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Is Biden ‘far-left’?

Stefanik said so at GOP convention. North Country politicos discuss

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden speaks with supporters at a town hall hosted by the Iowa Asian and Latino Coalition at Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 33 in Des Moines, Iowa, on Aug. 8, 2019. (Provided photo — Gage Skidmore, via Wikimedia Commons)

Reaction to Rep. Elise Stefanik’s speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday has been split primarily down party lines.

The crux of Stefanik’s speech was a decision between the “far-left” Joe Biden and the “American dream” supported by President Donald Trump.

Republicans said they were thrilled to hear their representative bring up Trump’s impeachment for the first time in the convention; she called it a “baseless and illegal impeachment sham.” Democrats said they believe Stefanik has spent too much time focused on national politics, and not enough on her North Country district.

“Far-left”?

Rep. Elise Stefanik delivers a speech for the Republican National Convention on the night of Aug. 26, 2020, remotely from the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C. (Screenshot from video)

In her speech, Stefanik called Democratic presidential candidate Biden’s policies “far-left,” a term she has also applied to Tedra Cobb, her Democratic opponent in her race to seek congressional reelection.

Local Democrats, however, said they believe the two candidates Stefanik labeled as political extremists are actually moderates, and said the use of the term “far-left” is more strategic than accurate.

“This election is a choice between the far-left democratic socialist agenda versus protecting and preserving the American dream,” Stefanik said in her speech.

Joe Henderson of Saranac Lake is a Paul Smith’s College professor who ran as a delegate candidate for Bernie Sanders’ campaign in the primary. Sanders is a self-described “democratic socialist,” which is around as far to the left as mainstream politics gets in America. Henderson said he doesn’t buy the notion that Biden is a far-left socialist.

Democratic congressional candidate Tedra Cobb, a Democrat from Canton, smiles in Saranac Lake on Jan. 30. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

“I got to laugh at that statement,” Henderson said. “As someone who teaches a class on comparative politics, Bernie Sanders, for people in other parts of the world, is considered a centrist. We don’t have an organized far-left in this country.”

Henderson said this is because the window of political discourse is shifted to the right in the U.S., compared with many other countries.

Essex County Democratic Committee Chair Maggie Bartley of Elizabethtown concurred.

“Joe Biden does not come across as far-left at all,” she said. “If he were far-left, the Bernie people would not have been so critical of him.”

“I don’t think he’s a socialist, by any means,” said Rick Dattola, a Tupper Lake business-owner who switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican in the last year. Dattola was once Tupper Lake’s Democratic committee chair.

He said the majority of Democrats are moderates and said he believes the U.S. is “center-right” as a whole, politically.

Harvey Schantz, a professor of political science at SUNY Plattsburgh, agreed that globally, the U.S. is more center-right than other comparable countries.

State Conservative Party Chairman Jerry Kassar said he agrees with Stefanik’s assessment, saying Biden has become more left as time has gone on, including with the addition of Kamala Harris as his vice presidential pick.

He said he is mostly concerned that Biden “does not stand for anything” and will adapt to where he needs to be to win.

Malone town Supervisor Andrea Stewart agreed. She said Biden is “a manipulated candidate.”

Biden was widely seen as one of the more moderate candidates during the primary election, debating against his many opponents’ more progressive policies. But once he broke away from the pack as the party’s nominee, Republican opponents began saying he is just as far-left as the candidates he had been debating.

Schantz said perceptions of political leanings are determined by one’s own placement on the political spectrum.

“To some degree, how you perceive a politician’s ideological standing depends upon where you stand yourself,” Schantz said. “If you’re in the Republican Party, no matter how far to the right or to the center you are, you have to look left to see Biden. … For the far-left, in order to see Biden, they have to gaze to the center, so he’s a centrist, and Democrats in the center are willing to claim him as their own.”

He said Stefanik was likely using the term as a speaking technique to “prime” voters to associate Biden with far-left politics, creating a negative pairing.

“I think it’s just a testament to how far to the right the discourse in this country has become over the last 40 years,” Henderson said. “Things that are universal social goods, like public education and Medicare for All, those are not far-left programs most other places in the world.”

Dattola said Biden was likely taking a common campaign path of advocating for policies on the extreme end of a political spectrum, and gradually working toward a more centrist platform as the campaign progresses, to gather a large base of supporters. But Dattola said he is surprised Biden has not come more to the middle.

Bartley, who called herself a moderate Democrat, said she believes Republicans use the term “far-left” “to paint all Democrats with one brush.”

Henderson said Republicans use the term as a “pejorative” toward people who want to create government programs since the Great Depression-era New Deal.

“I just don’t buy it,” Henderson said. “It’s just not a serious label. It doesn’t describe reality.”

Bartley also said Cobb is not a far-leftist.

Cobb has walked back several of her more left-wing ideas, such as supporting Medicare for All in the 2018 race, but not the 2020 race, and saying she supports an assault weapons ban personally, but not politically.

Cobb herself responded to this, saying it is not true that she is a “far-left” candidate and calling the phrase “name-calling.”

Impeachment

Stewart said she expected people to talk about Trump’s impeachment trial at the convention, but she was glad it was Stefanik who brought it up.

“This attack was not just on the president; it was an attack on you — your voice and your vote,” Stefanik said in her speech.

Stewart said this embodied how she and many other Republicans she knew felt during the weeks-long House proceedings and Senate trial.

Schantz said speakers mostly focused on their own experiences, so it was natural Stefanik would talk about the big moment when she received national attention and praise from Trump, when she defended him in Congress.

Kassar said he was surprised but pleased to hear the issue of impeachment raised in her speech.

He said Stefanik brought youth and energy with her RNC speech. Though she’s been called a “rising star” in the Republican Party by Trump, Kassar said she’s also become a major spokesperson for the Conservative Party.

Today, Stefanik will be in Hopewell Junction to accept the New York Conservative Party’s endorsement of Trump on the president’s behalf.

District talk

Bartley said she felt during the speech that there are two sides to Stefanik. Bartley said she respects her but has been “disappointed” she has not remained as moderate as Bartley felt she was before the impeachment proceedings.

“I really see two different Stefaniks,” Bartley said. “I see the one who is very, very dedicated to Donald Trump, and has interest in the national stuff. I see a different person when she is in the North Country. … I feel her focus is not on the North Country.”

She said she felt the North Country is a “stepping stone” to Stefanik’s larger political aspirations.

This is an idea echoed by Cobb.

“She has time to go to Iowa, she has time to go to Tulsa, time to go to Washington and speak at a national political convention, but she doesn’t have time to fight for families here,” Cobb said of the speech.

However, Schantz said in his analysis of the convention speeches, Stefanik’s was most district-centric of the 14 or so members of Congress who spoke.

He said around one minute of her four-minute speech was spent talking about the North Country, in which she named Saratoga, Lake Placid and Fort Drum.

He said he believes this is because she is aware of the importance of the national stage in the effort for reelection.

Schantz said the approximately 14 congressional speakers at the conference were all members on whom Trump relies for support and defense.

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