Some Democrats have privately told Biden that he has to do more to improve, saying that his low profile was driving broad concerns that he wasn’t capitalizing on Trump’s widely panned early response.
“I have some sympathy for him because it’s a hard thing. He has no formal responsibility. You can’t go out. You can’t have events. It’s hard,” said David Axelrod, a Democratic strategist who helped run Obama’s campaign during the economic crisis in 2008. “But I think there are things he could do. You can do things that are more interesting than giving poorly produced quasi-presidential speeches.”
Many Democrats pointed to a video featuring Biden adviser Ron Klain — an explainer, complete with a whiteboard, about Trump’s coronavirus response and the holes in his arguments — as a viral success. But it also underscored the failings in Biden’s own events — speeches that have at times been halting or beset by technical problems.
Other Democrats have organized more seamless appearances.
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