Let me be clear — Biden (and his team) DESERVE to be fired after that performance last night. I say this as someone who LOVES Joe Biden. He — and they — had a very simple, doable task. Show up and be competent. Hold Donald Trump accountable. Beat the image of a ‘lost at the supermarket,” drooling President being portrayed on Tik Tok. Biden and his team failed miserably and have put our democracy at risk. However, we can’t fire them, we are likely stuck with Team Biden as our only means to stop Trump 2.0
Biden’s failure to prepare for the debate
Biden clearly was not prepared for the debate. He hadn’t prepped how he should look for the camera when Trump talked. It wasn’t hard to know that there would be a camera on him. He stood there with his MOUTH OPEN LOOKING VACANT with a camera on him. He didn’t look into the camera when he spoke. He hadn’t done the work to get comfortable and bring energy in an empty studio in that format that his team asked for. He did not have a coherent set of messages made for TV but instead talked in lists. In addition, he planned travel up to a week before the debate that probably led to him getting sick. And, he prioritized seeing family — including a sick grandchild — over making sure he was ready. He was, I believe, a classic incumbent who thought this debate was a distraction from his very real job — being President — and so just showed up and believed he could succeed. He’s a 81 year old not very telegenic candidate going up against a former reality TV star who needed to be prepared and he was not.
Biden’s team really screwed things up
In addition, his team really, really f’d this up. It was not hard to see — from the first moment — that putting Biden on that stage was going to be a disaster. They must have known that he was not prepared for this format. They must have seen how a cold would impact 81 year old Joe Biden’s ability to project strength and coherence. They needed to cancel, take the hit, pull him, say he was sick on Wednesday. If not, on Thursday afternoon, they needed to say that he was really sick and were considering cancelling (at least manage expectations) and figure out a different approach to handling the questions (other than whatever that was). They took a huge risk in scheduling this debate but did not follow through to mitigate the risk. Then, they failed to have the cojones to force him to confront the situation and call an audible. By not acting they turned a key moment the campaign needed into a negative and now cannot use it to build momentum. And, if Joe is still in the race in Sept., Trump will likely not debate him again. Why give Joe the chance to beat his bad performance and correct the very useful image now in voters’ heads, to Trump, of Biden as an incoherent, out of touch senior citizen?
Yes, the debate is going to matter
I’m seeing lots of posts about “there was a good flash poll the debate doesn’t matter” and “Trump lied, we won.” I love the loyalty but now is the time to get our heads out of the sand. This f-up by Biden and his team is going to cost us dearly. We’ll know more in a few weeks when his performance is baked into the polls and we can see the impact on fundraising numbers. It’s not going to be good. My guess is that we’ll lose all of the post Trump felony conviction bounce and then some (pushing Joe into the low 40s) and potentially outside the margin of error in the tough battlegrounds. Most importantly, this failure is a huge opportunity cost. The campaign needed this to be a tent pole moment and they failed. I am a die hard and I am even reconsidering my level of support going forward. I will probably still work hard to beat Trump but this is not helping build momentum or attract more volunteers or donors and most importantly, voters.
We can’t fire Joe Biden and he is probably not going to quit
I wish we could fire Joe Biden and his team but we can’t. He controls his delegates (they have to vote for him at the convention). He’d have to step down voluntarily and he’s not going to do that (most likely). He’s a fighter who doesn’t give up and he also clearly does not see or understand (or accept) his own limitations as an 81 year old candidate. If he did, he would not have run again.
His team, I believe, does not have the standing to try and reason with him about his prospects and force a change. I heard Jenn O’Malley Dillion interviewed by John Heilemann recently and he asked her “tell us, reassure us, give us an anecdote about why Joe Biden is not out of it and too old to run” and she offered up a long rambling story from 2022! She had nothing to offer from the current campaign, current moment (which is the natural response, “the other day he called me up, called me out about X, he is so sharp”). I think his team knows, knew he is losing luster. He must have senior moments, like last night, regularly in front of them. They are enabling his misguided and probably well-meaning denial and stubbornness to run again and finish the job. The guy is, after all, a great President but a terrible candidate.
Joe is only going to quit if the polls are catastrophically bad. They won’t be. He’ll still be in the 40s but the impact will be catastrophic, This is an election that will be won on the margins and losing 4% is game over for Biden. But, the results are not going to be dramatic enough to force a reckoning by Biden and his team. He’s going stay and fight.
Fortunately (and unfortunately), this is probably our best option going forward. While I would prefer to have Gretchen Whitmer or Wes Moore as our nominee, the odds that they get selected in August, raise enough money, build out a field operation and win are slim to none. We are stuck with Joe who was 50/50 before the debate and will, worse case, be 40/60 after it (which is still better than the alternatives probably). Maybe we will get lucky and Trump implodes. I doubt it but it’s probably our best hope.
We should be pissed off — we were set up to win and now we may lose
Biden and his campaign really let us down. This was a layup and they failed because of sheer incompetence and arrogance. This failure was entirely self-inflicted. We were going to win and now we will need to be lucky to prevail. We should let the campaign know this because they now need to be perfect down the stretch. We cannot handle any more f’ups (and somehow Biden needs to improve as a candidate while being 81). God help us. We — and the country — did not and do not deserve this.