We’re back! And what a time to be back. Joe Biden is President of the United States and there are several reasons to be optimistic about what his administration can achieve.

First, the Biden Administration can help end the COVID-19 crisis. The disease has now, as the President noted in his excellent first inaugural address, killed more Americans than died in WWII, a truly horrible milestone. It also laid out your humble writer for about 10 days in December and killed two of my extended family members, so I can say with authority that I do not recommend getting this disease!

Biden can end the COVID crisis mostly by speeding up vaccination efforts and sweating the details. His plan includes vaccinating 100 million people in 100 days, which honestly, isn’t ambitious enough. He’s pledged to help states that need help with staffing, distribution, and promised to do everything from ramp up production of raw materials to ensuring there are enough low-dead space syringes to squeeze extra doses out of the existing Pfizer and Moderna vaccine vials already in existence.

Second, Biden seems to sincerely, genuinely want to unite a badly fractured country, and some Republicans seem to maybe want to go along. Newly minted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s most recent comments that directly blame former President Trump for inciting an insurrectionist mob to attack the Capitol on January 6th as well as his rumored support for convicting Trump on his most recent impeachment may signal a final, long-overdue push by the institutional GOP to purge the most hardcore factions of Trump’s base from their party. Being McConnell, it could all be a ploy, a lie, or a short-lived trial balloon, but to me it’s real hope. McConnell may feel that even if it hurts the party in the very short-run to reduce its numbers by expelling Trump dead-enders, it may be better in the long-run to have a GOP worth voting for in 2022 when he surely hopes to retake the 50/50 divided Senate.

Lastly, economically Biden is actually in a good place…which for the country is a bad place. COVID has wreaked havoc on the economy despite the government’s intermittent efforts to spend our way toward recovery, but perversely what’s bad for everyday people can be good for Biden here. He starts low baseline, meaning there is lots of room to improve. While stocks have more than rebounded from COVID-induced lows in March, many Americans are still on thin ice financially due to job losses, illnesses, and compounding past-due bills. With interest rates low, a Fed that seems willing and able to help, and a fully Democratically-controlled federal government in Washington, Biden should have enough ammunition to blast any emerging deficit hawks with cash cannons.

On top of those economic tools, the first reason I’m optimistic (defeating COVID) feeds into my economic optimism, because nothing will cure what ails the U.S. economy like crushing COVID. Emergency spending to prop up households and business is effective and needed, but ending the pandemic and getting back to business will also work wonders. Because Biden has committed his administration to taking the pandemic seriously and ending it as quickly as possible, he has simultaneously also committed to mending the economy as quickly as possible as well.

Which is good news for everyone.

All of Biden’s nominees share a few things, like experience and competence, that many of President Trump’s rotating cast of cabinet members lacked. Biden’s nominees have so far all previously served in government leadership roles related to the offices they have been nominated for. It’s even been termed, “The Return of the Deputies” since so many of these new principals have served as deputies in the same or similar agencies under former President Obama.

Why should normal people care about this? People should care because we deserve a government that works well. We deserve a government that’s staffed by the “best of the best.” We deserve an administration that, even if it doesn’t share your particular goals or values, actually knows how to operate the levers of government properly.

Americans can sleep better at night and businesses can operate with more certainty when they know that the federal government is not a wrecking ball swinging around wildly, crashing into various institutional pillars of our democratic form of government. Foreign allies and adversaries can be assured that we will act logically, thoroughly, and and justly - something that will assure the former and deter the later.

So it’s good news from Washington (or Delaware?) for now, for once. On top of excellent data about several COVID-19 vaccines, the incoming Biden administration should have a tailwind at their backs. They can use that momentum to pass a big, controversial, partisan bill sometime in the spring, or maybe they will choose to go down a different path.

Rather than the typical approach, the one both former Presidents Bush and Obama took, the new Biden administration should instead use any political momentum and good will to pass bills that do things that are already popular. Use momentum and good will to fuel more momentum and good will. There is no shortage of popular policies the Biden administration could enact in the first few months of 2021, and doing so would help restore people’s confidence that their government can actually work for them.

