STOP PUSHING FOR BIDEN TO STEP ASIDE. (I’m not yelling, I’m writing emphatically.) It’s a panic move that guarantees a Trump win. There IS no other D palatable to all elements of the party, and no D is going to vote 3rd party/independent/write-in for Nikki Haley. Just stop.
Three comments: 1. He's losing. If the polls don't improve by April/May, there will be a lot more pressue on him to step down than you're seeing now. The Dems will have to do something. Biden consistently down in the polls guarantees a Trump win.2. Of course there is no other candidate palatable to all elements of the party. There never is. That's what conventions were for before the primary system was introduced in 1972. In 2020, the progressives reluctantly united behind Biden in 2020 because he alone could beat Trump. They'll do it again. 3. Yes, no D will vote the other party, but they could just stay home. And that guarantees a Trump win.
He is NOT losing as his primary performance shows. What people do is more important than what people say. Maybe you mean there is a disheartening number of Americans expressing a willingness to repudiate the Constitution and core American values.
Terry, his primary performance says nothing about his general election performance. Totally different people.
Your second sentence - yes, I'm saying that - is why he's losing. But I question your framing it as a repudiation of core American values, because Americans disagree on what those values are. Values are subjective. The Constitution and the rights it protects are objective - we all agree what the words are. Still, the SC has to interpret what they mean.
2. This is important. THERE IS NOTHING FOR THE DEMS TO DO. he will win the most delegates. He will be the nominee.
3. What poll shows any other dem beating Trump? All the polls show Biden doing better than the other dems. So based on your analysis we should run Biden.
4. No that is not what the convention is for. That is what the PRIMARY is for and Biden is crushing it in the primary. The convention is a 4 day celebration. The convention hasn’t been used to nominate a candidate since 1972 and they changed the rules to prevent that from ever happening again.
5. What evidence do you have that the “progressives reluctantly united behind Biden.” Literally every candidate endorsed him BEFORE the convention. Can we at least get facts right? Elizabeth Warren literally enforced Biden 6 months before the election.
6. There is no way to force Biden to drop out. If he did dropout the candidate would be Kamala. Is that what you want?
I do not want Kamala as our candidate because she polls even more poorly than Biden does. I want too prevent Trump from winning. I don't care which Dem does it.
Yes, Biden woud have to choose to drop out. From what I've read about how an open convention would work in that case (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-elaine-kamarck.html - sorrry, it's paywalled, but the expert interviewed is Elaine Kamarck, who has literally written the book on presidential primaries, “Primary Politics: Everything You Need to Know About How America Nominates Its Presidential Candidates.” She’s a senior fellow in governance studies and the director of the Center for Effective Public Management at Brookings. She knows what she is talking about - maybe you can find something on her that's not paywalled) it's not impossible.
That's it? A 2 minute clip from an interview filmed in GUATEMALA ( for pete's sake) where she was there addressing root causes of asylum seeking? Here is the full interview https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/harris-speaks-out-on-why-she-hasn-t-traveled-to-southern-border-114496069826 The GOP made it very clear this week that they consider going to the border a worthless political stunt. "Look at me here at the border" IS worthless especially given the resources and security an trip she or Biden take requires.
Staff turnover? Her staff turnover is comparable to previous administrations.
Racism and mysogyny? According to Bot Sentinel, a non-partisan research organization that works to combat disinformation and targeted harassment online, during the first five months of 2022 more than 4,200 tweets directed at Harris included the use of the n-word, manipulated graphic images (many lewd and pornographic) and death threats. Bot Sentinel began the research project after a group of preeminent Black women flagged to Bot Sentinel in January that Twitter was ignoring their numerous reports of abusive tweets directed at the vice president.
No VP has been scrutinized or held to a higher standard than her. She is damned if she does and damned if she doesn't. If she is too vocal and visible, people would suggest that she’s trying to control the presidency, something her predecessor Cheney was accused of. If she’s not visible enough, people focus on what she’s not doing. If she picked a single policy lane people would say she is unable to handle issues outside that subject.
