First let’s agree that Biden, if he were in the race, would be a perfect compromise candidate and would win easily in November, especially with a good V.P. pick like Ms. Warren. But he’s not in the race. Is it too late for a Biden ticket? I’m NOT asking about filing deadlines, let’s assume the Demo Convention can do what it wants; I’m asking whether a sudden move, e.g. after some accident or indictment, would be accepted by the electorate.
Polls now show Hillary and Donald as tied. (Yes, Donald gets a boost from nominee status, but even so the election is close.) Predictwise.com now shows 35% as the chance for GOP White House. (Betfair has 33%, Hypermind 44%. There’s a subthread in BBQ Pit if you want to debate the efficacy of market estimations.)
The electability of Bernie is also far from certain. Instead a schism may be degrading the Demo coalition. (And I personally wonder whether Bernie could make a good Pres, or an effective debater against the Trump.)
For our purpose here, assume that Hillary is indicted. Or, that some accident etc. leads her to withdraw.
Joe Biden, with Elizabeth Warren as his V.P. mate, would be an easy shoo-in. The Donald wouldn’t have a chance. Any pundits rooting for this?
BUT — Would Bernie supporters rebel (“Why not our man?” :mad: ) and throw their support to Trump? Some of them would for sure. I’m afraid it may be too late.
I would have loved to have seen Biden run when he had the chance. I doubt there’s much that he can do about that now though. I doubt Hillary will be indited or suffer any debilitating accident.
ETA, in fact, if Bernie gets the nomination, I’ll probably write in Biden anyway.
Yes. It’s too late for that. If Biden were going to run, he would have to have started last year, just like everyone else.
And a lot of that Clinton-Trump head-to-head is based on the silly fantasy of “an indictment is going to come any day now!”. The longer that fails to materialize, the less it’s going to matter.
Obviously if she dies because of a heart attack, an airplane crash, an assassination the nomination is up for grabs and Biden could win. But this is a remote possibility. I see a zero possibility of the Obama administration filing a criminal case against her before the election. Because she has been in the public eye so long I think an unknown scandal is extremely unlikely to be found.
No, I think if some accident befalls Clinton, the convention will pretty much have to select Sanders. Now if Clinton and Sanders kill each other in a duel, Biden might be the obvious remaining choice. So yes, I’m saying there’s a chance.
I think I’d be ok with Biden (but I admit I don’t know him in detail) but not with Warren. She’s another Sanders: a single-issue candidate who I think is unfit for general leadership. She also has a spotty ethical background (e.g. the Native American thing).
Too late for Biden to enter now. If he decided a year ago, or any time last year things might have been interesting. He would have broader appeal than either Clinton or Trump, but that doesn’t mean he’d win in the end, only that he’s not as polarizing and there aren’t a lot of people who have already decided on Never-Biden already. He’d be putting Obama on the spot if the Dems nominated him since he’s already thrown his weight behind Hillary. Since it’s not going to happen it doesn’t matter much.
I don’t agree with that either (the supposition that a Biden/Warren ticket would win easily). It’s always easy to do well in the polls, and in the hearts and minds of party members, when you’re not actually running. Look at Clinton’s approval ratings when she was Sec of State; look at the poll taken shortly before the election in 2012 showing that she would beat Romney more solidly than Obama would.
Does she really? Interesting article in electoral-vote.com this morning, looking at a study of exit polling data and pointing out that in a lot of ways younger Democratic voters are more in tune with the policies of Clinton:
“…ideological positions really aren’t a driving force in the Democratic primaries. Sanders has very strong support among young voters, yet they are less likely than older voters to support increased government funding of health care, less likely to favor a higher minimum wage, and less likely to support expanding government services. In other words, the younger voters are the ones who like Clinton’s positions better even though they massively support Sanders. Maybe they like him because he is a cool dude with a great hairdo, but it is not because they actually prefer his policy prescriptions. Thus, news stories all over the media about how the Democratic Party is moving to the left have to be taken with a grain of salt.” ElectoralVote
Which fits in with what psychologists often say, that identity is often a much more driving force than we tend to believe in terms of how people vote and think and take positions. So in this formulation it isn’t that people are supporting Sanders because of his positions on the issues (which generally probably do map pretty well with those of Warren’s), but because there is something they find very fulfilling about being a Sanders supporter specifically (which may or may not map onto the joy and fulfillment someone might feel being a supporter of Elizabeth Warren for president). It isn’t the minimum wage or the banks or the opposition to the Iraq War that attracts some of his fans, it’s the feeling of being part of a big movement, the in-your-faceness of some of what he says and does, the anti-politician thing. (And to be fair, by the same token it isn’t Clinton’s policies that attract many of her followers; it’s something else.)
Which leads to the question of whether the great bulk of Sanders supporters really WOULD be mollified to see Warren on the ticket. I imagine many would, but I have my doubts about some of them, and I certainly don’t think it’s a slam dunk.
You guys know Biden already ran for President, right? Twice. He didn’t exactly take the country by storm either time. Not really sure why you think he’d be such a shoo-in now.
Lus, he’s basically a slightly more likable, less electable Hillary Clinton. There isn’t much distance between them in terms of politics.
And isn’t that exactly how Obama got nominated in '08? Who even remembers how his politics differed from Hillary’s, except for her vote on the Iraq War?
Why do people always want to take Democrat’s out of the Senate to be Veep? MA has a GOP governor, so that would move that seat over to that column, assuming a win.
And it doesn’t position her to step up to the Presidency. Once again assuming a win, 2020 would be Biden’s re-election run, and then in 2024 she’d be 74 and running after 16 years of D control.
Well, in this case its a personality that’s failed to win the Presidency twice.
Also not a great idea to have a 73 year old man and a 67 year old woman on the ticket when the third in line for the Presidency is likely to be a Republican.
Is there actually a mechanism for the party to bypass Sanders if something were to happen to HRC? (I assume we mean before the convention.) After the convention, I don’t know what would happen.
But either way, it’s hard to imagine a LOT of Sanders voters not being royally pissed off (justifiably so) and just sitting out the election.
Absolutely. I will support Clinton if she is the party’s choice, even while doubting the judgment of the primary voters. If she withdraws for whatever reason and the party establishment throws the nomination to someone who didn’t even participate in the primaries, never in life would I vote Democrat again. But I can’t imagine that would happen; with Sanders controlling 40+% of the delegates, there would need to be a highly improbable degree of cooperation among the anti-Sanders forces to pull it off.
As we’ve heard multiple times, the Democratic platform means nothing. It has nothing to do with what elected Democrats do. Plenty of Clinton supporters on here have said “fine, let Sanders supporters write the party platform. Nobody gives a shit. Let baby have his bottle”.