The case against Joe Biden’s presidential campaign got made Thursday night right out in the open — sound up, lights glaring — nothing blurred in a haze of euphemism, politesse, or indirection.
Arguments that have hovered around Biden for months, which he has mostly brushed aside in above-the-fray fashion that left his front-runner status secure, were made directly to his face on the Democratic debate stage in Miami. Sen. Kamala Harris played the most dramatic part, but most of Biden’s nine rivals, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, played some role in crafting a painful string of indictments.
Biden, the arguments went, is at age 76 from the wrong generation to lead Democrats in 2020. His paeans to the supposedly more civil Senate of his 30s, as well as his own record in those days, show racial insensitivity. He’s gotten big questions, like the 2002 Iraq War vote, wrong. He’s been played for a fool by Republicans in his efforts to show that he is a consummate doer and dealmaker.
Biden’s response to the barrage was decidedly uneven.
At his best, he gave spirited and plausible answers even while stumbling over a word here or there, inviting sympathizers to view him as he views himself — someone who’s made honest mistakes, but has proven himself one of the good guys over a long public life, fighting for civil rights and other progressive values in many arenas or over many years.
