It’s doubtful that Joe Biden would have been able to deliver the speech written for him from a teleprompter live at a convention without some major hiccups. Even so the DNC’s planners cleverly went with the “Biden suffers from a serious stuttering handicap just like this little boy” routine. Except that it’s senility, not stuttering.
Anyone who doubts that can compare Biden’s 2020 primary debate performance to his 2012 debate performance. Biden’s stutter didn’t get worse, his mental condition did.
But actual debates are coming up. Despite whatever arrangements have been made, but it’s unclear to what extent they will hold up. Ideally, the Biden camp would like a remote debate. If not canceled debates altogether. And if the debates go remote, then the options for cheating become nearly infinite.
The Biden camp could do everything from feed out prerecorded clips with the same background to running a telepromoter to the side (the DNC offered Biden an improved teleprompter position to make it less obvious) and an earpiece. Despite the media’s triumphalism, they don’t trust Biden in the wild. For now, he can still function under closely controlled circumstances. But reciting a recorded speech from a teleprompter is orders of magnitude different from an actual public debate.
It’s the Democrats who fear a Nixon vs Kennedy scenario here. The question is what they’ll do about it.
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