Yes it is possible for Biden to drop out. Once again though it is a low likelihood event. If he did dropout the most likely candidate is Kamala. Why? Because all the electors are Biden/harris electors. She is actually on the ballot. If Biden dropped out, she controls the money. She is not dropping out. She is in her mid 50s and is super ambitious.
So let’s say in this 1% scenario where someone somehow convinces Biden that he can’t beat Trump (even though he beat him last time) to dropout. Now you are in all out delegate fight. Guess who has a whole campaign staff in all 50 states with 150m of cash….Kamala. Instead of using that on Trump now we got 6 or 7 dems running for president. That cash is spent on making sure she is the nominee instead of on showing how bad Trump is.
Once again, and most importantly, what democrats is polling nationally better than Biden? I’ve seen all the polls too. He is polling better than every other dem. Second is kamala. All I’m asking is if you say Biden should drop out because the polls are bad for Biden what polls show another dem will be better versus Trump? That is your whole theory unless I’m missing something. Please show me the evidence that someone will do better than Biden. That is all I’m asking.
That evidence is not there because there is no polling that I know of that shows how other Dems do against Trump. Speaking of evidence, show me evidence Biden can beat Trump. There IS actual polling on this.
Also, how do you know the funds raised by Biden/Harris go to Harris if/when Biden drops out? Did they go to Humprhey when LBJ dropped out? Or where there different rules then?
I think the key factor is whether, in the event Biden steps aside, he endorses Harris. If he does, according to Ezra Klein, no other candidates will jump in.
The most recent poll is from February 13th and 14th 2024 from Emerson college. Here are the results.
“The poll, conducted between Feb. 13 and 14, sampled 1,225 registered voters and has a margin of error of 2.7 percentage points.
Of the three hypothetical Democrat alternatives, Harris came the closest to beating Trump, trailing him by three points with 43% versus his 46%, the poll found.
Newsom, considered a rising star in the party, who has stumped for Biden, performed far worse, scoring 36% versus 46%.
Whitmer performed similarly poorly, attaining 33% versus Trump’s 45%.
Meanwhile, Biden came in just one percentage point behind Trump — with 44% versus 45%.”
That is the most recent poll of other dems. Biden is polling better than other dems. So can we agree that the other candidates are worse off than Biden according to the polls.
With respect to the cash I recommend you read Jennifer Palmieri who served as White House Director of Communications from 2013 to 2015 and Director of Communications for the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign (she ran Obama and Hillary’s 50 state ground game…hiring the staff in each state to push the dem nominee). She responds to Ezra’s essay about dropping out and choosing a president at the convention. It’s titled “a realist’s case for Biden staying in the 2024 race.”
Here is an excerpt:
“Democrats can’t afford to wait to build a new campaign. Suppose that Biden followed Klein’s advice and withdrew from the race tomorrow. It would still not be possible for the Democrats to have a nominee in place until their August convention, giving the eventual pick only 11 weeks to stand up coordinated ground operations in battleground states and make their case to America. Frankly, I find it unthinkable that Democrats would put off building their campaign infrastructure until the late summer. That work is already underway and must continue.
Democrats would be giving up a huge advantage. As the incumbent president and assumed party nominee, the Biden campaign has been raising money jointly with the Democratic Party and ended 2023 with the biggest war chest of any Democrat in history, $117 million. This compares with $42 million for the Trump campaign. If Biden were to step aside, this money would not be available for the nominee until August. Democrats have a desperately needed financial advantage over Trump, and it would be reckless to toss this aside.
Biden polls better against Trump than any other Democrat. To be fair, Biden has nationwide name recognition, which gives him a distinct advantage in polls. But the fact remains that he still polls better against Trump than potential contenders such as Vice President Kamala Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. If the polls suggested that any of these Democrats might do better than Biden, they could have challenged him. Yet, none of them thought it wise to do so and, instead, signed up to be co-chairs of Biden’s campaign.”
