Guy Chamberlin
Well-known member
If You Can’t Communicate, You Can’t Run for President
Sifting through last night's wreckage
JEFF MAURER
JUN 28, 2024
The funniest attempt at spin was “Biden has a cold.” Oh? A cold? What are the symptoms of this cold — being incoherent and lost and generally seeming like a man in his 80s who needs to have his responsibilities dramatically dialed back? Is the cold why Biden spent half the debate gawking at Trump with a blank stare, as if he was a specter trying to make contact with the corporeal world? Did the cold force Biden to shuffle onto the stage with itty-bitty steps like he was wearing socks on a newly polished floor? I imagined the Biden flak who sent the “Biden has a cold” text feeding new excuses to their media contacts throughout the debate: “Biden also has Typhoid.” “The President is on heroin.” “Joe was struck by lightning shortly before he took the stage.” “Biden accidentally ate a uranium fuel rod and got on the bad side of a Voodoo priest who seems to be enacting his revenge.” Though even those explanations might not justify what we saw.
Many partisans decided that the most viable line of defense was: “Biden spoke softly and mixed up his words but Trump was a relentless gusher of ignorance and lies.” This, of course, is true. In a sane world, we’d be making more of the fact that the guy who “won” was a tornado of mendacity and bulls#!t, as per usual. Some outlets dutifully performed fact checks that did — for a brief moment — focus the conversation on the fact that saying things like “my opponents murder babies after they’re born” is a bats#!t bananas thing for a presidential candidate to say. Biden’s defenders have a point when they argue that what was said should matter more than the manner of delivery.
So, allow me to assess Biden’s performance entirely on the substance of what was said. I’m going to ignore the mumbling and the stumbling, ignore the tenor and volume of Biden’s speech, and ignore the fact that any time he wasn’t speaking, Biden stared at Trump with his mouth open like a dog watching someone prep steaks. I’m going to focus solely on the meaning and impact of Biden’s words. And on that metric alone, my grade for Biden is: F-minus. Because you shouldn’t run for president if you can’t convey your message.
Here’s Biden’s closing statement. This is the one part of the night that can be 100 percent rehearsed — Biden should know the words to this speech better than Wayne Newton knows the words to “Danke Schoën”. But this is what Biden said:
I’m thinking back to my speechwriter days and wondering what would have happened to me if I had turned in a draft with this passage:
“What I did — well, for example. He wants to get away with, get rid of the ability of Medicare, to…for the ability…for the us to negotiate drug prices with big pharma companies. Well guess what? We got it down to 15 — excuse me 35 dollars for insulin instead of 400 dollars, no more than 2,000 dollars for every senior no matter what they, how much prescription they need.”
If I had written that, I wouldn’t have been fired — I would have been catapulted into an active volcano. And rightly so: There are barely thoughts expressed in the English language in that passage, much less an impactful message. Campaigns spend obscene sums of money on consultant witchcraft to answer a single question: What is our message? Once you pick a message, that message becomes the focal point of your closing remarks, and those remarks are a big deal because they’re the last thing you say. If voters remember one thing about the debate — and research shows that the average voter remembers between zero and one things about a debate — you want that thing to be your message. Biden whizzed down his leg in that moment, and I really, really hope that I’m speaking metaphorically.
Here’s the passage that has already come to be known as The Moment Everyone Realized It Was Over.
That disaster was in response to a question about why Trump wants to give tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy. Taxes on corporations and the wealthy always poll as one of the Democrats’ strongest issues. Even Trump voters don’t like the fact that despite Trump’s populist noises, his tax policy hasn’t evolved much from the George W. Bush/Grover Norquist era. This should have been a point-scoring exchange for Biden; if the debate was boxing, Trump had somehow gotten his watch tangled in his shoelaces and was vulnerable to a haymaker. But instead of delivering a powerful punch, Biden gave us the “we beat Medicare” moment that will be referenced in political science classes 50 years from now. Let’s call that “suboptimal”.
Trump, as always, spouted nonsense and lies at an astounding rate. Biden didn’t effectively counter any of it. He knew that he was supposed to, and his aides had clearly stuffed his pockets full of zingers for exactly that purpose, but Biden dribbled all of those zingers down the front of his shirt. Did anyone notice that Biden tried to get Trump to denounce the far-right groups that stormed the capital on January 6? That was clearly a set piece for Biden: Make Trump choose between the far-right freaks who are a a big part of his coalition and people who are horrified by the aforementioned freaks. But this is what came out:
Trump didn’t respond. He didn’t have to.
