Correct usage is to address former Presidents and VPs by the last title they had prior to that office. (Senator Obama, Governor Bush, Governor Clinton, etc). However, common usage is as you’ve described it. It also gets a little tricky when you’re referring to events during that President’s term of office. For instance, it’d be a bit weird to say that Senator Obama made the decision to kill Bin Laden.
Stylistically, I think Booker is the best suited to take on Trump and win. He is smooth on his feet, he can hit his opponents hard and remain likable, he can verbally battle, and he’s physically huge (and shit like this matters to Trump). There’s just something I like about him, and I think his style could appeal to the midwestern blue collar households. I just think he focuses too much on stuff that’s meant to win the black vote in the primary, rather than the electoral vote in the general. And if he keeps on focusing on “race stuff,” he’s just creating the GOP’s talking points for them.
My high school chemistry teacher always said nuculus and nucular.
IMO Biden will maintain his lead as it was pre debate. He did not land a big blow but he had a solid defence this time. More policy details too.
The biggest error Harris made is constantly namechecking him. Each time she tried to jab at him was one more chance for Biden to talk and he was better prepared to handle it.
Booker and Yang made good points. Inslee decent. Castro and Bennet had their moments but I found both a bit rigid. Gabbard got the big blows in, De Blasio has personality but acted like a moderator at times, and Gillibrand was totally vain.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/31/politics/who-won-democratic-debate--who-won-democratic-debate-night-2/index.html
*LOSERS
Kamala Harris: The California senator learned on Wednesday night how much harder it is to be the target rather than the targeter. From the start, Biden came at Harris on her record as California attorney general. But so did Gillibrand and Sen. Michael Bennet (Colorado). And boy oh boy, did Gabbard come after her – dropping the opposition research book on Harris on her record in California. Harris at times effectively parried those attacks, but she didn’t do it enough. On health care and criminal justice reform, she struggled to defend repeated attacks on her record; she wound up simply saying that everything everyone else on stage wasn’t telling the truth about her record. Really, everyone? Harris didn’t perform badly; she simply didn’t live up to the high expectations that she set for herself in the first debate.
**“…for whatsoever a WOman soweth, that shall She also reap.”
**
I said that turning on Biden like she did wouldnt work out for her, and her record as AG is hard to defend.
Joe Biden: Boy, was this a tough call. I went back and forth on Biden’s performance throughout the two hours. On the one hand, Biden was WAY more active, energetic and forceful in this debate than in the first debate in Miami. But that alone doesn’t make him a winner. The truth is that this was a deeply uneven debate for the former vice president. He was, in places, quite strong – particularly when he was going after Sen. Kamala Harris (California) and Booker (New Jersey). But Biden was much less confident when he was under attack – especially, again, when the topic turned to race and criminal justice reform, though as the frontrunner, he did withstand fire through the entire debate. Biden also struggled in several answers to spit out the right words at the right time. And he continued to stop himself in mid-thought and immediately stop talking when his time ran out. Add it all up and I believe that Biden wound up doing just enough to quiet – if not silence – questions about whether he is up to the job. That, plus Harris’ struggles, get the former vice president into the “win” column. Barely.
I still find Gabbard charismatic. She seems to have a talk forever stamina that reminds me of Obama. But she speaks in kind of Trumpy dark tones. But she just has a politician’s self command. I don’t know about POTUS, but she’s got skills.
I’d also add attacking Obama’s presidency as a means to attacking Biden is futile. As Vice President, Biden has to own the record but rank and file Democrats admire Obama. He is still the most popular Democrat in the country. Watching Trump tear his achievements apart out of spite, then telling Democratic voters “they weren’t that good anyway” is a lousy message.
So how’s that gonna work with your next ex-President? :dubious:
Easy. As he was never Vice President, nor Secretary of anything, nor a Representative, nor a Senator, nor an ambassador or consul, then he is simply a “Mister.” As in, “Mr. Trump.”
It’s hard to know just how accurate it is, but if Google Trends are any indication, it appears that the 2nd debate was a flop compared to the previous night. None of the candidates generated much buzz. Biden and Andrew Yang seem to have received the most search interest. During the debate, I though De Blasio, Harris, Castro, and Booker all succeeded in making Biden uncomfortable, but none of them did anything to stand out. And as others have pointed out, I think Biden ‘won’ just by putting up more of a fight this time.
