https://spectator.us/morning-america-mourning-biden-trump-campaign-messaging/?
In the countdown to Election Day, the two campaigns are taking starkly different approaches.
Joe Biden is sitting on a lead in the polls, trying to run out the clock, while Donald Trump is making a frenzied dash for the finish line, selling optimism.
Both strategies make sense.
Like a football team leading in the final quarter, Biden’s goal is simply to keep the clock ticking down to zero. Nothing fancy. Just avoid mistakes and prevent the other team from getting the ball back.
To avoid those mistakes, Biden is rarely leaving his basement. When he does, his goal is less to rouse voters than to prove he’s still alive and capable of traveling across state lines. He speaks to small crowds and says whatever’s on the teleprompter. He avoids impromptu comments, where he repeatedly makes unforced errors, and refuses to hold press conferences, where he might face hard questions.
Avoiding press conferences has been easy. The COVID crisis has been a perfect excuse for Biden and Kamala Harris, his vice presidential candidate. Harris has not given a press conference since she was named several months ago. Joe has given very few and almost none recently. The supine media hasn’t pressed them.
Reporters aren’t demanding answers or making the candidates pay a price for the silent treatment. The reason is painfully obvious. It’s not just that most reporters and media operations consider the Democrats ‘our ticket’. That’s been true for decades. What’s different now is that they consider this particular Republican a danger to the Republic.
Protecting the country from another four years of Trump in the White House is a more important, more patriotic duty for journalists than their normal job of asking hard questions, demanding evidence and investigating big stories. That’s why, when reporters do get a rare opportunity to ask Joe Biden a question, they toss him softballs. That’s why, when CBS finally asked Harris a crucial question about how progressive she really is, they allowed her to wave it off. She laughed uproariously and, in a non-sequitur, started talking about her family heritage. For CBS, that was good enough. No follow up. They let stand her answer as a laugh.