Biden’s job will soon be selling what he’s accomplished. He’s accomplished a lot. It should be an easy sell, but Biden has shown himself weak in the selling department. He does OK. But between his lifelong stammer problem (which he has largely but not entirely overcome), and his not being as vital as he was when he was younger, and his almost always working from prepared scripts, Biden does not come across with the kind of impact we’ve seen from other Presidents (from JFK to Reagan to Obama to Trump).
Polls show that people are not convinced that Biden is OK.
One of the ways that can be combatted is for Biden to enlist the help of a drama coach. Am I not right that Biden speaks more compellingly when he’s coming off the cuff. The conversational Biden is very engaging.
Unfortunately, history showed Biden to be accident-prone when coming off the cuff. And so since he entered the race for the 2020 nomination, Biden has shown extraordinary discipline.
(One can just imagine Ron Klain saying to his former boss, “Yes, I’ll gladly join your team to help you become President. But only under one condition: you agree to be completely disciplined in what you say to the world. We’ll work it all out together, and then we’ll go with the play. If you agree to eliminate the extemporaneous as much as the circumstance allows, I’ll be your man.”)
The drama coach is a solution to this problem, of having to choose between a Biden who comes through weakly and a Biden who once was described as a “gaffe-machine.”
A drama coach can help him convey the true essence of himself, in how he delivers the lines in the laid-out script. A man who cares about what he cares about can learn how to express his caring in ways that touch people.
Lindsey Graham said about Biden, back in 2015, when he clearly had no political reason to say other than what he really felt:
“Joe Biden,” Republican Senator Graham said, “is about as good a man as God ever created.” (And “the nicest person I think I’ve ever met in politics.”)
It should not be impossible for Biden — well coached — to learn to be able to play that part while working from a script written for that purpose. And as he goes around the country selling what he’s accomplished, he can be selling himself, too. Because his image with the American people has been worrisomely declining.
Americans want to envision their Presidents standing strongly up there serving and protecting the American people. Biden needs to find ways of demonstrating his strength— that he is indeed someone with the passion and fortitude to defend all that Presidents must defend.
And Biden needs to show the American people why we’re fortunate to have so decent and trustworthy a man as this man, Joe Biden — competent, and “as good a man as God ever created” — serving as our President right now, in this time of crisis.
Scripts can be written. Biden can learn to deliver his lines in a more impactful way.