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For Democrats and supporters of former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, the hope is that the version of Biden who faced then-Congressman Paul Ryan in 2012 will come out in the debate against Donald Trump on Tuesday in Ohio.
The Biden who stood at Ryan’s debate eight years ago helped turn the tide of then-President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign. Ask about any former Obama campaign alumnus or Democratic strategist and they’ll recognize that Obama’s performance against Mitt Romney in the first debate was poor.
“I would describe what he did in 2012 as a circuit breaker,” said Tad Devine, who led the 2016 presidential campaign for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
It was a low point in the campaign, former Obama campaign staff members recalled in interviews with The Guardian, and it was unclear whether Biden’s performance in the vice presidential debate would help lift the suddenly faltering campaign or let it sink. even more.
“Obama’s performance was just miserable,” Devine said of the first debate of 2012 between Obama and Romney. “Biden came in there against Ryan and, boy, was he appropriately aggressive. O’clock. I really drove the thing and I think it stopped the bleeding. “
Re-election campaign employees often contrast the first debate with the vice-presidential debate.
“Obama had failed in the first debate and there was a lot of pressure on [Biden] to comply and he nailed it and I know that in a way he deceived them, ”recalled an important reelection campaign adviser.
The stakes for Biden’s performance are much higher in 2020, as he now tops the Democratic list and faces a rule-breaking figure like Trump in a momentous election the whole world is watching.
“The first one is almost the whole game because we have a polarized country, everyone knows who they are going to vote for, except for a small group of people and they will see the first debate and pass a judgment,” said Bill. Daley, Obama’s former chief of staff who also advised Biden on one of his previous offers to the White House.
But the Biden who took the stage alongside Ryan, Mitt Romney’s vice president nominee, surprised some. He was an energetic political literate. And it didn’t produce the verbal missteps for which he was famous for years. As Ryan punched in stats or pronounced his carefully crafted attack lines, Biden switched between stern seriousness and exasperated eyes. Within seven minutes of the debate, Biden used one of his trademark phrases: “Malarkey!” – to avoid a comment from Ryan.
“Not a single thing he said is accurate,” Biden said with a determined smile on his face before detailing how Ryan, as chairman of the House Ways and Means committee, intervened in cutting off funding for an embassy. from the United States. in Benghazi.
While Obama’s campaign aides knew the president was not complying in the first debate, Biden’s staff in the makeshift war room at Center College in Kentucky flooded the press room, where reporters interview candidates and Substitutes after a debate, to capitalize on Biden’s acting speech.
“The first hour, hour and quarter had been so good that it didn’t even matter what happened next,” recalled a former Obama campaign staff member of that debate. “We wanted to convey that.”
Similarly, there was a strong sense of relief and optimism at the Obama campaign’s reelection headquarters, according to several former campaign employees. The campaign seemed to have passed one of its darkest periods.
Eight years later, the stakes are different. Biden is now the Democratic presidential candidate. One of Donald Trump’s favorite attacks is hitting the 77-year-old for his age or vivacity (although Trump himself is 74). Biden also benefits from being the underdog.
“He benefits from low expectations by getting into these debates,” said David Wilhelm, who served as Biden’s campaign manager in Iowa in his 1988 presidential bid. “Of course, expectations can change even from debate to debate. other. He will benefit from that. “
Biden has a habit of keeping his top advisers close to him for years. Ron Klain, the former vice president’s chief of staff who helped prepare it in 2012, has been involved in its training this time around. Sheila Nix, another longtime aide who participated in the preparation in 2012, is now a top employee of California Sen. Kamala Harris’s contingent of staff on the Biden campaign. Mike Donilon, another longtime Biden adviser, and Biden’s deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield are also involved.
Veterans of working with Biden and other campaigns argue that the former vice president generally does better in face-to-face debates than in multi-candidate debates. He also likes to get into politics without getting too clumsy, recalled a top re-election adviser to the Obama campaign. But in preparation for the debate, “he just wants the alternate to make the points he wants to make.”
“He was excellent in the 2012 vice presidential debates and I think he would be a better model for this than when he had ten or eight people on stage,” said Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist who has advised Biden in the past and helped lead. rival Bob Kerrey’s 1992 presidential campaign.
Biden and his team have been preparing for this debate for weeks, but only in recent days has the focus increased, according to a Democrat linked to the campaign. Biden himself recognized it recently.
“I started to prepare, but I haven’t been very involved,” Biden said Wednesday while speaking to a group of reporters. “I’ll start tomorrow.”
He is willing to spend most of the last days before the debate preparing for it.
Devine cautioned that the worst case for Biden is if voters leave the debate questioning Biden’s ability to be president. Devine emphasized that he didn’t think that would happen, but “that’s how low they have set the bar.”
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