Septugenarian candidates Biden and Sanders kept a sensible distance on the debate stage ...but they must come together to win election
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AS THE States finally comes together to beat the coronavirus, there is one defeat half of Americans feel is far more important – that of Donald Trump. Finally, after months of infighting that, if it continued, would provide the President with a clear path back to the White House, rival Democrats have now whittled down their candidates to a two-horse race.
In one corner stands former Vice President Joe Biden. In the other radical socialist Bernie Sanders.
For a long time it seemed Biden’s hopes were on the canvas.
But after weeks of gaffe-filled campaigning, he has risen from the political dead to become the front runner to take on Trump in a stunning comeback.
Viewed as a hero to working-class voters, Biden’s time as vice-president served him well.
Although not endorsed by his former boss, Barack Obama, he often talks of their friendship, as well as the work they did together on issues ranging from healthcare to foreign policy.
As a principal architect of America’s Affordable Care Act, providing health cover to all, it remains his number one priority and for good reason.
Biden lost his first wife, Neilia Hunter and a baby daughter, Naomi, in a car accident in 1972, and in 2015, his lawyer son Beau Biden died of brain cancer. Healthcare, he says, is “personal” to him.
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Now 77, time has mellowed some of his former hardline views, bringing him more in line with the Democratic Party of today.
Meanwhile, exhibiting an antiestablishment style that has changed little over five decades, Sanders has been likened to America’s answer to Jeremy Corbyn.
A self-described democratic socialist, who has never joined the party he hopes to lead, he has long called for the elimination of all of America’s student debt.
He frequently rails against the fossil fuel industry and has vowed to stop allowing it to “destroy our planet for profit” if he wins the election.
The Vermont senator, nicknamed ‘Crazy Bernie’ by Trump, also wants to offer a pathway to citizenship to most undocumented immigrants and supports comprehensive immigration reform.
But even as Democrats get their act together in getting behind one candidate, they are still in danger of gifting Trump the White House.
This week Biden and Sanders went head to head for the first time in a
Left to right: moment that could have defined their campaigns.
Trump has turned into a gibbering mess over the coronavirus, with some of the best medical minds in America trying to work around the mistakes and lies that are coming out of the White House faster than they can correct them. This virus has laid bare the severe shortcomings of his administration as public fears are being compounded by a pervasive lack of trust in this President.
With that in mind and a nominee clearly in sight, the debate should have been a moment to put Trump to the sword.
Instead, the two septuagenarians, both long-term performers on the debate stage, failed spectacularly to seize the opportunity and instead descended into tirades about decades-old votes and political squabbles.
On Tuesday night, Sanders suffered decisive primary defeats putting him almost hopelessly behind in the race for the Democratic nomination.
Even before the big losses in Florida, Illinois and Arizona, Democrats have publicly urged him to drop out.
With the coronavirus postponing other state primaries, the danger to the Democrats is Sanders’ and Biden’s infighting will see them take their eye off the real battle – that with Trump.
Watching them bickering like two grumpy old men reminded me of the great Statler and Waldorf.
But unless the pair stop squabbling and Sanders goes, the biggest muppet of all will be back in the White House.