Another Debate Prediction

About a week ago or so I wrote down some predictions about the upcoming presidential debates, which basically amounted to “Don’t expect any real surprises.  Don’t expect any game changers.”
I’d like to revise that.  Now, it could be I’m letting my inner conspiracy theorist get the better of me, and it could be a bit of wishful thinking on my part, but there is a real chance that Biden could be out after the first couple of debates.
Not because he’s a gaffe machine.  The press brushes over that lightly, and many find it an endearing quality.  He’d be president Yogi Berra.
It’s not even the fact that a lot of his “gaffes” aren’t gaffes at all, but his actual policy positions.  These debates aren’t going to probe anybody’s policies too deeply, unless they are named Sanders or Gabbard.
It’s not even his long history of horrible decisions in government.  That’s already out there, we can debate it forever on Facebook, and on our Bernie Pages, but the average voter, the ones we need to win, doesn’t have time for all that.
It’s that he looks old.  Up till now, he’s been doing lots of fundraisers, behind closed doors with his rich donors, and not so many major rallies.  Same as with Hillary Clinton, he’s trying the ‘keep out of sight and let the media do all the work.’
He hasn’t been completely invisible.  You occasionally see him speaking to a group of people, and saying embarrassing things.
And, to me, he looks wan.  A drained and bloodless old man.  Of course, he and Bernie are roughly the same age, but Bernie looks robust, and vital.
We’ll see how the two of them look side by side.  A good make-up job could save Biden, but I suspect a lot of the audience (watching at home, not the rich pricks who are paying $4,500 for a ticket) will see the two old men standing side by side, and think “Bernie could whip his ass.”