If the convention picked someone, the fact that they had a D over their name would bring everyone in to rally and support them.
Consider that if you put Biden’s political positions against every other Democrat running for the position in 2020, he was way out right of all of them. He’s closer to Reagan than to the average, modern Democrat. Nevertheless, every single serious Democrat is, at this very moment, rallying and supporting the guy.
Trump’s positions are pro-gay (but minus marriage), pro-union, pro-big government, pro-worker protection, pro-criminal justice reform in favor of the defendant, anti-war… Minus immigration and political correctness, he’s closer to a modern Democrat (and he is precisely a mid-20th century Southern Democrat) than Biden is and yet, to the modern Republican, he’s the true and only anointed Orange Jesus.
The letter over the name takes precedence over everything else.
A president is not a quarterback or a relief pitcher. “We’re not renewing your contract” says a lot more about one’s overall performance than “we’re going to have you sit out this game,” and not renominating the incumbent is the former, not the latter.
There’s a good reason a party with the incumbency usually doesn’t challenge the incumbent in primaries, and it isn’t because the party is stale, or stolid, or a “good ole’ boys” club, or needs shaking up. If you put up a candidate in 2020 and say he’s the best for the job, and then after three-plus years in office sub in someone else as your 2024 candidate, aren’t you saying he’s done a bad job as President?!
The opposition will surely say so, anyway. If the party dumps Biden, about 30 seconds later they’ll be a flood of ads and social media posts asking “Why vote for the Dems if the man they picked in 2020 has been so bad at his job that they dumped him?”
As to picking someone else because we’ll jettison Biden’s “old man” baggage, we’ll just be substituting different baggage. Newsom? California is the land of fruitcakes, blackouts, and burned-out cities! Buttigieg? Gay, and East Palestine derailment! AOC? Screaming radical!
Bernie? Angry socialist and older than Biden! I don’t have to agree with any of those takes to know they’ll be plastered all over social media and ads. Throwing Biden under the bus doesn’t buy the Dems a smoother road to keeping the White House.
To those who are saying “this happens every election, there’s no reason to panic”:
Wrong.
It is very, very rare for two-thirds of viewers (per the CNN poll) to agree on who won the debate. It is very rare for a candidate to screw up badly in a way that precisely aligns with the opposition’s main point against him. And yes, debates, especially lopsided debates, have historically led to significant and enduring shifts in the polls.
It’s panic time. Somehow, incredibly, we are in a world where the Democrats are probably going to lose this election. And it is by no means obvious to me that sticking with Biden is the better of our bad options. There’s no practical way to replace him as the nominee without his consent, so if he agrees to withdraw, it can be done in a somewhat face-saving “must withdraw due to health condition” way.
Not at all true. Klobuchar and Bloomberg were clearly running to Biden’s right, and arguably Buttigieg. Biden’s political genius has always been his ability to position himself right at the middle of the Democratic ideological spectrum, which means he’s been moving steadily leftward since the 1970s. I don’t think you’ll find many Democrats who would argue that he hasn’t done a good job, but that’s different from arguing that there’s no reason to suspect he might not do as good a job at age 86.
On a related note, I see many people on Reddit pointing to the fact that Biden (up til now) had been holding leads of 2-4% in the polls and therefore that all was well. What they forgot was that Biden won the popular vote in the last election by 5% and yet still came only within a cat’s whisker in GA, WI and AZ of losing the election - beating Trump by only 44,000 votes in those states combined.
So if even a 5% lead only eked Biden through to victory by the narrowest of margins (thanks, Electoral College,) then 2-4% leads were already cause for alarm. And in the wake of last night’s debate, I wouldn’t be surprised if we find out soon that Trump is leading by 2-4% in polls.
But what about as VP? Harris is the most qualified canidate for POTUS in either party and Newsom would make an awesome match on the ticket. And what if Biden resigned due to health issues? Wouldn’t Harris be able to use the funds they had already collected. It would totally shake up the race.
That and she would be able to run twice if she wins.
