The former vice president didn\u2019t deliver a stellar performance, but he largely executed his goal of providing a stable contrast to his rival.<\/b>
\nJoseph R. Biden Jr. cast the first presidential debate as a leadership test for President Trump; Mr. Trump framed it as cognitive test for a supposedly senile Mr. Biden. One of them passed. While Mr. Biden did not deliver a stellar performance on Tuesday \u2014 and the mud-spattered spectacle in Cleveland left neither participant unsullied \u2014 he easily surpassed the low expectations set for him by a Trump campaign that had portrayed him as a doddering weakling incapable of facing an alpha president. Mr. Biden arguably had more to lose going in: He was shaky in some primary debates and has kept a light public schedule and a relatively low profile since securing the Democratic nomination, in part to allow his opponent, who craves the spotlight, to roast in it alone. But the former vice president, who turns 78 in November, stood comfortably at the lectern for 90 minutes \u2014 a capacity Trump aides had questioned leading up to the debate. And while he was often overshadowed and outshouted, he largely executed his main goal of presenting a stable contrast to the man beside him, despite a few flustered word fumbles and angry outbursts in which he called the heckling president a \u201cclown\u201d and a \u201cfool.\u201d At no point did Mr. Biden match the portrait his enemies had painted of him as disoriented, demented, drugged or unable to cogently answer any of the policy questions put to him, even as Mr. Trump blared into his right ear like a boombox with a busted volume knob. It was noteworthy that Trump stalwarts like Sean Hannity of Fox News, who have loudly questioned Mr. Biden\u2019s mental acuity, mostly avoided the topic in post-debate wrap-ups. \u201cBiden was really, really well prepared \u2014 it was clear that he anticipated Trump\u2019s interruptions, and settled on a strategy of focusing on the camera or Chris Wallace rather than staring back at him,\u201d said Alex Conant, a veteran Republican strategist who helped prepare Senator Marco Rubio of Florida for his debates against Mr. Trump during the 2016 Republican primaries. \u201cLook, if Trump had been able to wipe the floor with him, the whole narrative today wouldn\u2019t be about a chaotic debate, or about Trump\u2019s performance, it would be about Biden not standing up to Trump \u2014 and the media would be asking if Biden is too old for the job,\u201d Mr. Conant said. \u201cBut Biden did not let that happen.\u201d Mr. Trump\u2019s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, saw their clash in very different terms, saying in a statement after the debate that Mr. Biden \u201cwas revealed as too weak to be president and spent most of the evening on his heels.\u201d But that opinion was not widely shared, even among Mr. Trump\u2019s stalwart supporters, including Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, who served on his debate prep team. On Tuesday night, Mr. Christie conceded that the president\u2019s approach had been \u201ctoo hot\u201d and suggested that Mr. Trump needed to tone it down next time. And instant polls taken in the debate\u2019s aftermath, while not always an accurate gauge of public opinion, swung in Mr. Biden\u2019s direction. In contrast to Mr. Trump\u2019s improvisational approach \u2014 with a minimum of practice time \u2014 Mr. Biden relied on a team of Clinton and Obama administration veterans that included his longtime aide Ron Klain, who is known for fastidiously compiling game-plan binders with various debate scenarios. A key focus for the Biden team in the final week, at a time when Mr. Trump was ridiculing the former vice president for dodging public events, was drilling Mr. Biden repeatedly on anticipated attacks against his son Hunter, who has come under fire for taking a lucrative board position with a Ukrainian natural gas company. It is a subject that enrages Mr. Biden, and he has repeatedly snapped at aides who have approached him with questions about his son\u2019s conduct. At a campaign stop last year, he angrily lashed out at a voter who questioned him about his son\u2019s overseas business dealings, calling the man a \u201cdamn liar.