I’m being hard on Biden, because this is largely his fault. By failing to step aside, Biden drastically limited Democrats’ options; a campaign to unseat a sitting president is overwhelmingly likely to fail even if you’re not Dean Phillips, and that’s why nobody except for the guy who’s name I’ve already forgotten even though it appears in the first part of this very sentence (Dave Philborn?) even tried. Possibly motivated by ego, Biden thought that he’d have a better shot than whatever nominee was spit out by whatever process would follow Biden dropping out. We now know that was wrong: Biden’s chances of being re-elected are zero. I’m tempted to put an “effectively” before “zero”, because, of course, no future event in the universe is literally impossible. Except for this one: I feel comfortable saying that Biden’s performance last night was so bad that it broke the rules of spacetime.
Which is a sad way for a good man’s story to end. I like Joe Biden; I’ve liked him for a long time. As I said 18 months ago, I was hoping that Biden would decide that this should be his narrative: A grizzled political veteran gets coaxed out of semi-retirement during a time of crisis. The country needs him to do one last big thing, and despite his advanced age, he does it. And then — much like Cincinnatus and George Washington — he selflessly rides off into the sunset. Except that Biden does it on Amtrak, and with a badass David Caruso-putting-on-shades-at-the-beginning-of-CSI-Miami moment just before boarding the train.
Biden didn’t opt for that narrative. That’s tragic; he historically blew it. Even if Biden bows out now — which he definitely should, because all of the most viable paths to someone beating Trump start with Biden bowing out — he’s being forced out. And he’s being forced out for a good reason: He can’t convey the Democrats’ message. That’s a required skill in politics — it’s what hammering is to carpentry or what sublimating your dignity is to temping. The issue here isn’t affect, or “vibe”, or even the fundamental ability to do the job of president — I’m still comfortable with Biden being president through January. The issue is that Biden can’t paint a compelling picture of what the next four years would look like if he’s re-elected. And if you can’t do that, then you can’t run for president.
Sifting through last night's wreckage
JEFF MAURER
JUN 28, 2024
The spectacle after the spectacle last night was watching Democratic operatives — who are professionals with a job to do — try to spin Biden’s performance. Imagine executives from the Graf Zeppelinworks watching the fiery wreckage of the Hindenburg crash to earth, and then turning to their PR person and saying: “Go out there and tell everyone that the blimp is fine.” That was the task for professional hacks last night. An extra layer of surrealism was added by the fact that some of the people arguing the unarguable were people who might replace Biden on the ticket — Gavin Newsom had to go on TV and pretend that his phone wasn’t melting with texts saying “YO BRA IT’S GONNA BE YOU!!!” In a nihilistic era of politics in which nothing ever seems to matter, everyone instinctively knew: Last night mattered.
The funniest attempt at spin was “Biden has a cold.” Oh? A cold? What are the symptoms of this cold — being incoherent and lost and generally seeming like a man in his 80s who needs to have his responsibilities dramatically dialed back? Is the cold why Biden spent half the debate gawking at Trump with a blank stare, as if he was a specter trying to make contact with the corporeal world? Did the cold force Biden to shuffle onto the stage with itty-bitty steps like he was wearing socks on a newly polished floor? I imagined the Biden flak who sent the “Biden has a cold” text feeding new excuses to their media contacts throughout the debate: “Biden also has Typhoid.” “The President is on heroin.” “Joe was struck by lightning shortly before he took the stage.” “Biden accidentally ate a uranium fuel rod and got on the bad side of a Voodoo priest who seems to be enacting his revenge.” Though even those explanations might not justify what we saw.
Many partisans decided that the most viable line of defense was: “Biden spoke softly and mixed up his words but Trump was a relentless gusher of ignorance and lies.” This, of course, is true. In a sane world, we’d be making more of the fact that the guy who “won” was a tornado of mendacity and bulls#!t, as per usual. Some outlets dutifully performed fact checks that did — for a brief moment — focus the conversation on the fact that saying things like “my opponents murder babies after they’re born” is a bats#!t bananas thing for a presidential candidate to say. Biden’s defenders have a point when they argue that what was said should matter more than the manner of delivery.
So, allow me to assess Biden’s performance entirely on the substance of what was said. I’m going to ignore the mumbling and the stumbling, ignore the tenor and volume of Biden’s speech, and ignore the fact that any time he wasn’t speaking, Biden stared at Trump with his mouth open like a dog watching someone prep steaks. I’m going to focus solely on the meaning and impact of Biden’s words. And on that metric alone, my grade for Biden is: F-minus. Because you shouldn’t run for president if you can’t convey your message.
