Under pressure on the last day of the Democratic convention, Joe Biden “struck a run at home” with an “enormously effective” speech that blew “a big hole” in Donald Trump’s attempts to portray him as a mentally shaky prisoner of his party left wing.
And that was to hear Fox News hosts Dana Perino and Chris Wallace tell it.
“It was a very good speech,” added Karl Rove, a Republican strategist who respected and wavered on opposite sides of the aisle.
Democratic hopes ran high that when Biden came up to accept the presidential nomination on Thursday night, he could deliver that kind of speech to nod voters’ heads instead of nod, and talk to cable jitters about “momentum.”
Sent to tens of millions, Biden’s speech marked the first truly national moment of the campaign in 2020, with the formal conclusion of the Democratic primary on one side, and the first clear picture of the presidential showdown – Biden v Trump , Uncle Joe v Maga Don – to the other.
At the very least, Democrats hoped Biden would avoid the kind of verbal slips that the Trump campaign would seriously use, if ironically enough the cha-chas of its own candidate with incoherence to attack him.
But when Biden finished on Thursday in Wilmington, Delaware, with one arm rounded Dr. Jill Biden, fireworks in the background and his smile as wide as the country, Democrats were not alone in realizing that her nominee was not only connected – he had succeeded.
“I went in there with expectations of satisfaction, and he knocked it out of the park,” longtime Republican strategist Mike Murphy, a fierce Trump critic, said on an overnight podcast Hacks on Tap. ‘It was so authentic to who Biden is, and … it got the mood of the country, that’s unity, stiff, competence,’ We can rise above here ‘.
“I thought Biden had the moment of his life, and he should feel really good about it.”
That afternoon, Trump tried to steal Biden’s big moment with campaign stops outside Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania. After a speech on an airship, the president visited a pizza parlor, where he was filmed raised a pie, without a face mask, as employees, all wearing masks, snapped photos and wanted to get up.
“They have by far the best pizza,” Trump told reporters. “We’ll let you know in half an hour.”
Alerting on Friday morning about a need to pinch Biden’s moment in the bud, Trump campaigner Vice President Mike Pence responded to five morning shows, claiming that Biden, a well-known quantity in Washington for 50 years, was a lurking socialist used to be.
“It is a choice between President Trump’s record and an agenda of freedom and opportunity, as opposed to a democratic agenda driven by the radical left and Joe Biden’s vision that will result in socialism and decay for America,” Pence told Fox News.
In response to Biden’s criticism of Trump’s treatment of the coronavirus, Pence demonstrated the extraordinary ability of both parties to talk past.
“The president keeps telling us that the virus will go away,” Biden said in his speech. ‘He is waiting for a miracle. Well, I have news for him, there comes no miracle. ”
Pence told CNN: “We think there’s a miracle around the corner.”
The biggest opportunity in the long term for Trump and Republicans to draw a contrast with Biden will be through their own convention, which on Monday is scheduled to begin with more personal, physical elements than the all-virtual Democratic event.
Controversial Trump plans to accept the nomination on the grounds of the White House on Thursday, in apparent violation of laws that require political campaigns to be kept separate from holding and holding office.
The president and vice-president are exempt from the law, but broad participation of parties in such a major campaign event is irreversible. Trump has invited most Republican lawmakers (though not Senator Mitt Romney, who voted for his resignation and dismissal from office) to the White House lawn to watch his speech. The campaign has plans to set off fireworks at the National Mall.
Unlike Democrats, Republicans also plan to convene delegates in person in Charlotte, North Carolina. Trump on Monday had unconfirmed plans to visit the 336 deputies, although the state’s Democratic governor has made an effort to ensure Republicans adhere to public health guidelines.
“We should not leave the governor’s partisan policy between us and our commitment to North Carolina,” Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee – and Romney’s niece – told the New York Times.
That promise had wavered. Trump announced earlier this summer that the convention would be moved to Florida, where a Republican governor had not proposed coronavirus restrictions. A major Covid-19 outbreak in that state brought the event back to Charlotte.
With the power of his speech on Thursday night, Biden, 77, was seen as an implicit rebutt to Trump’s accusation that he had lost a step. But Biden’s reissue of Trump’s other attack – that the former vice president and senator is a Trojan horse with six terms for fear of “socialism” – was explicit.
“While I will be a Democratic candidate, I will be an American president,” Biden said. ‘I will work as hard for those who did not support me as I do for those who did. That’s the job of a president. To represent us all, not just our base but our party. ”
Biden revealed that he had won some conversions. “Joe wows critics,” the Drudge report called out Friday morning, mostly a clearance for the most shocking conservative reports.
Its banner kop? “Biden Barn Burner”.
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