What worries me the most is not that Biden will remain the candidate, but that the Biden campaign team has vowed to continue their current ineffective strategies.
This is a 5-alarm fire and Biden's team is pretending it's politics as usual.
If hemorrhaging blocks of the base and losing every swing state isn't sufficient to change course, and doubling down on this losing strategy is the answer to the debate debacle...Trump 2.0 will be inevitable.
Biden and his team seem impervious to constructive input.
Apologies in advance for being long-winded. I have so many conflicting thoughts.
Debating skills have zero to do with how someone governs. Campaigning is one set of skills and people, being a good president is another set of skills and people, and the two rarely overlap. We know Biden is up to the actual job, because he has done/ is doing great things for the country. Like you said, Scott, we donʻt vote for presidents; we vote for a whole administration. And Bidenʻs administration has been stellar for the most part. I believe this administration has been the best and most progressive of my life. As a group, theyʻve gotten more good things done than any administration since LBJ (who, like Biden, was not very progressive as an individual). I wish people would be more clear that weʻre worried about Bidenʻs energy for campaigning and not his presidenting.
I wanted to share an idea that some political scientists and historians are saying online: Keep Biden, get through the election somehow, and if he needs to resign from office in the future, then Harris can take over and have a great administration behind her. They are saying that the election is way too close to pick a new candidate in any fair or democratic way, get candidates vetted, get the person on the ballot in all states, let alone get an actual campaign going. The election will be over before all that happens. Biden resigning anytime after Jan. 20 would be much much smoother, itʻs happened several times in our history, and it would keep our voters together. If we were ever going to drop Biden, the decision-makers needed to start preparing a couple of years ago, and we should have had a big primary.
Trying to get all our voters enthusiastic about a new candidate that we didnʻt even get to vote on is a much harder task than people are admitting. Hereʻs my thesis statment: Pushing Biden out right now would be just as--if not more--risky as keeping him!
I agree with you, Scott, that if we do lose Biden, we have to go with Harris. Sheʻs the only choice that wouldnʻt throw us into total chaos and fratricide. But we all know (based on past experience) that many of the uninformed people who decide our elections prefer voting for a White guy. But picking a White guy with no federal experience to shove Harris out of the way would have real and negative consequences for our voter base (and he probably wouldnʻt do a great job as president anyway, if he doesnʻt have experience on foreign affairs or working with Congress). I could go back and forth like this all day. Itʻs a real pickle weʻre in, for sure, made worse because Bidenʻs energy is an unknown variable, considering how great he looked in NC the next day. How can anyone plan for anything when no one knows what to expect??
I just wanted to add these things to the discussion. I am as nervous as anyone about what we witnessed Thurs night, and neither Biden nor Harris are far enough left for me. That said, I will 1000% vote for whoever is the Dem presidential candidate. I would eagerly vote for a rock over Trump. But people like me arenʻt the ones we need to convince.
We Hoosiers, whose votes wonʻt count for this race, have to do everything we can to help other states who will decide the president, no matter who the Dem candidate is. Our part in democracy is just as important as the candidateʻs part or the campaign teamʻs part. Just like Mueller, Biden isnʻt going to save us by himself. We have to save ourselves. If we only complain and donʻt participate in campaigns, then we have no right to whine afterward that the campaign team screwed up. Just voting is not enough this time around.
To carry my thought forward a bit, Biden seems to be engaging in Trump’s “I alone can fix it” delusion. Instead of graciously saying, here is the person who knows how it is done and was here for all of our successes, has the energy and knowledge to take our legacy forward, and can finish what we started…namely Kamala Harris, for crying out loud!!! He and the party and whoever has risked all of it by simply NOT doing that obvious thing. Instead of changing public perception about a woman President who is also a person of color, they have chosen to try to change our perceptions of an aged and ever aging President, casting us and the country’s future into a tailspin. I also blame all of the aging white men over 65 advising him about this. I hope I am not insulting anyone, but I can hear almost them saying for four years that there is no way Kamala could ever be President…for the very worst reasons.
