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Sloppy Joe

As we have noted previously, when we write debate recaps, we get our thoughts down on paper (well, down in pixels) before reading/listening to what anyone else has to say. That way, we make sure that what we write is solely our opinion, and is not influenced by the opinions of others. While we maintained that approach for last night's debate, it really wasn't necessary on this occasion. We know, with a great deal of certitude, what everyone is going to say. If you didn't watch, and want to before you read our assessment, here is the complete debate. Anyhow, let's get to it:

• Joe Biden: Shortly before the debate started, a couple of CNN's talking heads got into a dispute over what really matters in a debate. Scott Jennings said that the important thing is how the candidates present themselves (i.e., style). David Axelrod said that presentation is important, but even more important is what the candidates say (i.e., substance). We strongly agreed with Axelrod, and not just because Jennings is a simpering twit.
  
  Well, substance may have been important in the last presidential debate. And it may be important in the next presidential debate. But in THIS presidential debate, style was the story. And it was the story because, in terms of his presentation, Joe Biden was a train wreck. Whoever oversaw his debate prep should have been fired last night, on the tarmac at the airport, before the presidential party returned to Washington.
  
  We are not sure what happened, exactly. It was obvious that the President was over-prepared, and had too many factoids and lists and pre-scripted bits rattling around in his head. And at the same time, he was somehow under-prepared, in that he had no plan for responding to Trump's Gish Gallop of lies. Maybe Biden was also ill (he kept coughing and clearing his throat). Or anxious. Or something else. In any event, his answers were often halting and/or meandering. He lost his train of thought. He misspoke on a regular basis. In particular, nearly every time he mentioned a specific number/statistic, he'd correct himself with a different number/statistic. (Z) had this thought: "Wow, either one of us (V or Z) could have done better than this, with no prep at all." Shortly thereafter, (V) e-mailed with the exact same thought. Great minds?
  
  If you didn't watch, and you'd like an example, here is an answer to a question about the national debt:
  
  
  
  If you didn't watch last night, you really, really should watch this clip (or others like it, which will be easy to find), just so you appreciate how bad Biden was (sometimes). But, just in case, here's a transcription:

  TAPPER: President Trump, we will get to immigration later in this block. President Biden, I want to give you an opportunity to respond to this question about the national debt.
  
  BIDEN: He had the largest national debt of any president in a four-year period, number one. Number two, he—that $2 trillion tax cut benefited the very wealthy. I—what I'm going to do is fix the tax system.
  
  For example, we have a thousand trillionaires in America—I mean, billionaires in America. And what's happening? They're in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2 percent in taxes. If they just paid 24 percent or 25 percent, either one of those numbers, they'd raise $500 million... er, billion dollars, I should say, in a 10-year period.
  
  We'd be able to right wipe out his debt. We'd be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do—childcare, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our healthcare system, making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the—with—with—with the COVID. Excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with—look, if—we finally beat Medicare.

  We would not be terribly surprised if, by sometime today, the Trump campaign is selling "We Finally Beat Medicare" t-shirts.
  
  And note, we didn't choose this because it was the worst answer Biden gave. We chose it because it has all the missteps in a fairly short timeframe. He did improve some as the night went on, but even if Biden had turned into Abraham Lincoln (and he most certainly did not improve THAT much), there is no way he could have erased the negative impressions formed during the first half of the debate, which is when the largest number of people are watching, and when people are paying the closest attention.
  
  Biden even managed to hurt himself when he wasn't speaking. Seemingly forgetting that the camera was on him at nearly all times, and that you have to be mindful of your facial expressions, he regularly stood frozen, with his mouth agape, like this:
  
  
  
  Maybe he was trying to communicate disbelief at what Trump was saying, but it was not a good look.
  
  Moving onto the substance of Biden's debate answers... it was certainly there, but hard to discern because he was so often unfocused. We could generally grasp his points, simply because we know the material already. But a low-information voter who wants to know, for example, what Biden is going to do for Black families if he gets a second term? We doubt they got their answer. On top of that, the President was unwilling or unable to maneuver things, such that Trump's criminal conviction and anti-democracy plans got very little attention.
  