Once again this is over. Biden is the nominee unless he has a horrible health event and then it’s Kamala. Full stop. It’s the right choice
IS he losing? Most people aren’t paying attention, and our poll models are currently …inadequate. I seem to recall people being convinced Obama was going to lose to Romney too, and look how that turned out.
He’s only losing if you want another candidate. I’m not denying there’s unhappiness and churn, but I’m not ready to stick a fork in him.
You say this with such certainty: where is the data? Whitmer is far more popular than Biden in Michigan, for example. Biden barely leads the state against Trump and yet the generic D polls much better.
Tell me what strengths that Biden would have in November, at the end of a campaign when both candidates would be well-known, to a candidate such as Gretchen Whitmer. Then I'll shut up. But I haven't yet heard any, aside from his being a man and her being a woman. What exactly makes Biden "palatable" where other Democrats aren't?
All most of the country knows of Whitmer is that she was the target of some yahoos who were plotting to kidnap her. And that's only the people who pay attention to such things.
Because Biden is the only one who has shown any ability to survive the right-wing smear machines. They haven't Benghazied Whitmer yet so she looks great. But if she were running for President, the Whitmer Crime Family would be all you'd hear.
Is there a Whitmer crime family? Or one that can be shaped that way? All I know about her is that she’s the D gov of MI, and a bunch of comically idiot MAGAS tried to kidnap her over Covid restrictions and being a woman and whatnot, and are now serving time.
There is more to know about her: She's won the governorship twice and by 10 points in 2022, which is a landslide in a divided country. She led the MI Dems to take control of the state House and Senate in 2022 for the first time in 40 years and she's leading the effort to keep young people in MI (unlike red OH who is bleeding their young people) by investing in the state's tech and energy industries and placemaking efforts to attract businesses, families and talent to the state (https://michiganadvance.com/2023/06/01/whitmer-takes-a-victory-lap-highlights-economic-development-plans-at-mackinac-conference/).
This is a great point Kate and from where I stand makes Biden the best bet to beat Trump. He’s weathered 3 years of impeachment inquiry, each week Republicans bask in their failure (it’s to the point I have to believe they get off on the humiliation). All of their failures would no longer be as valuable as ammunition to use against Trump and Republicans.
Yeah, the whole thing about Republicans trying to impeach Biden and it turns out they were just being played by Russian intelligence. That might turn a few heads. Their best defense is just being comically stupid. If that isn't it we start getting into criminal territory very quickly.
Yeah, I’d like to see Comer and Jordan sued for defamation and test the speech and debate clause’s power to protect against that level of stupidity and knowingly using unverified evidence that ended up coming from foreign intelligence operatives.
I wish the news about the Republican congress being infiltrated by Russian agents was a bigger story. It's seems really important to me. No one else seems to find it a bad thing.
I'd like to see it from the standpoint that they'd have to use the, "we're just that stupid" defense. Personally, I think it'd hold up.
Hell, I'd love to see that as a nice softball question:
"Mr. President, will you be suing Comer and Jordan for defamation based on them using information provided by a Russian intelligence agent?"
"No I won't. My legal team informs me that being truly stupid enough to be fooled in such a way would actually be a pretty solid legal defense for them. So as embarrassing as it is for our nation to have House Committee Chairs being bamboozled by Russian intelligence operatives, they've got an air-tight legal defense."
Yeah she will. Harris doesn't have the experience. Just like Hillary ran instead of Biden. I know his son had just died, but I think that was an excuse. They wanted Hillary, and thought she would win. Turns out the Russisns did interfere with the election.
Yes, and nor is anyone else. Biden is the candidate, with Harris to follow if something happens to Biden. All this nonsense about standing aside is mental masturbation and a lack of discipline and nerve.