That argument is not wrong. Candidates that have incredibly in-depth policy platforms and nuanced views on every issue, but who fail to tell compelling stories or connect with voters on an emotional level are overwhelmingly likely to lose.

So why does supporting popular policies even matter?

I matters because being for popular things and against unpopular ones is the surest way to reach a baseline level of support when facing voters. Sure, candidates who come out of the gate supporting all kids of wild policies can win in today’s polarized environment simply on the strength of the (D) or (R) after their names, but that’s not the typical outcome. More often, party affiliation will come with a guiding set of guardrails that constrain the candidate to a certain set of policies that are broadly popular within the party at large. Constraining the types of policies a candidate is able to support is actually a strength of our much-maligned two-party system.

The key however, for successful candidates and campaigns that want to actually get things done, is understanding how to prioritize and message well. Just because your party is for a policy does not mean it should be front-and-center of your campaign. And just because your party is against a policy, you shouldn’t automatically discount supporting it, so long as it’s broadly popular with voters. Candidates and campaigns are more successful when they put popular policies front-and-center and let less popular ideas fade to the background. Elected leaders are more successful at actually enacting policies when those policies are broadly popular rather than pursuing personal white whales and trying to ram through policies that the general public does not approve of.

The big message here is that policy does matter - it should be the bedrock of every good campaign and something that all candidates for office should care about and be well-versed in. Supporting popular policies is an entry-ticket into the game of being a serious candidate and an effective public servant. Even if most voters end up casting their ballots based on a candidate’s party affiliation or personal message and story, a sure-fire way to fail right from the beginning is to support a slate of unpopular policies.

Or to be a witch.

While the electoral college total isn’t set in stone and the popular vote will take weeks to fully count, Joe Biden will be the 46th President of the United States.

But why? Some people thought Joe was too old, too moderate, or too boring.

He did it by doing what most other winning candidates have done in the past. He:

1. Promised to enact policies that are popular with the American People, and he also,

2. Praised America, Americans, and tied his own personal story to the story of other everyday Americans

That’s it. That’s what most winning candidates do and that’s exactly what Joe Biden did during both the Democratic Primary election and the 2020 General Election.

Biden’s victory was helped by a number of factors, but chief among them was President Donald Trump’s refusal to follow the normal winning formula. Trump won in 2016 despite being unpopular, divisive, disparaging of many Americans, and hinting at wanting to enact some very unpopular policies. The unique circumstances of Trump’s 2016 race are worth dissecting in light of his 2020 loss, but that’s a topic for another day.

Being our first post, let’s be crystal clear about what we’re trying to do. The purpose of Sixty Percent Strategies is to help elected leaders enact policies that are popular with the American people. To be in a position to do that, we also help campaigns win in the first place. Winning candidates and campaigns tell good stories, they say the right things to the right people, and they avoid stepping on unnecessary rakes.

But unlike most other campaign consultants, messaging groups or political comms agencies, we’re not willing to help just anyone. We plan on working for and with campaigns and causes that are going to do the most good for the country by quickly getting to work on policies that are already broadly popular. If you want to move the Overton Window on an issue and maybe get it accomplished in 15 years, we wish you good luck!

We want the American government at all levels to work well, for leaders to pass policies that are popular, and to reject pulls toward the extremes. Most Americans have at least a few unpopular opinions. If you doubt that, just visit Twitter or Facebook sometime! But there is so much policy that is low-hanging fruit, just ripe to be enacted. Even in a divided, partisan nation, there are things we already agree on; let’s get them done right now.

As the name implies, Sixty Percent Strategies pushes elected leaders, candidates, and advocacy groups to prioritize policies that already poll at greater than 60% approval among the American people.

Sixty Percent Strategies also strongly believes that America is a place to be proud of, a place to always make better, and a place where anyone can belong. To that end, campaigns should praise America and root their candidate or cause in the best chapters in our shared American story.

So why should you stay tuned?

You’ll get insights into how to be a better advocate. You’ll understand how much good a well-run government can do for you and the people you care about. And you’ll get a chance to learn about specific issues that you might not even know are popular across partisan lines.

Thanks for reading and I hope you’ll subscribe! New posts are published every Wednesday morning, and next week we’re writing about how to make American work better in an era of closely divided government.

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In the meantime, tell your friends!