When you strip away the hype, blather and speculation surrounding Thursday’s presidential debate, the core narrative is this: Can Joe Biden get it done?
In other words, can the 81-year-old president, beset by doubts about his stamina and sharpness, be sufficiently cogent and aggressive in a way that transforms the campaign narrative?
But I would suggest that may be the wrong question.
There’s no way that the president, if he doesn’t wander into the curtains, doesn’t turn in a reasonably strong performance after a week of prep at Camp David. Sure, he could stumble, mix things up or just look frail.
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But Biden will clear the absurdly low bar that Donald Trump, Republican allies and conservative commentators have set for him. Dazed, confused, senile, doesn’t know where he is, can’t string two sentences together.
That portrayal is so deeply embedded that Trump’s last-minute effort at course correction – suddenly Biden is a “worthy” debater who “destroyed” Paul Ryan in 2012 – is a drop in the bucket.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner hosted by the Minnesota Republican party on May 17, 2024 in St. Paul, Minnesota. A recent poll has President Joe Biden leading Trump in the state by two percentage points. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
And if Biden just holds his own, most of the media will declare him the winner and insist he shattered expectations.
In my view, the larger question of the CNN debate is focused on Donald Trump.
There’s now a concerted effort by the anti-Trump media to hammer home the message that the former president is losing it.
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Trump rambles quite a bit at his rallies. In his view, he’s entertaining the crowd with yarns that are often semi-facetious or even self-deprecating.
But as his critics see it, Trump, 78, is showing his age through…
