The Debate
Well, many people’s worst fears were realized on Thursday, as President Biden had the most dismal and depressing performance in the history of presidential debates.
I had seen President Biden live in February. He did not look good. He was old and shuffling, his skin translucent. His delivery of remarks was uneven and performative – when he says something that is supposed to have emotion behind it but it seems like an old guy reading lines instead of genuine sentiment.
Still, I figured that his team had figured out a regimen to make him seem pumped up and energetic for 90 minutes – they seemed to have it pretty well managed for the State of the Union. I thought if they give him a week of rest and preparation Joe would probably be able to channel some of his vigor from his many debates of 2020, and he’d be genuinely fired up to debate Trump.
I was wrong. It was a doddering disaster.
One thing that was always in the back of my mind - a debate is a LOT harder than giving a speech off of a teleprompter. You have to have command of the material and some messages memorized. You have to project energy in response to your opponent and in some cases the moderators. Let’s say I had you memorize a 60-second message to camera. You’d have to be able to bust that out on command after 80 minutes of back and forth. It’s a lot of cognitive loading.
If someone asked me to give a good speech off of a teleprompter, I could do that with almost no notice. If someone asked me to do a great job at a televised debate it would take some runway. This was a much higher hurdle to clear than the State of the Union, and Joe Biden essentially faceplanted on the first lap.
So what happens now?
I’m clearly in the camp that Joe Biden should step aside and let the Democrats nominate someone else. A ticket of well-liked governors would be a much tougher foil for Trump than Joe and Kamala at this point. I got the hashtag #swapJoeout trending at one point.
The New York Times, the Atlantic, and even CNN have all piled on to make the same case. It’s been a remarkable shift. It’s tough to imagine a successful Democratic campaign that has lost the media to this degree.
But the Biden camp is digging in. The flagship Democrats – Obama, Harris, Newsom, Clyburn, Jeffries, Schumer – are circling the wagons, at least publicly. Donors are being managed and told to stay steady. Biden is campaigning away to try to demonstrate vitality. They have internalized the lesson – that has been true in the past – that if you hunker down you can weather any storm. Each passing day gives them more distance from the debate.
Still, behind the scenes some of the other candidates-in-waiting are staffing up and preparing.
Most debates don’t change a race fundamentally. This one is an exception – Americans saw firsthand that the President isn’t up to the job. He is running an unwinnable race. He is making the case that he is running to defend democracy, but then clinging to the office.
Joe Biden’s superpower has been that he’s a good man who will do right by the country. He is doing wrong by the country now. The question is whether anyone around him will have the courage and moral clarity to save him, and the rest of us, from himself.
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