Newt Gingrich: Why Biden's boffo convention speech could hobble the rest of his campaign

This week at the Democratic National Convention Vice President Joe Biden delivered the best speech of his career.

It was so well written it could have been done by the speechwriters for Presidents Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. They are the two best orators in the modern Democratic Party, and the tone, pacing and word choices of Biden’s speech were worthy of their better performances.

Biden did not seem to have plagiarized any of the speech, which was a step up from his past performances. And, Biden delivered the speech well, with the right emotions at key points and the right forcefulness at other moments.

WASHINGTON POST CRITIC CALLS DEM CONVENTION 'AWARD-WORTHY TELEVISION'

In fact, Biden did so well he put in sharp contrast how stiff and stilted Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris had been in her speech the night before. If you watch her acceptance speech carefully, it has the cadence and awkwardness of a high school valedictorian’s speech. At times she was clearly looking for audience affirmation that she was OK. 

However, while the Biden acceptance speech was a tactical success and ended the Democrat’s convention week on a high point, it may have strategically set up the rest of the campaign to Biden’s enormous disadvantage.

His theme of “the light and the darkness” is a theme President Donald Trump should embrace, embellish upon, and emphasize again and again.

Let the American people decide where the darkness is and who is creating it.

Neither Biden nor Harris could comment about Antifa violence in Portland, which is now going beyond 90 days. Isn’t that part of the darkness?

Neither Biden nor Harris could comment on Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announcing she had lost control of the city and was deploying police to protect her own block, saying:

“I have an obligation to keep my home, my wife, my 12-year-old, and my neighbors safe. The deployments that are there are there when they are necessary – it's not a 24-hour thing and I think that residents of the city, understanding the nature of the threats that we are receiving on a daily basis, understand that I have a right to make sure that my home is secure."

Isn’t it darkness which leads to police protection for the elected aristocracy but increased danger and violence for everyday citizens?

In city after city, crime rates are skyrocketing, and assaults and homicides are rising rapidly.

This is happening because of George Soros-supported, left-wing prosecutors are protecting criminals and radical local politicians are seeking to defund (or in Biden’s clever language “reallocate money away from”) police departments.

Where is the Biden-Harris condemnation of the growing crime and increasingly emboldened criminals in the cities their Democratic Party runs? Isn’t that part of the darkness?

Neither Biden nor Harris could comment on the darkness created by teachers’ unions. When the power-hungry union leadership threatens to cripple the future of children unless radical demands are met, the most Biden can say is we have to strengthen unions. But isn’t a power structure that cheats children in favor of blackmailing communities on political issues a part of the darkness?

Biden and Harris want us to believe that they are proud of America and want to unify Americans. Biden went so far as to even quote the Declaration of Independence (something which must have jarred the left-wing, anti-American part of his coalition). However, neither candidate could bring his- or herself to defend historic American statues and memorials or condemn those who break the law to destroy and deface them. Yet aren’t these radical forces of destruction an example of the darkness?

Biden’s speech talked about the importance of job creation, but his campaign promises massive tax increases, radical crippling of the fossil fuel industry, massive reregulation, and other job killing actions. Wasn’t the slow growth, high unemployment, and massive increase in dependency on government a major part of the darkness for American families?

Ironically, Biden quoted his father on the importance of a job as a source of dignity (sounding almost like Ronald Reagan as he said it). Yet, his policies would increase dependency, guarantee slow growth, and revert to hamstringing the economic future of minorities. Wouldn’t that be darkness for the families left behind?

By contrast, the Trump policies did lead to the lowest Black and Latino unemployment rates in history – and the fastest modern wage increases for workers at the bottom of the ladder. Shouldn’t these achievements be considered a sign of the light?

When Biden talked about the Chinese virus (albeit briefly), he made three major mistakes.

First, he promised to provide a slew of new equipment and technology to fight the virus – which President Trump already has underway. In fact, I don’t think there was a single thing in that section of the speech that the Trump administration isn’t already doing.

So, since that was going to be part of Biden’s light, shouldn’t it count as light when done by President Trump?

Second, Biden (and the Democrats in general) refuse to admit that the worst virus responses are in states run by Democrats – and that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in particular made policy mistakes which unnecessarily killed roughly 6,000 to 8,000 senior citizens and led hist state to represent about 20 percent of the virus deaths in America.

It is odd that Democratic governors, with their much stricter shutdowns, have had more deaths than Republican governors who took more economically cautious approaches.

Is having people still alive an example of light? Isn’t having people dying an example of darkness?

Third, the Obama-Biden record on managing a new virus was a disaster. As Kimberley Strassel reported in the Wall Street Journal: “Former Biden chief of staff Ron Klain said at Texas A&M in 2019: ‘We did every possible thing wrong. Sixty million Americans got H1N1 in that period of time, and it is just purely a fortuity that this isn’t one of the great mass-casualty events in American history. [It] had nothing to do with us doing anything right; just had to do with luck. If anyone thinks that can’t happen again, they don’t have to go back to 1918. Just go back to 2009, 2010. Imagine a virus with a different lethality, and you can just do the math.”

Biden misrepresenting, as usual, his role in virus management under Obama is darkness rather than light.

This thematic of light versus darkness was good for one night for the Democrats – but it was good for the rest of the campaign for President Trump and the Republicans.

To read, hear, and watch more of Newt Gingrich's commentary, visit Gingrich360.com.