Thursday night’s debate was far calmer and more substantive than the street brawl that preceded it. If we score it like a boxing match, it was pretty close. But that’s the wrong way to look at it. It matters, obviously, that neither candidate won a decisive victory and that Trump needed one more because he’s trailing, according to polls. But the debate helped Trump in another way. Biden said things he will regret. Time and again, he made false or misleading claims and politically-questionable promises. Three stand out:
Fracking and energy,
Predators and crime, and
Family corruption.
Biden also claimed, flatly, that no one ever lost their health insurance under ObamaCare. Oops. That won’t withstand scrutiny and weakens Biden on his best issue: healthcare.
Fracking and the Future of American Energy
Biden and Trump differ sharply on America’s energy future, and those differences came through in the debate. Biden made aggressive statements supporting alternative energy, pledging to gradually phase out the entire oil and gas industry and add thousands of new, high-paying jobs as he did so. There are really two issues here. One is whether voters have a clear sense of what Biden will do and how much it will cost. The other is how these promises will play in states that rely on energy production (such as Texas, Pennsylvania, and Ohio) or on energy-intensive industries (Michigan). How Pennsylvania voters, in particular, see Biden’s energy policies is crucial because, if Trump loses the state, he’ll have a very hard time winning reelection. That’s why Trump was so quick to jump on Biden’s “green energy” promises during the debate. He think Biden hurt himself in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Crime, Racism, and “Predators”
Second, Biden denied he ever used the term “Super Predators,” a not-so-veiled reference to black street gangs. He’s right, sort of. Hillary said it in 1996. But in 1993, as Biden was trying to pass a major crime bill, he spoke of “predators on our streets . . . literally without any conscience developing.” As Joe himself might put it, “Just play it for yourself on the Victrola.” He said something similar in 1998 and said these 100,000 juvenile “predators . . . warrant exceptionally, exceptionally tough treatment.” He later came to regret that language and the crime bill, which led to mass incarceration of young black men. Trump has attacked him on it and emphasized his own success in passing criminal-reform legislation. Trump also spoke of his long-term funding for historically-black colleges, the creation of “enterprise zones” in minority areas, and especially the record-low unemployment among minorities before the pandemic. It’s all part of his concerted effort to win African-American votes. Republicans seldom win very many, but even small gains could help in the swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Florida. Biden responded by calling Trump a racist, saying he used dog whistle language “as big as a foghorn.”
Biden Family Grifting
The biggest breaking story of the past week—Hunter Biden’s corrupt entanglements with foreign businesses and his father’s role, if any—received far too little attention during the debate. As a debater, the former vice president did a fine job of turning the issue around and attacking Trump over a bank account in China. But Biden’s debate performance and help from every media organization may not be enough to kill the corruption issue.
The accusations are piling up and getting verification from multiple sources, willing to go on the record. Biden’s response, that the charges are nothing more than Russian lies, is crumbling. The main allegations are that the Biden family got rich on pay-to-play schemes. That is far from proven, but more evidence has been coming out each day. The more directly Joe Biden is implicated in these schemes, the more damaging it is politically.
Joe and his campaign know that. During the Thursday debate, he vigorously reasserted his claim that it was all a “smear” and a “Russian hoax.” Trump taunted him, “Russia! Russia! Russia!” and repeatedly asked about Hunter’s receipt of $3.5 million from the widow of Moscow’s mayor.
At that point, the moderator, NBC’s Kristen Welker, could have made a genuine contribution to voters by asking Biden about them. She failed. She was determined to return to her set list of questions, which meant the corruption issue was never clearly joined.
If evidence from Hunter’s laptop computer or two of his former business partners, Tony Bobulinski and Bevan Cooney holds up, then Joe Biden is in a very difficult position. If the accusations lose steam, he can continue to focus on his strongest arguments: COVID, character, and healthcare.
Meanwhile, Trump will campaign non-stop, battering Joe on the scandals and hoping it doesn’t distract from his strongest argument for reelection: “I can bring the economy back, and Biden will kill it.”
We saw that choice on display Thursday night. And, unlike the first debate, we actually got to hear the arguments.
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