At What Point….?

Personally, I’m surprised Joe Biden is polling over 5%. I’m surprised he is still in the race. Howard Dean’s career was derailed over a single awkward outburst of enthusiasm, Ed Muskie’s over a stray teardrop. (disclaimer: not a particular fan of either Muskie -even then – or Dean -in retrospect)
There just doesn’t seem to be any set standard in these cases. Gary Hart’s career was ended when it was discovered he was having an affair, but Ted Kennedy drove his car off a bridge blind drunk and left his date for the evening in the car to drown, yet continued on in the Senate for many years and is an adored icon of the Democratic Party.
It seems that some people can get away with shit and others can’t. That may be due to the low expectations of their fan base, some innate charisma, the way each incident is treated by the press, or some combination of the above. Nonetheless, there are limits. If Ted Kennedy had killed a few more of his college age girlfriends, his public might have eventually turned on him.
This is where we are with Joe Biden. It seems clear to me that he’s senile, what with all the confusing Ohio and Michigan, Vermont and New Hampshire, the 70s with the 60s, Parkland and Sandy Hook, Theresa May and Maggie Thatcher. I’m a Bernie supporter, though, so few people are going to take my criticisms of Biden without a grain of salt.
My question is, how many more of these misstatements will it take before his campaign collapses completely. Does he have to forget the names of his children? Because, apparently, forgetting Barack Obama’s name, or not remembering what decade Martin Luther King was assassinated in, is not enough.
When will there be a statement so blatantly wrong that he won’t get over it? Will there ever be a second dead girl in the car?