My man Joe had a good interview on CNN last week. Looking forward to the Biden presidency.
New poll from Morning Consult:
Biden: 30% (-2)
Sanders: 21% (+1)
Warren: 15% (-2)
Buttigieg: 9% (+1)
Harris: 5%
Yang: 4% (+1)
Bloomberg: 2% (-1)
My first thought it is the Warren surge to frontrunner was short-lived. She got more pressing about how to pay for her plans in that time than the previous six months combined among the democrats and it’s hit her candidacy.
My second thought is in this primary Biden is teflon. He’s been predicted to be doomed for months yet here he is still where he needs to be. He was already leading the polls months before announcing his candidacy and now he’s been in seven months officially and still leads per the poll trackers. Moreover he’s yet to have a debate where he’s really come out better than he went in and we’re almost halfway through the debate cycle. Plus Trump/GOP congressmen are trying to take him down to save their own backs. It’s very polarising because he seems to be the weakest frontrunner the dems have had in several cycles because you got people polling at 1% trolling him on stage as out of touch and befuddled, yet his durability is underrated.
Biden will be the nominee. He was *always *going to be the nominee. The other 15-20 candidates, bless their hearts, have shown a lot of gumption. But Biden will be the nominee.
“But here’s the thing” - he’s not lost much support but neither has he grown any. And I’d WAG that it will be harder for him to grow support than to lose it. (Despite the fact he’s listed as second choice for many.) Is 30% going to be enough to win as the field winnows? And note that his position in Iowa and New Hampshire is not as great. Part of that 30% are those who see him as the most electable, as safer than other options: do they keep thinking that if he fails to place in the top three in either of those first two contests?
My money is on Biden. His base of support is old people. Old people actually show up on election day and vote. They don’t forget because they’re too busy posting on Instagram or [insert stereotypical millennial activity here]. I expect Biden will outperform the his poll numbers in both Iowa and New Hampshire. I can’t say whether he’ll win those states, but he’ll avoid a total disaster. That will leave him well-positioned for Nevada and South Carolina, where I expect hell win solidly. After that, if he sweeps the southern states on Super Tuesday, he’ll have an insurmountable lead.
Maybe Biden and Trump can have a p*ssy grabbing contest on stage as a more manly form of electoral combat. Or they can have a racist joke contest for the talent portion. Not sure I want to see either one in a bathing suit, so hope they skip that one for a hamburder eating contest instead.
I really don’t like Biden. I think he’s an embarrassment to the party, and is Trumpkin lite. I’m sure he’d still be a better president, just cos literally anyone would be a better president than Trump. But I also don’t think Biden stands a chance against the Orange One. But who knows, anything is possible. I guess.
Biden is likely the least racist old white dude in office. As compared to trump, who is likely just the opposite.
So, he is nothing like trump.
At this point, there’s nobody in the running that has made me think, “well, not them,” and that’s especially true of the four frontrunners. I imagine one will pull ahead for me as we get closer to the primaries. I hope so, because that’s the only election that’s really going to count for me, because I would vote for a literal turd over Trump if it got the nomination. And I don’t say that lightly - I’ve been known to write in for Alan Smithee when I haven’t particularly liked any of the candidates.
You and me both.
One reason we “oldies” (speaking only for myself, not Siam Sam!) are loyal to Biden is because we’ve literally grown old with him. We know better than most that being older does not preclude being smart or able. In fact, we understand how much experience counts – especially in politics.
Joe Biden, like any other long-term civil servant, has a long public record of work. Few take into account the atmosphere of the times in which various decisions/votes were made. As someone who lived through them, I have no trouble overlooking what others consider horrible misjudgment.
Example: Biden’s vote to grant Bush the Lesser the AUMF to invade Iraq is well understood within the circumstances at that time. Citizens were terrified after 9/11. “If you aren’t with us, you’re against us!” is exactly what the Bush Administration was saying at the time – and many people did feel that way (though not all of us). There was enormous pressure on all legislators to go along with what Bush, a new president at that time, wanted. Legislators trusted Bush would not abuse the power he had been given (in hindsight, ha ha). Bernie’s vote, now seen as prescient, was very much an outlier in that moment. For the record, I agreed with Bernie, but I can understand why most of the other Dems did not and I never held their vote against them.
For me, public service experience matters – especially in the arena of foreign policy. Biden is hammering this home, and well he should. Hillary deeply understood through her many years of public service just how dangerous Russia is to American interests and would have pursued a tough agenda with them. It’s why Russia wanted Trump and were willing to risk everything to have him. Turned out to be a good bet. For them.
Lots of people see Biden as a gaffe-prone bumbler, which I get, and conclude he’s past his prime, which I don’t. But that’s because I’m older myself. I know Biden has always been gaffe-prone. He has always stumbled when speaking without a teleprompter. Public speaking is not his strong suit. I recently learned one reason why: He suffered from a stutter in his childhood, which he apparently overcame through sheer force of will. I find that admirable.
Lastly, Biden has proved over a 40-ish year long career in public service that he is incorruptible. If the best that can be found to smear him is a Board of Directors position taken ill-advisedly but not illegally by his son, well, I’m not surprised. I trust him because he’s given me reason to over a lifetime.
Biden believes in bridging differences and building on consensus to the extent that’s possible. I think integrity and honesty going forward are essential. These qualities and his experience are the reasons Obama picked Biden over many other available choices to be his Veep. Biden has proved again and again he deserves this responsibility. I hope we give it to him.
