Outsider vs. Insider ā¦ 2020 Looks Like Repeat of 2016ā¦
One. Heās back on his game. Trump was disciplined, substantive and presidential. If heād done the same in Cleveland a few weeks back, heād be surging.
Two. Unforced errors. Without cause, Biden threw
Barack Obama under the bus for not doing enough on immigration and
Bernie Sanders and
Elizabeth Warren for doing too much to impose
government-run health care on everyone. Inexplicably, Biden did his best George H.W. Bush
debate gaffe imitation by looking at his watch (at least twice), hoping the clock would spare him from one of his own.
Three. Stamina. The longer the debate wore on, the more Biden wore out. Given all the questions raised about his physical endurance and
mental acuity to handle the most difficult (and aging) job on the planet, this was not an encouraging sign. By contrast, even post-COVID-19 illness, the president looked like he could go all night.
Four. Opening versus closing. Biden has
few qualms about closing some, most or all of the nation to take on COVID-19; Trump clearly
feels angst doing any of that, knowing the fallout from an economic pandemic (joblessness, hopelessness, drug abuse, domestic violence) can be as
devastating as the disease itself.
Five. Outsider versus insider. In the final stages of the debate, the president closed in on Bidenās repeated promises to change the world, despite a 47-year record during which he changed very little. It was an effective exchange for the incumbent outsider because it forced voters to question why they should believe Biden would suddenly do what heās never done before.
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