  Biden's closing statement was emblematic here. We cannot imagine how any candidate would walk into that arena without having that part down pat. And we also cannot imagine why the format of the closing statement would deviate from "Here are the three reasons you should vote for me." And yet, the only clear-cut reason to vote for Biden that we can discern from his closing is that he wants to expand the tax credit for childcare costs. Again, the person or persons who prepped him should be fired immediately.
  
  
• Donald Trump: On the other hand, the people who prepped Trump for the debate should get a raise. They did a heckuva job of putting lipstick on a pig. This is not to say that the former president gave a great performance, because he did not. However, he did do three very savvy things. First, he largely kept himself under control. Second, he used the old trick of answering whatever question he wanted to answer, rather than the question that was actually asked. That held true even if his answer was not in the same ZIP Code as the question. Third, he came armed with pat answers to some of the tough questions that were surely going to come up. For example, Trump was asked if he would really seek retribution against his enemies if reelected. and said: "My retribution is going to be success." That's not the kind of retribution he's actually looking for, but it sounds good as a soundbite.
  
  On top of all of this, Trump spoke smoothly, with a confident and assertive tone. If you did not speak English, and you were judging the two candidates solely by their posture and the flow of their verbiage, you would have guessed that Trump was 10-20 years younger than Biden, rather than 3 years younger.
  
  Mind you, Biden generally got stronger in the second half of the debate (except for his closing statement), Trump generally got weaker. And the former president certainly issued forth with a few of his trademark word salads. For example, this was ostensibly a response to a question about January 6:

  What they've done to some people that are so innocent, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, what you have done, how you've destroyed the lives of so many people. When they ripped down Portland, when they ripped down many other cities, you go to Minnesota, Minneapolis, what they've done there with the fires all over the city, if I didn't bring in the National Guard, that city would have been destroyed.
  
  When you look at all of the—they took over big chunks of Seattle. I was all set to bring in the National Guard. They heard that. They saw them coming and they left immediately. What he said about this whole subject is so off. Peacefully patriotic.
  
  One other thing, the "unselect committee," which is basically two horrible Republicans that are all gone now, out of office, and Democrats, all Democrats, they destroyed and deleted all of the information they found because they found out we were right. We were right. And they deleted and destroyed all of the information. They should go to jail for that. If a Republican did that, they'd go to jail.

  That's not an excerpt. That's the full answer. To take another example, here's the final portion of Trump's closing statement, which was theoretically pre-scripted, and was certainly pre-planned:

  All of the things that we've done, nobody's ever—never seen anything like—even from a medical standpoint. Right to Try, where we can try Space Age materials instead of going to Asia or going to Europe and trying to get when you're terminally ill.
  
  Now, you can go and you can get something. You signed a document. They've been trying to get it for 42 years.
  
  But you know what we did for the military was incredible. Choice for our soldiers, where our soldiers, instead of waiting for three months to see a doctor, can go out and get themselves fixed up and readied up, and take care of themselves and they're living. And that's why I had the highest approval rating of the history of the V.A.
  
  So, all of these things—we're in a failing nation, but it's not going to be failing anymore. We're going to make it great again.

  Um, what?
  
  While Trump was better on style than Biden, by a lot, the former president was seriously wanting when it comes to substance. There were several problems here. The first is that Trump is fundamentally an a**hole. While he largely laid off Hunter Biden, he did deliver some cheap shots that served as a reminder of the type of person he is. Just to take one example, Trump said: "First of all, our veterans and our soldiers can't stand this guy. They can't stand him. They think he's the worst commander in chief, if that's what you call him, that we've ever had. They can't stand him. So let's get that straight. And they like me more than just about any of them. And that's based on every single bit of information."
  
