven much more by doing the right thing regardless of ideology. When he first came to the NIH as Vice President, that’s when I developed my relationship, the early part of my relationship with him. I was asked to show him around because I was the AIDS person here. We developed a good friendship that has lasted even up to today. 

As President, he kept on asking me to come down to the White House and explain to him the need for this and the need for that. He became very sympathetic and actually increased the budget a fair amount.

This relationship with President Bush would continue in significant ways with all the Presidents who would follow.

And, it’s his perspective that makes Dr. Fauci’s book so compelling. He committed himself in his twenties to fight infectious diseases and then did just that for five decades. The diseases and epidemics are familiar to us all. What is revealed about the work behind the scenes to save lives reads like any of our great mystery novels.

The take aways from Fauci’s “public service journey” are also compelling. His ability to build relationships and create collaborations across national boundaries and with people vocally opposed to him, and to do it all cheerfully and optimistically provides lessons for us all, especially to those who commit themselves to public service.

I have said many times that Dr. Tony Fauci is a national treasure. Anyone who reads his story will be, in my view, compelled to agree.

You can find more about the book by CLICKING HERE.

Craig Fuller served four years in the White House as assistant to President Reagan for Cabinet Affairs, followed by four years as chief of staff to Vice President George H.W. Bush. Having been engaged in five presidential campaigns and running public affairs firms and associations in Washington, D.C., he now resides on the Eastern Shore and publishes DECADE SEVEN on Substack.

My first full emersion into debate preparation occurred in 1984 during President Reagan’s reelection campaign. Somehow these sessions have become a kind of Super Bowl in the presidential election contest.

There are four distinct time frames around which a candidate and his team strategize: the run-up to the debate; the pre-game commentary; the debate itself; and, of course the spin room spinning to tell reporters what they just witnessed.

Run-Up

Right now, a week out, we’re into the run-up. Somewhat predictably, the Biden campaign’s intention seems focused on getting under the thin skin of Donald Trump. A huge campaign ad buy reminds voters in all the close states that Trump is a convicted felon.

I get it. I just hope they don’t stick with this approach since it is not giving voters anything new to think about.

Pre-Game

The pre-game commentary is used to set the stage and to set expectations. The Trump campaign will be hard put to lower expectation with regard to their candidates performance. Just ask him. He’s the greatest debater ever.

It’s trickier for the Biden campaign. While they clearly do not want to set expectations too high, they do not want to suggest they doubt the President’s ability to engage.

Were it me, I’d suggest making every attempt to define what a successful debate would look like. And, I’d focus on substance. If President Biden makes some solid points about the economy, immigration, abortion rights and a touch of foreign policy, he will have succeeded. And, Trump will not likely go to substance; thus, the Biden team can claim Trump missed a huge opportunity to tell us what he favors.

The Debate

Neither Biden nor Trump have debated anyone in some time. That is a shared disadvantage. There is no audience; and, Trump likes to play to an audience. Also, the CNN team will reportedly utilize a kill switch on microphones if things get out of hand.

The real question is what tact does President Biden take.

Since he cannot over rant Donald Trump, I think he should bring substance to the table and, if the chance arrives, seek to humiliate. In other words go to substantive places where Trump just cannot go.

Biden could ask what the unemployment rate was for minorities when Trump left office. Ask him if he knows the number. Spoiler alert, minority unemployment was higher then than it is today.

Biden could share some content about his recent summit meeting. He could indicate he had a very meaningful conversation with the leader of Italy. Then, ask Trump if he knows the leader’s name.

No matter how much preparation the Trump team provides, it is very hard to imagine that Donald Trump will use his time to do anything other than lash out. He will hit at Hunter Biden’s conviction. He will challenge the President’s cognitive ability. He will attack the Justice Department and crooked judges.

Post-Debate Spin

In a large room near the stage where the debate occurs, numbers of prearranged Biden surrogates and Trump surrogates will be at the ready with talking points in hand BEFORE the debate even ends. iPhone technology will allow for updating, but each campaign will know what it wants to say before the debate ends.

What cannot be underestimated is the drama on stage. There is likely to be more than in past years, and you can’t sell reporters on something they did not see. I’ve always questioned the usefulness of the spin room and this year it may be of less value than ever before.

