Michael Goodwin, Fox News:
If Biden doesn’t show, that will be conclusive proof that he’s not capable of being president.
Just as military generals prepare to fight the last war, political consultants are prone to repeat the same errors that led to defeat before. The big one here is that Biden can play it safe, stay in his basement bunker, and take the oath next January.
For Joe Biden, these are the best of days. Riding high in the polls, he has a long list of Democrats scrambling to be his running mate, while others offer themselves for plum Cabinet posts.
Media supporters are so confident of his victory that they are coming out of the woodwork to advise him to skip the three presidential debates.
Somewhere, some member of the Deep State is probably sneaking around the White House, measuring the curtains.
It is an astonishing turnabout for the vice president. Recall that his best debate performances were mediocre, and he did so badly in the first primaries that going into South Carolina, the smart money said he had to win big or go home.
Yet here he is, with a comfortable lead over Donald Trump — and almost exactly where Hillary Clinton was four years ago.
On Aug. 4, 2016, Clinton led Trump by nearly 7 points in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls. That same metric now has Biden up by 7.4 points.
With apologies to Yogi Berra, if Biden isn’t careful, America could wake up in November with that déjà vu feeling all over again.
For example, Biden has answered questions from the press just twice this summer, and the media obliged him with softball questions. It is notable that Chris Wallace of Fox News, a notoriously tough interview, recently grilled President Trump on his Sunday show, and then followed with an invitation to Biden that was promptly rejected.
The most fanciful part of the hidin’ Biden fantasies is the newest — that he can skip the debates and still get elected. I don’t see how that works.
For one thing, if there is anything voters, and Trump, can smell, it’s fear. And the mere entertaining of the idea that Biden could break with tradition that goes back nearly half a century and take a pass on face-to-face showdowns with his opponent may masquerade as strategy, but it is a sign of fear, plain and simple.
