No, I’ve got it right. Did you read AOC’s comments upthread? She explicitly noted that the congressmen who are saying Biden should drop out, in those proverbial smoke-filled rooms she has access to, are talking about what “their donors” want and not “their voters”.
Citizens United has rotted our electoral process to the point where the wealthy are trying to buy a presidential nomination through the congressmen they control, and the media is abetting it. And as she notes, their plans and y’all’s’s “everyone falls in line behind Harris” plans do not align. They want her gone too.
Just did. Not very impressed. Still though agree with her dissing anyone who says the race is over if Biden is the candidate.
In your reality, in which a majority of Democratic voters are not actually concerned, and the polling is all skewed to Trump, in which this desire to have Biden pass the torch is just big money driven through people like Pelosi bought off, and those big money folk won’t let it be Harris, who do you think “they” want and why?
I understand you were asking Smapti, but If you’re talking about Pelosi, she’d skew to Newsom. Both privileged fucktards.
Here we go! The entertainment factor of preceding elections matters again. “All is skewed to Trump”? All was skewed to Hillary, skewed toward the red wave… Name all the polls, how many were asked and in what region and taken by whom? CNN? Great. I’m the CEO of Locrian Network, I polled 500 people and they all voted for Trump. Election over, bury heads.
My argument is that polling is altogether broken and is no longer a reliable indicator of anything. Phone polling is based on the expectation that the average person will answer a cold call from an unknown number (which pretty much nobody under the age of 50 does in this day and age where cold-callers are almost always bill collectors or scammers), online polling is extremely easy to manipulate (Michael Cohen has talked about how he manipulated online polls for Trump in 2016), in-person polling is impractical, and all three depend on the person being polled to be honest (which is hardly a given in a day and age where people can make a full-time living off of being trolls).
If a poll told me that 98% of Americans expect the sun to rise tomorrow, I wouldn’t take it for granted that it will.
If I actually took a poll call/text, what would stop me from supporting Trump, Project 2025, and I wish Ivanka was the VP, cause she’s hot like her daddy said?
I certainly don’t believe that, but now I think it might be a good idea from hearing about polls and polls and Silver and other morons who buy this stuff to have any merit in the media.
It’s a nice argument. The hole in it is the complete lack of supporting evidence.
Polling is certainly not perfect but given the technically changed world the surprising thing to me is how good it has been.
Manipulating an online poll, doable. Manipulating the aggregation of polls done by various techniques, Sith level dark forces.
Which does not mean they are perfect predictions machines. They are not. They measure the temperature at a particular moment with an imprecise noisy thermometer. Actual behaviors may vary. There may be new systemic errors. In a closely divided electorate a miss of 1% is the difference between the binary choice. So on.
Still a consistent rock solid pattern is rock solid.
I think this is a real problem with Biden dropping out.
If Biden resigned, it would be easy for Harris to say that the decline was gradual, as is totally normal in such a situation, and thus I didn’t recognize it as serious until the last month. This is true for me personally, scouts honor!
But Harris would also be challenged on using the 25th amendment. She would be under pressure to, defend why she, and cabinet colleagues, today, knowing that Biden is no longer well-qualified to do the world’s hardest job, fail to invoke the 25th amendment. Maybe a response here will give me a better idea here, but I think she would dodge the 25th amendment question, and that swing voters would dislike the dodge.
This is NOT to suggest a different replacement candidate. Any replacement Democrat would be challenged where they stand on Biden remaining in office, and there seems to be no good answer.
I’m not saying this issue would be fatal. Fair-minded voters know that lost of fluid intelligence is a gradual process and there thus is messiness as it progresses.
I think that this has been handled very poorly. After the debate, I think Biden could have recovered if he had been given the chance. However, everyone panicked which caused the donors to panic which made everything worse. That is not to say that Biden is fully capable of serving another four years. I do think that there has been some shielding of just how much he has been slowing down but it might have been possible to keep up the deception until after the election.
However, after the debate, the Democrats who were already worried about Biden got more concerned. Once the donors joined in and the money started to dry up it all snowballed. Biden got more indignant and more dug in which made others push back which led to the public calls for him to step down. The way things are now, with the vast majority of Americans convinced that he is too old, they can’t go back to fully supporting him.
No question that Biden is getting screwed over here but at the same time I suspect he has benefited from the Democratic establishment covering for him recently.
