評論
打印
Not that he particularly tried. Strategists of both parties believe the campaign was winnable for the incumbent if he had embraced a more traditional strategy and style—something his entire presidency has shown him to be uninterested in doing. Discarding the advice of the political professionals, Trump insisted on rerunning the 2016 election, down to the leaked emails and antiestablishment rhetoric. He made little alteration to his bull-in-a-china-shop attitude, even though the hellscape he raged against was now one that unfolded on his watch. "COVID certainly didn't help, but this election was about the President's performance over the last four years, not just the last nine months," says Brendan Buck, a former top adviser to the GOP ex–House Speaker Paul Ryan. "It was four years of bumbling his way through every issue, alienating everyone who didn't agree with him, and never being able to use the tools he had for any particular good."
并不是說他特別地努力。兩黨的戰略家們都認為，如果現任總統能夠采取更傳統的策略和風格——他的整個總統任期都表明他對傳統不感興趣——那么他就能夠贏得這場競選。特朗普不顧政治專業人士的建議，堅持重播2016年大選，甚至包括泄露的電子郵件和反建制言論。他幾乎從未改變他那種“牛進中國店”的態度，盡管他所怒斥的地獄景象現在是在他的眼皮底下展開的。共和黨前眾議院議長保羅·瑞安的前高級顧問布倫丹·巴克說：“新冠當然沒什么好處，但這場選舉關乎總統在過去四年的表現，而不僅僅是過去九個月的表現，四年來，他在每個問題上都磕磕絆絆，疏遠了所有與他意見不同的人，也從未把他擁有的工具用于任何特定的用途。”
As Trump careened from one outrage to another, Biden limited his campaign to theatrically cautious appearances: masked speeches to small, distanced groups; "drive-in" rallies where attendees sat in their cars. The longtime pol known for his garrulousness and gaffes stuck unerringly to the script. Many lines in his final TV ads were identical to what he said when he launched his campaign a year and a half before. Unusually for a general-election candidate, Biden actually saw his standing with the public improve over the course of the campaign. Only about 10% of the ads aired by Biden's campaign and allies were attacks on Trump, according to the Wesleyan Media Project. His campaign believed that his themes of unity, compassion and expertise were an implicit rebuke to the incumbent. "The message has been incredibly consistent: an implicit contrast between Trump's character flaws and their consequences for real people," says Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson, a veteran of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. "Trump is selfabsorbed and chaotic; Biden is the opposite: in it for others, stable, the antidote to everything Trump represents." But Democrats now wonder if Biden, like Clinton before him, put too much emphasis on character and not enough on kitchen-table issues, and whether his decision not to campaign more in person was a missed opportunity.
在特朗普從一個憤怒轉向另一個憤怒之際，拜登限制了自己的競選活動，以戲劇而謹慎的方式亮相：戴著口罩，演講群體為小規模且保持安全社交距離；“免下車”集會，參與者坐在自己的車里。這位以饒舌和失態而聞名的老牌政治領袖完完全全按劇本行事。在他最后的電視廣告當中，有許多臺詞和他一年半前競選時所說的臺詞一模一樣。作為大選候選人，不尋常的是，拜登在競選過程中確實看到了自己在公眾心目中地位的提升。據衛斯理媒體項目稱，拜登的競選團隊和盟友發布的廣告中只有大約10%是針對特朗普的攻擊。他的競選團隊認為，他的團結、同情和專業知識等主題是對現任總統的含蓄譴責。民主黨策略師杰西·弗格森表示：“這一信息極其地一致，這是特朗普性格缺陷與其對現實生活的影響之間的含蓄對比。”弗格森曾在2016年參加希拉里·克林頓的競選活動。“特朗普只顧自己，混亂不堪；而拜登則相反：對其他人來說，穩定是特朗普所代表的一切的解藥。”但民主黨人現在懷疑，拜登是否像之前的克林頓一樣，過于強調個性而對細小問題關注不夠，他不親自參加競選的決定是否錯失了一個機會。
譯文由可可原創，僅供學習交流使用，未經許可請勿轉載。
