When it comes to irascible old guys I think Sanders has Biden beat.
Biden is a much more huggy, give you a shoulder massage kinda guy.
A more interesting bet is which one falls and breaks a hip after the first clumsy old man roundhouse swing.
Cadet Bonespurs flinches at the advancing fist, and his weight problem and lack of dexterity and balance cause this mere flinch to become a full fall. While he’s down he receives a kick in the ribs. Secret service considers feigning interest, and Biden tells them not to worry, he’s made his point.
Bernie is more of a guy you’d want to have a beer with.
I agree completely that single-payer works all around the world, and there’s no reason it won’t work in the US. I also agree with asahi that getting there will be a brutal process.
I tend to think that transitioning—transitioning people’s understanding of this issue, that is—could be done via emphasis on a public option. Throwing frightened US citizens into the icy sea (metaphorically speaking) by attempting to force a major change like this, would be tremendously shocking. And ‘tremendously shocking’ isn’t really a winning political message.
Job one: deep-six Trump. Anything that stands in the way of that should be approached with serious caution.
I watched the Shields and Brooks show on PBS. “From Twitter you’d think Biden doesn’t have a chance, but his fund-raising sets records.” Brooks has an explanation of that:
Mark Shields makes the point that amidst all the improprieties and rumors of Washington D.C., Joe Biden’s record has been impeccable. He’s ebullient, not a harasser. Biden just needs to come up with a disciplined response and stick to it. This is what GWB did when asked about his misspent youth: “When I was young and foolish I was young and foolish.” After a while, journalists got tired of asking the same question.
I’m not so certain about the nostalgia angle. I was in my early 20s during the 2008 election, and I remember myself and all of my friends being very disappointed when Biden was chosen as Obama’s running mate. I’m an unapologetic lefty, and the kids ten years younger than me are even farther to the left than I am.
Most people aren’t unapologetic lefties though. I doubt a lot of people were disappointed that the first major black candidate in US history didn’t pick a more lefty running mate.
Biden may not be the president we want, but he may well be the president we need. If only to calm everybody the fuck down and restore some competence and operational normalcy to key fed institutions.
Kinda like Obama did a decade ago - and here we are. 
It’s the never-ending task of the adults (the Democrats) to clean up the messes created by the irresponsible, greedy, heedless-of-consequences Republican children.
We’ve got a vicious cycle going here. Obama got <2 years to clean up and make some positive changes before losing House. We can’t keep on having such a crappy ratio of time spent cleaning up after the elephants, to time that the elephants are messing things up - especially since it squeezes out time for Dems to actually improve things.
Just restoring normalcy isn’t going to break the cycle.
Exactly. This is his time and he’s exactly what we need right now. There is no one as high profile as him who has been in politics as long as he has who isn’t actively hated by the other side. Sure, the Republicans will try hard to beat him and throw everything at him that they can. But that’s politics. He just doesn’t engender the same hatred from the right as Clinton or Obama. He can actually be a unifying figure at a time when we really need one.
THat should be Biden’s campaign slogan: “Everybody just calm the fk down!”
On some level, people were susceptible to buying it easily, because talking hypothetically about reforming healthcare and then initiating a legislative effort that included a variety of proposals are two different things. No matter how you pitch it, there is no getting around the fact that Bernie Sanders is talking about dramatic changes to the healthcare system. A lot of these changes are things I and apparently a lot of others can agree with in principle, but there’s no question that changes on this scale would be disruptive, at least temporarily, and people are afraid of that. Moreover, that’s not an unreasonable fear.
No, she wouldn’t swat it down with ease any more easily than Obama was able to swat down mounting criticisms - some completely and utterly invalid, and some not - of his proposals in 2009. I like AOC a lot, but she comes from a district that is way, way different than the kinds of voters who will ultimately decide whether this country moves forward on Berniecare.
I don’t think we’re going back to “normal” - not the pre-2016 normal anyway. We can’t go back to normal until we get past this period of polarization, and I don’t think it has played itself out yet. People have to recognize on a more personal level that tribalism isn’t going to work for them the way they thought it might. I don’t think we’ll get there until we get it out of our system first, and that probably means some kind of bad shit is going to happen before we do.
The trouble with Kamala is that she comes off Joe-Friday-cold and does not seem highly inspiring. I also question the judgment of any candidate who thinks impeachment should go forward at this time. I don’t believe any good can come of that.
Well said. I only hope that if he does win, he can wash Trump’s poop out of the Nation’s underpants.
I suspect those oily orange feces will leave quite the mark, even after a good scrubbing with bleach.
Yes, 100%. You’d think even the oligarchs, despite their desire to grab all they can when the elephants are in charge, would see the value in having a stable economy—possible only when the adults have enough time to clean up. (But they don’t seem to be capable of that much foresight.)
(Funny how perfectly that ‘cleaning up after elephants’ metaphor applies!)
I’m reminded of the joke about the circus worker that has the punchline: “What, and give up show business?!?” 