This idea is getting so old. It isn’t going happen. It is literally pundit masturbation. “Oprah could run and the rock could be the Vp. That’s the dem ticket!!!!”
If Biden loses you get I told you so. If he wins, “sweet. No trump.”
It’s such a boring conversation. It was fine a year ago but now?
Sandy, I’ll save you a trip. There are no circumstances short of genuine criminality or a clear health event that would make me dump Biden. I think he’s been one of our better Presidents, and anyone who prefers Trump to him has either malign motives or a dubious grasp on reality. I don’t believe a third party candidate can win, and I don’t believe there’s any D w/a national presence to beat Biden, incl Harris. That is what happened in 2020, if you recall — Biden WAS the consensus candidate.
The fact that Whitmer, however wonderful a candidate you think her, is hardly known outside her state — and the crucial point now — WE DON’T HAVE TIME TO SWITCH CANDIDATES. Reintroducing a new candidate, pitching a new platform, *getting into the heads* of most voters, who don’t follow politics with the obsession we do, in time to pull off a win… there is no time. A year ago? Maybe. But not now. You dance w/the one what brung ya.
Dems dumped Truman for Stevenson in 1952. Stevenson lost in a landslide. LBJ dumped himself in 1968. Humphrey lost narrowly to Nixon, and George Wallace won five Deep South states that wouldn't have gone for Humphrey in a million years.
If Biden were seen as weak by party leaders and activists, he would've attracted a serious challenger, as happened in 1968 with LBJ, in 1980 with Carter, 1976 with Ford, and 1992 with GHW Bush.
A voter answering a survey saying they don't like either candidate is basically what people always say. Revealed preference on the GOP side is that whatever voters think about Trump, they think less of DeSantis and Haley.
No third party candidate has ever come close to winning an election.
They could if they have forgotten the lesson they learned in 2016 and applied in 2020. That was the year of historically low numbers third party voters. They helped not only win the popular vote by 4.5 million votes, but also secure the Electoral College by a nail-biting 44,000 votes.
Do you see any sign that RFK, Jr and Cornell West are remembering either what Nader's 3rd party did to Gore's loss in FL in 2000 or what Stein's 3rd-party did to HRC's loss in 2016? I don't. Last Tuesday, RFK, Jr. qualified for the ballott in MI, GA and AZ and plans to do so in the rest of the swing states. That's where a 3rd party gives the Trump the win.
I am talking about VOTERS learning their lesson in 2016 from what Stein voters did to Hillary, applying that lesson in 2020, and whether they will still remember in 2024.
As this Amendment was adopted during Truman's second term, he was exempt from it. This caveat starts in the second sentence of the first paragraph.
Here is the text of the 22nd Amendment:
1: No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
2: This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states within seven years from the date of its submission to the states by the Congress.
STOP PUSHING FOR BIDEN TO STEP ASIDE. (I’m not yelling, I’m writing emphatically.) It’s a panic move that guarantees a Trump win. There IS no other D palatable to all elements of the party, and no D is going to vote 3rd party/independent/write-in for Nikki Haley. Just stop.
I agree 100%.
Three comments: 1. He's losing. If the polls don't improve by April/May, there will be a lot more pressue on him to step down than you're seeing now. The Dems will have to do something. Biden consistently down in the polls guarantees a Trump win.2. Of course there is no other candidate palatable to all elements of the party. There never is. That's what conventions were for before the primary system was introduced in 1972. In 2020, the progressives reluctantly united behind Biden in 2020 because he alone could beat Trump. They'll do it again. 3. Yes, no D will vote the other party, but they could just stay home. And that guarantees a Trump win.
He is NOT losing as his primary performance shows. What people do is more important than what people say. Maybe you mean there is a disheartening number of Americans expressing a willingness to repudiate the Constitution and core American values.
