Debates Will Be Biden’s Undoing
They will destroy his campaign whether he shows up or not.
by David Catron
August 11, 2020, 12:04 AM
It should by now be clear to the meanest intelligence that key advisers to former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, are terrified of allowing him to stand next to President Trump on a debate stage. Consequently, they have deployed various Biden-friendly pundits to denounce presidential debates in general as meaningless exercises in empty showmanship. Elizabeth Drew, for example, advises the readers of the New York Times that these quadrennial contests more closely resemble wrestling matches than genuine debates about important issues. They reward “snappy comebacks and one-liners†rather than substantive discussions of serious issues. In the end she inadvertently refutes her own claim.
The voters will certainly see it as an indication that Biden is indeed suffering from some disability that renders him incapable of debating Trump face-to-face.
Drew attempts to support her argument by referring extensively to President Reagan’s debates with Walter Mondale. Ironically, these very encounters demonstrated how important the debates have become. Indeed, the Reagan–Mondale events were instrumental in disposing of a central question that hovered over the 1984 campaign and is once again very much on the minds of the voters — whether or not one of the candidates was experiencing a cognitive decline. During that election cycle the Democrats and their allies in the media began to spread rumors that Reagan’s advanced age (73) had robbed him of his mental edge. Drew describes how the debates put that issue to rest:
In the first 1984 debate, Reagan, seeking re-election and at 73, the oldest person to be nominated for the presidency seemed tired and tended to wander off mentally at times.… But another debate soon followed. Thoroughly prepared, Reagan got off the crack, “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.†The audience roared and Mr. Mondale feigned a laugh, knowing he was cooked.… But what is the point or relevance of the carefully prepared one-liner?
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https://spectator.org/biden-trump-debates/
