Biden’s Bungles Are Killing His Campaign

Joe Biden can’t seem to go a week without committing some kind of mental mix-up, and it’s starting to raise questions about the 77-year-old former Vice President’s mental acuity. His campaign is falling behind his rivals, and one can’t help but question whether his regular missteps are prompting many Obama loyalists to consider other candidates.

At this week’s Democratic debate in South Carolina, Biden cited an astronomical number of U.S. gun deaths while he attacked Senator Bernie Sanders for the legislative record on gun control. “This has caused carnage on our streets,” Biden said on the debate stage, “150 million people have been killed since 2007 when Bernie voted to exempt the gun manufacturers from liability, more than all the wars, including Vietnam, from that point on.”

Shocking statistic. There’s only one problem, it was totally false.

Whether this was premeditated exaggeration or mental error is up for dispute, but either way, it’s another Biden misstep. The U.S. population stands at about 327 million so Biden’s interpretation of U.S. gun deaths would include roughly half of the country. According to the Center for American Progress, the total number of firearm deaths from 2007 to 2017 only totaled less than 375,000.

https://twitter.com/erik_vilhelm/status/1235570872989241344

It only gets worse. There’s room to argue over why Biden inflated the numbers, but his other errors are pretty indefensible.

The Democratic hopefuls gathered in South Carolina this week ahead of the state’s primary, but Biden seems to have forgotten why he was running in the first place. During the South Carolina Democrat’s First in the South Dinner, Biden’s attempts to pander to the audience didn’t go quite as well. “Where I come from, you don’t go very far unless you ask. My name’s Joe Biden. I’m a Democratic candidate for the United State’s Senate. Look me over. If you like what you see, help out. If not vote for the other Biden. Give me a look though, okay?”

Yes, you read that correctly. Biden seems to have momentarily thought he was running for the senate again. No word yet on who “the other Biden” is either.

Earlier this month, Biden shocked everyone, including his campaign staff, when he inexplicably claimed that he was arrested in South Africa while attempting to visit Nelson Mandela in jail. Biden had never mentioned this incident previously, and his memoirs make no mention of the arrest.

“This day, 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and entered into the discussions about apartheid. I had the great honor of meeting him. I had the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see him on Robbens Island,” Biden said at an event in Columbia, S.C.

It’s a very specific account of political heroism, but it’s completely false. The U.N. ambassador mentioned in the story is named Andrew Young, but he denied Biden’s account of their 1977 trip to South Africa. “There is no chance I ever was arrested in South Africa, and I don’t think Joe was either,” said Young.

Biden’s campaign has since denied his account, saying that he was referring to an incident in a South African airport where he was “separated from a congressional delegation” of African American lawmakers.

Those two incidents seem to contrast pretty sharply. It’s hard to imagine an airport inconvenience getting mixed up with a Biden’s very specific account of his arrest “on the streets of Soweto”.

Biden’s campaign is on life support, and he desperately needs to win in South Carolina if he wants to stay alive. It’s possible that the pressure is pushing Biden to make these types of exaggerated claims. However, that doesn’t explain the litany of other mental gaffes and missteps.

The worst-case interpretation is that Biden is losing his edge and his mental acuity is slipping in his old age. If that’s not the issue, then he doesn’t pay much attention to details, and one could even make the case that he was being willfully misleading. No matter how you look at it, it’s not a good look for someone who wants to be the leader of the free world.

Biden’s campaign looks like it’s on his last legs, and he’s going to need a miraculous turnaround to secure the nomination. If he wants to win more voters, he’ll have to dispel the notion that he’s mental acuity is in decline, but at this rate, Biden has a lot to prove in that regard.