Imagine if one of our prime ministers or opposition leaders took a week off with 16 advisers to prepare for a 90 minute debate with his or her political opponent. They’d be laughed at.
Well President Joe Biden, 81, has done just that. According to information briefed out by the White House he has been bunkered down at Camp David ahead of Thursday night’s (Friday morning AEST) first of two presidential debates against Donald Trump.
To be fair, the president has a huge amount riding on his performance, given widespread concern about his cognitive performance, which appears to have declined further in recent months.
The ratings will be huge – other networks have been promoting the stoush almost as much as host CNN – but few will be tuning in for the quality of rhetoric, which is bound to disappoint as it plays out in Atlanta, Georgia.
In Biden’s favour the bar has been set very low: if he manages to speak in mainly coherent sentences Democrats and most observers will likely notch it up as a ‘win’.
Fall over, utter too much gibberish, or freeze, none of which can be ruled out based on recent performance, and Biden will be deemed to have lost, triggering instant chatter that the Democratic Party will seek to convince him to announce he will step aside at the end of his term to make way for another candidate.
Washington’s ruling party in theory still has time to select another candidate at its Chicago convention in August, a possibility that becomes less likely with every passing week. California governor Gavin Newsom, the most likely replacement, will be watching intently.
If anything, Trump, 78, should be preparing more intensely, given the two debate moderators, CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, aren’t exactly fans. Tapper has even likened Trump’s rhetoric to that of Adolf Hitler, perhaps revealing his voting intention come November – and creating some doubt over his neutrality in the debate.
Yet the former president has evinced a blasé attitude to the encounter, campaigning as normal, stating his debate preparation entails rallies and interviews. He’s keeping everyone guessing about which Trump will appear on the debate stage – angry Don or nice Donny. At a rally in Philadelphia on the weekend he suggested he might try the latter approach, hoping Biden’s verbal meandering does the work for him.
Only 11 per cent of voters say they will change their minds based on the debate according to Morning Consult polling released today, enough to matter given the presidential contest remains tight.
Trump remains ahead in the half dozen key battleground states but typically by no more than the margin of error.
But Joe Biden has improved modestly in national polls since Trump’s conviction in Manhattan over his 2016 hush money payments, to the point where he’s now leading the former president in 538’s national polling average for the first time this year.
Expect to hear a lot about Trump’s ‘threat to democracy’, his new-found status as a felon, and the former president’s alleged intention to impose a national abortion ban, from Biden, the best three political arguments the Democrats have.
Trump has a lot more to attack the president over: inflation, international instability, rampant and mainly unwanted immigration, destructive Covid mandates that have become less popular with time, and a perception, sometimes justified, that crime is out of control and the US is in decline.
Biden surprised everyone with a sprightly and relatively coherent performance when he delivered his State of the Union address in March, prompting unfounded but not unfair speculation he’d be given a performance enhancing drugs.
Indeed, this week Trump challenged the president to a pre-debate drug test, which the White House ignored.
In any case, the debate will be less fiery – at least on air – than the last time the two men faced off in 2020, when Trump frequently interjected. CNN’s rules dictate that microphones will be muted for the candidate who is not meant to be speaking. The two candidates will be given a pen, a pad of paper and a water bottle; both will be barred from bringing pre-written notes, and breaking with tradition, the debate won’t include a studio audience.
It’s a sad indictment on the US political system that no third party candidate will be allowed on the stage, especially so early in the election campaign, before either the Republican or Democratic Party have formally endorsed their candidate.
Independent candidate Robert F Kennedy, who has been polling more than 10 per cent, could have injected more serious and different policy discussions into the event. But that’s not what presidential politics is about any more.
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