That isnt what anyone is saying. There is a huge gap between spreading a propaganda point, and saying “everything is fine”. I even said-
A majority of the people voted for trump, and believes that trump could lover the price of eggs, that the border was open and we were being invaded, that crime out of control and the economy was terrible- all of which were/are demonstrably false.
I dont give a rats ass what the racist MAGAs believe- it is all lies. And I dont think that us hopefully more aware and cognizant SDMBers should believe trump lies.
Democrats have also said Biden wasn’t all there. Hell, I know what I saw last summer.That’s going to potentially put anyone that was a part of his administration behind the 8 ball in 2028. To say definitively that it won’t is foolish. You need to be able to admit what our weaknesses are as a party, and Biden is a weakness at this point whether you like it or not
One way to approach the notion of a “Biden taint” is to look at whom it could possibly affect. I asked Google Gemini who among Biden’s cabinet is seen as a potential candidate. It gave me only three relevant names:
Pete Buttigieg (Secretary of Transportation)
Until he gets more executive experience or at least wins a major election (e.g., senator), I don’t think he has a chance of winning the nomination. Sure, he’s well-spoken, but he will be pushed aside easily by more experienced players. The lack of a major electoral win is what weakens him, not his sexual orientation.
Gina Raimondo (Secretary of Commerce)
Gemini says, “She has publicly stated she is considering a run for president in 2028.” Whoop-dee-doo. Same thing as for Mayor Pete: Win a big election first.
Kamala Harris
So, she’s really the only viable candidate whom the “Biden taint” could affect. And here I would say that the fact that she lost in 2024 is a much bigger negative factor than the hypothetical taint ever could be. Sure, if she runs, she will be asked about helping to cover up Biden’s decline. I think she just needs to prepare a simple boilerplate answer for that: “Since I was VP with my own staff and duties, I did not see him under the same circumstances as his close aids, etc. I had my own concerns about his health and well-being at times, but it never rose to the level of outright alarm until his debate performance.” Etc. etc. And I think that something close to that is likely the truth. The people closest to Biden saw what they saw, and maybe they were complicit in smoothing over appearances, etc., but I think people a few steps further away could remain in denial about his condition (which, I think, at the very least, appeared to be that of a tired old man who was not the best choice for presidential candidate).
Gemini also suggested:
Rahm Emanuel (Ambassador to Japan under Biden, Chief of Staff under Obama)
Clearly, there would be no more taint to him than any other Democrat who interacted with Biden not all that frequently. Plus, he would never get the nomination. He wasn’t a great Mayor of Chicago and just doesn’t have the glow upon him.
So, ultimately, the question is whether any “Biden taint” could affect Harris. I don’t think it would be a major factor for her.
Given the assumption of anyone else stepping in as the candidate under the same timing as Harris did (late July), or Biden staying in the race, I tend to agree.
An open (and, honestly, probably unanswerable) question is whether Harris would have fared any better had Biden announced in 2023 that he would not seek a second term, as well as whether there was a different Democrat who would have fared even better than Harris in that scenario.
Yes, the OT (original timeline) guarantees a loss, so it would be interesting to replay it with other candidates, but I can’t think of anyone who could plausibly have done better, especially since Harris herself would have had to be pushed aside for such a candidate, thereby pissing off a portion of the electorate (potentially women, Black women, Black voters generally, Harris fans, etc.).
I certainly think that Biden deciding not to run and our side having the chance to run a real primary would have put us in a much stronger position overall. Reasons:
Biden was an ineffective communicator as president who did not counter Trump’s messaging, etc., either before his campaign or during his campaign. The primary candidates would have been attacking Trump out of the gate, and the winner of the primary, assuming that were at least a decent candidate, would have done a better job at messaging than Biden did.
Any candidate would have had more time to prepare his/her campaign.
The weirdness of Biden’s stepping aside would not have been a factor.
The above seems pretty no-brainer to me, though there was one countervailing factor: Harris taking over from Biden arguably threw Trump and the Republicans off their game (at least at first). Nevertheless, I think holding a real primary would have put us in a stronger position.
But one big question remains: Would Harris actually have won the primary? That’s a tough one! I think if Harris did win this hypothetical primary, she would have come out of it a much stronger candidate: she would have been a winner for one thing, undoing her loss in the preceding primary election, and she would have had the above-mentioned advantage of time.
Had Biden dropped out and anointed her as his successor, and had the other members of the Democratic elite gotten heavily behind her from the start, then I think she would have won. I also don’t see anyone else as being in that strong of a position in 2024. Newsom? Whitmer? There isn’t an obvious candidate who would have blown her away. But Bernie could have tried another ego-run, thereby muddying the waters. It’s hard to know exactly what would have happened.
I have to wonder how much of a factor the “Biden taint” — real or imagined — will be in 2027, which is when the real politiking is likely to start (although it started the day after the 2024 election). Og only knows how much bushwa will be coming down the pike between now and then, but I have a sneaking suspicion it’s gonna be considerable.
Of course the GQP will be trumpeting it to the skies, but they’d be doing that if the Dems nominated Jesus Christ.
Maybe you are correct about the primaries. But in the general election, the more time the candidate has spent in office, the more fodder for oppo research.
It’s unfortunate that the logic there would lead to a preference for less qualified candidates. Perhaps there is a middle ground where the candidate has done enough to show us they can probably do the job without having too much history of making unpopular decisions. Generally speaking, having been a governor is the sweet spot there. I think having been a mayor is also enough.
Having been in congress comes with a history of unpopular votes. A short time in congress (Obama) may also be OK, but it is risky. I admit that even though my favorite is Sen. Gallego.