This post puts it eloquently together: the stagnation at the DNC, blindness around Biden as candidate, serious harm/division that would ensue if they leaped over VP Harris for someone whiter. I believe Biden was upset when the torch wasn’t passed to him by Obama in 2016…Why is he so unwilling to pass it on to his VP now?
I wholeheartedly agree ..because even though Joe had a bad night ...I'll take Joes one worst night over tRumps best night anytime. It's the platform of honest over deranged lying BS. And because of that I still endorse Joe...
This is a fascist, existential threat to our system of government this year. We have to get serious about confronting that. We need Biden to step down and allow Kamala to finish out and run. That should be done now, so we can discuss it and ruffle our feathers at convention.
And the policy changes and insistence on a national platform in line with the choices of voters, not donors, needs to get rolling NOW.
Thanks Jesse. I will say this. I'm not calling on Biden to drop out, but if he does, you're right that he should resign and give Kamala the office and all the trappings of incumbency rather than finishing out his term.
It can be disorienting when dealing with a bully vomiting lie after lie. Especially when the moderators let the pig continue with lies. The President sounded much better the next day and sounded like a winner. I think those advisors of the president grossly underestimated what Trump is capable of.
I, too, am a sick individual. I watched the entire shit show. I think part of me kept waiting for Biden to make a great bang-up comeback. The other part of me was waiting for the earth to open up and swallow trump. Sadly, neither happened. I am sick to my stomach thinking about the what-ifs. 4 months is a very, very short amount of time for the democrats to get their ducks in a row, especially when they have no sense of direction or leadership. When Biden ran 4 years ago, they should have been looking for the next candidate. But too late for that now. What’s the strategy? There has to be one! They can’t keep stalling and wait around for something to happen. It will. This country will turn into a dictatorship and heads will literally roll. I have never been so afraid for the lives of my family, friends and this nation and I’ve lived through a lot.
What worries me the most is not that Biden will remain the candidate, but that the Biden campaign team has vowed to continue their current ineffective strategies.
This is a 5-alarm fire and Biden's team is pretending it's politics as usual.
If hemorrhaging blocks of the base and losing every swing state isn't sufficient to change course, and doubling down on this losing strategy is the answer to the debate debacle...Trump 2.0 will be inevitable.
Biden and his team seem impervious to constructive input.
Apologies in advance for being long-winded. I have so many conflicting thoughts.
Debating skills have zero to do with how someone governs. Campaigning is one set of skills and people, being a good president is another set of skills and people, and the two rarely overlap. We know Biden is up to the actual job, because he has done/ is doing great things for the country. Like you said, Scott, we donʻt vote for presidents; we vote for a whole administration. And Bidenʻs administration has been stellar for the most part. I believe this administration has been the best and most progressive of my life. As a group, theyʻve gotten more good things done than any administration since LBJ (who, like Biden, was not very progressive as an individual). I wish people would be more clear that weʻre worried about Bidenʻs energy for campaigning and not his presidenting.
I wanted to share an idea that some political scientists and historians are saying online: Keep Biden, get through the election somehow, and if he needs to resign from office in the future, then Harris can take over and have a great administration behind her. They are saying that the election is way too close to pick a new candidate in any fair or democratic way, get candidates vetted, get the person on the ballot in all states, let alone get an actual campaign going. The election will be over before all that happens. Biden resigning anytime after Jan. 20 would be much much smoother, itʻs happened several times in our history, and it would keep our voters together. If we were ever going to drop Biden, the decision-makers needed to start preparing a couple of years ago, and we should have had a big primary.
Trying to get all our voters enthusiastic about a new candidate that we didnʻt even get to vote on is a much harder task than people are admitting. Hereʻs my thesis statment: Pushing Biden out right now would be just as--if not more--risky as keeping him!
