Biden Aced His Town Hall Meeting, Trump Did Not
https://politicalwire.com/2020/09/18/biden-aced-his-town-hall-meeting-trump-did-not/
Biden Aced His Town Hall Meeting, Trump Did Not
September 18, 2020 at 8:29 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 96 Comments
Jonathan Bernstein: Donald Trump is lucky that presidential elections arent decided by televised town-hall meetings. If they were, after his effort on ABC on Tuesday and Joe Bidens on CNN Thursday, Trump would be lucky to clear 100 electoral votes. Its not that Biden was all that great he was fine, but nothing special. Its that Trump was that bad, and in ways that made his opponent look even better.
The secret of these events, in which candidates answer questions directly from voters, is that theyre easy. For one thing, voters tend to ask policy questions, not process ones, and theyre usually pretty straightforward what are you going to do about such-and-such? Normal politicians can easily anticipate the topics, and usually have a prepared riff or a five-point plan to address them. Biden did some of that Thursday night. Hes not great at it, not nearly as strong as (for example) Senator Elizabeth Warren is. But hes good enough. And hes usually excellent at taking advantage of the other opportunity the format provides, which is to show the ability to connect with voters and empathize with them.
Trump is barely able to do either of these things. He did manage to demonstrate empathy a couple of times on Tuesday, but unfortunately in one case he misunderstood the questioner and thought that her mother had died from the pandemic when in fact she had died of cancer. Most of the time, though, he didnt bother. Its not just that he didnt get emotional. He didnt seem to be listening to the questions.
Dave Wasserman: Watching this town hall, Im seeing a Biden whos actually a bit sharper/crisper than he was in the early Democratic debates. Its almost as if he might have been out of practice early on, rather than out of it.