Don't Panic! Overloaded With Talking Points, Biden Underperformed | Opinion

I remember the evening of Oct. 3, 2012, pretty well. Every one of my friends and family were freaking out. Online, people were freaking out. President Barack Obama had completely crapped the bed in his first debate with Romney. I was desperately trying to rationalize it into it not being so bad.

Polls didn't agree with me. Headlines didn't agree with me. He was as bad as anyone had ever seen him.

As bad as that was, it was nothing compared with the terrible performance of President Joe Biden in his first debate with former President Donald Trump. There's not much more I can write than has already been written about how badly he did. But what seems to be missing from the conversation is why he did so badly.

It's easy to blame age. It's easy to just say reports are right and he's lost a few steps. But then, he comes out and delivers a stemwinder of a rally speech the next day, and those excuses fall a bit flat.

What I saw in the debate was a Joe Biden that was overloaded with talking points and statistics and couldn't get them out as he felt the clock ticking. It led to constant stumbling, a loss for words as he was already trying to get out his next point before he was done the first point, and yes, an inability to finish sentences before his time was up.

A great example of it was his answer on abortion after Trump raised overturning Roe as a "great thing." That was a "gimme" for Biden. A layup. His answer?

BIDEN: It's been a terrible thing, what you've done.

The fact is that the vast majority of constitutional scholars supported Roe when it was decided, supported Roe. And that was—that's—this idea that they were all against it is just ridiculous.

And this is the guy who says the states should be able to have it. We're in a state where in six weeks, you don't even know whether you're pregnant or not, but you cannot see the doctor or have your—and have him decide on what your circumstances are, whether you need help.

The idea that states are able to do this is a little like saying, we're going to turn civil rights back to the states. Let each state have a different rule.

Look, there's so many young women who have been—including a young woman who just was murdered and he—he went to the funeral. The idea that she was murdered by a – by –by an immigrant coming in, and they talk about that. But here's the deal, there's a lot of young women who are being raped by their—by their in-laws, by their—by their spouses, brothers and sisters, by—just—it's just—it's just ridiculous. And they can do nothing about it.

And they tried to arrest them when they cross state lines.

BASH: Thank you.

Let's unpack this.

The beginning of the answer was not prepared. It was Biden just responding to Trump directly: "It's been a terrible thing, what you've done."

Not a "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" moment, but a solid enough retort.

The second part is the same thing. He is directly responding to Trump's lie in his answer that constitutional scholars all wanted it back to the states. Again, fine.

Then, it starts to fall apart.

First, the president tries to get out a talking point about the abortion law in Georgia, but it comes out a bit jumbled as he readies his next prepared talking point about states' rights for abortion being like states' rights for Jim Crow.

And then, he totally fumbles the prepared point they tried to give him that Trump says he's for protecting young women when it suits his arguments to deport every migrant in America, but he's the very person who is making it legal to force young girls to carry the fetus of their father or uncle or other rapist. He doesn't give a damn about young girls and women.

It's not that the talking points they gave him were bad. In fact, they're all pretty good. But they gave him too many. They tried to jam a dump truck's load of ideas into every answer when sometimes he only had one minute.

You try to remember all five points you must make in just one minute under the bright lights of a TV studio. It's bad enough for a young person.

Biden's best moments of the night were when he was just being classic Joe Biden.

"You have the morals of an Alley Cat."

"My son was not a loser. My son was not a sucker. You're the sucker! You're the loser!"

Even longer answers where Biden riffed on foreign policy, which is his forte, he was comfortable and knew what to say:

"It may be a big ocean, but we're ever able to avoid a war in Europe, a major war in Europe? What happens if in fact you have Putin continue to go into NATO? We have an Article Five agreement, attack on one is attack on all. You want to start the nuclear war he keeps talking about. Go ahead. Let Putin go in and control Ukraine and then move on to Poland and other places. See what happens then."

Unfortunately, by the end of the debate, when giving a closing statement, he was back where he started—staring at a camera with two minutes to stuff in the points his campaign wanted him to make, and the result was a jumbled mess.

President Biden is 81. He's been in politics longer than a lot of voters have been alive. He simply wouldn't be in politics, let alone be president, if he didn't know what to say in debates and interviews. He wouldn't be where he is if he didn't know his stuff.

A note to his campaign: Don't weigh him down with statistics, five points and subpoints to make in every answer. In debate and interview prep, if he goes on too long about something, just help him remove points from his answers; don't make him try to remember how to rattle off multiple points succinctly.

With no indication that he plans to step aside and let someone else be the Democratic nominee, his campaign has to find the best way to get him to communicate more clearly.

There's no media training, briefing book, or talking points that will help him do that. The answer is looking you right in the face.

Let Biden be Biden.

Eric Schmeltzer is a Los Angeles-based political consultant who served as press secretary to Rep. Jerry Nadler and former-Gov. Howard Dean.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.