Donald Trump arrives aboard a US Air Force One B-757 to crowds….
Joe Biden arrives aboard a private Gulfstream business jet to sparse crowds…
Trump never wears mask….
Biden always…
Donald Trump is still trailing in the polls….
Joe Biden, meanwhile, has barely left his home without a mask for months, and he makes a point of keeping voters — when he encounters any — at a distance from himself and one another. Events at drive-in theaters have been kept under 50 — people, not cars — to respect state guidelines.
This contrast continued Tuesday, when Trump flew to Florida and North Carolina, addressing crowds in both places, while Biden’s camp announced by 9:30 a.m. that he would make no public appearances all day. It’s a likely snapshot of the race’s final eight weeks: one campaign fueled by in-person events, raucous gatherings and defiant crowds flouting health rules; the other driven by quiet, small-bore events with everyone masked and spaced apart.
These are more than just competing messages for a country riven by a pandemic less than two months before an election. The two sides don’t even agree on what constitutes campaigning. And Republicans and Democrats each say their opponents are making a fatal error — with the Trump campaign attempting to cast life as largely normal, while Biden and his campaign largely stay at home.
“That’s great, great news for us,” Republican National Committee Chief of Staff Richard Walters said of the Democrats’ approach. “It’s an elitist viewpoint that says you have to remain locked down indefinitely until Joe Biden says you can come out of your basement. It’s a typical Democrat strategy where you take the choice of the individual away.”
If Trump is showcasing his brand of defiant individualism, Biden is seeking to demonstrate his rationality and willingness to heed experts. Democrats say Trump is scaring away swing voters alarmed by the pandemic while appealing to a core base that sees public health measures as going too far….
Update…
Joe Biden has now moved to a small jetliner as he increases his campaign traveling….
He began with Gulfstream business jet which seats up to 14-19 people….
He is now traveling in a B-737 business jet that can seat from 25 to 50 people…
This means that Biden and his wife can travel with their Secret Service detail, staff and a small press poll….
bottom B-737 image …Chip /Somodevilla Getty
An unidentified photographer got past Joe Biden’s Secret Service perimeter Friday afternoon in Pennsylvania as the former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee boarded his charter plane.
Biden and his wife were walking up to the steps of their plane in Johnstown-Cambria County Airport when a photographer walked around the plane’s rear and approached the area beneath the plane’s wing before the Secret Service physically removed him. The man had been credentialed to cover an earlier event and resisted the Secret Service upon confronting them…..
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….“He is just a natural in-person connector,” said Representative Debbie Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, who spent time with Mr. Biden during his visit to her state this month. It is much harder to connect from behind a mask, much less a screen. “It’s an adjustment for everyone to campaign in a pandemic,” Ms. Dingell said. “But for Biden it’s more so.”
The Biden campaign says its pronounced concern for social distancing is geared mainly toward public safety.
“When we think about how we’re going to put together an event, the overarching concern is, How do we do this in a way that ensures we’re not posing a danger to the community?” said Kate Bedingfield, a deputy campaign manager. She added that, even in a traditional election year, a campaign would reach more voters through local news coverage of a visit than through people who laid eyes on the candidate in person.
Critics of Mr. Biden’s hyper-cautious approach have suggested that he can go too far at times, that some of his measures reek of showing off. Even after Milwaukee — the largest city in the swing state of Wisconsin — invested vast time and resources into the Democratic National Convention last month, the campaign declined to send Mr. Biden’s running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, to the state for even a quick courtesy appearance, despite the fact that the Democratic National Committee still maintained a scaled-back presence in the city. (“We determined this wasn’t a time to bring her to the state without creating an unsafe environment on the ground,” Ms. Bedingfield said.)…
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