\u201d The Biden team\u2019s goal was to get him to the point where he could forcefully push back on the president without losing his cool, they said. When Mr. Trump interrupted Mr. Biden to say that Hunter Biden had been \u201cthrown out of the military\u201d because of cocaine use, Mr. Biden appeared prepared and relatively calm, if somewhat shaken. \u201cMy son, like a lot of people, had a drug problem,\u201d he said, turning to the camera. \u201cHe\u2019s overtaken it. He\u2019s fixed it. He worked on it. I\u2019m proud of him.\u201d There were times, however, when the preparation eluded Mr. Biden, and Mr. Trump seemed to get under his skin, as his barrage of disruptions and insults were intended to do. Mr. Biden, who overcame a childhood stutter to become a self-assured debater in the Senate, seemed at a momentary loss for words when Mr. Trump attacked his family and questioned his positions on law enforcement. But more often, Mr. Biden, who has a volatile temper \u2014 and was known as a long-winded civic sermonizer during his Senate years \u2014 visibly struggled to suppress his anger. It did not always work \u2014 and it did not always work against him. His offhand remark \u201cwill you just shut up, man?\u201d went viral and was quickly incorporated into his campaign\u2019s branded merchandising operation, even as some detractors viewed his remarks as showing disregard for the office of the president. Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster who conducted a focus group of undecided voters during the debate, said Mr. Biden\u2019s counterattacks went over the line, and alienated some of the people Mr. Luntz interviewed. \u201cHe did the same thing as Trump, just not as badly or as brutally,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cThe loudest voice is sometimes silence. That would have been a much better approach.\u201d One of the few politically coherent lines of attack pursued by Mr. Trump,74, was to accuse Mr. Biden of being a Trojan horse for radical leftists \u2014 figuring he would either have to hug progressives and therefore alienate moderates, or distance himself, risking a revolt on the left. The centrist former vice president chose to emphatically distance himself from his party\u2019s progressive wing and threw in a low-key \u201cl\u2019etat, c\u2019est moi\u201d declaration. When the president accused him, falsely, of supporting \u201csocialist\u201d health care proposals, Mr. Biden responded: \u201cThe party is me. Right now, I am the Democratic Party,\u201d adding, \u201cThe platform of the Democratic Party is what I, in fact, approved of.\u201d At another point, when Mr. Trump claimed that Mr. Biden \u201cagreed with Bernie Sanders, who is far left,\u201d Mr. Biden batted the remark aside like a bug. \u201cThe fact of the matter is: I beat Bernie Sanders,\u201d he said. The president tried to seize on the moment, insisting, \u201cYou just lost the left.\u201d Mr. Sanders was having none of it on Wednesday. \u201cWhat Joe Biden said was right. He does not agree with me,\u201d he said on ABC\u2019s \u201cThe View.\u201d \u201cI wish he did, but he does not.\u201d The senator added, \u201cIt is terribly important that we defeat Trump, that we elect Biden and that we have the largest voter turnout in the history of the country.\u201d And as if to put the matter to bed, he said he planned to hit the campaign trail for the former vice president \u201cin a very short time.\u201d Mr. Biden\u2019s team was cautiously optimistic about the impact of the debate on undecided voters, but also wanted to avoid a repeat of Tuesday night\u2019s chaotic brawl, which might impact Mr. Biden\u2019s brand as a conciliatory national healer who can bring the country back together. On Wednesday morning, both the candidate and his campaign were pressuring the Commission on Presidential Debates to restrain Mr. Trump\u2019s disruptions, perhaps by silencing his microphone when he was not entitled to speak. By midday, the commission announced that such measures were under consideration ahead of the next debate, scheduled for Oct.15 in Miami. \u201cThis next debate is going to be in front of real, live people, it\u2019s going to be a town hall,\u201d Mr. Biden told reporters during a campaign stop in Ohio on Wednesday. \u201cI hope we\u2019re able to get a chance to actually answer the questions that are asked by the persons in the room. But God only knows what he\u2019ll do.\u201d<\/p>\n