US President Joe Biden returned to the White House on Monday after his own private journey through the desert: a week at Camp David preparing for Thursday’s debate with Donald Trump; the big night in Atlanta, which ended up being one of the worst moments of his political career; a rally in North Carolina; electoral events in New York and New Jersey; and the rest of the weekend back at Camp David for a long-scheduled session with photographer Annie Leibovitz and to reflect with the help of his family on the future.
So much activity is part of a campaign by the president, whose suitability to continue in office is being strongly questioned by the mainstream media, to show normality and try to counter the debacle of a debate in which he appeared vulnerable and unable to counter Trump’s lies – at times, he was unable to even finish his sentences. Biden is not willing to withdraw his candidacy for reelection, and now it is time to convince voters that this effort is due to something more than a selfish impulse, and that he is capable of winning at the polls against his rival, as well as completing a second term, at the end of which he will be 86 years old.
For this public relations campaign, the president has called on the heavyweights of his party, who this weekend have closed ranks and paraded around the sets of political shows on cable television to defend him. They have also resorted to social networks, as in the cases of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. According to reports Axiosthe tweets of support from both were orchestrated by the Biden campaign.
The argument is clear. The former speaker House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this weekend that it is unfair to reduce a presidency to 90 minutes of a bad debate. According to South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, whip Of the Democratic minority in the House of Representatives, Biden may not have done well on Thursday, but much worse is the prospect of having Trump back in the White House. And if Delaware Senator Chris Coons asked for the understanding that everyone has a bad afternoon, Wes Moore, governor of Maryland, believes that it is not reasonable to think of changing candidates at this stage.
“He is not going to resign. End of story.”
Over the weekend, the re-election campaign — which has raised $33 million since the debate, despite concerns expressed by some powerful donors — also went all-in on damage mitigation by reaching out directly to voters. The message? Biden is not going to quit. “He is going to be the Democratic nominee, period. End of story,” one email said. “If he were to withdraw, it would lead to weeks of chaos, infighting, and a brutal showdown at the convention.” In the meantime, the email warned, Trump would have a clear path to victory.
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As you can see, there is an element of pragmatism in this defense strategy: there are almost no precedents for a change of candidate at this point and the benefits of such a thing are not guaranteed.
The party missed every opportunity to open a serious debate on the advisability of presenting a man who will be 82 years old when he is sworn in – if he is sworn in – again, in part, because of the good results of the midterm elections in November 2022. If they had been as disastrous as the polls predicted, that might have triggered a change at the head of the party. For the moment, the polls have not registered significant changes in voter support for Biden’s candidacy after the disastrous debate. If that were to change in the coming days, there would still be time for a replacement, although none of the candidates who have been mentioned in recent days (with the vice president, Kamala Harris, as the most logical option) seem to have enough support.
Biden’s entourage has also reacted to criticism of the team that helped him prepare for the debate, led by one of his most consistent and long-standing allies, Ron Klain, who has been attacked for failing to read the party he was up against. According to US media, the president himself called Klain to make it clear that neither he nor his family blame him for the disaster.
Klain will be the one to advise Biden again for the second debate, which is scheduled for September 10 at the ABC studios. Until then, the strategy is to increase public events and to offer a memorable speech at the Chicago Convention at the end of August. Also, to multiply his appearances in the media, from which he has been conspicuously absent during his presidency, fueling suspicions that his reluctance to give interviews and press conferences is due to a fear of showing the world the true state of his abilities. Precisely because of this issue, all the alarms rang last Thursday before the 51 million television viewers who attended the debacle in Atlanta.
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