Two old men, one curdled and one rancid, will face off in debate Thursday evening.
For my sins, I will be watching closely and liveblogging the happenings here on the Arkansas blog. I hope y’all will join in and pipe up in the comments.
The race seems to be a tossup at this point. President Joe Biden is leading an economy that is strong by every conceivable metric, but his approval rating remains in the toilet. Inflation has fallen — there was none to speak of last month — but the sting of prices rising faster than they have in a generation remains front of mind for many voters. The ongoing slaughter in Gaza has left many progressives infuriated with the president’s lackluster and feckless management. The news in Ukraine is bleak. His enemies are lying about him, making him out to be an utterly senile Mr. Magoo, in need of an immediate intervention to place him in a nursing home. That’s not true. But he’s also clearly past his prime, and his doddering, slowed-down image is hard to shake.
He now faces a rematch with former president Donald Trump, nearly as old. The visceral difference isn’t as stark, but Trump, always a meandering weirdo, seems increasingly unmoored from reality as he ages. Where Biden at his lowest moments can seem like a wilting ghost, Trump is a whippet of bullshit set to explode. He has thickened since his last run, his belt extended perhaps the width of an overcooked steak. His face remains the color of a discarded bottle rocket, burnt and orange without quite being burnt orange. He is yelling about the immigrants, as ever. He has a big plan to dramatically raise prices on American consumers, which seems like it wouldn’t be popular? He is a felon. He lost the election but he thinks he won. It’s all very unfair.
Trump has often performed erratically in this sort of one-on-one setting. Biden has the advantage of absurdly low expectations, as he did with his last State of the Union address. If he is merely solid, the headlines will be positive for him. I do not deny his relative decline, but I see no evidence that he can’t be fine in a setting like this. Trump could also exceed expectations by speaking coherently about policy. Just kidding, that’s impossible.
Abortion, probably Biden’s best issue, is maybe the most politically salient area to watch. Trump of course presided over the repeal of Roe v. Wade thanks to judges he appointed. That ruling remains hideously unpopular. Will he dance around it? Can Biden pin him down?
At least dating back to our attempts to measure such things, we have never had a presidential race between two candidates as deeply unpopular as Biden and Trump. “There’s small choice in rotten apples,” as the Bard put it, but in this case the choice is large indeed. I won’t rehash that case here. It will be up to Biden, in the soft and slurred tones that will have to pass for wisdom, to woo voters to him one last time. Otherwise, the mad man awaits.