  Second, we can go through the debate, and find a few reasons viewers should consider voting for a second Biden term. They tended to get lost because of the President's poor presentation, but he did put them out there. On the other hand, Trump did not give a single reason to vote to return him to the White House, other than "I was the greatest president ever" and "Biden is the worst president ever."
  
  Third, to the extent that Trump's answers to questions had substance, it was almost always faux substance because nearly everything he said was a lie. He reined in the falsehoods for the first quarter hour or so, but as time went on, he leaned into the fantastical talking points that have been the basis of his career, and of his 2024 campaign. A non-exhaustive list:
  
  
  • He returned, over and over, to his claim that foreign countries are sending their criminals and their mentally ill people to the United States.
    
    
  • He repeated, several times, the absolute falsehoods that Democrats support abortion up to three days after birth.
    
    
  • He claimed that all academics and legal scholars wanted Roe to be overturned.
    
    
  • He claimed that Nancy Pelosi took full responsibility for the January 6 insurrection.
  
  We choose these particular examples because they don't pass the smell test. When Trump falsely claimed, for example, that 18 million undocumented immigrants have crossed the border during the Biden presidency (it's actually half that), the average low-information voter presumably does not know if that is true or not. But the blatant, can't-possibly-be-true, that-doesn't-make-any-sense falsehoods? Maybe low-information viewers at least pick up on those.
  
  
• The Moderators: Jake Tapper and Dana Bash are probably going to get good reviews, They asked some good questions. They tried to keep the candidates on topic. The debate didn't turn into a zoo (although that's probably due to the new format, as opposed to their skilled management).
  
  That said, Tapper and Bash were problematic in a couple of ways. Yes, they followed up when a candidate veered off topic, and tried to get them to answer the actual question that was asked. However, if a second attempt at keeping the candidate on point failed, they pretty much gave up. This allowed, among other things, an extended exchange about which candidate was the worst president in American history, as well as an exchange on who is the better golfer. These things had nothing to do with the questions asked. The failure to follow up as many times as necessary also allowed Trump to weasel out of answering some of the really tricky questions, like what he would do in Israel.
  
  In addition, Tapper and Bash did nothing to push back against blatant falsehoods uttered by the candidates (almost invariably Trump). Their lack of fact-checking was apparently part of the format that was agreed to by the two candidates. However, there were occasions where at least a brief comment was called for, format or no. For example, Trump declared that every news anchor in America agrees that he never said kind things about the white supremacists in Charlottesville. Inasmuch as Tapper and Bash are anchors, their failure to respond to that falsehood gave the strong impression that what Trump said is true.
  
  We'll mention one other thing here, just because it doesn't really fit anywhere else. One implication of the audience-free format, it would seem, is... no jokes. Usually, a fair number of the most meme-able debate moments are jokey lines from one candidate or another. Neither Trump nor Biden are particularly great at comedy, and without an audience, they weren't willing to stick their necks out. One wonders if future presidential candidates, when considering "audience or no?" will think about this particular problem.
  
  
• Takeaways: The debate is big enough news, and finished early enough, that there are already takeaways pieces. Here is a small selection of them:

  NBC News:

  • Biden struggles out of the gate
  • Trump descends into grievances
  • Clashes over abortion, taxes and more define the policy stakes
  • Biden's prepared zingers

  
  The Guardian (UK):

  • Biden performs poorly
  • Trump lies endlessly
  • Different visions were starkly on display
  • The adult film actor moment

  
  The New York Times:

  • The debate exposed Biden's biggest weakness
  • Trump made his case largely unimpeded
  • The debate was more personal than policy-focused
  • The moderators were hands (and mics) off
  • Trump still won't accept the election results
  • The split screen damaged Biden

  
  USA Today:

  • Biden, with hoarse voice, fails to ease anxieties on age
  • Two presidents, two economies
  • Clashes over abortion and Roe v. Wade
  • 'Rat's nest:' Immigration, border
  • Things get personal on Hunter Biden, Trump's conviction

  Yup, people noticed that Biden had a bad night.
  
