Connecticut’s elected Democrats panned President Joe Biden’s faltering debate performance — some privately calling it a fatal blow to the 81-year-old candidate’s hopes of neutralizing the age issue — but most publicly adhered Friday to the private urgings of Biden’s friend and adviser, Chris Dodd.
Dodd’s advice, as relayed by others, was twofold: One, stay away from any discussion of whether Biden should stand down and let delegates nominate someone else in Chicago; Two, remind voters that one bad debate does not negate four years in the White House.
Connecticut’s two senators, Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, hewed to that line Friday in public events —in Murphy’s case, a roundtable discussion in West Hartford on reproductive rights, a central issue in Biden’s campaign to block Donald J. Trump from returning to the White House.
Murphy, a candidate for reelection whose name will be next to Biden’s on the ballot, would not even entertain a question about whether anyone had suggested to him that senior Democrats open a discussion with Biden about the damage sustained Thursday night and the prospects for moving forward.
“I watched last night’s debate, and I see two totally different visions for the country,” Murphy replied. “I see Donald Trump’s promise to destroy democracy. And I see Joe Biden’s promise to support the middle class and to protect abortion rights and to protect democracy. I think that was pretty clear. I don’t know, I think sometimes we don’t give voters enough credit.”
“We’ll see what the country’s judgment is on the debate,” he said. “We’ll see how many of them actually watched.”
At a ribbon cutting for affordable housing in New Haven, Blumenthal was similarly disciplined.
“This election is about more than just one night’s debate performance. It’s about four years,” Blumenthal said. “I believe that the contrast is so clear, even last night, when Donald Trump spewed falsehoods and refused to answer questions about child care and climate change and extolled the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.”
Dodd, who served with Biden in the Senate, helped vet his vice presidential choices and more recently acted as a special envoy, could not be reached for comment. One friend said Dodd was on the phone all day with Democratic officials.
One Democratic operative said the party’s officials’ refusal to address Biden’s physical fitness had echoes of the Republicans’ refusal to confront Trump’s moral fitness.
“It is ironic. For a long time, many of us have been saying if the Republican Party had any spine, they would stand up and call out Trump for what he is,” said Roy Occhiogrosso, a former campaign consultant.
A key difference, he added, is the Republican silence was a product of fear, while the Democrats’ restraint was due to affection and respect.
State Rep. Vincent J. Candelora of North Branford, the leader of the House Republican minority, was quick to suggest Democrats in the General Assembly find their voices regarding Biden.
“I urge our House and Senate colleagues to break from the charade they’ve helped perpetrate and finally acknowledge the longstanding concerns held by citizens across our state and nation regarding Joe Biden’s declining ability to lead the United States,” Candelora said.
Political pundits, including those generally supportive of Biden and horrified by Trump’s constant and casual assaults on the truth, as well as his newfound status as a convicted felon, went where the elected Democrats would not.
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said Biden’s presidency has been “an unqualified success” — and it is time for Democrats to “decide whether this man we’ve known and loved for a very long time is up to the task for running for president of the United States.”
Scarborough’s questioning of Biden’s fitness was amplified by a conservative competitor, Fox News.
Thomas L. Friedman, a New York Times columnist, wrote that he wept watching the debate from a hotel room overseas, saying he could not remember “a more heartbreaking moment in American presidential campaign politics.” He called Biden a good man and a good president who must bow out.
The significance is that both men are known to have the president as a viewer and reader.
While U.S. senators in Connecticut and elsewhere urged restraint, other Democrats described a nightmarish experience watching the 90-minute debate, an unusually early head-to-head event first suggested by a Biden campaign encouraged by the president’s better performance at the State of the Union address.
Democrats texted each other, or exchanged calls, seeking support. State Sen. Derek Slap, D-West Hartford, called watching it a “gut punch.”
Biden slowly walked on stage in the studio in Atlanta. At times, his mouth fell agape staring at Trump. The format called for the candidates, not the moderators, to fact-check each other. And Biden rarely seemed up to the task, even as online fact-checkers repeatedly and rapidly dinged Trump’s claims.
“It’s hard to debate a liar,” Biden told the White House press pool in a stop at a Waffle House in Atlanta after the debate.
Slap, who participated in the reproductive rights roundtable with Murphy, mentioned Biden’s performance to Murphy, but only after the event ended.
“Everyone’s a little nervous,” Murphy told him, dropping his voice. “It’ll be OK.”
Comptroller Sean Scanlon said in an interview the focus on Biden’s hoarse voice and manner helped Trump.
“The president had a bad night, and I think the stakes of this election are really, really high, and Donald Trump also had a bad night in the sense that he was coherently saying some concerning things,” Scanlon said. “And that’s not getting a lot of attention today because of the president’s performance.”
House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said simply, “Yesterday was not a good day for Democrats.”
State Sen. Martha Marx, a liberal Democrat from New London, watched the confrontation while flying home from a visit to her grandchildren in Arizona. By chance, she sat next to a Trump supporter.
“I said, ‘Your guy is winning.’ He said, ‘My guy is saying some pretty dumb things, too,’” Marx said.
Marx said the importance of adherence to the facts paled next to the impressions formed by the two candidates, either of whom would leave the White House in four years as America’s oldest president if elected. Trump is 78.
“I think Trump lied. Everything he said was a lie, but he lied speaking with a strong voice,” Marx said. “He’s a showman, and Biden isn’t.”
State Rep. Corey P. Paris, D-Stamford, a member of the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus, said both men showed their age with what he saw as awkward and casual references to Black people in exchanges over the economy.
Trump referred to “Black jobs and Hispanic jobs,” saying they were jeopardized by Biden’s inability to control the border.
Rob Blanchard, a 36-year-old candidate for state Senate and the chief of staff to Scanlon, praised Biden’s record on protecting women’s health care, reducing gun violence and reviving the post-pandemic economy.
“What last night showed us, however, was that our future demands new leaders with fresh ideas to have their seat at the table,” Blanchard said. “Here in Connecticut, if we’re going to address those issues and more, such as affordability — as I plan to — it’s going to take new ideas and leaders with the vision to make them a reality.”
Blanchard will be leaving the comptroller’s office as his own campaign heats up.
His boss, in a separate interview, was open to at least talking about the possibility of Biden quitting the race, while not suggesting it happen.
“The president, he’s going to be the one who has to make this choice, and he’s entitled to make this choice of whether he thinks he can put this campaign together and win this campaign,” Scanlon said.
Biden may talk to Dodd and others, but there likely will be no groundswell forcing him out, Scanlon said.
“I think he’s going to have to make a choice of whether or not he believes that he can win this election, given the stakes that he rightfully says every day are at stake here,” Scanlon said. “And that’s what I think this is going to come down to.”
