[GGG]

Originally Posted by opendoor

I think it's abundantly clear he couldn't serve another term. Unlike others, I wouldn't assume he has dementia or anything. I just think he's a pretty normal 82 year old who is suffering from cognitive decline and who doesn't have the energy required to do the job.

Having 2 candidates so old has sort of normalized guys in their late 70s and 80s running for President, but historically it's insane. Put Biden's age in the context of other Presidents. If JFK was Biden's age, he would have been running against George W Bush in 2000; Teddy Roosevelt would have been President in WWII; Bill Clinton and George W Bush would be gearing up for 2028 campaigns, and Obama would be looking ahead to 2044; and LBJ and Nixon would have been running for President in the 1990s.

Biden's approval rating and polling around his age made it abundantly clear to me over the last 1-2 years that he was in serious trouble, and I'm hardly a political expert.

I do agree that the Democrats' strategy was to basically avoid rocking the boat, but that's tantamount to just plugging their ears and hoping for the best, which was clearly a poor strategy regardless of what the debate looked like. Particularly if your message is that democracy itself is on the ballot this election.

And I disagree that they weren't trying to hide his cognitive missteps. Of course they were; any responsible party would try to do that. The issue is, voters already had issues with his age and abilities, so trying to paper over that was never going to work unless Trump just imploded and handed them the election. It was a poor strategy and it still is. They're just lucky that the debate was so early in the cycle, or else it would have been a sure loss.

Conspiracy hat question. Was the debate scheduled this early by Bidens people intentionally to preserve this option if it went badly.