Political strategizing around the debates promises to change the way presidents are elected.
Then-President Trump and then-candidate Biden debate on September 30, 2020. | |
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Joe Biden and Donald Trump spent weeks circling one another like heavyweight champs playing chicken over the world title fight everyone wants to see. Then suddenly, it all came together in a matter of moments.
President Biden released a video Wednesday morning challenging Trump to two televised debates on June 27 and September 10. Within minutes, the former president — who has been calling for early and frequent debates with Biden for months despite snubbing all the Republican primary debates — had accepted.
"Make my day, pal. I'll even do it twice. So let's pick the dates, Donald – I hear you're free on Wednesdays," Biden said in the video, taking a jab at Trump over his New York criminal trial by mentioning the court's regular weekly day off. Trump replied with a social media post, saying, "I am Ready and Willing to Debate Crooked Joe at the two proposed times in June and September."
The political strategizing around the debates is fascinating and it promises to change the way presidents are elected. To start with, the scheduled debates, the first of which will be live on CNN in the US, internationally and online, are taking place far earlier than normal. In fact, neither Biden nor Trump will officially be his party's nominee for the first clash since Republicans hold their convention in July and Democrats meet in August. The days when a debate shaped the race within days of the election — for instance when President Jimmy Carter debated Ronald Reagan on October 28, 1980 — are long gone. Holding debates earlier does make some sense. A US election no longer takes place solely on the legally-mandated Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Early and mail-in voting means it's a weeks-long process. In some states, voters can cast their ballots in September.
The new Biden and Trump arrangement also feels like a death knell for the Commission on Presidential Debates, the neutral non-profit group that has sponsored the debates since 1988. The hoary institution has infuriated candidates on both sides of the political aisle in recent years. Trump has complained that the commission is biased and he thinks he was unfairly treated in 2020. Biden's camp accused the commission of failing to enforce the rules for debates when Trump tried to trample Biden and kept interrupting him in the first debate in that same year. And it thinks the commission's three scheduled presidential debates in September and October this year are too late, given changes to voting rules in many states.
Biden's willingness to debate entails a substantial risk. At 81 years old, any flubs or signs that he's slowed down will play into Trump's claims he's too old to be president. And there's every chance he could just get drowned out by his bombastic rival and look weak. That's one reason why Biden stipulated that there be no audience — to lessen the chances that Trump could feed off a crowd and turn the entire affair into a circus. A debate with two candidates in a TV studio with just a moderator would recall the circumstances of perhaps the most famous presidential debate: between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960.
Trump appears convinced that he'll crush Biden and the election will effectively be over by the end of the first debate in June. He wrote on his social network Tuesday that Biden is "the WORST debater I have ever faced - He can't put two sentences together!" The ex-president clearly has little time for the classic game of lowering expectations ahead of debates. But the danger for Trump is that he will be so torqued by the end of June that he could come across as unhinged and extreme — as he did in 2020 — and play into Biden's critique that he shouldn't be let anywhere near the Oval Office ever again. |
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Kennedy and Nixon debate in 1960. (JFK Library Foundation) |
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Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico is in life-threatening condition after an assassination attempt. France is sending hundreds of police to the South Pacific island of New Caledonia, where protests over the relationship between Paris and its French territory have turned violent. And Israel's Defense Minister has challenged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lay out a post-war plan for Gaza, warning that he would oppose an Israeli military occupation in the Palestinian enclave. Meanwhile in America, US intelligence agencies say Russia has stepped up its disinformation efforts to discredit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. As sea levels rise, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a bill deleting climate change mentions from Florida state law. And a miniature poodle won Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. |
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How to spend $60 million and get nothing in return |
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Maryland politics hasn't had this much national attention since disgraced favorite son Spiro Agnew was forced to resign as Nixon's vice president.
On Tuesday, the Old Line State selected its nominees to take on former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan in a critical Senate race as the GOP seeks to grab back control of the chamber in November.
In an upset, Democratic voters chose Angela Alsobrooks, who serves as the top official in Prince George's County next to Washington, DC, over businessman and House of Representatives member David Trone, who splashed out more than $60 million in a futile bid to win what became a pretty contentious race.
Normally, the destiny of a Maryland Senate seat shouldn't cause too much of a fuss since the state usually elects Democrats by a large margin and Biden is all but guaranteed to win it in the presidential race. But this year could be different. Hogan is a moderate Republican, who has spoken out against Trump and is remembered fondly by centrist voters in Maryland for his two terms as the state's governor. Democrats, who were already defending a very problematic Senate map, never thought they'd have to worry about Maryland. It's a long shot, but it's possible that Hogan's popularity could help him win in a very blue state.
Democrats hope the historic potential of Alsobrooks, who would be only the third Black woman elected to the Senate will supercharge turnout among minority and women voters, especially around DC and in Baltimore, the state's largest city — even if they're less than enthusiastic about voting for Biden at the top of the ticket. But Democrats might have to dip into their pockets and spend some cash they'd much prefer to have used in traditional swing states. One of the defeated Trone's arguments was that he's so rich — as the head of a wine store franchise — that he could drop tens of millions on the race.
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Thanks for reading. On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin visits China. | | |
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