In the seven polls showing a before the debate and after the debate number, President Joe Biden dropped an average of one point, despite his disastrous performance, and Donald Trump's average stayed the same, notes award-winning journalist Josh Marshall. He writes, "nature abhors a vacuum," and says, "this is a show, don’t tell situation," where the Biden campaign has to "put him out there at rallies or calling into shows, demonstrating his vitality and command."
Marshall, the founder and publisher of Talking Points Memo, and an occasional MSNBC guest, at TPM writes: "we need to look clearly at those numbers as a counter to what from the world of commentary and chatter has the look of a collapse of support for Biden and even Democrats generally."
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"Vibes, the overlapping cacophony of voices on cable news and on editorial pages are all together like being in a room of screaming, shouting people, leaving one disoriented and overwhelmed. Packs of reporters at several critical publications — most notably The New York Times — are deeply invested in what they clearly see as vindication. This is jackals and hyenas type stuff. These numbers, while not gospel and also a moving target, are at least the result of some systematic analysis, like instruments’ signals while flying in a storm."
But Marshall adds he is "concerned at what seems like passive or semi-secluded response from the campaign and the President," and says, "You’re not going to win a public argument about the President’s cognitive health or command of the situation by talking about it. You have to simply put him out there at rallies or calling into shows, demonstrating his vitality and command."
He says either that's not happening because Thursday's debate performance is either the "norm" now, or at least commonplace, or the campaign does not understand "what is required in what is at least a major, major crisis of confidence on the part of the stakeholders who make up Biden’s political coalition."
Ultimately, "Only the President can resolve or settle this. It is in a way an archetypal demonstration of his ability to lead."
Read the entire piece here.
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