This year's presidential race was supposed to be a rematch between two older white men, Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

The American presidency is vested with many overt powers, but one of the most important powers of the office is implicit, and that's the power of rhetoric.

President Joe Biden has begun publicly courting Republicans to back his sweeping infrastructure plan, but his reach across the aisle is intended just as much to keep Democrats in line as it is a first step in an uphill climb to any bipartisan deal.

His Cabinet picks help demonstrate how he plans to deliver. Many have already begun meeting with interest groups and advocacy organizations, and his transition team has had what’s been described as an “open-door policy” toward advocacy groups for months. It’s a sharp contrast to President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, which was dominated largely by white men with little experience in Washington. Biden’s aides say that was one of the goals he set in filling out his Cabinet: to signal that his presidency means a return to competent, stable leadership government. While Salguero recalled meetings with the Trump administration on key issues, he said the Biden transition team’s outreach already has gone further.

New York Senator Chuck Schumer speaks at a news conference outside an early voting site in New York, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2020. New Yorkers lined up to vote early for a fourth consecutive day Tuesday after a weekend that saw a crush of more than 400,000 voters statewide. The unofficial tally shows about 194,000 voters this weekend in New York City, where some people waited an hour or more in lines that stretched for several blocks. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Republicans held key Senate seats that Democrats hoped to flip, and the GOP may ultimately shrink the Democrats' House majority. And in a warning sign for Democrats, Trump demonstrated an uptick of support in some Black and Latino communities. One of Biden’s principal arguments in a crowded Democratic presidential primary campaign was that he could expand Democrats' coalition to include more older voters, independents, and even moderate Republicans. To be sure, Biden performed better than Hillary Clinton four years earlier in states like Iowa, Ohio, and Texas. In Texas, Hinojosa said Trump could hold appeal with Latinos that doesn't translate into long-term party loyalty.

NEW YORK – Four years ago when he first moderated a general election presidential debate, Chris Wallace was firm and funny in trying to get Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to stop talking simultaneously. Wallace declined an interview request through Fox but his work offers clues about how he will approach the assignment. Trump has tweeted, more than once, that Chris will “never be his father.”Mike Wallace, it should be noted, never moderated a presidential debate. During interviews with Trump this summer, Wallace and Jonathan Swan of Axios proved particularly adept at challenging presidential misstatements. “I do not believe it is my job to be a truth squad,” Wallace told a Fox News colleague before the 2016 debate.

FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2018, file photo, former President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign rally for Democratic candidates in Miami. Democrats are eagerly embracing Obama as a political wingman for Joe Biden, who spent two terms by his side as vice president. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)WASHINGTON Former President Barack Obama raised more than $4 million from 120,000 individual donors ahead of his first fundraiser for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. You have the 4 million Obama 2012 voters that sat out in 16, Obama obviously has cache with them. And both Biden and Sanders have made overtures toward progressives, with Biden embracing some of Sanders policies and Obama praising him by name in his endorsement video for Biden.