  
• Bingo: To start, let us thank readers E.G. in Lake Forest Park, WA; K.H. in Albuquerque, NM; S.C. in Mountain View, CA; A.H. in Columbus, OH; L.B. in Saint Louis, MO, and R.R. in St. Paul, MN for their help in spotting responses.
  
  We know that many readers think that things like this Bingo game are silliness, and in part they are. But there's also some insight to be gained here, because it's a good way to compare pre-debate expectations to what actually happened. Let's start with the items on our list that did not come up during the debate:
  
  

  Phrase/Event

  Biden: "Come on, man" (Biden did say "Come on" but not "Come on, man")

  Biden: "Fascist"/"fascism" (Biden did mention Nazism, but that's not quite close enough)

  Candidate told not to speak out of turn

  Complaint about debate rules

  "Corrupt"/"Deep state"

  Name of any Biden Cabinet member

  Name of any First Lady

  "Presidential immunity"

  "Pride month"/"LGBT"

  Reference to any Constitutional amendment

  "Ten Commandments"

  Trump: "Unfair"/"Unfairly"

  Trump: "Witch hunt"

  
  If this was all you knew about the debate, then you would be able to reasonably infer two, and perhaps three, things. The first is that Trump behaved himself, thus failing to trigger the various temper-tantrumy items on the list, like "Candidate told not to speak out of turn" or "Witch hunt." The second is that Biden failed to hit Trump with some of the things where the former president is vulnerable, like "fascist" or "Ten Commandments." The third, which is the "perhaps" one, is that Biden stayed centrist, and did not get into things that are more of concern to the lefties, like "Pride month."
  
  And now, here are the things that did show up:
  
  

  Order	Time (ET)	Phrase/Event	Reference	Speaker
  1	9:03	Inflation/cost of living	"Inflation"	Jake Tapper
  2	9:04	COVID-19	"Pandemic"	Joe Biden
  3	9:05	Biden: "Prescription drugs"	"Prescription drugs"	Biden
  4	9:06	Trump: "Best/worst [X] ever"	"Greatest Economy Ever"	Donald Trump
  5	9:07	Border/Border crisis	"Illegal immigrants"	Trump
  6	9:08	Any president other than Biden/Trump	"Herbert Hoover"	Biden
  7	9:09	Any Asian country	"Afghanistan"	Biden
  8	9:14	Abortion	"Roe v. Wade"	Dana Bash
  9	9:20	Trump: Talks into silenced mic	N/A	Trump
  10	9:24	Trump: Any wild animal	"Rat's nest"	Trump
  11	9:26	Any European country	"France"	Biden
  12	9:28	Hunter Biden	"His son, Hunter"	Trump
  13	9:29	"Putin"/"Zelenskyy"	"Putin"	Bash
  14	9:31	"Netanyahu"/"Hamas"	"Hamas"	Trump
  15	9:32	Biden: "Malarkey"	"Malarkey"	Biden
  16	9:40	January 6/Insurrection	"I want to ask you about January 6th, 2021"	Tapper
  17	9:47	Biden: Trump's conviction	"The only person on this stage who is a convicted felon..."	Biden

  
  As to the tiebreaker question, our judgment is that there were five national commercials for things Trump would like:

  1. Turkiye Tourism: He has a Trump Tower in Istanbul
  2. Saatva mattresses: They go well with porn stars
  3. Hard Knocks: He's a well-known football fan
  4. American Edge Project: Essentially a PAC fighting for the interests of wealthy people
  5. Einstein Brothers Bagels: He's from New York, and he likes high-carb foods
  

  Here are the top 10 finishers in our Bingo-related game. Note that the highest possible score, given what actually came up during the debate, was 500 points:

