What exquisite timing for The New York Times‘ explosive revelations about Donald Trump’s taxes, landing just two days before the crucial first presidential debate with Joe Biden.
The gift of this early October Surprise will make for even more riveting viewing on Wednesday (Tuesday night US time).
But before everyone gets too excited, just recall what happened only two days before another crucial debate in the 2016, between Trump and Hillary Clinton.
The sensational Access Hollywood tapes dropped in all their pussy grabbing glory. Even senior Republicans urged Trump to quit the race before he had to front the first female presidential candidate.
And what did he do?
Two hours before taking the stage he called a surprise press conference where he trotted out four of the women who over the years had accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment.
He wanted to bring them into the debate studio, although organisers put a stop to that part of the stunt.
His half-hearted apology during the debate did not diminish the tension but even though Hillary Clinton won the night convincingly, history tells us what happened in November.
This week’s debate will be great theatre, but the bigger question is whether Biden is capable of delivering the killer punch.
My coverage of Biden goes back to his 1988 presidential bid when I was the US correspondent for The Australian.
He was then one of the more youthful candidates, but a long way behind the charismatic frontrunner Gary Hart. Of course, it was that charisma which led Hart to crash out of the race over allegations of an affair with glamorous model Donna Rice.
Emboldened by the Hart scandal, it took the media only a few months to claim Biden’s scalp over a far less scintillating story that he plagarised part of a speech by then UK Labour leader Neil Kinnock.
Like Hart, Biden initially tried to ride out the scandal but each day came more damaging allegations and then even more damning claims that he had lied about his academic record.
It took only 11 days for him to bow out of the race after the first plagarism story and another 20 years until he ran for president again.
I was a Knight journalism fellow at Stanford University during the 2008 election campaign, studying the bitter battle for the Democratic nomination. In 2007 Biden participated in 11 of the 13 debates which tested the patience of candidates and viewers alike.
Dubbed Snow White and the seven dwarfs, the campaign was dominated by the front-runner Hillary Clinton until Barack Obama inspired the base with his hope and change theme.
While Biden didn’t make any major gaffes during the debates, he once again failed to inspire, and was swiftly eliminated after the first caucus in Iowa in January when he came in fifth — although he clearly impressed Obama, who later made him his running mate.
It was as vice president in 2012 that Biden delivered his best ever debate performance, against Republican VP candidate Paul Ryan. It’s that Biden that pundits hope will emerge on Tuesday.
His debate performances last year during the Democratic primaries were largely underwhelming, with only the occasional glimpse of the feisty 2012 version.
His incredible comeback in South Carolina was more a factor of him being the most electable of the candidates. Since then he has failed to ignite the base and was a rare beneficiary of the pandemic, where his absence from the campaign trail kept the spotlight on Trump.
Given the lacklustre but worthy advertisements coming out of his campaign, one wonders whether Biden still hasn’t learnt that Michelle Obama’s “when they go low, we go high” might not work against Trump.
In fact the toughest opponents of Trump appear to be the ex-Republicans behind the Lincoln Project, which is running a vicious ad campaign against the incumbent president.
Unlike his opponent, Biden is prepared for this week’s debate. But against Trump, will that be enough?
Let’s be frank, he’s not inspiring. If you were American, you must be thinking, ‘Is this the best the Democrats can muster?’
The alternative being reelected for a second term is just too terrible to imagine but it might happen and if it does, that may be the final nail in coffin for the US as a world leader.
That pious, feeble slogan helped to convince me Trump would win in 2016. Until the Democrats drop this nonsense they are doomed to irrelevance while the Republicans run amok. The Democrats have for years – decades – ignored the corruption, cheating, gerrymandering, partisan stacking of courts and agencies. voter suppression and every other action taken by Republicans to steal elections and hold on to power with no democratic legitimacy. The Democrats take the moral high ground, and stand there, isolated and helpless. This passive, pathetic lack of guts or will to fight has handed the the country to the Republicans, who will not yield now.
My dislike for Trump is insufficient for me not to recognise his effectiveness. He gets what he wants and will do whatever it takes to get it. Putin and Xi Jianping are the same. We might hate them but they’re effective. Trouble is Trump’s wants are not helping the citizens who pay his salary, indeed he’s damaging them – all standard psychopathy really.
Sinking Ship Rat, your comments above also apply to the Western Nations, including Aust and Britian. incompetent and self-serving far right leadership, and a fractious European Union. i am reminded of the fall of the Roman Empire. Founded by Julius Ceasar in 50 BC and succumbed to the Huns Goths and others @ 476 AD a period of some 500+ years. The rise of Western influence from ~1500AD to C21st
Moderator: i need to finish my comments :- ….. influence from C16th to C21th now a period of just on 500yrs. we are now in the grip of incompetent leadership and are seeing economic and military power shifting to China once again. Incidently ship rats a canny enough to desert sinking ships. any ideas?
Not only will the “when they go low, we go high” line not work against Trump, in my experience of observing politics, it rarely works against anyone. Still, can’t fault Michelle Obama’s idealism.
There was a better analysis of strategy in the New Daily today…Biden’s best strategy will be to belittle and antagonize him over his many personal failings – attack his fragile ego mercilessly and humiliate him, far and away Trumps’s weakest point.
How can you write an article about Biden without mentioning his dementia?
And trumps brain damage?
As C19 has changed the social/commercial world we once (though that we) knew so Trump has obliterated any semblance of a pretence of the con-job that amerika is a benign hegemon.
In ain’t.
It never was and had previously been held in check internationally by other nations with more experience if less raw power.
Domestically there had been a substantial mass in the middle, most of whom rarely voted because Life seemed good and becoming better.
Since the neolib blight took hold that large, somnolent group has been devastated – their farms & small towns rendered irrelevant by corporations which have outsourced what they could and automated the little that remained.
They are not pleased and mostly blame Dems – what they erroneously call ”liberals” – not incorrectly in the main.
No that anger has grown and become as incoherent & self destructive as its leader, Trump.
Some people just want to see the world burn.