As to his sales pitch about being wiling to work with even the despicable in a civil manner … look at figure 5 here. 89% of Democratic and 79% of republican voters feel it is important that next president be able to seek compromises so that things get done.
Maybe the other side won’t do it, maybe enough of them will see it as within their own informed self-interest that shit happens, but either way a candidate who sells their intent to try to so is playing to the crowds.
Wouldn’t even need to compromise if the Democrats win back the Senate. Make Mitch McConnell have a taste of his own medicine as Senate Democrats fill the courts and enact progressive agenda.
Can’t rely on Manchin’s vote. Need at least one R willing to cross lines to offset him.
IOW, No.
Look, I realize you’ve got another point to make about Byrd, and that’s fine. But as far as your original point goes, in the 1990s he wasn’t a segregationist Senator. So Biden did not need to work with segregationist Senators to pass the Brady Bill of the Violence Against Women Act.
I guess it was in another thread where I already addressed this idea. I’ve got nothing against talking with persons on the other side of the fence, and I’ve got nothing against Democratic U.S. Senators doing it.
It’s a matter of expectations. Sure, it’s worth trying. But you should only rely on it if there’s no other alternative. As long as Mitch McConnell is Senate GOP leader, the most reasonable expectation is that he will be the same Mitch McConnell that he’s been since the beginning of 2007, and he will act pretty much the same way, blocking every Dem initiative he can block, and gumming up the works on everything else.
Look, some candidates campaign on the Green New Deal, some campaign on reparations, some campaign on Medicare for All, some campaign on UBI or sweeping gun safety. How are any of these less ridiculous than what Biden’s saying about working with Republicans? They’re all pie-in-the-sky campaign promises if Mitch is back in the Big Seat.
The difference is Biden’s already fighting like he’s the nominee, the rest are all pandering to various groups on the left. You think the Green New Deal is gonna turn out Obama-Trump voters in the Industrial Midwest? You think reparations will? Biden is currently laying down some shit that people here in West Michigan (and, based on polling, all over) like to hear. It’s stuff that you and I know isn’t going to happen with the current situation in the Senate, but none of the stuff that the other Dems are fighting over is gonna happen either. The difference is the shit Biden’s talking about appeals to voters in the middle, low information voters, older voters, and disgusted Republicans.
If Biden loses, I’m voting for Trump.
I agree with iiandyiiii. This comment is disgusting.
That being said, if Biden loses the primary or the election, it won’t be due to his handsiness. It will be due to comments like his recent “Nothing will fundamentally change”, which he said to wealthy donors. Yes, the context was that he may need to raise taxes, but that doing so won’t significantly impact the living standards of the rich – but this is going to get spun every which way. It’s his “47% of the people” comment.
:eek: Srsly?
I am extremely disappointed to hear that.
Oh c’mon, nobody believes that.
No, but I’ll feel like it just to stick it to the social justice warriors.
Okay, I get that.
Why do you hate yourself?
“Nothing will fundamentally change.” - Joe Biden, to a roomful of donors yesterday
https://twitter.com/GovHowardDean/status/1141354582456590336
“This is an out of context quote. I read the transcript. Biden was talking about raising taxes on the wealthy by taking their trump tax breaks away. The sentence quoted was to donors he told to their face would pay more. I’m neutral in this race but I will call out cheap shots”
An increase on taxes on those donors won’t fundamentally change their standard of living.
This is the second time that Biden has been victimized by an out-of-context quote from the frothing batshit insane wing of the party. What’s pretty ominous is that a lot of “reporters” are getting fooled by following the herd on social media.
And they wonder why they’re called “Fake News”
Nobody “wonders why they’re called ‘Fake News’”. Everybody knows where that comes from. You don’t need to participate in perpetuating the lie. Unless you want to perpetuate the lie.
Twitter is overwhelmingly anti-Biden. Old white man, self-proclaimed moderate, handsy, prone to foot in mouth moments. In an ironic way the same characteristics that made him the affable “Uncle Joe” for eight years is now being used against him.
Hillary wasn’t particularly liked either but she had the glass ceiling factor of being the first woman to be the frontrunner for the nomination of the two major parties and therefore she had the feminist activists in support. Biden is just another of the same-old to people who engage on twitter but he still leads the polls by a fair way.
He led the polls months before he declared his candidacy. Then when the personal space stuff came out twitter pundits thought it would sink him. It didn’t. Then when he declared his candidacy twitter pundits said the best day of his campaign would be Day 1 and then it would sink in numbers from then on. He didn’t. Now we’ve got this past week and who knows how the debates play out but I predict if he comes through it with his numbers relatively intact then the nomination is his.
What he has to be careful is a lot of the news cycle nowadays gets determined by what is hot on twitter. Therefore if he makes a comment which in full context is not bad at all, but in an isolated sentence comes across old-school such as that “nothing will fundamentally change” remark he is going to be jumped on. People are waiting for him to jump on him on social media including reporters as you say. I would advise he does what Beto O’Rourke does and films all his sessions with fundraisers so reporters have no excuse to twist it as they see since video footage can debunk their interpretation.
He allows reporters to come in but my point is we - the public - don’t know about the contents of his meetings until those reporters publish their pieces. And what typically happens is reporters first tweet the most sensational quotes in isolation (and without context) which attracts attention, while the full transcript only gets published afterwards.
Beto mitigates that by live streaming most of his events and uploading footage onto Facebook.
It’s sad that some, including some here, are so willing to jump on spreading these out of context crap cheap shots. Such is the path to Trump winning, not by his smears but by smears from within the tent.
The fact that others running (and their operatives) are trying to get to the top by smearing Biden, rather than by convincing those of us who are saying Biden now but not married to the idea that they have what it takes to take down Trump even more solidly and even maybe have some coat tails, is … unfortunate. It is not the way to win us over. It is the way to disgust more on the process and decrease turnout when we need it.