Joe Biden, step aside? Sure doesn't sound like it

Joe Biden, step aside? It certainly doesn't sound like it judging from public comments Friday from several key quarters: the candidate himself, his closest adviser and his party's heavyweights.

The U.S. president gave no indication he intends to withdraw from the election a day after a disastrous debate performance that had some Democrats pleading for his exit. 

He gave a remarkably fiery campaign speech in North Carolina – energetic, on point, in stark contrast to the frail, forgetful display the previous night on the most critical stage of the campaign.

He was, however, reading off a teleprompter on Friday, loudly and fluidly. That's unlike the debate where he struggled to improvise and at one point appeared to suffer a 14-second cognitive glitch.

Biden did not directly address the calls for him to step down, but he told a boisterous partisan crowd in Raleigh, N.C., that he plans to pull off an upset in that Republican-leaning state.

"I intend to win this state in November," Biden said. "We win here, and we win the election."

A memorably feeble debate performance had Democrats immediately speculating about Biden stepping aside, so that he could be replaced on the ticket.

From TV panels to newspaper columns, normally supportive voices urged Biden to drop out.

Democratic pundits said their phones were flooded with messages of panic from like-minded partisans who now fear the party is sleepwalking to electoral disaster under Biden.

Candidates in down-ballot races are dissociating their campaigns from the president's.

But there was no evidence of a critical mass of pressure that might force Biden to quit, so that his party might nominate a replacement at its August convention. 

The tone was set for Biden's speech by his closest adviser: First lady Jill Biden. Viewed by some as the only person capable of convincing her husband to stand down, she showed no inclination of suggesting that.

"There is no one I would rather have sitting in the Oval Office right now than my husband," she said in a warm-up speech before the president's address. 

She defended her husband's performance in the debate. "[He] told the truth, and Donald Trump told lie, after lie, after lie," she said.