The LA Times on a possible new and improved Joe Biden the campaigner …..
Something the guy sorry needed…..
And something the media wanted and will like…
(Biden had been old school up now…Staying at arms length with the media…Somnething that doesn’t help campaigns anymore…)
Oh, and Biden supporters also….
For 20 minutes it was Joe Biden, live and unplugged.
Standing with a hand-held microphone, before a dozen TV cameras and scores of reporters, the former vice president held forth Saturday. Not as someone whose decades-long political career was on the line, which it may well be in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary.
More like a man set free, his tongue loosened and liberated — although, it should be said, for much of this campaign it has been Biden who chose to avoid the kind of free-ranging, all-access press policy that transformed Pete Buttigieg from a pinpoint to a serious contender for the Democratic nomination.
The former vice president was cloistered — seen by reporters but not available for questions — until his dire political situation left him no choice but to shed his front-runner’s presumption and show a bit of stagy swagger. Finishing fourth in the Iowa caucuses will do that to a candidate whose White House bid is heavily premised on supposed electability.
For the loquacious Biden, standing in a campaign field office in a former American Legion Hall, it was like a dam burst open. Or a shaken soda bottle, uncorked.
He talked. And talked and talked some more: about his rivals and their extravagant promises — “C’mon, man” — about the absurdity of those crowded debates, where seemingly everyone and their brother has been allowed on stage.
“You call those debates?” he demanded. “I’ve been in debates.”
He named two of them, against his vice presidential opponents in 2012 and 2008.
“I debated Paul Ryan. I debated that woman from Alaska who could see Russia,” he said, referring to Sarah Palin. “I did pretty well. They were debates. You could answer questions. Look folks, c’mon.”
Several times staffers sought to cut Biden off, peremptorily shouting, “Last question!”
He talked, and talked some more.
Buttigieg? Nice guy. Great former mayor of South Bend, Ind. But, c’mon. “The idea of passing a budget as the mayor of a town the size of Manchester.…”
Bernie Sanders? No knock on the guy. But push through Congress a massive “Medicare for all” plan and then explain how he’d pay for it? C’mon.
Biden paced. He scowled and squinted. He lowered his voice to a theatrical hush and nearly shouted….
image….Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden answers questions from reporters in Manchester, N.H., on Saturday…..Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press
I debated the “woman from Alaska”.
Does he not remember her name? I suspect not – and that is a problem.
Barack Obama supposedly told JoeBiden,when he was talking with him about running for President , “Joe, you don’t have to do this.”
I’m beginning to think that Obama might have seen before the rest of us what seems to be slowly emerging.
Not only is Biden aging ,he s acting “old.”
The reality is that the vast majority of people in their mid to late seventies have some noticeable decline in their mental facilities. Some people don’t – Ruth Bader Ginsberg comes directly to mind, but I also haven’t seen any decline in any of the other older candidates – with the exception of Trump.
I don’t think this is something Biden can fix.
I’m hoping Klobuchar can finish ahead of Biden in NH.
Z?
Nancy Pelosi is 79 years old….
She hasn’t missed a damn thing….
As DSD points out?
Just about ALL of the heavy hitters ARE in their 70’s…
Joe Biden is who he is…
He has to get better, No doubt…
Plenty of people on the right were saying “Nancy was losing it” in the last couple of years and showing clips of her being confused when making remarks and stumbling over words, etc. Then, they moved on to Biden, so she has largely gotten a pass.
Women also outlive men though.
She has done a damn good job LEADING the Democrats in Congress and giving Donald Trump heartburn….
Not shabby for a 79 year old….
That’s definitely not a universally shared opinion within her Conference.
She has NEVER had serious problems with her caucus….
Or party….
I certainly hope it’s not anything so serious — for Biden, Warren or Sanders, but even for Donald Trump [all born between 1941 & 1949] — but Ronald Reagan [born 1913] started showing symptoms of his Alzheimer’s Disease some time around the middle of his Presidency (1981-89) when he was in his early to mid 70’s.
No ageism on my part, since I myself was born in 1949.
There’s no actual evidence that Reagan showed those signs as President. It would have been far more noticeable. People mention that he didn’t remember names very well. That seemed to be the case throughout his entire life.
Similarly, I think Biden is acting pretty much the way he has always acted. He has always been a bit “weird” and never considered any sort of intellectual giant. The main difference is he looks older and the more he actually campaigns before these contests, he is looking tired and more gaunt.
You bring back memories CG….
Some of us KNEW Ronnie wasn’t running g ANYTHING…
He was visibly incapacitated towards the end….
Yes Joe IS Joe…
I mean look at what Trump says and does, eh?
SOMETHING is VERY WRONG with the Big Guy…
At least Reagan had people to substitute for him…
No he wasn’t.
Reagan’s handwritten diaries, from his latter years as President have been published. His mind was still fine then. He started showing symptoms after he fell off a horse after leaving the White House.
I do remember him seemingly confused in his last year in office…
about what?
You perhaps just didn’t like his politics.
I wasn’t into politics like I am now….
I DO remember the PATCO strike time….
WHEW!
Teleprompter or not, nobody showing serious signs of dementia would have been able to masterfully give a speech the way he did at the 1992 GOP Convention, three and a half years after leaving office.
When he gave his final public speech in 1994, it was clear something had changed.
CG?
He WAS an ACTOR…..
Skills that helped him be a great President.
But there is no indication that he had Alzheimer’s symptoms while President. He suffered for years enough with that after leaving. Go to the library and read his diaries from the White House years. He played the “kindly old man” when it suited him as President very well.
In his book, Ron Reagan said that Reagan may have started showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease three years into his presidency. But I know that won’t change what you believe because no one has ever convinced you were wrong about anything. – and you likely feel that you are more qualified to make that assessment than his son.
I go with what the President’s wife and physicians (plus the other son) all said. The physicians all said that there were no signs until after he left the Presidency.
Even in his book, Ron Jr said that he believed his father would have resigned had he had any indication of that illness.
Believe what ya want CG….
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ronald-reagan-alzheimers-disease/
It would have been pretty remarkable medically for someone to live another 20 years after showing signs.
I recall reading how at one meeting, Reagan asked Samuel Pierce – HUD Secretary and I believe the only black in the cabinet at the time, “So how are things in your city, Mr. Mayor?”
Actually, little of this changes my basic question; had Reagan fallen off that horse [not having shown any symptoms before] in 1992 or 1993, he would have been in his late 70’s (rather than his mid-70’s), which is where Bernie Sanders [born Sept. 1941] and Joe Biden [Nov. 1942] will be on Inauguration Day, 2021.
Elizabeth Warren [June 1949] is three months younger than I, and Donald Trump was born in the same year as Bill Clinton and Geo. W. Bush: 1946.
¶ Although it doesn’t contradict my assertion above, I’m not sure about Reagan’s cognition and memory during his time in office. However, one anecdote I read in a magazine excerpt from a very sympathetic biography by Michael Korda seemed to come from during his Presidency.
He vividly recalled some heroic actions by a USAAF pilot (I think Reagan himself) that were actually the plot of a USAAF training film he had made during the war.
[However in trying to Bing it, I found that the plot itself is loosely based on the real experiences of an American pilot, so it’s possible that Reagan was recalling the underlying facts rather than the movie plot. See, inter alia
https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/reagan-taught-us-pilots-how-to-recognize-the-zero ]
We also need to find out where Andrew Yang is stashing away his “billions” that the IRS doesn’t know about..
Maybe the current President could give him a few tips…