Is it wrong for President Trump to use the White House Rose Garden to deliver what turned into a campaign speech?

Yesterday's speech was similar to his long, extemporaneous rally speeches — except it didn't have the exuberant energy and humor. I wrote about it in the previous post — reacting to Charlie Sykes's trashing of the event — and at one point I said, "The main objection is that he's in the Rose Garden setting, and he's making the case against his political opponent." After publishing, I had the question I've put in the post title.

There is something called the Rose Garden strategy. From the Political Dictionary:

A Rose Garden campaign is when an incumbent president takes advantage of the power and prestige of his office to help him run for re-election. The phrase originally referred to a president staying on the grounds of the White House to campaign as opposed to traveling throughout the country....

The term “Rose Garden campaign” was first used by then-candidate Jimmy Carter in 1976. At the time, Carter was challenging the incumbent president Gerald Ford. Carter complained that Ford was using a “Rose Garden strategy” to get himself free publicity, staying in the public eye by signing bills and making pronouncements....

That implies doing presidential work in a way that implicitly makes the case for reelection, not using the Rose Garden as a platform for campaign speeches.

On a metaphorical level, a Rose Garden strategy refers to any time the incumbent president distributes political favors or largesse as part of his re-election strategy. This can mean offering economic packages to certain key states....

Obviously, that's a worse problem than choosing your backyard as the location for overtly political speeches!

The Political Dictionary cites a NYT article from May 2019, "Why Trump Can't Get Enough of the Rose Garden":

Since he entered office, Mr. Trump has favored backdrops that portray strength. He pushed for a military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue that was ultimately scratched. More recently, he has explored putting himself at the center of the nationally televised fireworks display on July 4, and addressing the nation from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.... But the Rose Garden is one of the few outdoor venues he controls unilaterally.

“He’s an indoor creature, but he wants to be seen outdoors,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian. “He likes the Oval Office because he could do the big signature and show power. But after a while, it becomes an image of a guy who is locked in a room. This is a deeply image-driven president. In the Rose Garden, he’s able to project that he’s outside and enjoying the compound.”

Former aides said Mr. Trump loved how his complexion looked in the Rose Garden’s natural light, as well as its proximity to the Oval Office and that it felt like a “tourist destination” he could show off while hosting an event.

His complexion, indeed. The NYT article does go on to say that President Obama liked to stage events in the Rose Garden, but unsurprisingly fails to inform us on his feelings about the look of his complexion.  And isn't it nice to see Douglas Brinkley again? We were just talking about him — "a minor American academic and sometime critic whose powers of observation and generosity of spirit would fit comfortably into a proton and still leave room for an echo."

Anyway, I wouldn't call Trump's campaign speech in the Rose Garden an example of a "Rose Garden strategy," though some of the things Trump is doing are in that category, whether they're specifically in the Rose Garden or not. Giving a campaign speech in the Rose Garden fits better under the heading "Front Porch Campaign." It's just campaigning without traveling, campaigning from home:

A front porch campaign is a low-key electoral campaign used in American politics in which the candidate remains close to or at home to make speeches to supporters who come to visit.... The successful presidential campaigns of James A. Garfield in 1880, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and William McKinley in 1896 are perhaps the best-known front porch campaigns.

McKinley's opposing candidate, William Jennings Bryan, gave over 600 speeches and traveled many miles all over the United States to campaign, but... William McKinley spoke to more than 700,000 supporters in front of his house in Canton....

McKinley was not an incumbent, living in the White House, so his porch wasn't the Rose Garden. More significantly, McKinley wasn't addressing a captive audience of journalists. He had his supporters there on the grounds. But those were different days. You can't be entertaining crowds at your house. It's not just coronavirus, it's security. And McKinley, for his part, got elected and then got assassinated:

On September 5, [1901] the President delivered his address at the fairgrounds, before a crowd of some 50,000 people.... One man in the crowd, Leon Czolgosz, hoped to assassinate McKinley. He had managed to get close to the presidential podium, but did not fire, uncertain of hitting his target. Czolgosz, after hearing a speech by anarchist Emma Goldman in Cleveland, had decided to do something he believed would advance the cause. After his failure to get close enough on September 5, Czolgosz waited the next day at the Temple of Music on the Exposition grounds, where the President was to meet the public. Czolgosz concealed his gun in a handkerchief, and, when he reached the head of the line, shot McKinley twice in the abdomen. McKinley urged his aides to break the news gently to [his wife] Ida, and to call off the mob that had set on Czolgosz....

We're much more protective of our Presidents these days. There's no reason to pressure him to travel about and experience the crowds. The man lives in the White House. The Rose Garden is his garden. Let him give a campaign speech in his garden if he likes. The crowd is grim-faced and surly. It's not ideal, but I'm going to withdraw my opinion — in my last post — that there's something objectionable about doing a campaign speech in the Rose Garden.