There are two thing to look at. First, how can Trump be beaten. Whatever you feel about it, Biden has probably been irreparably damaged at this point. The most vulnerable qualities Trump has are his dishonesty, his age and his mental fitness. At this point Biden cannot be used as a counterpoint to these. You need someone younger, active and able to speak clearly and concisely in discussing the improvements made in the past four years and the plans for the future. Trump’s relative physical weakness can be used against him. His gaffes can also be used against him. However, the only way for this to happen is if the Democrats can unite behind one candidate.
The other issue is who can govern for the next four years and I don’t see Biden being able to do it.
I think at this time the Democrats are probably completely screwed. I am not sure they still have the ability to unite behind one candidate and sell it. Without Biden on board it’s impossible. At this point, though , even having Biden step aside makes the Democrats look like they are either disloyal to Biden or else have been covering for him.
I think at this time the best hope is to get someone who can articulate clearly the absolute horror that awaits with Trump as president again and the positive alternatives the Democratic party does offer. This should not be a hard sell.
I don’t agree with this. It’s a perfectly plausible position – and indeed one that is probably quite accurate – to say that Biden is perfectly capable of serving out his term, but not another 4½ years.
I think this is likely what occurred. It was self-perpetuating. But I also take a realpolitik perspective on this election. Whether or not Joe is getting screwed, we are where we are. And I pray the real influencers are arriving at their decisions in a thoughtful, disciplined, fact-based manner. It has been a real panic since the debate.
As you pointed out, there’s only one important question: Now, given where we are, what gives us the best chance of beating Trump? If it’s Joe, stop with the gnashing of teeth and fall in line. If it’s not, cut bait.
Dems always seem have the kid’s gloves on. Reps know no bottom while dems seem to think being above the fray is the best route.
It no longer isn’t. Reps threw the rule book out that Dems are playing by long ago.
I know the quote about wrestling with a pig but, frankly, staying “clean” isn’t working well at all.
Time to publicly call Trump out for the shitstain he is. I am amazed that no one has been able to goad Trump in a debate. I can’t imagine anyone easier to do it to.
If the Democrats were to join the GOP as a “keep up the deception” party, what is the point in being a Democrat? I guess you could answer with issues like abortion, but that’s not good enough for me.
I think that Democrats are handling an impossible situation reasonably well. Biden has slowed down, or whatever we want to call it, since the primary filing deadlines late last year, and probably in just the last month or two. His press conference, and Lester Holt interview, did not give confidence. And there is no need to be deceptive. Democrats are not being punished in the polls for giving honest opinions on whether Joe should stay in the race.
Why did Haley endorse Trump? Obviously she wants a position in his administration to moderate his impulses. Talk about deception!
Taking away the keys is difficult. You do not want to wait for the next accident AKA September debate. But you do not want to humiliate grandfather either.
People around Biden care about the country, and also care about their friend, and are doing well in a hard situation.
I would absolutely love to write Biden’s withdrawal speech. He could make it an all-time classic. I would love to see him address his supporters like this:
“I want to talk to the 14 million people who supported me in the primary and may be angry at me for what you see as quitting. I want you to know that I’m not quitting. The things that I have been fighting for for 50 years, an economy that benefits everyone, not just the wealthy, a country that stands with its allies and helps to make the world safer and a country where anything is possible, where a regular guy from Scranton PA can grow up to be President and that guarantees to all of its citizens a safe environment, good jobs and the opportunity for health care- in short Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness- I still believe in those things and I won’t stop fighting for them.
If you have supported my candidacy then I hope it was not just because you supported me but because you too believe in these ideals. Our country cannot be dependent on one individual; in order to survive and thrive, the government has to to outlive any one administration.
If you believe in this things then I hope you will join me in throwing your vote behind ( candidate of choice). We have accomplished so much in the past 3 1/2 years but there is so much left to do and I trust ( candidate) to continue to work to get it done. I am going to be here right beside all of you, continuing to work for what I believe.
During the next Presidential term, America will celebrate her 250th anniversary. The Founding Fathers wanted a country that would not be dependent on any one man but could continue to grow and thrive with each new generation. We have the chance now to move forward or to look back and I want this country to move forward. I will be out there supporting this new generation eager to continue what we have started and I.hope that you will be with me throwing all your support along with mine to the party and (candidate) who can continue what we have started.”