Captain K's First Biden-Trump Debate Predictions and Bingo Card

Topic: Perspective

I discovered last year that I have a particular skill in predicting how debates are going to shape up.  It takes a little bit of historical research, and the ability to do what Wayne Gretzky said, and “skate where the puck is going to be.”  Since none of these debates are fair, and are always moderated by people with an agenda, this becomes an exercise in how exactly I expect Jake Tapper and Dana Bush to try to trip Donald Trump up, or how Joe Biden will redirect softball questions to try and make someone who is practically impossible to slime look bad.

Before I get started, I must be forthright with you that this debate, if Biden indeed takes the stage this evening, will mark my first formally blown prediction for 2024.  Here is what I had to say at the first of the year, in a set of prediction that are otherwise going astoundingly well, even scarily well.

To be fair, my logic is sound, but the fact that Biden feels he needs to debate Donald Trump, even after the national disgrace of the 2020 election showed that everything we thought we knew about elections could be thrown out the window, must mean the polls are telling a true story and that Biden needs all the help he can get.

Without further ado, here are three things for the viewer to watch out for in CNN’s first presidential debate of the 2024 campaign:

I.                             Palpable Desperation

In 2022, Katie Hobbs, a stubby, snotty, and uncharismatic left-winger running against Kari Lake, refused to debate in the race to become Arizona’s governor. In a midterm with an unpopular Democrat president in the White House, in a Republican state, your standard overrated, overpaid consultant would correctly call that a terrible decision – until it wasn’t.  Just like Biden didn’t campaign but got 81 million votes in 2020, Hobbs sat it out and the corrupt officials of Maricopa County, and other counties, pissed down your back and told you it was raining, anyway, and that Lake’s total of votes that exceeded Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential total was not enough.

To realize the vast extent of the cheat isn’t enough for Biden to simply say he won’t share the stage with an insurrectionist and convicted felon tells me that they don’t have the numbers with minority, suburban, or pivot voters to be able to rest easy on Biden’s chances to coast to another record vote total.  They have no choice but to fling arrows at Trump and hope for a major gaffe, like getting him to trip over a January 6 related question, or to defend shady characters who people have been trained to hate – or maybe even to try and put him in a difficult spot over the COVID-19 shots, which is a sore spot for his strongest supporters and anti-establishment enthusiasts.  Simply put, Biden needs this debate because all the momentum is against him, and the conviction failed to move public opinion in his favor – in fact, it backfired tremendously.