I’m not trying to make the situation less messy, I’m trying to bring it to a head. Let the Democrats either get behind Biden or get behind telling him it’s time to go, And since most of the 40 calling for him to step aside are members of the House, they’re up for reelection in November. Their constituents will tell them whether they made the right decision.
We’re less than 150 days from an election we all agree is vitally important, and the Democrat candidate is taking fire from his own party. Unless they have the guts to do what the Republican Senators did in 1974 when they met face to face with Nixon and told him it was time to go, then they should STFU and try to get out the vote in their own districts.
And FTR, the 25th Amendment can’t be invoked without the agreement of the Vice President, so that’s the check and balance in my rant.
It is either Biden or Harris, anything else is a smoke filled room deal that the voters wont accept
Yes, end his campaign. Not "his ability to be President.*
Sure, but you know what- according to that biased and bogus NYT article- about 40 said Biden should step aside. But 75 said in that same article that Biden should be the candidate. That is about two to one, and much more than a majority. So, the politicians that said Biden should stay in went “on and on” twice as long as those that want him to drop out.
And you made up that crap about his ability to be President.
It is almost inconceivable that Joe drops out.
Okay,= Biden is not doing great in the polls- often a couple points less than trump.
But no other Dem polls as well as Biden does.
So if we are basing this on polls Biden stays in.
No one wants Joe to resign his office- well except Republicans. That would be a disaster.
What a few Dems are wanting is for Biden to let Harris be the Nominee, not Biden.
And even if Biden resigned his office- he would still be the Democratic Nominee for president.
That’s analogous to my own house representative reportedly and repeatedly telling Biden, in a group meeting I linked to before, that he’s losing Pennsylvania.
It took a few years for the books to come out with what actually went on with Nixon. Same will be true with Biden. For all we know, Pelosi has been privately more forceful with Biden than Goldwater was with Nixon. But it probably was about the same. No one decent likes humiliating others who they have admired and respected.
Just checking Betfair, and Hillary Clinton has a higher than 5% implied odds of being the Den Nominee and 2.5% of being President. This can’t be serious surely? Hillary Clinton?
I believe (based mostly on feelings) there’s a high likelihood that Biden has already made his decision, or is 90% there and will have made it very shortly, to step down as candidate (but not President). But any stepping-down will be highly orchestrated, and thus probably won’t happen immediately.
My WAG on what will happen within the next 10 days or so:
Biden’s team will announce a new medical concern/diagnosis (not serious enough for hospitalization)
Biden will retreat home to Delaware to discuss things privately with family
Lots of praise and concern from high profile Democrats
After a day or two Biden will announce due to medical concerns, he won’t be able to keep up a vigorous campaign schedule, and thus will focus full time on being President and step down as presumptive nominee. He will praise Harris and possibly endorse her but it won’t be anything like “Harris will replace me as nominee”.
Tons of praise from Democratic leadership for both Biden and Harris, along with lots of endorsements for Harris but nothing that smacks of a coronation. Democrats will have a coordinated message that “Harris is wonderful and ready to serve but the rules of the Democratic convention mean that the delegates will be free to support whom they wish”.
Some token minor Democrats (probably Congress back-benchers) will announce they will run for the nomination and make their case to delegates. Most other Democrats will endorse Harris.
There will be very brief campaigning prior to the August delegate vote (for Ohio). It will all be positive. No one will attack Harris. Most high profile Democrats will endorse Harris.
The August delegate vote will occur and overwhelmingly nominate Harris in a landslide. A second ceremonial vote will occur to ask for unanimous support and it will succeed.
The Democratic convention will be all about celebrating Biden’s life of service and hyping Harris. It will succeed in that the vast majority of Democrats will be excited to vote for Harris in the fall.
All my wild-ass-guess. Let’s see what kind of guesser I am.
Women vs two male fascists poll not quite as good as Harris and Shapiro
According to pollster Sarah Longwell, Harris could be in with a good chance of winning the election if she runs against Trump and Vance because Vance makes it easier to paint the Trump ticket as culturally extreme and pro-insurrection.