Terry, his primary performance says nothing about his general election performance. Totally different people.
Your second sentence - yes, I'm saying that - is why he's losing. But I question your framing it as a repudiation of core American values, because Americans disagree on what those values are. Values are subjective. The Constitution and the rights it protects are objective - we all agree what the words are. Still, the SC has to interpret what they mean.
1. It’s 50/50 whoever we run.
2. This is important. THERE IS NOTHING FOR THE DEMS TO DO. he will win the most delegates. He will be the nominee.
3. What poll shows any other dem beating Trump? All the polls show Biden doing better than the other dems. So based on your analysis we should run Biden.
4. No that is not what the convention is for. That is what the PRIMARY is for and Biden is crushing it in the primary. The convention is a 4 day celebration. The convention hasn’t been used to nominate a candidate since 1972 and they changed the rules to prevent that from ever happening again.
5. What evidence do you have that the “progressives reluctantly united behind Biden.” Literally every candidate endorsed him BEFORE the convention. Can we at least get facts right? Elizabeth Warren literally enforced Biden 6 months before the election.
6. There is no way to force Biden to drop out. If he did dropout the candidate would be Kamala. Is that what you want?
I do not want Kamala as our candidate because she polls even more poorly than Biden does. I want too prevent Trump from winning. I don't care which Dem does it.
Yes, Biden woud have to choose to drop out. From what I've read about how an open convention would work in that case (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-elaine-kamarck.html - sorrry, it's paywalled, but the expert interviewed is Elaine Kamarck, who has literally written the book on presidential primaries, “Primary Politics: Everything You Need to Know About How America Nominates Its Presidential Candidates.” She’s a senior fellow in governance studies and the director of the Center for Effective Public Management at Brookings. She knows what she is talking about - maybe you can find something on her that's not paywalled) it's not impossible.
Kamala's polling is odd since nobody can identify what s wrong with her.
I can identify why I don't approve of her performance. It began with her response in an interview on when she will go to the border. She's evasive and then snarky when the interviewer corrects her (https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/06/08/kamala-harris-border-visit-i-havent-visited-europe-sot-vpx-ath.cnn). Then stories about her staff disfunction (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/12/04/kamala-harris-staff-departures/). I'm sure there's an element of racism and misogynism in her numbers, but I haven't seen any data that proves it.
That's it? A 2 minute clip from an interview filmed in GUATEMALA ( for pete's sake) where she was there addressing root causes of asylum seeking? Here is the full interview https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/harris-speaks-out-on-why-she-hasn-t-traveled-to-southern-border-114496069826 The GOP made it very clear this week that they consider going to the border a worthless political stunt. "Look at me here at the border" IS worthless especially given the resources and security an trip she or Biden take requires.
Staff turnover? Her staff turnover is comparable to previous administrations.
Racism and mysogyny? According to Bot Sentinel, a non-partisan research organization that works to combat disinformation and targeted harassment online, during the first five months of 2022 more than 4,200 tweets directed at Harris included the use of the n-word, manipulated graphic images (many lewd and pornographic) and death threats. Bot Sentinel began the research project after a group of preeminent Black women flagged to Bot Sentinel in January that Twitter was ignoring their numerous reports of abusive tweets directed at the vice president.
No VP has been scrutinized or held to a higher standard than her. She is damned if she does and damned if she doesn't. If she is too vocal and visible, people would suggest that she’s trying to control the presidency, something her predecessor Cheney was accused of. If she’s not visible enough, people focus on what she’s not doing. If she picked a single policy lane people would say she is unable to handle issues outside that subject.
I read both articles and I know Elaine.
Yes it is possible for Biden to drop out. Once again though it is a low likelihood event. If he did dropout the most likely candidate is Kamala. Why? Because all the electors are Biden/harris electors. She is actually on the ballot. If Biden dropped out, she controls the money. She is not dropping out. She is in her mid 50s and is super ambitious.
