I think barely anyone has an opinion on Biden. His senate career is unremarkable in terms of public impact and notoriety. Most people could not name him before his VP run. I certainly think only a tiny fraction of supporters have been “watching him the last couple decades”
The “biden bro” memes with Obama, and association with Obama in general, are basically everything he has in terms of positive feelings directed his way. He has name recognition and positive feelings leftover from Obama and that’s why he’s the nominee. I’m sure Fox News watchers are already familiar with uncle touchy, but I don’t think most of his primary voters are. I think he just seemed like the safe/default choice to most of them.
It also occured to me as to why picking him has such a limited upside - he’s not going to run in 2024 as an incumbent even if he wins. Now Bernie is no younger in that department, but Pete, Warren, or just about any other candidate would be. Having an incumbent running is such a huge advantage that not being able to run for a second term is a huge downside to choosing a candidate.
Dale, do you truly think that if I believe that Biden isn’t well known, not only am I wrong, but that I’m a liar? That I know the average American knows about Biden’s judicial nomination participation 33 yearsa ago, but that I’ve decided to be deceptive about it?
I, as a person well above average in political participation, did not know about what Biden did in 1987, nor have I heard about Clarance Thomas’ confirmation. I was 6 years old when this happened. And I have not heard anyone talking about it over the course of the primary campaign.
Please stop digging this hole of toxicity. I have presented myself in an open and intellectually honest manner in this thread. Your assumption that I am lying is not only over the top, but absurd. What percentage of the American voting public do you think knows about the details of the Robert Bork confirmation? Is it the vast majority? It must be, since you assume that because I think they don’t know about that, I must be lying about it, just not wrong or in disagreement.
There are two posters here who like to post big walls o’text that boil down to, “Biden is a tool of the conservatives, and he sucks as a candidate, too!”
First off, Biden isn’t a “conservative Democrat,” he’s a blue-collar Democrat. I’ll forgive y’all for not understanding what that means, since Biden is practically the last nationally known blue-collar Democrat.
Now let’s take a look at Biden’s electoral history.
1972 - Biden squeaks to a narrow win of 50.5% in his first Senate campaign. Meanwhile Richard Nixon receives 59.6% of Delaware’s votes for President.
1978 - Biden is re-elected with 58% of the vote. Meanwhile the state’s Democratic candidate for Congress garners a mere 41.2%. In fact, Biden received more votes than any other candidateon the Delaware ballot that year.
1984 - Biden reelected with 60.1% of the vote. He got a higher percentage of the vote in Delaware than Ronald Reagan and the winning Republican candidate for governor.
To avoid turning this into a wall o’text I’ll skip the narrative from here on.
1990 - 62.7&
1996 - 60%
2002 - 58.7%
2008 - 64.7%
Of course, Bernie has racked up some big totals while running in Vermont. But it isn’t like Biden’s giving away anything to Trump that Bernie might win.
Sanders is a year older than Biden and had a heart attack six months ago. You really want to try to play the health card?
The only bad thing about Biden’s embrace of bipartisanship was how fast he backpedaled when attacked for it. Maybe he’ll rediscover enough courage to Consort With The Enemy when it becomes necessary yet again.
Even FDR worked with Republicans to get needed legislation passed*, despite there frequently being supermajorities of Democrats in Congress.
FDR also refused to support an anti-lynching bill in the 1930s for fear of offending southern Democrats and killing chances of getting key New Deal elements passed. On the face of it, that’s far worse than anything Biden has done.
*if you think that’s useless or impossible now because all Republicans are slime, you’re part of the problem. Few to none will cross the aisle on votes if they’re going to be demonized by both sides.
For that matter, a Real FDR dem should remember that the real FDR wasn’t afraid to have the reactionary John Nance Garner OR the leftist Henry Wallace on the ticket with him. It was the party bosses that convinced him to accept the more-progressive-than-anyone-thought Harry Truman.
Hillary was winning the primary at the time. Noone here is arguing that biden should be the nominee despite losing the primary.