I agree with you, Scott, that if we do lose Biden, we have to go with Harris. Sheʻs the only choice that wouldnʻt throw us into total chaos and fratricide. But we all know (based on past experience) that many of the uninformed people who decide our elections prefer voting for a White guy. But picking a White guy with no federal experience to shove Harris out of the way would have real and negative consequences for our voter base (and he probably wouldnʻt do a great job as president anyway, if he doesnʻt have experience on foreign affairs or working with Congress). I could go back and forth like this all day. Itʻs a real pickle weʻre in, for sure, made worse because Bidenʻs energy is an unknown variable, considering how great he looked in NC the next day. How can anyone plan for anything when no one knows what to expect??
I just wanted to add these things to the discussion. I am as nervous as anyone about what we witnessed Thurs night, and neither Biden nor Harris are far enough left for me. That said, I will 1000% vote for whoever is the Dem presidential candidate. I would eagerly vote for a rock over Trump. But people like me arenʻt the ones we need to convince.
We Hoosiers, whose votes wonʻt count for this race, have to do everything we can to help other states who will decide the president, no matter who the Dem candidate is. Our part in democracy is just as important as the candidateʻs part or the campaign teamʻs part. Just like Mueller, Biden isnʻt going to save us by himself. We have to save ourselves. If we only complain and donʻt participate in campaigns, then we have no right to whine afterward that the campaign team screwed up. Just voting is not enough this time around.
To carry my thought forward a bit, Biden seems to be engaging in Trump’s “I alone can fix it” delusion. Instead of graciously saying, here is the person who knows how it is done and was here for all of our successes, has the energy and knowledge to take our legacy forward, and can finish what we started…namely Kamala Harris, for crying out loud!!! He and the party and whoever has risked all of it by simply NOT doing that obvious thing. Instead of changing public perception about a woman President who is also a person of color, they have chosen to try to change our perceptions of an aged and ever aging President, casting us and the country’s future into a tailspin. I also blame all of the aging white men over 65 advising him about this. I hope I am not insulting anyone, but I can hear almost them saying for four years that there is no way Kamala could ever be President…for the very worst reasons.
This post puts it eloquently together: the stagnation at the DNC, blindness around Biden as candidate, serious harm/division that would ensue if they leaped over VP Harris for someone whiter. I believe Biden was upset when the torch wasn’t passed to him by Obama in 2016…Why is he so unwilling to pass it on to his VP now?
I wholeheartedly agree ..because even though Joe had a bad night ...I'll take Joes one worst night over tRumps best night anytime. It's the platform of honest over deranged lying BS. And because of that I still endorse Joe...
Spitting fire with this one.
Couldn't agree more.
This is a fascist, existential threat to our system of government this year. We have to get serious about confronting that. We need Biden to step down and allow Kamala to finish out and run. That should be done now, so we can discuss it and ruffle our feathers at convention.
And the policy changes and insistence on a national platform in line with the choices of voters, not donors, needs to get rolling NOW.
Thanks Jesse. I will say this. I'm not calling on Biden to drop out, but if he does, you're right that he should resign and give Kamala the office and all the trappings of incumbency rather than finishing out his term.
It can be disorienting when dealing with a bully vomiting lie after lie. Especially when the moderators let the pig continue with lies. The President sounded much better the next day and sounded like a winner. I think those advisors of the president grossly underestimated what Trump is capable of.
I, too, am a sick individual. I watched the entire shit show. I think part of me kept waiting for Biden to make a great bang-up comeback. The other part of me was waiting for the earth to open up and swallow trump. Sadly, neither happened. I am sick to my stomach thinking about the what-ifs. 4 months is a very, very short amount of time for the democrats to get their ducks in a row, especially when they have no sense of direction or leadership. When Biden ran 4 years ago, they should have been looking for the next candidate. But too late for that now. What’s the strategy? There has to be one! They can’t keep stalling and wait around for something to happen. It will. This country will turn into a dictatorship and heads will literally roll. I have never been so afraid for the lives of my family, friends and this nation and I’ve lived through a lot.