The High Cost of Johnson. The High Cost of Biden.

In 1966, Richard Nixon crisscrossed the country, campaigning for Republicans and attacking Lyndon Johnson on “the high cost of Johnson.”¹  While we might not see 1966’s 3.0% inflation as no big deal, in 1966, after seven years of inflation between 1.1% and 1.6%, it was a big deal – and an important campaign issue.  The Republicans picked up 47 seats in the House in 1966.

Compare 1966 with today.  The most recent inflation number today is 6.8%.  Democrats are trying to push big spending bills through Congress, bills that could keep inflation high or maybe even push it higher.  “The high cost of Biden” has the potential to be a big campaign issue for Republicans next year.  It ought to give Democrats pause and Republicans hope for 2022, and maybe even 2024. 

But Donald Trump seems to think that the biggest issue next year will be the stolen presidential election of 2020.  He talks about it constantly, and a lot of Republicans either agree with him or are too afraid of him to disagree.

So, the question is whether Republicans should campaign next year on “the high cost of Biden” or the “Presidential Election Fraud of 2020.”  You can’t say both because there can only be one main issue.  Former President Trump would have it be the latter.  It could be that some part of his base would agree.  However, I don’t think a majority of voters, especially a majority of voters in the middle, where elections are won and lost, would agree.  Focusing on former President Trump’s claims of a stolen election would lose 2022 for the Republicans² and probably lose 2024, too.  Given what the Democrats have been able to accomplish, or at least come close to accomplishing, with a paper-thin majority in the House and a 50-50 split in the Senate, I don’t want to think about what they could do with real majorities after 2024. 

It’s up to Republicans.  Will it be “the high cost of Biden” or the “Presidential Election Fraud of 2020”?  Victory or defeat?
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¹ William Safire, Before the Fall: An Inside View of the Pre-Watergate White House (1975), p. 34.
² Republicans might get enough seats to control the House in next year’s election, but they won’t get enough to do anything useful, and they would probably lose what majority they got in a 2024 election focused on the “Presidential Election Fraud of 2020.”