[G]oing into the biggest speech of his almost five decades in national politics, the Trump campaign and the GOP made a concerted effort to paint the Democratic nominee as doddering and suffering from "cognitive decline," significantly lowering expectations.

The Trump campaign even secured the pricey and highly influential ad space of YouTube's top banner on Tuesday to show a new ad painting Biden as senile, juxtaposing old clips of the then-VP with cuts to him stuttering or losing his train of thought on the 2020 campaign trail.

President Donald Trump's adult sons, Eric and Don Jr., were appearing on Fox News all week claiming Biden couldn't even string a sentence together.

The bar was set so low for Biden going into his convention address that a merely competent performance would have helped the campaign.

But after two failed bids for the presidency in 1988 and 2008, along with being on the ropes in the 2020 primary before South Carolina, Biden not only made sure he wouldn't squander the opportunity with any slip ups. He brought his A-game, teed up by the cognitive decline attacks to hit "a home run in the bottom of the ninth," in the words of Fox News anchor Dana Perino.

Biden managed the rare feat of earning praise from multiple Fox News panelists following his speech.