The Constitutional issue is that a state cannot award its Presidential and Vice-Presidential electors to two residents of that state. So California could not award electors to both Harris and Newsom on the same ticket (and no Democrat can be elected without California). The work around is for one of the two to change their residency prior to the election.
To make clear that I’m simply addressing the factuality of your statement (which is in the next paragraph, not this one), I should first make clear that I think the Democrats could easily avoid any nailbiting by simply electing some true moderate - Joe Manchin, Steve Bullock, etc. It would just be quickly and easily in the bag. Moreover, I think it is - as many have said - completely ridiculous that the candidates are both plausibly senile (in different ways) and pretty well both rejected by the majority of the country. Either party could just walk away with the Presidency by simply putting forward some normal and reasonable human.
But, factually, you can’t compare the previous polling to the new polling because the fudge factors on all of the polls have been adjusted. In both previous elections, Trump outperformed expectations, so the polls fudged things more in his favor the following cycle.
It remains to be seen whether they’ve underadjusted, overadjusted, or hit it just right.
Why do you think it would be “easily in the bag”, though?
Manchin is like the Bat in Aesop’s fable “The Birds, the Beasts, and The Bat” – he’s “a liberal” to Trumpists, and he “repeatedly kneecapped Biden’s legislative agenda” to many Democrats. I don’t think Manchin is well-liked by q broad enough swath of voters to make hay against Trump in a national election.
Bullock I’d have to read up on. I can’t say he has name recognition going for him – to me, he’s a cipher. Bullock would “easily” beat Trump, you say?
The more you target the general population, the better you do in the general election. The less that you do that, the worse you perform.
Put up Obama versus RFK Jr and Obama wins. Put up Manchin versus Marjorie Greene and Manchin wins.
Now, within the party - i.e. during the primary process - maybe that’s not so true. Maybe Bloomberg doesn’t look too sexy to the DNC compared to Ilhan Omar. That doesn’t mean that Bloomberg would lose to Donald Trump. Omar might lose to Trump, she might win, it would be a nailbiter. It’s a contest I wouldn’t want to bet serious money on.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is not an accurate proxy for Donald Trump IMHO. Not particularly close, either.
I don’t see Joe Manchin having that big-tent popularity. For one, I consider him staunchly conservative and definitely not a moderate, but let’s call him a moderate for the sake of argument. Is being “a moderate” attractive enough for Manchin to win over the large group of Democratic voters opposed to him for so frequently opposing Biden’s legislation?
From where I’m sitting, I’d be asking “Who’s Manchin trying to fool here?” Personally, I’d be forced to vote for Manchin because “keep Trump out” is just that important. But I feel like A LOT of usual Democratic voters would be happy to stay home rather than come out for Manchin.
Again, Ilhan Omar not a good proxy for the U.S. body politic. This whole line of argument – that there are Democrat presidential candidates sitting on the sidelines that could step in for Biden and “easily” defeat Trump in the general – just falls totally flat for me.
OK, I’ve read up some on Steve Bullock (former Democratic governor of Montana). I could subscribe to his newsletter. He reminds me a lot of recent two-term Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards, who would be a dream Democratic presidential candidate but doesn’t seem to have national ambitions.
Right now, about two-thirds of the criticism of Biden is that he’s too old. If Democrats nominate some 50-year old man or woman, that portion of the criticism immediately evaporates into thin air - and that candidate could simply espouse the exact same policies and platform as Biden. Indeed, it would suddenly turn age into a Democratic advantage since now all the focus on senility, aging and cognitive decline then turns to the 78-year old Trump.
Not only that, but how do you pick that replacement? The Harris supporters are going to be upset it you pick Newsom, while the Bernie Bros will revolt if its anyone but their guy. There is no established protocol for this situation and so the only possible result is hurt feelings a chaotic convention, a fractured party and Trump winning at a walk in November.
It may be that what needs to be done is to force this into a referendum on Trump and Trumpism. Make it clear to the voters that its better to have a geezer than a gangster in the white house.