Apparently Team Trump has figured out the one small flaw in their plan to paint Joe Biden as too senile and bumbling to function: The real Biden can’t help but overperform the expectations that have been set up for him. Biden nailed it at the Democratic National Convention. He’s given a string of speeches on important issues. When he and Trump did televised town halls within days of each other, he was so much better than Trump that Republicans were reduced to suggesting he cheated.
Whoops! Now Team Trump is looking for a do-over on the image of Biden they offer to the public. Now, all of a sudden, with the first debate approaching, Biden is supposed to be some kind of champion debater.

“Joe Biden has been a Washington politician for 47 years, he spent decades in the Senate where all they do is debate, he was vice president twice, and debated on the national stage in each of those races, and did very well,” Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told Fox & Friends.

It is true that Biden gave Paul Ryan, then the Republican Party’s boy wonder, a beating for the ages in 2012. But for the most part? Biden is not a renowned debater.

“In the Democrat primaries, he debated a whole crowd of opponents, 11 times, and he won,” Murtaugh said. “He bested two dozen Democrat challengers.” Well … he bested them in the voting. While Biden’s debate performances generally improved over the course of the primaries—almost as if he was benefiting from the practice, go figure—he was not seen seen as a dominant figure in those debates, nor were they considered critical to his ultimate primary win.

Biden is “actually quite good. That’s the Joe Biden we expect to see on debate night,” Murtaugh said. Gee, Tim, that’s not what the Trump campaign has been saying right up until now. Funny!

Trump himself weighed in, also on Fox & Friends, saying: “I have to assume that he is a professional and that he can debate.” Again, that’s a big change in message, and one that follows the ridiculous accusation that Biden took performance-enhancing drugs during the Democratic primary debates.

dailykos.com