Biden's Team Needs to Take the Bubble Wrap Off: Dowd

President Biden's passing on a Super Bowl interview fits with his team's campaign strategy, such as it is, Maureen Dowd writes. "The Biden crew clearly has no plan for how to deal with the president's age except to shield him and hide him and browbeat reporters who point out that his mental state" is an issue, she writes in her column in the New York Times. That won't cut it, Dowd says, pointing out that polls showed voters were concerned about the president's age—81, in case anyone's missed that—before a special counsel included it in his reasoning last week.

Donald Trump is delusional, Dowd says, but that doesn't change the reality that trying to play defense while the former president stays on offense won't work. Hillary Clinton learned that counting on voters to recognize "Trump's vileness" is a dangerous strategy. Biden and his aides have to realize that his on-camera verbal stumbles are a weakness and deal with it, instead of avoiding interviews and town halls and limiting the length of press conferences. "Biden is not just in a bubble—he's in bubble wrap," Dowd writes. For Biden to win reelection, the bubble wrap, and the gloves, need to come off. (More opinion stories.)