So let’s say in this 1% scenario where someone somehow convinces Biden that he can’t beat Trump (even though he beat him last time) to dropout. Now you are in all out delegate fight. Guess who has a whole campaign staff in all 50 states with 150m of cash….Kamala. Instead of using that on Trump now we got 6 or 7 dems running for president. That cash is spent on making sure she is the nominee instead of on showing how bad Trump is.
Once again, and most importantly, what democrats is polling nationally better than Biden? I’ve seen all the polls too. He is polling better than every other dem. Second is kamala. All I’m asking is if you say Biden should drop out because the polls are bad for Biden what polls show another dem will be better versus Trump? That is your whole theory unless I’m missing something. Please show me the evidence that someone will do better than Biden. That is all I’m asking.
That evidence is not there because there is no polling that I know of that shows how other Dems do against Trump. Speaking of evidence, show me evidence Biden can beat Trump. There IS actual polling on this.
Also, how do you know the funds raised by Biden/Harris go to Harris if/when Biden drops out? Did they go to Humprhey when LBJ dropped out? Or where there different rules then?
I think the key factor is whether, in the event Biden steps aside, he endorses Harris. If he does, according to Ezra Klein, no other candidates will jump in.
The most recent poll is from February 13th and 14th 2024 from Emerson college. Here are the results.
“The poll, conducted between Feb. 13 and 14, sampled 1,225 registered voters and has a margin of error of 2.7 percentage points.
Of the three hypothetical Democrat alternatives, Harris came the closest to beating Trump, trailing him by three points with 43% versus his 46%, the poll found.
Newsom, considered a rising star in the party, who has stumped for Biden, performed far worse, scoring 36% versus 46%.
Whitmer performed similarly poorly, attaining 33% versus Trump’s 45%.
Meanwhile, Biden came in just one percentage point behind Trump — with 44% versus 45%.”
That is the most recent poll of other dems. Biden is polling better than other dems. So can we agree that the other candidates are worse off than Biden according to the polls.
With respect to the cash I recommend you read Jennifer Palmieri who served as White House Director of Communications from 2013 to 2015 and Director of Communications for the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign (she ran Obama and Hillary’s 50 state ground game…hiring the staff in each state to push the dem nominee). She responds to Ezra’s essay about dropping out and choosing a president at the convention. It’s titled “a realist’s case for Biden staying in the 2024 race.”
Here is an excerpt:
“Democrats can’t afford to wait to build a new campaign. Suppose that Biden followed Klein’s advice and withdrew from the race tomorrow. It would still not be possible for the Democrats to have a nominee in place until their August convention, giving the eventual pick only 11 weeks to stand up coordinated ground operations in battleground states and make their case to America. Frankly, I find it unthinkable that Democrats would put off building their campaign infrastructure until the late summer. That work is already underway and must continue.
Democrats would be giving up a huge advantage. As the incumbent president and assumed party nominee, the Biden campaign has been raising money jointly with the Democratic Party and ended 2023 with the biggest war chest of any Democrat in history, $117 million. This compares with $42 million for the Trump campaign. If Biden were to step aside, this money would not be available for the nominee until August. Democrats have a desperately needed financial advantage over Trump, and it would be reckless to toss this aside.
Biden polls better against Trump than any other Democrat. To be fair, Biden has nationwide name recognition, which gives him a distinct advantage in polls. But the fact remains that he still polls better against Trump than potential contenders such as Vice President Kamala Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. If the polls suggested that any of these Democrats might do better than Biden, they could have challenged him. Yet, none of them thought it wise to do so and, instead, signed up to be co-chairs of Biden’s campaign.”
Once again this is over. Biden is the nominee unless he has a horrible health event and then it’s Kamala. Full stop. It’s the right choice
IS he losing? Most people aren’t paying attention, and our poll models are currently …inadequate. I seem to recall people being convinced Obama was going to lose to Romney too, and look how that turned out.
