Did poor performance in his debate against Donald Trump doom Joe Biden's re-election bid? It’s debatable
Part one of two parts.
One candidate was tanned, confident and relaxed.
The other appeared pale, uneasy and nervous. He flubbed lines, failing to properly respond to the barbs directed his way by his opponent.
It was surprising, since he had a long track record, serving in Congress as well as eight years as vice president to a popular leader.
His opponent was a millionaire with a reputation as a playboy. Many political analysts didn’t take him seriously.
But in this debate, appearance made all the difference.
President Joe Biden (seen above in his first portrait as president in a public domain photo posted on wikimedia commons) vs. former President Donald Trump?
No, Vice President Richard Nixon vs. Sen. John Kennedy.
Only this time, the Democratic candidate came across poorly and damaged his campaign. Biden, like Nixon, received terrible reviews for his performance.
Trump didn’t get the raves that JFK got in 1960, but he clearly won the debate. While Trump spewed lies — in other words, Trump was Trump — he looked and sounded good. That makes a major difference in a televised debate.
That is especially the case now, when so many people are largely disinterested in the details. They don’t want to read lengthy profiles or sharp analyses of the candidates and their positions.
They want to know how they looked, who won and what it means in the horse race.
Trump came out well ahead. He has held a narrow lead in most polls this year, an incredible statement given his asinine personality and highly offensive style, as well as his mixed record in the White House.
Biden has been hampered by inflation, and the perception that the economy was struggling. In fact, it has recovered well from the sorry shape it was in when he took office, but he can’t seem to get millions of people to believe that.
His debate performance, which has been universally panned, only made matters worse. It was obvious from the moment he shuffled on stage that he looked every bit of his 81-plus years. When he began speaking in a soft, scratchy, halting manner, jaws dropped across the country.
Biden backers hoped for a repeat of his robust, feisty State of the Union address. Instead, they got an old man with a thin voice who stumbled and fumbled as he spoke and stood slack-jawed as Trump rolled out lie after lie.
Trump lying is not news. In the last decade, he has defined himself as a boastful, mean-spirited comic, a political Don Rickles without the sincerity.
Biden rallied after the first half hour, although he still was not the Joe Biden of years, even months ago. He seemed tired, spent, used up.
Since the debate, reports have emerged that his closest advisers are well aware of his age-related limitations. They admit he is at his best from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and try not to schedule many events after mid-afternoon.
He’s like a senior citizen who dines at a restaurant that offers the early bird special. There’s nothing wrong with that if you’re a retired guy enjoying time on the golf course, with grandchildren and naps in the sun.
But as president of the United States, being worn out before most people get off work is not a positive attribute.
It’s not like Trump, who recently turned 78, is a spring chicken. He also has made numerous verbal gaffes and appeared physically slower and less vigorous. He might play a lot of golf, but his style is to ride a cart through the course.
That wasn’t the case in 1960. Kennedy was 43 and Nixon was 46. Both were WWII veterans who served in the House of Representatives and the Senate. They were young men, the head of their class, and their once amicable relationship had turned into a rivalry.
They agreed to a series of debates in 1960. In the first and best-remembered one, JFK looked tan, rested and appeared to be very informed and commanding. Nixon, nursing a painful knee injury, was pale, wearing poorly applied makeup and dressed in a gray suit that faded into the background.
That is still the most famous presidential debate in American history. There was no debate in 1964, 1968 and 1972, but in 1976, President Gerald Ford, trailing badly in the polls, met challenger Jimmy Carter in three debates, while their vice-presidential candidates, Sens. Bob Dole and Walter Mondale, debated once.
Nearly 70 million people tuned into the first debate. I watched it in a dayroom at South Dakota State University with other students interested in the election. The most memorable part of it was near the end, when a technical problem caused a 27-minute halt because of sound problems. Ford and Carter didn’t know how to act, so they stood awkwardly at their podiums.
In the second debate, Ford made a gaffe that might have cost him the election when asked about the Soviet Union and its efforts to control neighboring nations.
“There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. There never will be under a Ford administration,” he said.
The reporter offered him a lifeline to walk back that obvious error, but he refused. Ford waited a few days before correcting himself but the damage was done. His momentum was slowed and Carter won a narrow victory.
In 1980 and ‘84, Ronald Reagan, a veteran performer, handled Carter and Mondale. Carter, worn down by working day and night to try to rescue the hostages in Iran, did not come across well. He also had a thinly hidden contempt for Reagan, and had not prepared for the debate.
Reagan was rested and ready. He looked like a serious man, fully capable of serving as president. Reports that he was just a faded actor with wild ideas were dismissed.
In 1984, Reagan did poorly in his first debate against Mondale, but responded with a solid performance in their second debate, capped by a quip that even had Fritz laughing.
“I will not make age an issue of this campaign,” the old actor said. “I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”
That sealed the deal. Ronald Reagan, at 73 the oldest president in American history, won a second term in a landslide.
Part 2 tomorrow: Will Biden heed calls to step aside?
Fourth-generation South Dakotan Tom Lawrence has written for several newspapers and websites in South Dakota and other states and contributed to The New York Times, NPR, The London Telegraph, The Daily Beast and other media outlets. Reprint with permission.
