Joe Biden’s primary campaign is going quite well at the moment—he won South Carolina big, and is gaining several high-profile endorsers including former rivals Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar. Then, today at a rally, he said this:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: all men are created...by...go—you know, the—you know, the thing.”
By itself, this may seem to be just a minor gaffe, of the type Biden is well-known for. However, it’s hardly an isolated incident. A week ago, he seemed to think he was running for the Senate. At a debate, one of his answers devolved into near-meaninglessness. This Vox article covers some additional incidents, and it was written all the way back in last August.
Readers of this blog, inclined to like and be sympathetic to Biden, may think of these as being meaningless gaffes, just “Joe being Joe.” But please put yourself in the position of a low-information, undecided voter who watches a Trump/GOP attack ad filled with these clips and more. Would that person think these mean nothing—or would they worry about letting this person’s hand be on the nuclear button?
Despite a strong economy—so far—Donald Trump has a relatively low approval rating. His erratic lack of judgment is one of the big advantages we have going into the election this November. If Biden is the Democratic nominee, that advantage goes away completely.
His Democratic rivals are not going to go after him on this; witness what happened to Julian Castro when he tried to lightly bring this issue up during one debate. Therefore, it is up to the media—and more importantly, ordinary voters like you and me—to apply our own judgment and decide if months of negative campaigning would turn this from meaningless gaffes into something much worse in the minds of swing voters.