He’s only losing if you want another candidate. I’m not denying there’s unhappiness and churn, but I’m not ready to stick a fork in him.
The polls are bullshirt. Biden did better in the MI primary than the polls said he would. And in all primaries he did better than Trump.
You say this with such certainty: where is the data? Whitmer is far more popular than Biden in Michigan, for example. Biden barely leads the state against Trump and yet the generic D polls much better.
Tell me what strengths that Biden would have in November, at the end of a campaign when both candidates would be well-known, to a candidate such as Gretchen Whitmer. Then I'll shut up. But I haven't yet heard any, aside from his being a man and her being a woman. What exactly makes Biden "palatable" where other Democrats aren't?
"Palatable" is the wrong question. Any party would be thrilled to have an incumbents with Biden's presidential accomplishments.
All most of the country knows of Whitmer is that she was the target of some yahoos who were plotting to kidnap her. And that's only the people who pay attention to such things.
Because Biden is the only one who has shown any ability to survive the right-wing smear machines. They haven't Benghazied Whitmer yet so she looks great. But if she were running for President, the Whitmer Crime Family would be all you'd hear.
That's right.
Is there a Whitmer crime family? Or one that can be shaped that way? All I know about her is that she’s the D gov of MI, and a bunch of comically idiot MAGAS tried to kidnap her over Covid restrictions and being a woman and whatnot, and are now serving time.
There is more to know about her: She's won the governorship twice and by 10 points in 2022, which is a landslide in a divided country. She led the MI Dems to take control of the state House and Senate in 2022 for the first time in 40 years and she's leading the effort to keep young people in MI (unlike red OH who is bleeding their young people) by investing in the state's tech and energy industries and placemaking efforts to attract businesses, families and talent to the state (https://michiganadvance.com/2023/06/01/whitmer-takes-a-victory-lap-highlights-economic-development-plans-at-mackinac-conference/).
Well, hopefully she'll run in 4 years. She has more experience than Harris.
This is a great point Kate and from where I stand makes Biden the best bet to beat Trump. He’s weathered 3 years of impeachment inquiry, each week Republicans bask in their failure (it’s to the point I have to believe they get off on the humiliation). All of their failures would no longer be as valuable as ammunition to use against Trump and Republicans.
Yeah, the whole thing about Republicans trying to impeach Biden and it turns out they were just being played by Russian intelligence. That might turn a few heads. Their best defense is just being comically stupid. If that isn't it we start getting into criminal territory very quickly.
Yeah, I’d like to see Comer and Jordan sued for defamation and test the speech and debate clause’s power to protect against that level of stupidity and knowingly using unverified evidence that ended up coming from foreign intelligence operatives.
I wish the news about the Republican congress being infiltrated by Russian agents was a bigger story. It's seems really important to me. No one else seems to find it a bad thing.
Shouldn't the Senate be investigating the House Committee for this?
I'd like to see it from the standpoint that they'd have to use the, "we're just that stupid" defense. Personally, I think it'd hold up.
Hell, I'd love to see that as a nice softball question:
"Mr. President, will you be suing Comer and Jordan for defamation based on them using information provided by a Russian intelligence agent?"
"No I won't. My legal team informs me that being truly stupid enough to be fooled in such a way would actually be a pretty solid legal defense for them. So as embarrassing as it is for our nation to have House Committee Chairs being bamboozled by Russian intelligence operatives, they've got an air-tight legal defense."
Whitmer is not going to leapfrog the Vice President. She would have to be insane.
Yeah she will. Harris doesn't have the experience. Just like Hillary ran instead of Biden. I know his son had just died, but I think that was an excuse. They wanted Hillary, and thought she would win. Turns out the Russisns did interfere with the election.
To be fair, Hillary ran with decades of wide-ranging experience behind her.
True, she did.
