The 48 hours after the debate were a frenzied campaign within a campaign to save Mr. Biden’s suddenly teetering candidacy, a multiday damage-control effort to pressure and plead with anxious Democratic lawmakers, surrogates, activists and donors to stand by the president, the party’s presumptive nominee.
By Saturday, their efforts appeared to have successfully slowed the tide of prominent Democrats calling for Mr. Biden to step aside. The president, for his part, grabbed microphones at campaign events, telling supporters and deep-pocketed donors that he knew he had flubbed the debate. And he repeatedly tried to flip the focus back onto Donald J. Trump’s performance.
By Saturday evening, Ms. O’Malley Dillon wrote a memo accusing “the beltway class” of counting out Mr. Biden prematurely. “If we do see changes in polling in the coming weeks, it will not be the first time that overblown media narratives have driven temporary dips in the polls,” she wrote.
She made no mention of the more than 50 million Americans who watched Mr. Biden’s sputtering performance in real time.
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If Mr Biden was a surgeon do you think that any hospital would be granting him privileges to operate? Running the country is less risky? The way he was at the debate I doubt that he could pass the special driving test for the elderly.
@CaucusSalamiDemocrat2yrs2Y
After the devastating Presidential debate, I would like to posit the following gut-wrenching thoughts:
1. I’m absolutely heartbroken about Joe’s debate performance - we would certainly lose our democracy if he runs - CRUSHED!
2. I will continue to ADMIRE Biden for the rest of my life but he MUST STEP ASIDE and DNC should choose a new candidate ASAP before the August convention in Chicago. VP Kamala Harris should also step aside. I never ever thought that I would think this way
3. We can’t let Trump take over the US Presidency and ruin our country and our venerable democracy with his dictatorial propensities.
Praying for our country.
I could not watch more than 40 minutes of the debate and every second of that 40 minutes I held the remote about to turn it off. It was clear to the world that Joe Biden has been hammered by a grueling 3.5 years in the White House. Thank you to Biden for all that he has accomplished- please, have the grace and, above all, the love of this Nation to step down.
@SadBi11R1ghtsGreen2yrs2Y
Why does everyone -- even this Red Sox fan -- love Lou Gehrig? Because he said, "I'm taking myself out of the lineup for the good of the team."
Withdrawing from the race today would be Biden's Lou Gehrig moment.
@MindfulPaellaSocialist2yrs2Y
A "bad day" doesn't describe Biden's Presidential debate. It was catastrophic. And no amount of good days are going to erase that impression. Ever. People who watched the debate won't ever be able to erase that blank stare he had in the very first minutes.
What makes the situation so difficult is we love the guy, but love can't cure what time has done to him.
@N0minati0nBartNo Labels2yrs2Y
“I knocked him out of the race”? And Biden needs to get over himself?
Biden, if he stays in, is simply another politician consumed by his own vanity and ego. Remember Diane Feinstein? They had to wheel her out nearly in a coma.
Dems proving to be similar to Republicans in their hero worship of one man.
@ISIDEWITH2yrs2Y
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