‘Soon,’ huh? This is starting to feel like the ‘soon’ as in ‘the Bible says Jesus is coming back soon.’
‘The party’ isn’t sitting by the phone, drumming its fingers, waiting for Biden to call. The only people whose patience is being tried are political reporters for whom a rather lively primary race between Hillary and Bernie just isn’t enough drama. And AFAIAC, they can go jump in a lake full of cowshit.
Oh c’mon, silly reporters, there’s your tipoff right there.
Well, there’s a blessing: in another month, either Biden will have declared his candidacy, or at least in every breathless story about whether he’s going to run, the media will have to mention all the states he’ll get no delegates from because he’s missed their filing deadlines. Eventually even they will have to stop treating the prospect so seriously.
adaher, was this a solid enough prediction that we can add it to your formal record, or did you weasel-word it sufficiently? We can leave that call up to you.
I think the difference is so minor and a GOP win so unlikely that i rather have the person more likely to get shit done than someone with a slightly higher chance of winning. I also don’t agree anyone has a better chance than Hillary, you are seeing her at her worst and comparing her to candidates who have not been the focus of attacks like she has. If Biden or Sander or anyone else actually managed to win the nomination and became targets they would not be faring anywhere as good as Hillary. They’d still win though, so at least there is that.
Clinton would win. Biden would win. Sanders would not. And I say this as someone who really likes the guy – a lot.
The Dems have a huge advantage over the GOP because they can field an experienced centrist candidate in either Clinton or Biden. Whereas Republicans have a bunch of lunatics and a Bush. As the saying goes, they got nuthin’. Putting in Sanders destroys that advantage because he’s so far off the mainstream – in a good way, but the American public won’t see it that way in the current political climate. Sanders would be the next George McGovern, who, IIRC, got 17 electoral college votes to Nixon’s 520.
Biden is coasting on sympathy and goofiness at the moment, his previous attempts went absolutely no where and he has done nothing in the past eight years to improve his appeal. As a real candidate he would be dead in the water.
And no potential candidate looks quite as good as he does at the moment everyone’s begging him to run, but he hasn’t jumped in yet. Wes Clark in the 2004 cycle, Ted Kennedy in 1980, hell, William Scranton on the GOP side in 1964.
If I had any artistic talent I’d whip up a cartoon of Hillary Clinton taking the oath of office while the pundits are still yammering about the possibility that Joe Biden will jump into the race.
This could turn into a variation on the last race where various not-Trump flavors of the month (like the not-Romney flavors of the month in 2012) rise and fall in turn.
The difference is that the various not-Romneys actually led the polls. That won’t happen this time because, however much the GOP Establishment might try to deny it, Donald Trump is the perfect physical avatar of the shriveled heart, blackened soul, and warped mind of the modern Republican Party.
I’m a bit less cynical – IMO Biden sees it as his duty to stand by as the “In Case Of Emergency Break Glass” candidate, and so he keeps the buzz alive for as long as possible to facilitate that if it becomes necessary.
Because this time there’s no Romney. There is no default “acceptable, electable, safe, sane” candidate to wait out the Crazies of the Month. Unless you think it’s Trump, in which case one must weep for humanity.
I think the ‘Biden’s about to decide something’ narrative won’t even interest its MSM proponents very much, now that they’ve collectively decided Hillary’s campaign is doing fine after all, despite their recent efforts to take her down.
So I think we’ll see a pretty abrupt drop, starting today, in the number of stories about whether Biden will run.
I think that’s pretty much it. I love Biden, but Hillary did well enough last night to convince me that she’s ready to beat the snot out of whichever stooge gets the Republican nomination.
Now mind you I never thought that Biden would have any chance of winning the nomination if he entered no matter when he entered, and never perceived Hillary’s campaign as being in any trouble whatsoever … but if he was ever going to enter the time was last week-end and being part of the debate.
Now that the media narrative is that Hillary with her strong performance in the debate has re-grouped, demonstrated her chops, whatever, an entry by him will be spun completely differently, more self-serving of his ego than trying to help a party whose presumptive nominee was (in the media narrative) looking vulnerable.
There was no “effort” to bring down Hillary, and there was no “decision” that she’s now fine. The mainstream media doesn’t work that way. They just need stories to tell (constantly), and they’ll tell whatever stories seem to be out there. There’s no intention.
Not a decision, but a general understanding. It was inescapable given the Benghazi Committee stuff that can’t be spun any other way, and the lack of any gaffes by her at the debate.
You might add that when there don’t seem to be any stories “out there”, they’ll substitute speculation and anonymous “sources” and generate their own.
The intention is to sell advertising. The means is to create a storyline. “Nothing new to see here.” is a boring story. So the “effort” is to create a narrative, to create some drama, to magnify anything that looks like it might create some drama.
And the media does not only seek to create the drama in the spin of how they report, they hope that how they report influences the reality that they do report to make reality more exciting.
There needs to be change to keep people clicking and tuning in, ups, downs, ups again, twists, scandals, horse race numbers to report. And the mainstream media reads each other and riff together a consistent changing storyline to follow. “She walks another one. She seems to be tired and unfocused. Will they pull her? Biden in the bullpen warming up. Hold on, maybe he is just asking Sanders for some chaw. Wait, an easy pop fly! Out! This could be a no-hitter in the making folks! Be back for the forth batter in the first after these words from our sponsors!”
According to reports citing sources close to Biden he is set to announce he is running for the Democratic nomination. Announcement could come at an event this weekend.