Biden’s gaffes happen only when he’s talking

When I heard Joe Biden’s Friday interview with African-American radio host Charlamagne Tha God, I found myself thinking of Gerald Ford.

Not because Ford ever went on a nationally syndicated radio show and made a foolish, flippant comment about his appeal to black voters. Just because Biden and Ford, as presidential candidates, shared the same problem.

Both Biden and Ford were amiable if uninspiring career politicians with a penchant for running into verbal land mines. (Biden’s gaffes generally result from him getting too looseygoosey with the language, while Ford managed to screw up even when he was trying hard to be dull and robotic.)

During Ford’s tough fight with Ronald Reagan for the 1976 Republican presidential nomination, the president’s pollster, Bob Teeter, determined that whenever Ford made campaign appearances, his national poll numbers dropped.

Just before the Republican National Convention, Ford’s chief campaign strategist, Stuart Spencer, walked into the Oval Office, armed with this disturbing data.

“Mr. President,” Spencer told Ford, “as a campaigner, you’re no (expletive) good.”

Someone needs to dish out some of that tough love to Biden.

Ford was effective over the years when it came to communicating with the constituents in his Michigan congressional district, just like Biden’s Average Joe shtick worked well with the voters of Delaware during his 36 years in the U.S. Senate. But both Ford and Biden proved to be inept campaigners on the national stage.

Biden spent much of his 18minute interview with Charlamagne bragging about how much support he’s generated from African-American voters, as if primary victories are enough to shut down any questions about his legislative record.

He periodically threw out a “Cmon, man” or “Give me a break” for no reason, and to no one in particular, as if even the act of having to explain why black voters should back him in November was an absurd exercise.

When Charlamagne ended the interview by asking for a return visit and saying he had more questions for the former vice president, Biden fired back, “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or (Donald) Trump, then you ain’t black.”

Biden said it with a smirk. As he would later acknowledge, in a kinda-sorta apology, he was just trying to be a “wise guy.”

At the same time, Biden can’t be so clueless, so oblivious to the political winds, that he doesn’t realize that a regular theme among Republicans is that Democrats take black voters for granted.

In fact, during the interview Charlamagne pointed out that rapper Sean “Puffy” Combs recently made that very point about Democrats. The radio host suggested that he shared Combs’ view.

Any top-echelon politician should understand that the onus is on you to convince voters that you will earn their support, that you will work to be deserving of their votes. You don’t tell voters that there’s something wrong with them if they don’t vote for you.

You don’t, as a 77-year-old white man, tell black Americans that they’re not being true to their racial identity if they don’t back your candidacy.

As Biden frequently acknowledges, it was the support of African-Americans that saved his primary campaign.

He might think twice about insulting the most loyal members of his coalition. He might want to show some humility in the face of that support, rather than treating it as proof that all unconvinced black voters need to get on the train.

In a broader sense, Biden’s radio gaffe provided a reminder that he, like Ford, is more successful the less he opens his mouth.

Biden’s rising poll numbers in recent weeks — as Trump has commanded the news cycles with his briefings on the COVID-19 outbreak — suggest that the former vice president would be well advised to adopt the “rope-a-dope” strategy that Muhammad Ali employed against George Foreman in Zaire, Africa, in 1974.

Like Ali, Biden should let his opponent punch himself out, while doing the campaign equivalent of laying on the ropes. Over the past two months, while Biden has kept a low profile, Trump has looked more and more defensive in the face of questions about a crumbling economy and his stumbling response to a global pandemic.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday had Biden leading Trump nationally by 11 percentage points (50-39). A new Fox News poll shows Biden gaining 8 points on Trump in the span of a month, prompting Trump to complain that his favorite news channel is “doing nothing to help Republicans, and me, get re-elected on Nov. 3.”

It’s starting to look like Trump can’t beat Biden in November. Only Biden can do that.