FWIW, the candidates who passed my eye test in terms of making the most of their speaking opportunities, I’d have to say that Gillibrand, Yang, and Gabbard earned that distinction. All three were given more speaking time and made the most of it. Gillibrand was especially impressive in terms of substance. That doesn’t necessarily improve her standing, however.
Actually, the whole post, but this part mostly. Last night was a prison brawl and the biggest target got the most rocks thrown at him. A 50 year political career presents lots of cherries for your adversaries to pick, so in that light I’m kind of impressed nobody came up with any real stingers for uncle Joe. A couple “product of his time” critiques, or votes he’d made without including his rationale (which he did a good job of defending). But by the end of the night I wondered if he was maybe working out how he could dip out of this race gracefully. I think Biden has been a workhorse, and that he alone has the experience to rebuild the government that Trump has so thoroughly corrupted. But I don’t think he’s the right POTUS. Sec of Staff maybe?
Apart from that spectacle, I didn’t get particularly worked up about anyone. I decided I don’t like Harris at all, although I do like a lot of her ideas. I have to reconcile that. Yang was good but he doesn’t have much presence, and I’m still not convinced about universal income.
Having 10 people debates going on nearly 3 hours up to 11pm six months before the first vote is counted is a bit silly tbh. What makes it worse people being cut mid-sentence to fit for time. Game shows have the rule “I’ve started so I’ll finish” yet candidates for President get 30 seconds to answer a question, then get hit for lacking substance.
Furthermore Warren has largely been considered one of the big winners on both the MSNBC and CNN debate but because she was with the perceived “weaker group” people are holding back in giving her too much credit. She and Sanders treated each other with kid gloves too. It’s all a bit overhyped.
The field needs to get smaller and Biden, Warren, Sanders and Harris need to be on the stage together.
If he gets the nomination, the Republicans are going to paint a hammer and sickle on his forehead. He’s a self-identified socialist. Uneducated white male voters are going to cash their socialist Social Security checks, drive on the socialist roads to see a doctor using their socialist Medicare, take a crap into the socialist sewer system, and then go to the precinct to vote against socialism. It’s stupid as all hell, but so are they.
Or if there is a God, address him as Inmate Number 1018457.
No. Correct usage, with two exceptions, is that former officeholders are referred to as Mr. or Ms. LastName. The exceptions are for former governors and ambassadors. No one knows exactly why this is, but it is so. Two examples:
George Aiken served as Vermont’s Governor for four years in the late 1940s and then served 34 years as Senator. After his retirement from the Senate he was correctly referred to as “Governor Aiken” for the remainder of his life, and is still so called today. (Aiken was the one who famously stated his policy recommendation for Viet Nam as “declare we have won and get out”.)
Similarly, Elliot Richardson, who served as Ambassador to the United Kingdom for two years, and also one point or another held almost every other office in Washington below that of Vice President, was referred to as Ambassador Richardson for the rest of his life. (He was the one who refused to fire the Watergate Special Prosecutor.)
You will find many examples of journalists referring to former presidents as “President Carter”, “President Clinton”, and “President Obama” after all of these worthies left office, but that is incorrect usage. (For some reason, Republicans are more often correctly referred to as “former President George H. W. Bush”, former President George W. Bush", etc.)
I came away certain of one thing: Biden muffed it. Proving once again that he makes a far better sidekick than leader.
“Convict 45”.
Works as a nickname and a slogan.
It’s just treated as the courteous thing to do. Jimmy Carter hasn’t been President for almost 40 years but if you talk to him he is President Carter or Mr President because that’s what we all know him for. To people of Georgia he was their Governor but he was not my Governor. He was our President.
Mr Carter just sounds off.
I think Biden ‘won’ just by fighting back more, so I’m not sure I’d agree that he ‘muffed it’ last night. However, more than once, the thought that flashed in my mind was that he looks old. He looks like he’s a forgetful, bumbling old man, and I don’t like saying that about Biden because I think he’s basically a decent guy. But decency alone ain’t gonna beat Trump. Say what one will about Mango Mussolini, but for a 73-year-old man he comes across as younger and more energetic than even some people 10 years his junior, mainly attributable to his brusque, occasionally vulgar speaking style. He’s 73 but sometimes sounds like an 18-year-old frat boy. It would be a bad contrast to have a menacing, aggressive Trump hectoring an aging, bumbling Biden on a debate stage.
The rationale I’ve heard is that there is only one President, so it’s incorrect to refer to a former prez by that title. But since there are multiple governors and senators at any time, you can call a prez “Senator” without any confusion. Not sure that’s logically water-tight, but there it is.