“He’s got mini-fascist all over him,” she told New Republic, citing his views on abortion which she says wreck his approval ratings with swing voters.
In contrast to Trump, Vance has opposed abortion rights, apparently even in the case of incest or rape, only making an exception for when the mother’s life is in danger.
“It’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term,” he told an Ohio news outlet in 2021. “It’s whether a child should be allowed to live, even though the circumstances of that child’s birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society.” Kamala Harris Can Beat Donald Trump With This Running Mate, Polls Suggest - Newsweek
iiandyiiii has nailed it. I will add:
10) the Dems will cruise to a victory over Trump/Vance—this is more than wishful thinking (though it is that, too). I think this (late switching up of Dem tickets) is a great strategic move to counteract the GOP strategy, much ramped up in recent years, of maligning the Dem frontrunner personally as sick, diseased, criminal, child-molesting etc. (as opposed to the traditional “we think s/he’s wrong on major policy issues”). The GOP has sunk most of its efforts on the assumption that Biden is feeble and senile (when they haven’t been suggesting that he’s also a criminal mastermind heading up a devious crime family, of course) but now they’ll have to lay a whole other narrative about Harris, or Whitmer, or Newsom, or whoever.
And now Trump is the elderly candidate, the one who drools and babbles nonsense, the doddering old grandpa past his expiration date. Just considered strategically, this is a brilliant move, and one the Dems and Biden ought to have made months ago, though doing it at this late date does give the GOP even less time to spin their new line of bullshit about the Dem candidate. What that will be, who knows? Harris is a sexual deviant, Whitmer is an inexperienced incompetent, Newsom is a communist—who knows, and who cares? It won’t have time to sink in enough to make a difference.
Exactly. In a race featuring an 81-year old vs. a 78-year old, whichever party ditched their nominee first in favor of a younger one would gain a big advantage.
(Or, as someone said, this election is a choice between an 81-year old who behaves like he’s 100 versus a 78-year old who behaves like he’s 10.)
This is unrealistic. In real life, political consultants maintain piles of opposition research on everybody. You can expect there’s a mountain on Kamala ready to be dumped.
And I would want to add, if a plan depends on Republicans going “ah geez, now we have to admit our guy is too old if we don’t want to look like hypocrites”, I have some unfortunate news for you.
Apparently, donations to Biden’s campaign have plummeted.
The fallout from the call comes as donations to the Biden-Harris campaign and Democratic groups have plummeted and as Harris has been deployed several times to speak with donors as questions swirl over Biden’s future on the ticket.
The call with donors started with presentations from field organizers who expressed anger at the ongoing debate within the Democratic Party about backing Biden, given what they’ve seen and heard from voters on the ground, according to one source with direct knowledge of the discussion.
One source said before Harris joined there seemed to be an effort to stall, which they said is normal for events with high-ranking officials. But what angered many donors, this source said, was that during the wait — which was about 20 minutes — donors were “admonished.” Participants of the call were told they needed to “lock in and get behind” Biden and to not pursue efforts to push out the president.
The DNC is really giving a corporate “HR-speak” vibe right now. It feels like executives or HR insisting that everything is fine with the company when all the lower-level employees know something’s off.
Congressman Clyburn supports Biden…unless Biden changes his mind. He also supports an open process to choose a new nominee should Biden decide to step down.
*I watched live but it might be helpful to read a transcript.
For those who think Obama pressuring Biden to step down would be or is (depending on what you believe of those “with knowledge of”) influential on Biden - maybe counterproductive?
Biden’s mindset may be that he listened to that advice once, that someone else was more sure to win and hold off, for the good of the country, only to see that person blow it. Obama telling him the same now could be perceived as a bit “rich.”
Obama’s expertise in this matter is likely not held in high regard by Biden currently.
To my mind, the question isn’t whether he holds Obama’s expertise in high regard; the question is, what does Biden think will happen if Obama makes it clear — to voters who think more highly of Obama than of Biden — that ol’ Joe Biden is a slackjawed octogenarian who, if asked to waddle up to a microphone and say “six,” will try his best but instead mutter “Green Arrow?”