Here’s Biden’s closing statement. This is the one part of the night that can be 100 percent rehearsed — Biden should know the words to this speech better than Wayne Newton knows the words to “Danke Schoën”. But this is what Biden said:
I’m thinking back to my speechwriter days and wondering what would have happened to me if I had turned in a draft with this passage:
“What I did — well, for example. He wants to get away with, get rid of the ability of Medicare, to…for the ability…for the us to negotiate drug prices with big pharma companies. Well guess what? We got it down to 15 — excuse me 35 dollars for insulin instead of 400 dollars, no more than 2,000 dollars for every senior no matter what they, how much prescription they need.”
If I had written that, I wouldn’t have been fired — I would have been catapulted into an active volcano. And rightly so: There are barely thoughts expressed in the English language in that passage, much less an impactful message. Campaigns spend obscene sums of money on consultant witchcraft to answer a single question: What is our message? Once you pick a message, that message becomes the focal point of your closing remarks, and those remarks are a big deal because they’re the last thing you say. If voters remember one thing about the debate — and research shows that the average voter remembers between zero and one things about a debate — you want that thing to be your message. Biden whizzed down his leg in that moment, and I really, really hope that I’m speaking metaphorically.
Here’s the passage that has already come to be known as The Moment Everyone Realized It Was Over.
That disaster was in response to a question about why Trump wants to give tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy. Taxes on corporations and the wealthy always poll as one of the Democrats’ strongest issues. Even Trump voters don’t like the fact that despite Trump’s populist noises, his tax policy hasn’t evolved much from the George W. Bush/Grover Norquist era. This should have been a point-scoring exchange for Biden; if the debate was boxing, Trump had somehow gotten his watch tangled in his shoelaces and was vulnerable to a haymaker. But instead of delivering a powerful punch, Biden gave us the “we beat Medicare” moment that will be referenced in political science classes 50 years from now. Let’s call that “suboptimal”.
Trump, as always, spouted nonsense and lies at an astounding rate. Biden didn’t effectively counter any of it. He knew that he was supposed to, and his aides had clearly stuffed his pockets full of zingers for exactly that purpose, but Biden dribbled all of those zingers down the front of his shirt. Did anyone notice that Biden tried to get Trump to denounce the far-right groups that stormed the capital on January 6? That was clearly a set piece for Biden: Make Trump choose between the far-right freaks who are a a big part of his coalition and people who are horrified by the aforementioned freaks. But this is what came out:
Trump didn’t respond. He didn’t have to.
I’m being hard on Biden, because this is largely his fault. By failing to step aside, Biden drastically limited Democrats’ options; a campaign to unseat a sitting president is overwhelmingly likely to fail even if you’re not Dean Phillips, and that’s why nobody except for the guy who’s name I’ve already forgotten even though it appears in the first part of this very sentence (Dave Philborn?) even tried. Possibly motivated by ego, Biden thought that he’d have a better shot than whatever nominee was spit out by whatever process would follow Biden dropping out. We now know that was wrong: Biden’s chances of being re-elected are zero. I’m tempted to put an “effectively” before “zero”, because, of course, no future event in the universe is literally impossible. Except for this one: I feel comfortable saying that Biden’s performance last night was so bad that it broke the rules of spacetime.
Which is a sad way for a good man’s story to end. I like Joe Biden; I’ve liked him for a long time. As I said 18 months ago, I was hoping that Biden would decide that this should be his narrative: A grizzled political veteran gets coaxed out of semi-retirement during a time of crisis. The country needs him to do one last big thing, and despite his advanced age, he does it. And then — much like Cincinnatus and George Washington — he selflessly rides off into the sunset. Except that Biden does it on Amtrak, and with a badass David Caruso-putting-on-shades-at-the-beginning-of-CSI-Miami moment just before boarding the train.
Biden didn’t opt for that narrative. That’s tragic; he historically blew it. Even if Biden bows out now — which he definitely should, because all of the most viable paths to someone beating Trump start with Biden bowing out — he’s being forced out. And he’s being forced out for a good reason: He can’t convey the Democrats’ message. That’s a required skill in politics — it’s what hammering is to carpentry or what sublimating your dignity is to temping. The issue here isn’t affect, or “vibe”, or even the fundamental ability to do the job of president — I’m still comfortable with Biden being president through January. The issue is that Biden can’t paint a compelling picture of what the next four years would look like if he’s re-elected. And if you can’t do that, then you can’t run for president.