  1. C.L. in Columbus, OH: 420 points
  2. D.J.H. in Tulsa, Oklahoma: 400 points
  3. M.C. in Manhattan, KS: 380 points
  4. E.F. in Scotch Plains, NJ: 360 points (Tiebreaker: 5)
  5t. N.Z. in Chicago, IL: 360 points (Tiebreaker: 6)
  5t. J.M. in Davis, CA: 360 points (Tiebreaker: 6)
  5t. W.M. in Topinabee, MI: 360 points (Tiebreaker: 6)
  5t. M.E. in Roanoke, VA: 360 points (Tiebreaker: 6)
  9. J.D. in Portland, OR: 360 points (Tiebreaker: 7)
  10t. E.G. in Tampa, FL: 360 points (Tiebreaker: 8)
  10t. C.W. in Hamilton, NY: 360 points (Tiebreaker: 2)
  

  Thanks to all who participated!
  
  
• Readers' Insta-Poll: And now, the results from our insta-poll:
  
  

  Candidate	Debate Helped	Debate Hurt
  Biden, a lot	0.8%	57.6%
  Biden, a little	5.4%	21%
  Neither	31.9%	2%
  Trump, a lot	23.5%	4.4%
  Trump, a little	37.7%	14.9%

  
  The numbers may not add up to 100% because we allowed up to two selections per question (for example, someone could say the debate hurt Biden a lot and Trump a little). And on a scale of 1-100, the average "impact" score for the readers was 55.53, which is a shade above "moderate impact."
  
  And now, some reader comments:
  
  
  • J.L. in Los Angeles, CA: I understand that Biden's main problem is that he thinks too quickly, and about 50 thoughts are constantly competing for control of his vocal chords. Imagine a crowd of people all trying to rush out of the same small door. That's why he would do things like begin answering a question about climate change and suddenly switch to discussing tuition assistance for Black college students. None of this excuses the issues he had Thursday night—only explains it. But here's the insurmountable reality Biden now faces: This was his Howard Dean yell moment, his Mike Dukakis-in-a-tank moment, his George H.W. Bush-looking-at-his-watch moment. Joe Biden and his campaign can't unring this bell. In 90 excruciating minutes (and really, in just the first 5 of them), Joe Biden became un-reelectable. And no, it's not fair. He had 3+ really solid years, 6 decades of political skill and experience, wisdom, grit, determination, diplomacy, and confidence. But time has finally caught up to him, and he won't be able to win back the White House now. It might take a week or two in order for things to really sink in for Biden, but calls for him to step aside for another candidate "for the good of the party" will not abate. Eventually, he will face too much pressure from inside of his own tent to keep arguing that the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.
    
    
  • D.M.A. in Riverdale, NY: Democrats are doing what they do best: PANIC. Biden looked like a befuddled corpse at times (who did his make-up?). But Trump was Trump, a vigorous insurrectionist, would-be fascist dictator, and pathological liar. Biden needs some quick damage control and he has to acknowledge and own his poor performance. The coverup is always worse than the deed. If he decides to step aside, which I doubt will happen, consider Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), or even—wait for this—Hillary. There are a lot of important Senate and House races to be fought for and won. A Trump presidency cannot take place with a Republican trifecta or our republic is doomed. It's 5 months until the election. Still time to clean this mess up.
    
    
  • A.T. in Elkton, MD: I'm the hopeful one among friends and family, but after that... I cannot imagine Joe Biden beating Trump. This country will vote itself into Christofascism out of spite. As a minority socialist in academia, I guess I'll be first against the wall. Good luck to you all.
    
    
  • T.T. in Oakland, CA: Whoever prepped Biden for this debate should be drawn and quartered. Nobody cares about the weeds while your opponent is lying about how green the grass is. We are so effing screwed.
    
