President Biden Hit It Out of the Park Last Night, But This Race is Still Only in the First Inning
President Biden made it clear last night that he intends to go right at the public perception (not to mention his critics) that he is too old to be President. He is going to look vigorous and talk vigorous and demonstrate that he is the more vigorous of the two choices the voting public has, whether they like it or not. But it remains to be seen whether he can pull this off.
Right now all we know from last night's performance is that he can read off a teleprompter and he can ridicule his opponents. That latter ability will serve him well if he is as vigorous as he appears to be. But certain facts remain. First, President Biden declined to do a Super Bowl interview which President Obama did all eight years in office, Trump did three times, and Biden did in 2021.[1] His people have given excuses for foregoing the greatest showcase available to any president running for reelection. But they are all nonsense. His failure to do an interview before 123.7 million viewers (the most watched telecast of all time)[2] can only be explained by a concern that it would have undermined further the case that he is fit enough to beat Donald Trump. Second, he has also done less than a third of the number of interviews that Trump did by this time in his presidency and a quarter of the number of interviews that Obama did. And the interviews he gave last year were far from confrontational.[3] There is no reason for him to appear on any program where his fitness for office or his accomplishments would be challenged. Third, lurking in the background is President Biden's five-hour interview with the Special Counsel investigating his possession of classified documents.[4] Biden has hotly disputed the Special Counsel's finding that Biden exhibited a bad memory, even forgetting the date when his son died. At this time, there is no way to know whether the Special Counsel's statement was accurate. If it shows that Biden was able to stand up to five hours of questioning by skilled prosecutors that will greatly support the argument that he is fit. But, if the video or transcript of that interview is made public, as some think it will, and it shows that Biden is in fact "well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory" that is a circumstance that would confirm that a vote for Biden in November is a vote for Kamala Harris, because it is only a matter of time before she will have to replace him.
The ultimate test of Biden's fitness will be the presidential debates. If Biden is as vigorous as his campaign maintains, he will have no trouble dealing with Trump's efforts to shout him down and deceive the public with his false narrative about the last election, and false statements about his record in office and Biden's. But if he can't, that is a reason for him to skip the debates. The furor over that decision will be loud, but it won't last long, and by that time Democrats and Independents who were tempted to just sit this one out will have decided that no matter what they think about Biden's fitness, Trump is too dangerous to allow back into office.
There is one thing that is certain. After last night, any major donors who were reluctant to open their wallets, and contribute to Joe Biden's reelection will enthusiastically do so now. And a campaign flooded with ads featuring the rightwing Republican Speaker of the House nodding his head up and down during most of Biden's address is going to go a long way to ensuring Biden's reelection.
[1] Nate Silver, “It’s time for the White House to put up or shut up,” https://substack.com/home/post/p-141761921?source=queue
[2] Variety, https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/super-bowl-2024-ratings-viewers-1235907666/
[3] Ezra Klein, “Democrats Have a Better Option than Biden,” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/opinion/ezra-klein-biden-audio-essay.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
[4] https://www.justice.gov/storage/report-from-special-counsel-robert-k-hur-february-2024.pdf