Nate Silver Sounds the Alarm on Biden Campaign: It's time for the White House to put up or shut up
Shielding Biden from public appearances might be a rational strategy -- and that's why it's a bad sign.
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A lot of commentators that I respect have pointed out that Biden ought to do more public events that would help to allay public doubts about his mental sharpness. The problem is, one can infer the reason that Biden is not doing them — namely that the White House comms team is rational and has inferred that the cost of doing them outweighs the benefits because Biden is too likely to come across poorly.
Biden has done fewer interviews than any recent president, and it’s not close. By this point in their presidencies, Barack Obama had given more than 400 interviews and Trump had given more than 300. Biden has given fewer than 100.
Mr. Biden has especially shunned interviews with major newspapers. Since taking office, he has not done a single interview with reporters from a major newspaper.
How much longer can they keep hiding him and covering for him?
He’s given plenty of speeches recently but they aren’t covered.
Even the non-rightwing press is being pushed into the RW talking points.
You might read the article a bit more carefully.
Silver is distinguishing unscripted speeches and/or interviews from scripted speeches, of which yes, there are many.
The question isn't whether Biden can read from a script it's whether he can respond off the cuff.
I’m not convinced this is valid criticism as much as supposition.
The guy is busy actually doing the job. He doesn’t nesc have time right now to fanny around giving leisurely interviews. Stuff is happening, you know?
I’m not convinced this is valid criticism as much as supposition.
It is a widely shared supposition, that's literally the point of the article.
To sinplify: Trump may win because an overwhelming majority of Americans think Biden is too old. Biden's team has been unable to convince the public that he isn't.
Funny how even the lefty media keeps pushing this ‘too old’ vs ‘not as old’ thing rather than ‘experienced and honest’ vs ‘chaotic evil’.
It’s bullshit and sad how the Rightwing can shove their toxic crap into every crevice of the society.
It's not the media, it is an overwhelming majority of Americans that are concerned.
Covering your eyes doesn't actually keep away the boogeyman or reality.
It’s not the media, it is an overwhelming majority of Americans that are concerned.
And how do a majority of Americans from their views? I'm not a fan of blaming "the media" for things, but it's undeniable that they have an impact.
I mean, the Right is going full force on Biden's age and Biden/Biden's staff seem unable or unwilling to forcefully rebut this by putting him out in unscripted moments.
And frankly, Biden's age was a concern in 2020. Regardless of how much I want him to win, it would be an absolute dereliction of journalistic duty to not cover it.
Especially because if Biden is fully with it, a good hard interview (or even an absolute softball like the Superbowl interview) should be the easiest thing in the world.
discussing valid criticisms is not RW talking points
Criticizing Biden for not making public speeches when he has been in fact making plenty public speeches makes it not a valid criticism
I read the article as saying nonscripted events. As in not a speech - but interviews or etc.
I get that we all really need the dems to win but it seems like all he people defending Biden didn't read the article and aren't trying to engage with the conversation.
That probably has more to do with his stutter than anything else. Look up lifetime interviews for the average politician with a record close to Biden's. He probably has less all across the board. Because a stutter makes you look bad in an interview, even though it shouldn't matter.
At this point its obviously not a stutter, and anyone still claiming that is in denial
He does have a stutter but that's no excuse to not do public interviews and press conferences. If he can't do the bare minimum...
It's never been a prominent stutter. It is almost completely transparent. Like all of his speeches before he was VP showed little to no presence of a speech impediment, claiming his obvious cognitive decline is a stutter is ignorance and denial on display
This guy hasn’t seen any of Biden’s early speeches on the senate floor. He has a distinct speech impediment. Stutter is a specific repeating of letter sounds in most people’s imagination, but it’s also a difficulty in “picking” words, which to many means longer pauses, or slowing speech to make is possible to talk without repeating sounds. There are lots of coping mechanisms they teach in speech therapy, and it’s well documented that Biden has always used them when speaking in public.
Nothing even close to the extent it is now. Find one single speech pre2008 where he sounds even remotely like he does now. It's not a speech impediment, it's a cognitive one
Same sentence could be said for Trump
maybe neither of them should be president
That'd be sweet. Please vote in your primary!
Id be fine with that, but ill take Biden level mental slowness and gaffes and older age over Trumps absolute chaos agenda and sheer madness any day. The difference is incredible and the fact that people pay attention to Bidens age so much tells me how un calibrated to reality the usa is
Covering for all the actual winning?
seems like you already have your own bullshit answers to your own wacky conjectures.
it's really quite simple, one candidate is an elderly man with some policy problems. the other guy is an elderly mentally deranged fascist who's openly agitating for democracy's end, he literally wants to be a dictator and brags about it.
HOW FUCKING THICK DO YOU HAVE TO BE TO SEE THIS AS A HARD DECISION?
I'm sorry you're being downvoted for this comment. What you're saying is absolutely true, the moderates just don't want to hear it.
It's the candidate's job to assuage voter's fears and convince people to vote for them. If Biden is too frail to do interviews, how is he going to do an election campaign? How is he even able to do this job? We have other people, why does it have to be Biden?
I liked how Jon Stewart put it - when the barbarians (Trump) are at the walls, you want Conan up there leading the charge, not a feeble old man who's afraid to appear in front of the public.
A lot of it is them not wanting to face reality and instead bury their head in the sand. Hoping it'll just magically all work out. It's kind of terrifying Biden is "the best we got" to go against Trump.
Right. And they dismiss these really valid concerns as right wing propaganda or both-sides-isms. Polls right now show Trump polling marginally better than Biden. Shouldn't this be sounding the alarms for more of us? Biden should be stomping Trump in polls but instead they're neck and neck. And this is the guy that they're determined to push.
I don't even agree that Biden is "the best we got" but somehow everyone is convinced of that. I have a sad theory that DNC strategists see Biden as the most viable candidate because he's a white male from a rust belt town. This profile lines up with many conservative voters that they think they need to win elections. This explains why they wouldn't run someone "woke" like Whitmer or Newsome or maybe Michelle Obama. In other words, there aren't any good ole boys left in the democratic party, or at least any popular enough to actually win (e.g., Joe Manchin).
From the perspective of an ordinary citizen though, Biden didn't win because of conservative voters. He won because of a large coalition of different kinds of people - moderates, women, minority races, and leftists. Biden has upset that coalition by not pushing harder for codified reproductive rights, his stance on Gaza, and a weak relationship with labor. I worry that while moderates will turn out, that has never been enough to win.