    
  • K.K. in San Mateo, CA: Around 6 months ago, I strongly argued in favor of maintaining Biden as nominee to my husband, who was convinced someone else needed to be the nominee due to Biden's age and debility. I protested that it's the values and experience of Joe Biden along with the advisors/Cabinet/system around him that matter, and that he'll be a benevolent captain of a big, well-oiled machine. Unfortunately, I am now quite sure I was wrong, and that Biden is not one of the wiry, agile, resilient octagenarians we were hoping for (wishfully, unrealistically, delusionally) in our president and candidate and instead is too feeble and diminished for the task. The debate was more of a loss by Biden than a win for Trump, who carried the day with style over substance, form over function...
    
    
  • K.F.W. in El Dorado Hills, CA: Watching the debate, turns out both sides are right (about the other). Biden is too old and Trump can't manage to say anything that's not a lie.
    
    
  • R.M. in Pensacola, FL: "Debates are about optics. I kept getting distracted by Donald Trump's horrible Windsor knot (Seriously, who tied that thing? It almost made his off-the-rack suit look decent.). But Joe Biden looked ooooooooooold. The Biden from the State of the Union address was nowhere to be found. From the moment he walked out (he looked so stiff on that walk to the lectern) I thought he was going to be in for a long night and I wasn't disappointed. So, Biden needs to spend the next 4 months looking vigorous and capable. He also needs to simplify things (he certainly seemed over-prepared for the debate). Stick to one talking point on the top four or five issues that are going to be prevalent. Just keep things simple! Get rid of 90 percent of the chefs in the kitchen who are ruining things. Let Trump ramble about sharks and batteries and deal with his sentencing a week after the 4th of July. Simplify things, let Trump's legal issues dominate the news and just look vigorous the next 4 months. If tonight's debate is a low point (such as Barack Obama's first debate against Mitt Romney), he will be fine.
    
    
  • B.L. in Mountain View, CA: It was supposed to be Good vs. Evil, not Feeble vs. Evil.
    
    
  • R.B. in Champaign, IL: The moderators' lack of fact checking really helped Trump. He just said whatever untruth popped into his head, and no one called him on it. Low-information voters likely didn't stick around for the post-debate fact checks to come out, so his many outright (and outrageous) lies are more likely to stick with them. Biden's stumbling, low-energy performance (which did get a little better over time) did not alleviate worries about his age, and it was left to him to call out Trump's many lies—time he could have better spent talking about all the things he's accomplished. Biden did get in a few good jabs, but it wasn't enough. And the postmortem hand-wringing by Dems won't help. I hope tomorrow his surrogates come out strong to emphasize how stark the choice is. My favorite post debate quote, which I wish I could credit the author for but I only saw it in passing, was this: "And yet I still have a uterus, and so does my daughter, so Biden remains the only choice." Think about that for any other "othered" group and the result is the same. Too many people I care about would have their lives upended with a Trump win.
    
    
  • A.P. in Palmyra, PA: While it was a poor showing for Biden it's hard to believe that Trump created any new support.
    
    
  • S.N. in Pittsburgh, PA: Who else had "argues about golf game" on their Bingo cards?
    
    
  • C.G., Vancouver, BC, Canada: I'm an atheist, but God help us all.
    
    
  We will undoubtedly have more reader comments on Sunday.
  
  
• The Bottom Line: In the moment, things often feel bigger than they really are, and their significance ultimately fades in a week or two or three. So maybe this debate will be a non-story by the time the calendar turns to August. But boy, we doubt it. Recall what we wrote earlier this week:

  And finally, the unprecedented gap in time between this debate and the next one means that anything that DOES become fixed in voters' minds is going to linger, and marinate, and is going to be hard to excise. If Biden performs capably, that could be the final death blow to "he's too old and feeble." If Trump goes on a weird tangent (see below), that could hang the "senile" tag on him, instead. If Biden commits a verbal gaffe when talking about Black voters (which he's done before, several times), or if Trump pulls a brand new policy idea out of his rear end and puts it out there without having thought it through, that could haunt them. And since a lot of the people who will be watching on Thursday do not follow, or do not closely follow, the channels through which the candidates regularly communicate (cable news, social media, rallies, etc.) it will be tough to change the narrative if one forms during the debate.

