The elephant in the 2020 electoral room is Joe Biden’s mental acuity, or lack thereof.
On March 8, 2020, I noted that the issue had surfaced, and not by Trump but by Bernie Sanders supporters, Joe Biden is becoming a sad figure to watch:
With each passing day, more and more videos capture Joe Biden on the campaign trail making what are more than the gaffes for which he is famous. Biden forgets or struggles to remember names, events and people as he speaks, and jumbles words.Biden should not be laughed at for this. My overwhelming feeling for Joe is one of sadness, that he was pushed into something for which he is not prepared. And it’s only going to get worse….“Cognitive Decline” is a word increasingly being used, particularly by people on the left….Maybe it’s nothing, but maybe it’s something. THESE ARE NOT GAFFES….There are a lot of forces in whose interest it is to portray Biden as in cognitive decline. But we also have our eyes and ears to evaluate those claims. And the result is just sad.
Biden temporarily rescued by the pandemic, allowing his handlers to hide him in the basement and expose him to the public in highly contrived and controlled circumstances. Even with that control, Biden has had a number of embarrasing mental lapses, seeming confused as to where he was, who he was with, or what he was supposed to say.
While certainly the Trump campaign has brougt it up, now it’s front and center in the campaign. Axios reports, Trump campaign ad attacks Biden’s mental faculties:
President Trump’s re-election campaign launched its most brutal ad of the 2020 election overnight, suggesting Joe Biden has experienced severe mental decline over the past four years.Driving the news: The digital ad, “What happened to Joe Biden,” is timed to overlap with the Democratic National Convention and launches the Trump campaign’s four-day takeover of the YouTube masthead.
- That’s prime internet real estate the campaign has bought in what it calls a “high seven figures” digital advertising effort to undercut the DNC’s messaging this week.
The details: The new ad splices footage of Biden speaking energetically and articulately in 2015 and 2016 alongside clips of him stumbling over his words and appearing to lose his train of thought during the 2020 campaign.
- It’s the harshest president campaign attack in what is shaping up to be an even uglier messaging year than 2016.
Behind the scenes: Earlier in the campaign, some Trump aides privately expressed reservations about attacking Biden over his mental fitness. Several argued that it could alienate seniors. But the proponents of this strategy prevailed.
- The Trump campaign has been gradually making this line of attack more explicit — with one ad describing Biden as “diminished” and another suggesting a mental “decline” was the reason he hasn’t taken a cognitive test.
What they’re saying: “We think it’s very important that voters fully assess Joe Biden’s qualifications and fitness to be president,” a senior campaign official told Axios.
- “Our data show that people are concerned about his ability to do the job,” the official said. Asked to provide evidence of that specific data, the Trump campaign declined to do so.
Here is the ad:
When Biden was confronted, in one of his few non-scripted appearances, he flubbed it terribly, Yikes, Biden asks Black Interviewer “Are you a junkie?” then mumbles about cognitive test:
The issue is breaking through. Even the mainstream media is raising this questions, this time to Jill Biden:
Whether this line of attack works will depend on how Biden does in the debates. If he falters in terms of mental acuity on stage, it could collapse his campaign.
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