Last Dance or Hail Mary? Pick a metaphor Bernie. It’s all on the table tonight.
Senator Sanders will take the last debate as far as he can, looking for a knock-out and hoping for a disastrous mistake by Joe.
The latter seems less likely than it once did. Biden has seemingly taken a fountain of youth potion since South Carolina, being more energized, focused and thoroughly in control. It has been a huge contrast from the Joe of the early contests who looked defeated before he began, mumbling and tripping on himself with no energy or passion. His early debate strategy seemed to be cutting his comments so he wouldn’t go over his allotted time and thus look like the adult in the room.
It didn’t work.
After South Carolina his rebirth was sudden and undeniable. Recognizing his death had been prematurely reported, he memorized one speech and repeated it often. “If you’ve been knocked down…”, and repeat. Hokey, maybe, but it came out coherently, more and more so with repetition, and the appearance of focus emerged, calming fears. Besides, hokey was Joe’s business card. All seemed as it should.
Bernie denting the facade looks unlikely to me, at least to the extent of making it a game changer. People have largely chosen to ignore Biden’s #MeToo accusations, his war votes, his safety net betrayals and so on which will inevitably be Bernie’s targets. The public has voted on these for the last two weeks and it hasn’t gone well for Bernie.
This sets up to be a very ugly night. Bernie needs to stop the bleeding and nothing is working. He will have to go hard and furious and that is rarely a good look. He will cast himself as the mad bomber, but his weapon will probably go off in his pocket and this Tuesday will look like last Tuesday and the one before.
The virus will take the stage for the first time tonight, and Joe has taken the high ground there already having made a speech that had exactly the right tone and demeanor, far out-presidenting the President himself, seemingly already performing the role he is running for. The comparison seemed so drastic and you couldn’t help but be nostalgic for actual leadership. No matter that it was performance art. On only such things do elections turn, and Joe has the drop on Bernie on this one.
Making Bernie’s hill to climb even taller, the debate will be held with no live spectators, tamping down the emotional temperature that Bernie will be absolutely dependant on to turn the tide. Having to provide it all by himself will most likely lead to him seeming overwrought and temperamentally unfit, while Joe smiles and emits cool confidence, probably all he needs to win the day.
Biden flipped the switch on this election in Dallas. It’s up to Bernie to do it tonight.