  When Biden delivered a strong State of the Union address earlier this year, it largely quieted the "he's old and senile" talk. Last night's debate performance is going to have the opposite effect. Anyone who was clamoring for a different, younger candidate is going to be ten times louder. And we think a lot of people who had reconciled themselves to Biden are now going to join the "let's get a new candidate" camp.
  
  Meanwhile, what can the President do to change this narrative? There will be north of 100 million voters who either watched the debate last night, or who will see the clips of him botching his answers. Even with the bully pulpit as his disposal, how can Biden reach all those people? And, more importantly, how can he convince them that what happened last night was an anomaly? This may very possibly be unrecoverable.
  
  As a purely tactical matter, we've taken the position that whatever Biden's weaknesses are, he's got some serious assets that you don't want to toss overboard lightly. He's a shrewd, veteran political operator. He's got a long record of accomplishment. He's been vetted six ways to Sunday. He's actually beaten Trump. If you dump him for an alternative candidate, that person will have their own liabilities, without having most (or maybe any) of these assets.
  
  But now, maybe Biden's liabilities are too much. We don't put too much stock in the low approval rating, since pretty much every politician has a low approval rating these days. But maybe it does matter some. And certainly, the Israel situation is an anchor around his neck. Possibly his son's legal problems, even if that shouldn't be the case. The economy. And now, the very real possibility that he is permanently stuck with a reputation for having dementia.
  
  Could a late-replacement candidate actually be more viable than a sitting president? Such a person wouldn't have the Israel anchor around their necks or the age/dementia problem, and probably wouldn't be blamed for people's economic woes. If the replacement candidate was someone of stature, like Kamala Harris, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), or Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), they wouldn't be president-level-vetted, but they would be well-vetted nonetheless.
  
  At the same time, they would be an unknown quantity, in terms of being president. The reason that the current race is so close is that both candidates have served as president, and many voters did not like what they saw from either man. Rolling the dice with an unknown would be appealing to many Americans, under those circumstances. Heck, that's basically how Trump became president in the first place; a lot of voters preferred a wild card over the well-known and disliked-by-many commodity that was Hillary Clinton.
  
  If the Democrats were to actually do this, then the convention would have to do the picking of the replacement. That is not only what would be demanded by party rules, it's the only politic thing to do. The replacement candidate cannot appear to be the choice of the pooh-bahs; they have to be the choice of the rank-and-file, as much as that is possible. That's about the only way the Democrats would have any hope of remaining unified. After all, for 100 or so years, the convention did pick the nominee.
  
  It is also a near-impossibility that the delegates would rebel against Biden if he announced he was staying the course. So, he would have to back out voluntarily, with some plausible cover story ("My son needs me right now, and that's the most important thing," or something like that). Would he actually do that, though? Maybe if the Clintons and the Obamas and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) sat the President down and told him that they think he is unelectable, he would listen. In the end, unlike Trump, he's a team player.
  
  If Biden saw that things were hopeless, he could announce that he understands that he had a bad night (due to his son, a cold, or whatever) but the risk of having a convicted criminal, rapist, and bank robber who stole $450 million from the New York Banks and who wants to ban all abortions in the whole country and become a dictator is too great, so a younger person should run. The DNC could then organize its own debate among say, Harris, Newsom, Whitmer, and say three or four other plausible candidates at some university in a swing state. Probably all the networks except maybe Fox would broadcast it. It would get massive ratings and give all the candidates huge publicity. Maybe even two debates. Then the convention would pick the nominee. But this all depends on Biden realizing that he had a very very very (did we mention very) bad night.
  
  We are simply stunned that the debate went so badly that it put Biden's candidacy in peril. But we think it did, and obviously others agree. Again, once a few weeks have passed, maybe this will all seem like an overreaction. But we wouldn't want to bet big money on that.

We're going to leave it there for today. The other items, including the schadenfreude and freudenfreude, just don't work on the same page with as big a story as this. (Z)

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