This Just In – What we think of as “Murphy’s Law” is just a well-known mathematical principle: with enough trials, anything and everything will happen.
Let’s take flipping a coin, for example. Binary choice: heads or tails. You want to see if you’ll get an all heads or all tails result in a trial of 10 coin-flips? No problem. You just have to be willing to do enough trials to hit that combination. Maybe that’s 100. Maybe 1,000.
The 20th Century iteration of that is attributed to poor Mr. Murphy… anything that CAN go wrong, WILL go wrong. If you dabble in writing screenplays or soap opera scripts, you know to add the important dramatic caveat — at the worst possible moment.
So here we are a week out from the most disastrous debate performance in the 64-year history of televised presidential debates. Now what?
First, I offer this condolence … this didn’t fulfill that last part about the worst possible moment. That would be the same occurrence in a conventional presidential debate held in October.
This, thankfully, isn’t that.
So here’s the problem … and it’s a big, big problem. As President Biden made clear in the first 45 minutes of the debate that he was exhausted and unable to focus on what he was doing and saying, his campaign staff reacted by blasting out to reporters that the president had been fighting a cold.
The president appeared here in North Carolina the next afternoon, showing no evidence of a cold. No raspy, weak voice. No muddy, rambling talk. He was strong, vibrant, fired up and fighting. While this was somewhat reassuring about his physical condition, It certainly made me feel even more strongly – ok, so what WAS that? As Nancy Pelosi, who is older than Biden, said recently: was it an episode or a condition?
The White House and the campaign have said in the days following that the president is most definitely continuing in the race and have pointed to polls showing little impact from the debate. After all, they said, let’s take a look at Biden’s opponent, who stood virtually unchallenged in almost everything he said and brazenly lied for 90 minutes on any and every topic covered.
Yeah, ok, but back to Biden – what WAS that?
It would be expected after such an event that the president would do a few things to make clear that was a fluke:
1) For transparency and accountability – a press conference. No script, no prompter, just stand and answer for yourself.
2) Bring the democratic leadership to the White House for lunch and a press availability so they can get in front of cameras and say “we’ve just been with the president and he seems perfectly fine.”
3) Have the White House physician give the president a thorough neurological exam. Not a nonsense screening test — a real exam. Present the results to the public.
Biden did none of those things. He dug in and said he’s staying in the race.
He will talk to ABC’s George Stephanopolis and that will air over the weekend. That is not enough.
Wednesday morning’s reporting indicates that the debate performance was due to the exhaustion and jet lag from his multiple trips to and from Europe (and a quick hop to California to raise money) in early June.
Those trips were completed 11 days prior to that debate. His campaign now says that his debate prep was reduced for the days immediately prior to the debate so that he could rest. I shudder to think what would have happened otherwise.
As to the insistence that he will stay in the race, that will continue right up until it stops. I remember very well the great anticipation in the summer of 2008 of Barack Obama’s pick for vice-president. The press was hovering around Biden’s Delaware home, knowing he was on the very short list of choices.
The announcement, you’ll recall, came at 3:00 am (an homage to Hillary Clinton’s campaign ad). I got the text … got up, looked at my phone and climbed back into bed. My husband rolled over to inquire. “It’s Joe,” I said. We went back to sleep, confident that Obama would win.
I mention this because about two days before that, Joe Biden came to the foot of his driveway with coffee and bagels for reporters. He knew they were eager for a clue, so he gave them one.
“It’s not me,” he declared.
If you’re a democrat, or just a person who kind of likes democracy and wants to keep it going, be assured that if Biden does exit the race, his party will nominate an excellent slate of candidates and the tectonic shift to a new generation will be stunning.
What happened last week was bound to happen. It’s not bad luck. It’s not failure. It’s not any form of strength on the part of the felonious fraud nominated by what used to be the Republican Party.
It’s just math.
Featured image via AP Photo/Gerald Herbert.
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97.9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
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