My idea was good. I would venture to call it excellent. Some might even refer to the quest as noble.
It turned out to be mission impossible.
For weeks I tried to locate a married couple on each side of the political aisle who would let me sit down with them to watch Thursday’s presidential debate. My thought: Show readers there are ways we can agree to disagree and still maintain positive, even loving, relationships in this hyper-divisive political landscape.
I put out lots of feelers. And I came close once or twice to nailing my goal. In one case, the husband managed to flip the wife to his way of thinking. In another, the couple backed out for reasons that, while disappointing, were understandable.
It’s also what I hear all too often: “I don’t want the publicity for fear of negative backlash.”
So at least for now, that unicorn couple will remain elusive. But after CNN’s train-wreck of a debate, so also will the chances for Democrats to keep Biden in the White House.
The Election 2024 showdown, dubbed unprecedented in nearly every lead-in, truly was one for the ages.
Ages 78 and 81 to be exact.
Only difference: The slightly younger Trump came off the winner by a landslide. Despite fact-checking groups that tallied dozens of lies by both candidates – with the former president racking up the most by far – Biden’s big sin was coming across exactly the way every critic has portrayed him: Frail. Unfocused. Robotic. Pathetic.
Which turned that competency question from the elephant in the room to the lion’s share of headlines following the debate. I can all but guarantee powerful people are in deep talks right now about a brokered Democratic convention in Chicago to elect a younger candidate.
Locally, there are some Democratic leaders who say it’s too early to panic. Nor is it time to abandon the president, insists Kane County Board member Michelle Gumz of Aurora.
No one in their right minds can find much in the way of positives to say about Biden’s performance. In fact, it was downright “awful,” Gumz readily admitted. But his poor performance was also “just a moment in time,” she continued, “that must be weighed against the body of the president’s work that has done so much for the country.”
Fellow Kane County Board member Leslie Juby agreed, comparing the debate to a “high-stakes test” students often have to take that she has long-believed is a poor way to measure performance or progress.
While Biden did not come across as strong or confident in his speech, said Juby, who has an extensive background in ed’ucation, “that’s not how I judge someone. I prefer to see their actions.”
And a big plus in that department, she and Gumz insist, is Biden’s continuing fight for women and their rights. Which brings the discussion to Trump and all the baggage he’s carrying around in this campaign.
“I can get past Trump’s felony conviction, I advocate for felons all the time,” said Gumz, a retired 911 dispatcher with the Aurora Police Department.
“But what I can’t get past is the fact” that a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse in a civil trial last year, she said. “How can anyone overcome that character flaw?”
Still, no one I talked with can deny this debate was a huge setback for Biden.
Within a half-hour on Friday morning, three of his supporters – two Republicans, one Democrat – texted me the same line: They “had trouble sleeping last night” because they fear the havoc Trump will bring if he wins back the White House.
“There is a line in ‘Star Wars’ about democracy ending to the sound of thunderous applause,” a longtime moderate Republican told me. “The applause today will be from the MAGA cult.”
Trump fans do indeed smell victory. As one supporter told me, the former president not only won the debate but also the election.
Perhaps, especially if there were a lot of undecided voters and/or double-haters tuned in to watch Biden’s 90-minute sleepwalk that, to me, at times felt downright shocking, even creepy.
“A serious topic debate lasting that long would be extremely exhausting for anyone, let alone a man in his 80s,” pointed out one Aurora woman who asked that I not use her name. “President Biden held in there but showed this to be too much for him.”
And his campaign sources did him no favors by using the excuse he was struggling with a cold. If the leader of the most powerful country in the world can’t pull it together at such a critical juncture because of a bad case of the sniffles, then heaven help us all.
A little assistance from above is needed, regardless. Everyone I spoke with seems to agree on one thing. The world is crazy and we are in trouble. All the more reason we need to be informed voters and study the issues that truly matter, pointed out Gumz.
“Biden knows all the information,” added fellow Kane County Board member Juby. ”He needs to take that high-stakes test again.”
But will he get that chance on Sept. 10 when ABC is scheduled to host a second debate? As a Friday morning TIME headline declared, “The calls for Biden to step down will become deafening.”
“The choice between a liar and what we saw (from Biden) last night is nothing short of frightening,” said retired Aurora educator Karen Hart, who “desperately wanted to give him a glass of water,” and described the president as having a “deer in headlights” look.
“Can you tell I’m a little panicked?” she asked.
Nancy Spring-Epley is trying her best to stay calm.
Granted, she had to be “talked off the ledge” after watching Biden’s feeble walk-out and anemic performance. But Spring- Epley, who taught American history to eighth-graders in Aurora for 30 years, told me she still believes strongly in his “character, policies and love of this country.”
And besides, “our attention span is that of a gnat – or an eighth-grader in May,” she added, which means Biden has time to recover.
The debate was “a significant setback but not a death knell,” Spring-Epley continued. “This is clearly an optics and media game so he needs to get back out there and show that he is still physically and mentally in the game.”
But is he?
Maggie Leavey of Elburn is a staunch liberal who did not watch the debate because “I will not have Trump on my TV.” But she heard enough about how “horrible” Biden performed to quickly declare Democrats must make a change, and soon.
Both parties, for that matter, require younger candidates, she added.
“We did not need the debate to prove that.”
dcrosby@tribpub.com
