a reminder:

Why Biden thinks the GOP fever could break (really)

By Alex Thompson & Thedoric Meyer @ Politico Transition Playbook, 12/15/2020 06:21 PM

JOE BIDEN thinks he’ll succeed where President BARACK OBAMA failed — at least when it comes to Republicans in Congress.

Biden drew eye rolls and even scorn from his own party during the campaign when he talked about a Republican “epiphany” post-Trump. Some just thought it was just glossy campaign rhetoric for the masses. Biden couldn’t be that naive, could he?

But Biden doubled down Monday night, telling grassroots supporters on a call that he believes Trump’s departure will change Republican behavior — even though it might take six to eight months. Cognizant of the doubters, he said, “you’re going to be surprised.”

A senior aide on Biden’s transition noted that many of the Democrats doubting Biden now were the ones who doubted his candidacy in the first place. “To all those eye rollers, I’d say just watch us, just watch Joe Biden because you’ve been wrong for the last two years,” the aide told Transition Playbook.

Biden believes infrastructure and other issues like rural broadband are early openings for some bipartisan agreement (infrastructure week may finally happen!?) and is steering away from issues where the parties are just too far apart. The Biden team also believes the thin majorities in each chamber along with the demographic realignments in both parties offer some chances to pick off votes.

But if Senate Majority Leader MITCH McCONNELL takes 38 days to even acknowledge Biden’s victory, what’s the hope of Republicans supporting anything Biden supports?

The Biden team, however, sees the last 38 days as early evidence of Biden’s savvy when dealing with congressional Republicans. “If you look at what he did, he acted like a president-elect and he gave Republicans the space they needed, which is what a master legislator does,” the senior transition aide said.

Still, Biden acknowledged Monday night: “I may eat these words.”

Biden has had to eat them before. He told CHRIS MATTHEWS days before the 2012 election that he’d already had conversations with Republicans about working together once Obama won.

“I think you're gonna see the fever break,” he said. It didn’t, for the most part. Four more years of gridlock, legislative brinkmanship, and finger-pointing ensued.

JIM MANLEY, a former top aide to former Senate Majority Leader HARRY REID (D-Nev.) and a veteran of many Senate fights during Obama’s first term, said he understood Biden’s desire to cut deals with his former colleagues but “at some point you fall into the same trap the Obama folks did.”

In an interview with The New Yorker this summer, Obama suggested Biden had wised up since then [....]