The Democrats wanted and needed a compelling performance from Joe Biden last night: a rebuttal to the concerns about his age and ability. Instead, his performance was disastrous. His voice was hoarse, he rambled, frequently lost his chain of thought and sometimes couldn’t even get to the end of his sentences. Donald Trump was composed (not usual for him) and was as sharp as Biden was weak. When Trump went into his traditional hyperbole, Biden was unable to answer. It was perhaps the worst performance from any Democratic candidate in the television age and will now lead to panicked questions as to whether he can still be the candidate….
One exchange summed up the evening: when Biden was crashing mid-sentence, saying he’d make sure that ‘we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to deal with. The covid. Excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with… what if we finally beat. Medicare.’ No one had a clue what he meant. Recognising this gift, Trump replied: ‘He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death. He destroyed Medicare’. The split-screen format means facial expressions matter – and Biden often seemed to freeze, as he has recently done so often, when Trump was his loquacious self. “I don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence,” Trump said at one point. “I don’t think he knows what he said, either.”
If the Democrats don't ditch Biden soon, and find a candidate who isn't senile, then we're all in big trouble.
Will Pavia in the Times:
The debate had been billed as practically the most important since Abraham Lincoln took on Stephen Douglas in 1858, and if Lincoln and Douglas were still alive, and several centuries old, perhaps they would have sounded like this….
This really was the debate between the two candidates for the presidency of the United States. It had the savour of an argument in a nursing home.
Mick Hartley 
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