The 81-year-old Democrat’s real foe was himself.
Biden’s disjointed performance shocked and angered many loyal Democrats,
some of whom began openly questioning whether he should continue to
seek a second term.
Donald Trump, 78 is just three years younger to Biden,
largely avoided the kind of outbursts for which he is famous.
He did however remain consistent in using the debate stage
to pour forth a steady stream of lies on everything from tariffs
on China, abortion and the failed 2021 effort to block the transfer
of power. Neither the moderators nor Biden offered much fact-checking.
Biden’s Friday performance had sent parts of the Democratic
political establishment into a tizzy. “DEFCON 1,” said former President Barack
Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe.
A steady drumbeat of talking heads took to cable
urging Biden to make way for a younger candidate—though it’s late in the
game for such a strategy.
Biden’s Congressional allies stood by him Friday, but the
talk among doubters was centered on Vice President Kamala Harris, Michigan
Governor Gretchen Whitmer and California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Harris would be the only candidate able to inherit
Biden’s large campaign war chest. Newsom however topped many informal lists.
He’s “arguably best equipped—in fundraising chops, in
messaging and in campaign infrastructure—to step up in an emergency,” Erika D.
Smith wrote in Bloomberg Opinion.
But by Friday afternoon, the president had moved to quell
the panic. Following a morning of Republican glee and Democratic
handwringing, a decidedly more energetic Biden took to the stage at a rally in
North Carolina.
“I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t walk as smoothly
as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to,” he conceded to a cheering
crowd. “But I know what I do know—I know how to tell the truth, I know right
from wrong and I know how to do this job.”
