Present Reagan had a debate that didn't go so well for him in the run up to the 1984 election. His opponent was former Vice-President Walter Mondale. There were some concerns about the President's age. He was 73 at the time. (Youthful by today’s standards.)
I remember some of my Democratic friends noting that follow up polling showed that Mondale had pulled even after Reagan’s lackluster performance. The thinking at the time was those helping Reagan prepare overwhelmed him with too much minutiae and this kept Reagan from being able to draw on his big picture narrative which had served him well over the years.
Reagan snapped back in the next debate and went on to be handily re-elected in the fall.
No question about it. The debate last week was pretty much a disaster. One guy prevaricated every time he spoke. And the other one appeared to be out to lunch. I was relieved to hear some of my Republican leaning friends describe the encounter as “not productive.” It was not.
There’s a lot of sturm and drang (to borrow from the German expression) in the wake of the episode. Candidly, the next few months look bleak indeed.
The next debate should be interesting.