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**SEPTEMBER 9, 2020**

Kuttner on TAP

What Leverage Do Progressives Have on Biden?

****

A Washington Post story

earlier this week seemed to confirm progressives' worst suspicions
about Joe Biden.

The story quoted an investment banker recounting phone calls from Biden
campaign officials to Wall Street allies downplaying the candidate's
far-reaching commitments on financial reform. "They basically said,
'Listen, this is just an exercise to keep the Warren people happy, and
don't read too much into it.'"

Ouch! Now this story should itself be taken with a grain of salt. At
this stage of the game, a candidate tries to be all things to all
people.

But the story reinforced progressive anxieties over the weekend when the
Biden campaign released its latest transition senior team
,
co-chaired by Jeff Zients, who epitomizes the revolving door between
centrist Democratic administrations and Wall Street.

All this raises the following question: What leverage do progressives
ultimately have on Biden, either as candidate or-one hopes-as
president?

And that phrase-"one hopes"-says it all: not as much as we'd like.
Because progressives know that the prime goal has to be to oust Donald
Trump. And threatening to stay home, or vote third-party, or not work
hard for Biden's election would be perverse actions. Yet there is in
fact a basis for influence.

The leverage that progressives have is in the progressive logic of the
political moment. If Biden wants a big turnout, he needs to be for big
change. And that's true once he takes office.

If he runs as one more Wall Street-beholden centrist or one more
cautious moderate on race, turnout will suffer. And if he governs as a
centrist and little about the life prospects of working people changes,
Democrats will get blown away in the 2022 midterms.

That's the leverage progressives have. Which is not to say that the
fights over personnel and policy won't be trench warfare. They will.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

Robert Kuttner's latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

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