This change to the Biden 2024 playbook was predictable, given the president’s penchant for being a gaffe machine. His staff aims to shorten his speeches, stressing quality over quantity. The president has had Ron Burgundy-like blunders with the teleprompter in recent weeks. With the public campaign schedule about to get busier, there’s no doubt Biden would have devolved into a more incoherent mess than he already is.
The man can’t hack it, and the irony is that we had a special counsel, Robert Hur, who noted just that when he investigated the president over his classified documents fiasco. We had days of Biden officials and liberal media members touting the president’s cognitive abilities. Now, we learn they’re shortening his speeches as a guardrail against senior moments (via NBC News):
NBC reports Biden's handlers are "looking to shorten his speeches" to limit his public displays of cognitive decline.
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 4, 2024
A Biden campaign spokesman insists it's about "quality over quantity." pic.twitter.com/GreyaVbgN6
As President Joe Biden ramps up his re-election effort, his campaign is also scaling back how much he says on the trail, part of a larger new strategy to hone a sharper message he’ll take into the general election, according to Biden aides.
The less-is-more approach aims for quality over quantity when it comes to the president’s public appearances, aides said.
“There’s a strategic advantage at this point in the race to boiling down your message to the three or four most salient, compelling arguments for why President Biden should be re-elected,” said TJ Ducklo, the Biden campaign’s senior adviser for communications. “That will often translate to the stump [speech] being whittled down to its sharpest, most dynamic form. That’s what you’re seeing.”
The approach also has the appearance of a strategy aimed at minimizing the potential for Biden to make mistakes in a razor-close election. Some of Biden’s verbal missteps have occurred when he’s talking at length, veers off the prepared text or answers a reporter’s question when that wasn’t part of the plan.
Shorter, crisper remarks from Biden are part of his campaign’s broader strategy of having him appear more in smaller settings that the president’s aides believe serve him better than large, traditional rallies with voters.
The second layer to all of this is that there is no quality items here. The Biden administration has zero significant domestic achievements that haven’t pinched working Americans. This White House touted Obamacare, which isn’t a Biden initiative. When you need to rehash the accomplishments of your former boss to gin up the base, maybe you don’t have what it takes.
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