Having no audience and a credible threat of cutting off the microphones is the only thing making this debate remotely watchable. No crosstalk, no dumb applause. All debates should be run this way.
The idea that this is going to go beyond 10pm seems needlessly cruel to Joe Biden.
After that Charlottesville exchange, in which Biden denied his earlier statement that it was his motivation to run, it became clear that if there are more debates between Trump and Biden (something I doubt now), one Trump strategy could be to just point out things Biden has said, and then watch as Biden foolishly contradicts them. Then use the resulting material in swing state ads to highlight either Biden’s inconstancy, or his … uh… forgetfulness.
Kelly O’Donnell reports that President Biden’s team is telling journalists that Biden “has a cold,” which certainly makes sense given how shot his voice sounds.
The problem, of course, is that Biden looks like the next cold he catches could well send him to the boneyard.
I have been skeptical of the idea that Democrats had a realistic path to dumping Biden, but this debate is certainly going to put more pressure on him to step aside. In February I wrote that I thought that as bad as Kamala Harris is, she’d probably be a safer choice for Democrats than Biden at this point. It rings more true now.
It’s feeling like the Broncos–Panthers Super Bowl. Biden has no answers, standing there like Cam Newton not diving on a fumble, for how much more Trump wants it.
Biden recovered ground beginning with the January 6 discussion (but was completely wrong about Charlottesville)
Back in January, I reported the following few sentences in National Review:
“Behind closed doors and in hushed tones, a small cohort of elected Democrats who are feeling the heat of recent polls have started privately questioning whether Biden can “make it” to Election Day. ‘My concern is heightened,’ one House Democrat tells National Review after seeing him interact with other lawmakers at a White House holiday party, adding the president’s habit of mumbling in public settings and reliance on a teleprompter have done little to dispel concerns from voters that he is fit to serve another term: ‘Half the time I don’t know what he’s saying.’”
How do you think those Democrats are feeling right now?
Biden is leaning too hard on the rhetorical crutch— ”The idea!“—to highlight what he views as Trumpian outrages. The more he does it, the less it works.
Biden now denounces “the idea that the only reason I ran” was Charlottesville, which he has said in the past was why he ran.