Biden Throws Down the Gauntlet

Feisty SOTU sets stage for grueling rematch

Things could have gone very poorly for Joe Biden on Thursday. The stakes were high, the lights were bright, and the murmurs from his own side were increasingly audible. Instead, he easily cleared a low bar, itself the byproduct of a brutal stretch, and—at least for now—bought himself time and space with an anxious Democratic coalition.

Sure it dragged here and there. He had a few characteristic verbal stumbles. But nowhere did Biden have the sort of memorable, meme-able incident that stands to haunt him, and he even generated a few spontaneous moments of banter with Republicans that should be enough to convince antsy Dems the old man might still have a few tricks up his sleeve.

While he didn’t do himself any long-term damage, the nature of the speech limits any enduring upside. The sort of high information voters who tune in to see the speech live already know what they think, and almost certainly had their priors confirmed. A larger, secondary pool of Americans will at best see or hear about it through the filter of their own curated media diet, once again reinforcing their feelings about the President. And for better or worse, for the truly undecided voters—ones who have not yet engaged, and who may not even vote—there’s a good chance the State of the Union is a tree falling in the pundit-filled woods.

At the end of the day, Biden rose to the occasion, got the result he wanted, and turned in the best performance anyone had any business hoping for.

It might not have been a home run, but nobody remembers a solo shot in the third inning anyway. The best thing you can do when you’re trailing is to string together a slap single or two. Get on base and good things happen. And as the Biden team has found, the Beltway political narrative can be so stifling, so self-perpetuating, that simply getting a positive news cycle for a change must come as a genuine relief.

This is the only way a Biden comeback can work—one day at a time, clearing whatever bar is in front of him, slowly but surely convincing a skeptical, sour American public not only that he can go the distance, but that they are better off sticking with him than they would be under Trump.

Eight months out, he still has a ways to go.