Biden Turns It Up

Joe Biden still has a lead in the polls after both conventions, and with Labor Day finally here (it falls at the latest day possible this year), he's campaigning on the road and in your face ahead of schedule.

This past Friday, after a visit to Kenosha concerning the Blake incident that outclassed Donald Trump's visit there two days before, Biden spoke again (the picture above is from that speech), this time lambasting Trump for his comments on the military, particularly with regard to his late son Beau's own service in Iraq.  Biden then pivoted to the economy, which, inexplicably, remains Trump's strong suit in the polls.  With more people trusting Trump than Biden on the economy, Trump being a (failed) businessman and all, Biden gave a speech linking the recession to the COVID-19 pandemic and driving the point home that many people on this Labor Day are underemployed out of work entirely, need job training and short-term assistance but can't get either, and have fallen behind in an economy that rewards stock market investors more than the people who work at the companies whose shares are being traded.  Furthermore,  Biden said, the economy is linked to the pandemic and how we handle it, and Trump has handled both badly.

That may be a difficult argument to make at time when the virus seems to be slowing its spread and voters rate the overall economy as the most important issue of the election. Biden's speech was a good start, but he has to keep delivering the message over and over, the way Trump lies over and over.  Meanwhile, Biden plans to go to Michigan - a state that benefited from the economic stimulus program Biden oversaw as Vice President in the Obama administration - and talk up his role in saving the auto industry (Biden is a car enthusiast as well as a passenger-rail supporter), so it looks like he'll be doing just that.