I am reading story after story about Joe and the consequences of Thursday night and I am increasingly left with the gut feeling that — this is us turning the corner, finally doing what we needed to do, to win.
I could just be delusional, of course. But, I am not uncritical I have been upset and think the campaign and Joe really FU’d up. I fully expect, despite some initial positive polling, for us to pay for the Thursday’s epic fumble in the polls over the next few weeks.
However, it is increasingly clear to me that Thursday night happened because there was something wrong with the campaign and with Joe. They were not, despite the repeated denials (supported by us) , dealing with the elephant in the room. Joe’s clear and present slowing down as an 81 year old historically great president who can and does have senior moments.
I don’t know if the campaign or Joe was in denial. But, something needed to change. He and the campaign needed a reckoning. The eliding over the age issue, never worked. Voters sensed it. It’s why the fake Tik Toks of him staring into space worked, because there was some truth in the accusation. And, pretending it was not real, was just fueling the fire. Most importantly, the Trump campaign knew it was real and so has been using it.
The only way through has always been to own the age issue and deal with it with the voters and the campaign in a real and honest way. Joe and the campaign now have no choice if they want to stay in and win. They know this. They will lose donors, bleed support if they do not. They can’t win without addressing, going through it.
It would have been a lot smarter of the campaign to just do this before the debate. To change up. To get proud Joe to do what works for him as an amazing 81 year old President who is a step slower. But, either he was not listening (my guess) or the campaign was not pushing it.
I assumed, after Thursday, that parts of the supporter base that I personally have a great fondness for, like Simon Rosenberg’s Hopium Chronicles, would crash after Thursday’s performance. Instead, the opposite is happening. More people are signing up, getting engaged. The base was alarmingly standoffish (I think because of the age issue) but now it is not. We are having the conversation in a real way about what its means to have a 81 old nominee and how to handle that.
Simon Rosenberg has long advocated for fully embracing the age issue so you can get the positive and the negatives of age. We saw the negatives on Thursday. We know the positives. But, no one was going to ever listen to the positives until Joe and the campaign got real about the negatives and he was his authentic self in the campaign and on the campaign trail.
I believe, as long as Joe is not really fully diminished (which I think is the case but we will now find out) we wlll have this conversation and our base and the anti-Trump coalition will finally fully rally to him. Like a lot of dysfunctional families, we needed things to get worse before they can get better so we would finally have the hard conversation that we needed to move forward.
Let’s go people. Let’s embrace our old but great President and all his flaws and many strengths and go and win this thing.