‘Defcon 1 Moment’: Democrats Panic Over Biden’s Debate Performance
President did nothing to quell worries about his age at 81
Democrats clearly are disappointed with President Biden’s performance in Thursday’s presidential debate against Donald Trump, exacerbating concerns about Biden’s age and ability to do the job.
Biden spoke haltingly, and appeared confused, throughout most of the debate against Trump. For his part, Trump exuded more energy although he spread numerous falsehoods during the encounter without fact-checking from the moderators.
Thursday’s encounter from CNN in Atlanta, Ga, was the earliest such general-election debate in US history.
“It’s kind of a DEFCON-1 moment. I do think Lawrence and Chris give a very important caveat. Listen, I’ve been deeply involved in presidential campaign debates, some went well. Some didn’t go well. The only thing that matters, and you won’t really know for three or four days, is how the voters that decide this reaction will react. I would also add I have deep suspicion that Donald Trump with swing voters bombed as well,” said David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, in a post-debate appearance on MSNBC. “That is the tragedy, because I think Joe Biden, the biggest thing in this election is voters’ concerns, both swing voters and base voters, with his age, and those were compounded tonight. So what the campaign is going to do is try and run ads.
“Biden will go out tomorrow and the next day being aggressive. I mean, it wasn’t just his craziness and lies, although that was apparent in every question. Donald Trump would not even answer questions about childcare or the opioid crisis. You know, talk about someone who has been consumed with himself, which is the message the Biden campaign wanted to land. But the concern level is quite high,” Plouffe added. “This is a race that — it reminds me a little bit of 2012, but in reverse. We had a small but significantly important lead in battleground states. We had a really bad first debate. Race tightened, but we were okay. Biden is behind narrowly right now. He is the one that has to change the equation here. The biggest barrier that is keeping his ceiling too low is concerns about age. I think that is the tragedy, because I think Trump had so many openings that you could have just scissored him up on tonight.
“And Biden did have a couple of good moments, but I think at the end of the day, the overwhelming reaction — again, it does not matter, quite frankly, what people like us say. It is what the voters say. And if they were already concerned — the way I think about it, sadly, it really pains me to say this, they are three years apart, they seemed about 30 years apart tonight. I think that will be the thing that voters really wrestle with coming out of this.”
Even former White House staffers for Biden said that it was a bad night for the president.
“Yeah, look, it was a really disappointing debate performance from Joe Biden. I don‘t think there‘s any other way to slice it. His biggest issue that he had to prove to the American people was that he had the energy, the stamina, and he didn‘t do that. And so I think that is of concern. And I think for a lot of Democrats that’s very disappointing,” said Kate Bedingfield, who previously was Biden’s director of communications. “I will say, Donald Trump also had some really rough moments in this debate and, you know, talking to the Biden campaign, they say their dials started really moving away from Trump as he was increasing his personal attacks on Biden, so I think there was a lot about his kind of character and the kind of personal nastiness that he was putting on display that doesn‘t help him with the swing voters that he needs.
“You know, and I also think you saw him continue to get sort of more and more animated across the course of the debate and give some really problematic answers about January 6, some really problematic answers about [Russian leader Vladimir] Putin. So, you know, Donald Trump did not get off scot-free tonight by any stretch, But, look, there is no two ways about it. That was not a good debate.”
Former Democratic senator Claire McCaskill clearly was dejected at Biden’s debate performance.
“Joe Biden had one thing he had to do tonight and he didn’t do it. He had one thing he had to accomplish, and that was reassure America that he was up to the job at his age, and he failed at that tonight,” said the one-time lawmaker from Missouri. “Now, does that mean that my phone blowing up with senators and campaign operatives and donors, big donors from all over the country, does that mean that Joe Biden is not the candidate? I don’t know that. I think we will know a lot more in a few weeks, how this plays out, how the polling plays out, but I think a couple of things are going on right now.
“I think I’m not the only one whose heart is breaking right now. There’s a lot of people who watched this tonight and felt terribly for Joe Biden,” she added.
Please support our work…
Please subscribe…