Joe Biden Did Fine, and That Might Have Been Enough
Election 2020,Democratic Debates,Joe Biden,Presidential Elections,Elections
One month after a wobbly debate performance that reinforced the perceived weaknesses of the ostensible front-runner — Is he too old? Too nostalgically moderate? Too politically brittle to defend himself when challenged? — former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. settled behind his center-stage lectern on Wednesday night and supplied some answers: He is still old. He is still nostalgic. And he is still the front-runner, until someone can prove otherwise.
Far from perfect, and rarely exactly steady, Mr. Biden nonetheless achieved at least some of the goals that seemed to elude him last time.
He had promised before the debate that this time he would not be so “polite.” About 30 minutes in, after listening to liberal rivals lash his health care vision as insufficiently ambitious and dismiss concerns about cost as a Republican talking point, Mr. Biden widened his eyes a bit. He waved a hand, slicing the air. He had just the word.
“This idea is a bunch of malarkey,” he said of the criticisms, leaning on a trademark Bidenism. He accused his peers of underselling the trillions of dollars that a “Medicare for all”-style plan might cost, turning toward two more progressive rivals — Senator Kamala Harris of California and Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York — to level the kind of zealous defense of center-leftism that has often escaped him in this campaign: “I don’t know what math you do in New York,” Mr. Biden said. “I don’t know what math you do in California. But I tell ya, that’s a lot of money.”
Throughout the evening, he plowed through a series of forceful defenses of his service alongside former President Barack Obama, frequently eager to wrap himself in Mr. Obama’s legacy on issues from health care to climate and never missing a chance to remind audiences of his association with sunnier Democratic times.
Certainly, he did acknowledge some differences: He said he would renegotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a major trade agreement for which he advocated as vice president.