The other place the spin occurs is with the cable news channels. Anchors and commentators will be getting texts from both campaigns in real time exclaiming the brilliance of the retorts by their candidate. Again, you can’t make anyone unsee something or come to appreciate something that did not happen.

So friends, get ready for the first big event of Campaign 2024 coming at 9:00 PM EDT on June 27th from the CNN studios in Atlanta.

Oh, in case you are wondering about the unemployment statistics…according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics:

2020 / Overall unemployment: 8.1% / African Americans: 11.4% / Hispanic: 10.4%

May 2024/ Overall: 4.0% / African Americans: 6.1% / Hispanic: 5.0 %

Craig Fuller served four years in the White House as assistant to President Reagan for Cabinet Affairs, followed by four years as chief of staff to Vice President George H.W. Bush. Having been engaged in five presidential campaigns and running public affairs firms and associations in Washington, D.C., he now resides on the Eastern Shore and publishes DECADE SEVEN on Substack.

Highlights of a comprehensive Harris Poll on where Americans’ perceptions are regarding the economy

There is an old saying in Washington, D.C. that “perception is reality.”

When it comes to the economy, this describes one of two major problems facing the Biden Administration. What people think about the economy – it’s not good – establishes their thoughts on what remains the top national issue for voters in 2024. How people answer that troubling question, “Are you better off,” is based on perceptions that are mostly wrong.

And, if that’s not bad enough, the second problem makes it worse. Two out of three Americans according to the Harris survey no longer know who they can trust when it comes to economic information.

So, while the President of the United States continues to hold the most significant bully pulpit around, what he says goes to an ever doubting audience. This makes perception, to the extent it is wrong, extremely difficult to change in the time remaining between now and the Election Day in November.

I will share the survey results below, but before you read the results take two minutes and test your perception. In a very clever interactive quiz, you get to share your perceptions across a few important economic metrics. Warning: feedback is immediate!

Informative, I hope.

Here’s what the recent Harris Poll discovered (full article).

• • 55% believe the economy is shrinking, and 56% think the US is experiencing a recession, though the broadest measure of the economy, gross domestic product (GDP), has been growing.
  • 49% believe the S&P 500 stock market index is down for the year, though the index went up about 24% in 2023 and is up more than 12% this year.
  • 49% believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high, though the unemployment rate has been under 4%, a near 50-year low.
  • 72%, indicated they think inflation is increasing. In reality, the rate of inflation has fallen sharply from its post-Covid peak of 9.1% and has been fluctuating between 3% and 4% a year.
  • In April, the inflation rate went down from 3.5% to 3.4% – far from inflation’s 40-year peak of 9.1% in June 2022 – triggering a stock market rally that pushed the Dow Jones index to a record high.
  • Unemployment has also hit historic lows, wages have been going up and consumer spending has been strong.
  • In the poll, 55% think the economy is only getting worse.
  • Republicans were much more likely to report feeling down about the economy than Democrats. The vast majority of Republicans believe that the economy is shrinking, inflation is increasing and the economy is getting worse overall. A significant but smaller percentage of Democrats, less than 40%, believed the same.
  • Something both Republicans and Democrats agree on: they don’t know who to trust when it comes to learning about the economy. In both September and May, a majority of respondents – more than 60% – indicated skepticism over economic news.
  • “What Americans are saying in this data is: ‘Economists may say things are getting better, but we’re not feeling it where I live,’” said John Gerzema, CEO of the Harris Poll. “Unwinding four years of uncertainty takes time.”

This last statement is absolutely correct, but without trust and with too little time, the task for the Biden Administration remains extremely difficult.

The full article and the quiz appear in THE GUARDIAN

Craig Fuller served four years in the White House as assistant to President Reagan for Cabinet Affairs, followed by four years as chief of staff to Vice President George H.W. Bush. Having been engaged in five presidential campaigns and running public affairs firms and associations in Washington, D.C., he now resides on the Eastern Shore and publishes DECADE SEVEN on Substack.

This commentary by Craig Fuller first appeared in DECADE SEVEN.