And Biden said that Bush promised him personally that Bush would not use that vote to invade.
Recent general election pollsof note:
I review below polls by highly rated pollsters which surveyed either a swing State or the whole country, which were released since November 1.
National polls first:
A-rated Survey USA has a nice poll yesterday, showing all the major Democrats and Bloomberg beating either Trump or Pence by margins of at least 5 points nationally.
A-rated Emerson College had a national poll which showed Buttigieg and Biden losing to Trump, Warren breaking even, and only Sanders winning. BERNIE FOR THE WIN Y’ALL!!
A VERY nice national poll from A-rated ABC News shows that only against Harris would Trump even have a chance to lose by less than ten points!
Zeroing in on swing States:
A-rated Emerson College polled two samples in NH: in both, Buttigieg was the strongest against Trump. Sanders and Biden also beat him in both samples. Yang and Warren beat him in one sample but not in the other (and how much must it piss Kamala Harris off that pollsters are now including Yang and not her?).
Iowa isn’t really a swing State, but there was one good poll from there, which I checked to see if Mayor Pete’s focus on the early primary States might be helping him there, too. Nope; it showed all four Dems losing, with Biden and Sanders losing by less than Mayor Pete and Warren by more.
A/B rated Marquette Law School dropped an unpleasant poll showing all the major Dems plus Klobuchar losing Wisconsin to Trump, with the only Dem beating him there being…Cory Booker?! But an NYT poll shows Biden and Sanders barely winning and Warren barely losing there.
A Fox News poll of Nevada shows Biden and Sanders at +7, Warren +3, Buttigieg even. An Emerson College poll there shows a much tighter race, with Sanders a toss-up and Warren and Biden narrowly losing.
A Fox poll in **NC **has Biden +2, Sanders +1, Warren -1, Buttigeig -4. But an NYT poll shows all the Dems losing there.
A Fox poll in** PA** has Biden +9, Warren and Sanders both +5. An NYT poll shows a much closer race and suggests that Biden, Sanders, and Warren, in that order, would be the Dem’s best choice.
An NYT poll of Michigan shows that Warren would lose there, Biden would be a toss-up, and Sanders would win. GO BERNIE!! An Emerson College poll is much friendlier to the Dems, showing all three candidates as easy winners, but with the same Sanders-Biden-Warren pecking order.
But their poll of** Arizona** suggests that Sanders would be a loser there, with Warren as a toss-up and Biden winning.
An NYT poll of FL shows Biden beating Trump there, Warren and Sanders losing.
**Georgia **may be in play. A Survey USA poll there shows Biden, Sanders and Warren beating Trump there (Harris, Mayor Pete and Mayor Mike not). A U of Georgia poll didn’t include Bloomberg but has all five of the others beating Trump (Biden most comfortably).
Conclusions: It looks like Biden and Sanders are our strongest candidates; the gap which separated Biden from Sanders a few months ago seems to have vanished. A month or so ago, it looked like Warren might be cracking the top tier, but now she’s clearly lagging behind again. Accordingly, I will hold my nose and reinstate Biden over Warren as my second choice.
So assuming the swing State polls are accurate, we project the following EC results for the possible candidates;
Biden 313, Trump 187, 31 too close to call (NV, NC and WI all had one poll showing Biden winning and one showing him losing)
Sanders 279, Trump 227, TCTC 25 (Sanders wins Nevada, but loses Arizona and Florida)
Trump 241, Warren 233, TCTC 57 (Warren loses Florida, NC and Wisconsin; NV/AZ/MI/PA/NH are tossups).
Not really enough data to fairly evaluate any of the other candidates, but there appears to be little evidence any of them would do better than Warren.
The other 15-20 candidates have really, from day one, been auditioning for the VP slot, and they all know it.
I’d say you do speak for me too. Plus President Obama thinks very highly of Biden, and that carries a lot of weight with me too.
Really, once your campaign gets serious, you aren’t gonna be veep. Now, so far, we’re not really at the serious stage, i will admit.
I concur, altho i have reservations.
Clinton also voted for the AUMF and gave a major Senate speech explaining her intent with the vote was to REDUCE the chance of war. And yet Clinton was harassed as a war-monger repeatedly by Berniebros etc. for that vote!
Democrats often act as their own worst enemies. 
I find this view frankly incomprehensible. A politician may only face a few such clear-cut situations calling for clear-sightedness and moral courage in the course of their career, and it’s fair to base our judgments of them in large part on how they respond.
Besides, your memory is inaccurate. Bernie Sanders wasn’t some lone voice of reason in the wilderness on this; MOST of the House Democratic Caucus did the right thing, as did 21 of 50 Democratic Senators. You don’t need the benefit of hindsight to know that giving George W. Bush carte blanche to invade Iraq was a terrible idea. Everyone who was paying attention know it at the time, apparently including you. Why are you willing to let a US Senator off the hook for making a crucial mistake which you yourself would have known not to make?
Wow, he couldn’t figure out that Bush was lying based on the fact his lips were moving? This Biden fellow sounds like a gullible fool. Let’s not give him anything important to do.
So she was either lying about her intent, or was incredibly stupid to believe that her vote would somehow do the opposite of what it was obviously intended to do. Which of those interpretations do you think makes her look better?
Not at that time. It took a while before we knew what a dick the Shrub was.
Who is this “we”? :dubious: I knew. Bernie Sanders knew. The majority of the House Democratic Caucus knew.
To quote Arlo Guthrie, “if you didn’t know about that one…well then, what else don’t you know?”