Yes, and nor is anyone else. Biden is the candidate, with Harris to follow if something happens to Biden. All this nonsense about standing aside is mental masturbation and a lack of discipline and nerve.
Ding ding ding.
This idea is getting so old. It isn’t going happen. It is literally pundit masturbation. “Oprah could run and the rock could be the Vp. That’s the dem ticket!!!!”
If Biden loses you get I told you so. If he wins, “sweet. No trump.”
It’s such a boring conversation. It was fine a year ago but now?
Let's check in with you in April/May, Tracey, if Biden hasn't improved in the polls.
Sandy, I’ll save you a trip. There are no circumstances short of genuine criminality or a clear health event that would make me dump Biden. I think he’s been one of our better Presidents, and anyone who prefers Trump to him has either malign motives or a dubious grasp on reality. I don’t believe a third party candidate can win, and I don’t believe there’s any D w/a national presence to beat Biden, incl Harris. That is what happened in 2020, if you recall — Biden WAS the consensus candidate.
The fact that Whitmer, however wonderful a candidate you think her, is hardly known outside her state — and the crucial point now — WE DON’T HAVE TIME TO SWITCH CANDIDATES. Reintroducing a new candidate, pitching a new platform, *getting into the heads* of most voters, who don’t follow politics with the obsession we do, in time to pull off a win… there is no time. A year ago? Maybe. But not now. You dance w/the one what brung ya.
Dems dumped Truman for Stevenson in 1952. Stevenson lost in a landslide. LBJ dumped himself in 1968. Humphrey lost narrowly to Nixon, and George Wallace won five Deep South states that wouldn't have gone for Humphrey in a million years.
If Biden were seen as weak by party leaders and activists, he would've attracted a serious challenger, as happened in 1968 with LBJ, in 1980 with Carter, 1976 with Ford, and 1992 with GHW Bush.
A voter answering a survey saying they don't like either candidate is basically what people always say. Revealed preference on the GOP side is that whatever voters think about Trump, they think less of DeSantis and Haley.
No third party candidate has ever come close to winning an election.
Truman was not dumped by the Democrats. He declined to seek another term, March 29, 1952. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/29/truman-declines-to-seek-another-term-march-29-1952-1238358.
third party helped Clinton win in 92
And caused Gore to lose in 2000 because Ralph Nadar split the Democratic votes in Florida.
And 3rd parties will help Trump win 2024.
They could if they have forgotten the lesson they learned in 2016 and applied in 2020. That was the year of historically low numbers third party voters. They helped not only win the popular vote by 4.5 million votes, but also secure the Electoral College by a nail-biting 44,000 votes.
Do you see any sign that RFK, Jr and Cornell West are remembering either what Nader's 3rd party did to Gore's loss in FL in 2000 or what Stein's 3rd-party did to HRC's loss in 2016? I don't. Last Tuesday, RFK, Jr. qualified for the ballott in MI, GA and AZ and plans to do so in the rest of the swing states. That's where a 3rd party gives the Trump the win.
I am talking about VOTERS learning their lesson in 2016 from what Stein voters did to Hillary, applying that lesson in 2020, and whether they will still remember in 2024.
Truman was not eligible to serve a third term. He had already been president for more than seven years.
Although the 22nd amendment had been ratified by the 1952 election, Truman was grandfathered and the limit didn’t apply to him.
Actually, Truman was eligible to serve.
As this Amendment was adopted during Truman's second term, he was exempt from it. This caveat starts in the second sentence of the first paragraph.
Here is the text of the 22nd Amendment:
1: No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
2: This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states within seven years from the date of its submission to the states by the Congress.
True, but--
Truman declines to seek another term, March 29, 1952. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/29/truman-declines-to-seek-another-term-march-29-1952-1238358.
Since Truman voluntarily did not seek a 3rd term, it is inaccurate to describe him as dumped by the Democrats.
I never said he was dumped by the Democrats. Are you replying to someone else?