President finds his footing too late
Did taking Regeneron make Donald Trump smarter? He was a different candidate in this debate, and it was actually the new format — created to silence him — that helped him. Threatened with a mute button if he got out of control, Trump stayed disciplined and (mostly) on message. In the first 30 minutes — coronavirus and the economy — he was calm, positive, well- informed and even a little invigorating. Joe Biden faded away, like the ghost of Adlai Stevenson.
That said — in a debate that inverted expectations — Biden had a much better evening when talking about the “moral” issues that can so often be a liberal's handicap. That's because he really cares about them.
He's not a great advocate for health-care reform, but Biden got visibly angry, rightly so, talking about the separation of children from their parents at the border.
He found himself on a back foot talking about character, however, because the allegation that his family profited from foreign contacts is starting to break through, even if parts of the U. S. media won't report it. In those moments, the mute button itself seemed muted: things turned nasty, like it did in the first debate.
But it says a lot that Trump complimented the moderator on how well she did her job.
There were the usual gross exaggerations from the president, half- truths and falsehoods, but Trump is better the less we hear from him and the more he is forced to focus his thoughts. Without the usual rhetorical violence, a real dividing line emerged between the two men. It's the coronavirus, stupid.
Biden essentially believes the economy should be shut down if scientists demand it. Trump essentially believes America has to “learn to live with it.”
If restrictions run too tough for too long, he said, “the cure will be worse than the problem itself.” Millions of independent voters, particularly those with small businesses or employed in the hospitality industry, could think: “You know what, he has a point.”
From Trump's rare victory of style emerges a narrative for his re- election — late, really late: 50-million Americans have already voted by mail. But better now than never.
The case for Trump is this: you know who he is; you know his faults. But for all his many, many character flaws, Trump is the candidate who wants to get the economy rolling again.
It was doing amazingly well before the coronavirus — perhaps he's the guy to recreate that boom and put the country back on its feet? Many polls still rate the economy and Trump's handling of it, even after months of layoffs.
On the other side, all Biden is really running on is character. “You know me,” he said to the camera, “and you know him.”
That's it. He has a program — it's quite a radical one — but he's buried his manifesto beneath a landslide of liberal existential pain and golly-gosh nostalgia for an American politics that wasn't.
If you think Trump simply is awful, Biden is the only option to remove him. But if enough voters quietly entertain enough of a suspicion that the president's “not that bad after all,” maybe they'll give him four more years.