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[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

After last week, does Biden still have a chance?

I think it probably depends on what happens next. Could be that he doesn't really have much to do with it going forward. Could be the media fixates on him instead. Warren seems to be surging, but she was already doing pretty well (especially with Bernie's health in question now).

OTOH

Biden, on paper, has always been the most electable Democrat, and if the presidential election had been held last month, he probably would have won. To undecided voters in swing states — and I always believe they number more than the political scientists claim — Biden comes off as “one of us.” It’s an inestimable advantage that Warren, for instance, doesn’t enjoy. He has also steered clear of extreme positions that would cost him in a general election. But Biden seems even slower on the uptake than in the past. I don’t believe these claims that he (or Trump for that matter) has dementia — enough with these amateur psychiatrists! — but he shows the disabilities of age.

A younger, quicker Biden might have nailed down the nomination this last week in response to Donald Trump’s predictably irresponsible attacks on him. He would have been all over the talk shows and on the stump. Instead, he has remained closeted, perhaps out of fear that if he does subject himself to questions, he will be stumble. To be sure, Hunter Biden may have been up to no good, but Biden could have used the attacks against his son to highlight his having to surmount a succession of family tragedies. One could feel this week the nomination slipping away from Biden.