It's the Debate that Failed Last Night, Not Biden

Biden tried to say decent, ethical things but delivered most of his words poorly in last night's Presidential debate; Trump spoke much more clearly but said vile things and lied just about every time he opened his mouth (lies which the CNN moderators failed to call out).

What are we to think about this?

I would say it's that debates shouldn't matter as much as they seem to.  JFK looked better on TV than did Nixon, and a majority of people who saw the two in TV thought Kennedy won.  A much smaller number of people heard the debate on radio, and thought Nixon won.  That event certainly demonstrated the importance of debates.  But though JFK proved to be an excellent President, the fact that he won the debate was really no indication that JFK would do so well in office.   The debates, in other words, were very valuable windows into the effects of media, not indicators of the political acumen of the candidates.

It's plain logic that what a President does in office has nothing to do with the President's voice quality or appearance.  FDR was in a wheelchair throughout his presidency.  He connected to the American people in an age before television via his fireside chats on radios.  Few people knew he was in a wheelchair.

I've spent my professional life as a professor of media and an author talking about the importance of televised debates, how candidates look and sound on television.  Maybe it's time to focus on what debates really are: a 90-minute performance that has little to do with what the candidate did, is doing, or will do in office.   The truth is that the skills needed to be an effective debater have nothing to do with the skills needed to be an effective President.  Never did, never will.  Maybe it's long since time that we recognized that.

Or, to paraphrase Shelley, maybe it's the debate that failed last night, not Biden.

***

Note added this Friday afternoon:  And Biden amply demonstrated his power to effectively communicate in a rip-roaring speech in North Carolina.

Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music