Joe Biden is piling up one bizarre brain freeze after another only days away from a make-or-break stand in South Carolina.
In less than two weeks, Biden has forgotten what office he’s running for, who was the attorney general while he was vice president, which Chinese leader he worked with on the Paris Climate Accord, and is just making up stories about being arrested in South Africa in 1989.
The former vice president has already lost three primary contests in a row. After leading the polling for most of last year, Biden crash-landed in Iowa with a humiliating fourth-place showing, ended in New Hampshire in fifth place, and managed to land in second place in Nevada, but it was still a wipeout — a loss of 26 points to Bernie Sanders.
So South Carolina is it. If Biden wins South Carolina, he lives to fight another day. If Biden loses South Carolina, he’s finished.
As of now, according to the RealClearPolitics poll of polls, Biden has gone from a firm, insurmountable double-digit lead in South Carolina to a five-point lead. All of his momentum is headed in the wrong direction, while Bernie is on the climb.
But Biden is still the favorite win South Carolina, and a convincing win could turn his campaign around just in time to survive, and maybe even do well, on Super Tuesday, which takes place just a few days after South Carolina votes.
But with the stakes as big as they could possibly be, Biden is melting down, choking, big time…
Just over the past ten or so days, Biden as spewed more bizarre stuff than anyone believed possible.
Here’s the disturbing rundown…
Biden announced he’s running for U.S. Senate:
“My name is Joe Biden. I’m a Democratic candidate for the United States Senate. Look me over, if you like what you see, help out. If not, vote for the other Biden,” the 77-year-old said on Monday.
Fact Check: Biden is running for president.
Biden claimed he worked on the Paris climate deal with Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, who died 20 years before the Paris deal was signed:
“One of the things I’m proudest of is getting passed, getting moved, getting in control of the Paris Climate Accord,” Biden said in a Monday speech at a South Carolina college. “I’m the guy who came back after meeting with Deng Xiaoping and making the case that I believe China will join if we put pressure on them. We got almost 200 nations to join.”
Fact Check: Xiaoping died in 1997.
Biden claimed his deceased son served as the U.S. attorney general:
“My son — my deceased son — was the Attorney General of the United States and before that, he was a federal prosecutor in one of the largest office’s in the country in Philadelphia,” Biden said at a CNN town hall last Thursday.
Fact Check: Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch served as attorney general while Biden was vice president. Beau Biden was never the U.S. attorney general.
Biden claimed he was arrested in South Africa while trying to visit Nelson Mandela in prison:
“This day, 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and entered into discussions about apartheid,” Biden said in Columbia on February 11. “I had the great honor of meeting him. I had the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see him on Robben Island.”
On February 16 in Las Vegas, Biden added this: “After he [Mandela] got free and became president, he came to Washington and came to my office. He threw his arms around me and said, ‘I want to say thank you.’ I said, ‘What are you thanking me for, Mr. President?’ He said: ‘You tried to see me. You got arrested trying to see me.’”
Fact Check: Even the far-left fact-checkers at the Washington Post declared Biden’s claim “ridiculous” and hit Biden with the full boat of four Pinocchios.
Taken one at a time, you can argue this is what happens to a 77-year-old guy exhausted by the campaign trail. But when you connect the dots… Wow.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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