If the Democrats felt this would help their imaging it was a miscalculation.

On Monday many saw exactly why it was that Kamala Harris has been keeping her running mate under wraps. In Pennsylvania Joe Biden gave a rambling and at times incoherent speech that barely lasted 20 minutes. He ducked out quickly after speaking, avoiding reporters and shuffled off so the campaign could wage spin control — and look for a replacement sign language translator, as the current one surely quit in frustration.

As a means of wallpapering over this bowling-ball-through-the-drywall appearance CNN conducted a presidential interview, but not with the presidential candidate. Joe’s wife Jill sat in for a discussion, and the takeaway from this was not policy positions but the very fact that they were NOT interviewing Joe Biden. Notable what we were delivered was not Jill discussing items concerning herself and what will be in store if she becomes the First Lady, but Jill discussing the party platform — something you normally would expect from the sequestered candidate himself.

The interview concerned education, which is in fact something in Jill’s wheelhouse. It is quickly becoming the norm that we will hear about Jill Biden being a teacher more than John Kasich’s father being a mailman. But what is revealing in this interview is that while railing about the claim that President Trump and Secretary of Education, Betsy Devos do not have a plan in place to open up school Jill herself was rather scant in delivering details.

The two primary initiatives she mentioned her husband would put in place is seeing that schools are properly funded, and that internet connections become more widespread for students. In other words, he is proposing the very things which are in perpetual growth already regarding public education. Apart from that we got very little in the manner of specifics.

Mrs. Biden had listed off a number of negatives children are encountering as a result of being kept at home; domestic violence, child abuse, and dealing with anxiety. What is not mentioned — this is the result of Democrats and teachers unions blocking the return of students to school. President Trump has long been calling for schools to reopen, but that effort has been continuously beaten back by legislators and the teachers. Now they want to pass that responsibility over to the President.

Jill Biden on viral photo of a 5-year-old crying while trying to do schoolwork from a home computer: If Biden wins, “he won’t be sitting there crying” pic.twitter.com/X915vadSZF

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 2, 2020

At one stage Jill Biden was shown a photograph of a 5 year old boy, crying in frustration over doing school work while seated at a computer at home. Jill offered up her solution to this tableau. 

‘’My message is when Joe Biden is elected he won’t be sitting there crying. He will be sitting there with his laptop, with a smile on his face. Joe has empathy – he  understands what families are going through.’’

So a 5 year old will just become happy, simply because Joe is elected??? What…kind of policy is this? Will thee restored happiness be due to giving a kid a laptop, instead of the computer he was working on already? A kindergartner is already frustrated to tears over his workload, but you want to teach him a vocabulary word like ‘’empathy’’ in order to feel better. I sense that will not be much of a panacea for him…uh, I mean a happy result. 

This appearance was not a help to the cause as it only underscores the vacancy of the campaign. A no-show candidate, a claim of fixing the problems caused by their own party, and the solution being simply electing Joe will make things better is hardly a selling point. This was a placeholder appearance sold as a solid campaign production.