TBH, I don’t think Biden would be running if there were ANY credible people running on the Democratic ticket.
You’re kidding, right? You don’t think there wouldn’t have been a choice of candidates if Biden had gotten out of the way?
Again, what I see is Biden specifically not saying he’d only serve one term. That’s very clear.
There’s a certain type of person who never wanted Biden to be the Dem nominee at all, who contributed to the chatter that Biden had to react to, who really, really want it to be true that Biden stated he’d only serve one term. That would make him a one-termer or a liar, both of which work to their advantage.
Take away all of that wishful thinking, and what you see is that Biden never even hinted he’d only serve a single term. There was chatter about his age, he was forced to react to it, and he did so in the noncommittal way that politicians deflect unanswerable questions about future certainty.
No, he said he might only serve one term, and I said there were assumptions he’d do so, particularly because it was reinforced by what aides were telling, as I’ve cited previously.
He could have done so by saying that he’d serve two terms if the country needed him to. That’s probably how most politicians would answer that question. Biden didn’t, because I think he genuinely considered only serving a single term.
Note that I was the “certain type of person” who enthusiastically supported him in 2020. I thought he’d be great at the job. I was overjoyed that he won. I wasn’t just voting against Trump, or rolling my eyes and voting for the compromise Democratic candidate. When there were a lot of people still in the running during the Democratic nomination, he was still my top pick.
I also don’t think you are grasping my point at all. And my point is an extremely simple one. His age was a big deal back then, he acknowledged it then, and it was one of the largest strikes against him. But Trump today is older than Biden was back then, and that fact barely seems to be acknowledged. Part of it is because Trump has so many other strikes against him that it is relatively minor in comparison, but still. It goes to show how bad Trump is as a candidate.
I mean, people believe that now about Biden. He probably should have been prepping Harris well before now just in case, but that’s a different discussion.
But that’s circular logic. Nobody ran, because Biden was running. If Biden had said, last year, “I’m not running in 2024,” we’d see thirty different Democrats throwing their hat in the ring by now.
A lot of people who like Joe biden, including me, think he should have announced early in his first term that he would not run a second time. It is still not too late. Trump has never had majority support. a lot of people, including me, hate Trump.
But the point of switching from Biden is to try to get rid of the “old man being wheeled around by handlers” narrative.
With Biden you have the con that people think he’s senile, but you have all the pros that come with him.
If you replace him, you have to mitigate the same con as above (or a similar one that the replacement is part of the machine controlling the senile old man) to the point where it makes up for the pros that you miss out on.
This is why I think middling it is a bad idea.
This tells you that no Democrat felt they were a more electable candidate than Biden.
There’s a certain conspiracy-minded strain of thinking that says Democrats aren’t picking the best candidates in their primary process, that it’s dominated by shadowy figures who make decisions based on party favoritism rather than who’s most electable.
No doubt there’s some favoritism going on, but the party likes to win elections more than it likes losing them. There is no validity to all the different factions (i.e. Bernie bros) who are convinced they’re the rightful heirs to the Democrat machinery, and were denied their shot for any reason other than their ideas and candidates don’t resonate strongly enough to win a legitimate primary. They lost, we won, everything else is just sour grapes and working the refs.
I don’t think so - or, at least, not just that. There would be severe blowback and consequences for someone who stepped up in the primaries to challenge a sitting incumbent president, even if that Democrat thought they were a better candidate than the president.
Every state except North Carolina had a Democratic primary in 2024. To my knowledge, Biden had a challenger in all those states, and he swept the primary.
I can’t stop anyone from forming theories that the good candidates sat it out for whatever reason, but the fact is that there was a forum to challenge Biden, and anyone who thought they could’ve outperformed him had a venue to do what the others did.
But everyone understands that incumbency is a major competitive advantage. If you don’t possess it, then it’s neither in your best interest nor the party’s best interest to undermine the incumbent unless you’re bringing something spectacular to the table to offset the damage. Most candidates realize they can’t overcome it.
Why make yourself a lame duck on purpose?
I’m just going to note that given the events and revelations of the past few months, I feel my stance in the original post has been sadly vindicated. Biden had no business running for reelection, and has been impaired for the bulk of his term in office.
Which events, more specifically?
The only “impairment” I can see has to do with the way he speaks. That says nothing about his mental ability or acuity of judgment, neither you nor I knows enough to regard those things as impaired.
Following the debate, it was apparently brought to his attention that the way he speaks would lose him the election, which prompted him to step aside. All indications are that he lacked the mental ability or acuity of judgment to reach this conclusion before that debate. All indications are that he lacked the mental ability or acuity of judgment to reach that conclusion for quite some time after that debate, as well.
All indications are that he lacked the mental ability or acuity of judgment to reach this conclusion from the start of his career in politics.
You’ll need to add “the things he says”. Examples include referring to Zelenskyy as “President Putin” and Kamala as “Vice-President Trump”.
Yes he has gaffes, he’s been having them since at least the 80s if not earlier, as alluded to by @crowmanyclouds.
Which to my ears still sounds not as bad as talking about capturing airports during the American Revolutionary War as the Other Guy did. 