Even though Joe Biden will step into the spotlight when he announces his vice presidential pick and accepts the party’s presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention this month, his strategy of maintaining a low-key campaign is expected to continue, the Washington Examiner reported on Monday.
“I don’t think that we need to be counterprogramming,” Kate Bedingfield, one of Biden’s deputy campaign managers, told The New York Times last week about the campaign's plans for how to deal with President Donald Trump responding to and driving news cycles.
Attention will also be focused on Biden during the debates, but Democrats are going by the strategy that, with him leading in the polls, there is little incentive to put Biden in the limelight too much when they insist that Trump regularly makes the case against himself.
“They're doing the right thing by just sticking to their plan, rolling out their positions, and ignoring a lot of the noise that's going on out there right now,” Democrat strategist Jim Manley told the Examiner.
Although some journalists have criticized Biden for his lack of tough interviews, Democrats insist that his laying low has helped his campaign control the setting. This strategy of avoiding the opportunity for unflattering moments has recently been validated, in their view, when Biden made some gaffes during longer interviews this past week.
“Biden wants voters to think about this election as a referendum on Trump, not a choice between the two of them. That's why gaffes can be really damaging — not just because they raise questions about his own candidacy, but because they really distract from the campaign's strategy,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist for Firehouse Strategies.