I am excessively neutral on the subject of Joe Biden as a candidate for president. History would indicate that giving him another shot at it would be rather like handing Joe Hazelwood another supertanker. Nonetheless, considering the alternative, I'd walk through fire to vote for him. However, this piece in The New York Times is a vivid reminder that a) Biden's skills as a campaigner remain dodgy, and b) that he also seems to have lost a step as well.



For more than a week, President Trump had been hurling unfounded accusations about Mr. Biden, his son Hunter and their dealings in Ukraine. Mr. Biden and his advisers debated whether to mount a fierce counterattack or to stick to a set of policy arguments he had been planning to roll out. Bad news loomed in the background: Mr. Biden’s poll numbers had already grown wobbly, his fund-raising was uneven, and cable news was flashing chyrons by the hour showing Mr. Trump’s wild claims.

Mr. Biden himself was equivocating: He wanted to defend and protect his son, but he also believed the president was baiting him into a dirty fight. And as a lifelong adherent to congressional tradition, Mr. Biden was wary of acting hastily as an impeachment inquiry was getting underway.



Christamighty, what is wrong with the man? He and his son are being smeared by foreign ratfckers and a criminal president* and he can't get the old backslapping, pork-barreling Senate club out of his head? Joe, bubba, at the moment, those "congressional traditions" are as dead as Henry Clay. Adhering to them makes you look like a doddering relic of ancient times, and it also makes it look like you won't fight for yourself and your family. There's certainly no Scranton in that line of thinking.



The strain grew so acute that some of Mr. Biden’s advisers lashed out at their own party, taking the unusual step of urging campaign surrogates to criticize the Democratic National Committee — a neutral body in the primary — for not doing more to defend Mr. Biden, while the Republican National Committee was running TV ads attacking him. Frustrated, D.N.C. officials informed the Biden camp that it would continue denouncing Mr. Trump but would not run ads for Mr. Biden or any other candidate.



Do it yourself, Joe. Don't fob it off on the DNC. That's an institutionalist's response to guerrilla attacks. Peace in our time? You have to be kidding. Look at how you're panicking the traditionally timorous—and perennially anonymous—Democratic consultant class.



But Mr. Biden is confronting an almost unimaginable situation: the president he hopes to challenge is facing impeachment for urging another country to help smear him. What’s more, the House inquiry centers on what Mr. Biden values most in his private and public life: protecting his family and honoring institutional norms.

Several Democrats close to Mr. Biden say he did not take on Mr. Trump sooner in large part because of his reverence for congressional prerogatives — he did not want to immediately insert himself into the House’s jurisdiction. But Mr. Biden also sought to address the attacks on his son on his own terms rather than sit for hastily arranged television interviews that would have forced him to answer questions about Hunter Biden’s work that few of his own aides dared pose.



I understand the family stuff. Really, I do, even though if he can't find a way to turn the corruption attacks on his son around on Sluggo Jr., the Princess, the Dauphin Son-in-Law, and The Dumb One, somebody in the Biden campaign deserves to be fired. But screw institutional norms. It's like running into a burning house in order to save the smoke alarms. This election always was going to be a mudfight. Accept that and move forward, or get out of the way for someone who understands the stakes. When they go low, kick them in the head.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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