In an op-ed Monday at The New York Times titled “Let’s Scrap the Presidential Debates,” journalist Elizabeth Drew joined the growing number of Democrat voices calling for an end to the debates out of the very valid fear that President Trump will destroy the cognitively-challenged candidate Joe Biden in such a contest.
“This, by the way, isn’t written out of any concern that Donald Trump will prevail over Joe Biden in the debates; Mr. Biden has done just fine in a long string of such contests,” she writes. This is disingenuous at best; everyone in both political camps knows that a debate against Trump will expose Biden as mentally unqualified to be president.
Drew’s claim, however, is that the debates “have never made sense as a test for presidential leadership” and “play an outsize role in campaigns.”
Of course, if Democrats thought their man would win handily, they would be arguing the exact opposite. The truth is that they can’t afford to allow their rapidly-fading candidate onstage against Trump.