Running for president makes you famous. Low info voters not having heard of you is totally fine (Bill Clinton).
I don’t think there is so much of a Biden taint (although Republicans certainly will accuse anyone who has ever been in the same room as Biden of being part of his “crime family”) as there was a Biden boost in 2020 that (thankfully) did not occur in 2024.
Remember the pandemic? Pepperidge Farm remembers. Trump’s incompetence to that point had led to 500,000 deaths. Now of course some percentage of those deaths would have happened regardless but having said that, the number did not need to be that high. Half a million Americans dead. That’s the entire population of Kansas City, MO or Raleigh, NC. An entire goddamn city full of people wiped off the map by a man who thought injecting bleach and sunshine was an actual solution.
America likes chaos but not that much chaos. Biden was the path back to safety and comfort. But after four years of that, America craved chaos again. No pandemic this time so what’s the worst thing Trump could do?
In any case, I don’t wish another pandemic on the US (or anywhere else for that matter) but I think it gave Biden a boost that no one else will ever have (unless Trump finds some other way to kill half a million people again). Biden wouldn’t have been able to pull off the repeat in 2024 (and even if he did, his second term would be over already anyhow). Harris couldn’t do it in 2024 and I don’t see her finding some missing ingredient between now and 2028. She did great with what she had and she got close but not good enough.
I don’t know if we’ve met the 2028 candidate yet. I like AOC and I hope it’s her but she is divisive. The old white guys of the Democrats aren’t exciting. It has to be a new candidate, young and energizing. Someone who you want to pay attention to anytime they are on TV, like Obama. Someone who doesn’t split the party down the middle by simultaneously being too progressive (Latinx!) but also not progressive enough (“I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a genocide…”). Someone who can deftly avoid Trump’s endless gish gallops and juvenile insults (but who can hurl zingers right back if needed). I don’t know if this person exists yet but I sure hope they arrive soon. (And yes, I know I am assuming Trump will continue running for President so long as he is alive. He can prove me wrong by dying.)
On preview: I keep seeing experience listed as a crucial component. Hillary Clinton had experience. Harris had experience. Trump had none and after four years of mismanaging the US I’d say he still doesn’t have any. Why is experience so highly valued for Democrats but worthless for Republicans? You know what, maybe we have met the 2028 candidate already. Disregard experience, give me Kat Abughazaleh:
Hell, I live in the Chicago area; she’s running for the seat in a district that’s within 20 miles of where I live, she actually announced her candidacy two months ago, and I’ve not heard of her before, either. That said, I’m definitely not in the target audience for her social media presence.
For those who read the Yahoo article – that, too, was from two months ago, and in the time since then, the incumbent, Jan Schakowsky, has announced that she will not seek another term.
The Democrats’ 2028 podcast primary is well underway.
From Govs. Gavin Newsom of California, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan to former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, potential presidential contenders are following the lead of President Donald Trump, who frequently went on podcasts appealing to younger men during his 2024 campaign.
Liberal strategists acknowledge Trump showed that Democratic candidates need to master the podcast space, which is typically looser and more freewheeling than a press conference or a traditional media interview.
“The way that politicians communicate and need to be seen by their audience is changing,” said Liz Minnella, who fundraised for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and this year launched Connect Forward, a group to support liberal influencers. “I hate to give him credit, but he found a way to connect with people, talk to them like human beings in non-political speak.”
…
I don’t think a candidate’s association to Biden will hurt support within the core Democratic voting block, but it will hurt with the independent, mercurial, and easily swayed voters. The Republicans will call the candidate things like “Another Biden bozo” and “One of Biden’s corrupt cronies”. The risk is not that core Democratic voters will be siphoned off with those attacks. The risk is that people who are not firm in their political beliefs will fall for those attacks. A Democratic candidate can’t win with just the core Democratic voters. They will also need lots of votes from people whose votes sway with the wind. Unless a Biden associate is charismatic enough to overcome those predicable attacks, it’s probably not worth the risk. While the people from the last administration have a lot of visibility and name recognition, they are not unique in their ability to run the country. Lots of other Democrats have the ability to run the country as well. And frankly, there aren’t a lot of people from Biden’s administration who have the kind of charisma and electricity needed to get people excited to vote for them. They were very capable at their jobs, but few were interesting and compelling enough to get the public and press talking about them. Above all else, a winning candidate will need to get people excited to vote for them. It’s not enough to just be capable.
Who they have to depend on to more than compensate for those who’d rather not vote if the candidate is not “right” about everything. Because we know in spite of all that has happened there will be people doing that.
For what it’s worth, that article quotes her as saying:
What it doesn’t mention is that, according to her Wikipedia entry, she has a partner, a journalist and businessman named Ben Collins. Collins previously worked for the Daily Beast and MSNBC, and is currently the CEO of Global Tetrahedron, the parent company of The Onion, and which recently attempted to purchase InfoWars.
In the quote above, Abughazaleh is painting herself as a person who’s living hand-to-mouth, while the reality seems to be that she has a partner who is undoubtedly making a pretty danged good living.
Also, she only moved to the Chicago area last summer, and doesn’t currently reside in the Ninth District (for which she has declared her candidacy) – my understanding is that that’s allowable, as long as she resides in the state. However, the Ninth has a large Jewish population; the current representative, Jan Schakowsky, is Jewish, as are two other announced candidates for the Democratic nomination, Daniel Biss (currently mayor of Evanston) and Laura Fine (currently a state senator). Given the past few years, it may be a serious uphill climb for a Palestinian-American to win the nomination for that seat.