I for one thought that Bernie would have been a better choice last year but not this year. You can go back to that time and see posts by me criticizing the shenanigans that went on. But the “I’m For Her” crowd (you remember them, right?) shouted me down. “why shouldn’t the DNC show favoritism” they said. “It’s their party, they can do what they like,” they said. Well that’s all well and good but if he wins the nomination then it’s HIS party, isn’t it?
This isn’t like that. The party isn’t cheating to steer the nomination towards Biden. I think Debbie Wasserman Schultz is as much at fault for Hillary losing last time around as FBI director Comey. I frankly didn’t blame the bernie bros for being bitter despite the fact that it was higly unlikely that bernie was going to win the nomination.
It’s like the pirates losing to the astros. You were probably going to lose anyway but it still pisses you off that the other side cheated. And you can’t blame the fans for turning on the astros.
I totally agree with you that wages and productivity diverged in the early 80s. You can probably blame the destruction of unions. Now when the enterprise makes more money, the boss just keeps it. Before when the enterprise made more money the unions stepped in and demanded the workers get their share.
Do you feel that Biden is any less union friendly than Bernie?
Economically? Yes. Socially we’ve moved left. Better on racism and gay rights and general tolerance issues.
But in terms of running the economy for the rich rather than the average person we’ve certainly moved right. “Right to work” and similar laws have made shifted the employment power dynamic in favor of businesses. Unions have been gutted and busted and underpowered. The Telecom Act of 1966 and the subsequent concentration of our media has moved our entire national discussion to a much more pro-rich, pro-corporate place. Taxes have moved away from the richest and onto people who have less ability to pay it. Campaign funding and dark money is more corrupt and less transparent. Technically this isn’t a left/right issue, but since it always moves our politics in the direction of being pro-rich/business, I’m including it. Creation and enforcement of safety and environmental regulations is generally on a downward trend. We are in a state of perpetual war. Welfare reform. Even the ACA, probably cited often as a leftist achievement, is really just trying to prop up a failing system for a few more years. It was rewritten to favor the interests of the insurance industry. Free trade agreements may have been to the benefit of large corporations and not the worker, but that one is complex enough that I don’t really understand it.
In terms of letting the rich loot the country, keeping the economic status of the poor low, empowering the rich to buy politicians, destroying any sort of power that workers have, removing restrictions and protections against the damages that business causes, etc. both parties have moved significantly right since 1998. I would even argue that the entire point of third way democrats and neoliberalism was to facilitate this.
Right, Obama made Hillary Secretary of State because he just had to have her in his administration, not because it was her price for her endorsement. And politicians never make deals or put pressure on each other. What universe do you live in?
Right, Obama made Hillary Secretary of State because he just had to have her in his administration, not because it was her price for her endorsement. And politicians never make deals or put pressure on each other. What universe do you live in? Oh right, the one that Idiocracy inhabits…
I am voting to make things better. I want to help make sure the Democrats don’t take my “safe” state for granted by pushing corporate ass-lickers on the electorate.
Would someone address the 2016 polls that had Bernie beating Trump by 10.4%(!)? Does Bernie live in a universe where polls don’t matter? Is it only a (shudder) “socialist” that could have info come out once the GOP war machine goes on attack that affects those numbers? Someone please address this, I’d love to see the verbal and intellectual contortions and gymnastics that will accompany the explanation… Ya know, please explain how Hillary was the infinitely more electable candidate. Please.
You know, why don’t you go fuck yourself? I have never been a member of these boards before and frankly with how many assholes are on here it probably won’t be long before I buy a round of “Adios, motherfuckers!” for all of you. I never once made anything personal until someone did to me. Was my thread title provocative? Yes, of course, it was meant to be. I’m sick of “Bernie bros”, Russia, Comey, and every other fucking excuse people have for Hillary losing in 2016. The fault is hers and those who supported her in the primaries. Not to say nothing else had an effect but is she couldn’t blow Donald fucking Trump out of the water then she’s a pathetic unelectable loser who should hide her head in shame in perpetuity. As should those who supported her, especially the people who took no lessons to heart and pushed Joe fucking Biden on us. When he loses the people who supported him in the primaries are to blame. Period.