A big problem with the Biden accusation is that it normalizes Trump.
The Democrats should have found a younger, moderate, charismatic straight arrow. Then the contrast would have been stark: An old, blustering, obnoxious man against a young moderate with a reputation for scruples.
Instead, it’s now going to be a contest between two old white men with a history of being handsy with women and both likely guilty of being pigs with women at the very least.
Trump’s piggishness appears to have already been baked into his support numbers. Even his supporters know what he is. But Biden’s accusations have yet to be felt by average voters. And there are many, many pictures out there of Biden sniffing women, grabbing them, sucking their fingers, etc. In the hands of a skilled campaign, that’s a treasure trove of material just made for memes and viral videos. A steady stream of such material will help set the narrative, and this accusation is the hook.
And when it comes to the respective ‘bases’, Republicans don’t care if their candidate is old and out of touch. Democrats would much rather have a younger, more diverse candidate. The Dems are going to have to work harder to get out the vote for Biden. These allegations make that more difficult.
I thought the conventional legal wisdom was that a two-term president could wind up in office again through an event such as being in he chain of succession, but if that person wound up as President again, they would be ineligible to run for re-election and would have to step down at the end of the term.
That’s what a plain reading of the two-elected term limit seems to indicate.
No. A two term President, or anyone else ineligible to run for POTUS, can’t be a VP. They could be in the Cabinet but they’d be skipped in the succession just as if they weren’t a natural born citizen.
Realistically, in this day and age, we aren’t going to see any former president in a cabinet or congress. The days of John Quincy Adams being elected to the House after serving as president are over.
The only paths might be the Supreme Court, very unlikely, but I could see it happening one day in the future or a former president running for a local office, again very unlikely.
I’m a bit less worried. Biden led in the polls during primary season despite having almost no support among party activists. Even on the older skewing SDMB, there was little mention of him.
Most of the handsy stuff has been from the left, photoshopped or looped in many cases. I suspect that’ll let up soon, the Reade stuff seems to have blown over and Bernie has been quiet, not giving anyone false hope.
Could the Republicans go down the creepy uncle road? Yes, of course. But again, it brings up Trump’s flaws, easy to ignore when you can just taste that Supreme Court seat. And, you’re going to be dealing with a lot of exhausted voters. It’s not funny having the bull loose in the china shop any longer. It felt good for Trumpers to finally hear CNN called the fake news media in 2016, it’s lost its novelty after hearing it a million times.
Plus, a lot of Democrats are thinking we’re voting for a one term president. I wonder what percentage wish that both Biden and Bernie would have sat this out. But, they didn’t and here we are. Let’s get rid of Trump and then work on finally passing the torch to a younger generation.
I get why we skip a guy in the line of succession if he’s not a natural-born citizen; it’s because only “a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”
That doesn’t merely bar such folks from getting elected president; it talks, broadly, about being eligible to that office.
Now, I of course see where there’s also a bar on folks being “elected to the office of the President more than twice” — or, in some cases, even being “elected to the office of the President more than once” — but, again, that’s explicitly limited to being elected to the office; it’s not written the way the natural-born part was.
Yes, there’s a technicality that one could argue that would allow a former two-term President to be the Vice President, and then to succeed to the Presidency again. But it goes against the clear intent of the relevant amendments. And even if a court (even the Supreme Court) were to rule that the intent is irrelevant, because the text as written allows it, this is politics, and appearances matter in politics: It would look like a technicality, and that would turn off enough voters that nobody would ever want to try to pull it off.
This statement is so silly I don’t even know where to begin. One accusation against Biden is the equivalent to the almost 2 dozen accusations against Trump? Not to mention his creepy behavior at that teen beauty pageant, hush money payment to a porn star and comments caught on tape talking about sexually assaulting women?
I’m still waiting for the flood of other accusations about Biden’s persistent sexual assault behavior. The point of the #MeToo movement was to encourage people who have been victimized so come forward and speak up because they weren’t alone, and in every case of validated predation there have been multiple–often dozens–of victims who have come forward. From what we’ve seen so far, Joe Biden allegedly violated one person in an inexcusable, horrific manner…and otherwise has just been excessive in his shoulder-rubbing and respecting personal space, which is creepy and needs to be addressed, but the accusation is so far above any other complaint about Biden that it begs the discussion of credibility.
The comparison that many have made to Brett Kavanaugh versus the complaint of Christine Blasey Ford is entirely appropriate. Of course, in this case, Kavanaugh already gutted his own credibility by dodging questions about his discussions regarding the Mueller investigation with the law firm in which Trump’s personal lawyer was a principal, transparently lying about his teenage drinking and sexcapades, and various other questions about which his answers were evasive, not to mention that his key character witness, Mark Judge, was entirely absent, even before the Ford testimony whereas there was little reason to doubt Ford’s credibility beyond not recalling details ancillary to the alleged assault, which as many sexual abuse experts have noted is a common occurrence in victims, and she had second-hand corroboration of people to whom she had relayed salient details of the assault and Kavanaugh’s identity years before the announcement of Kavanaugh’s nomination. So, let’s hold up Biden and Reade to the same standard while waiting for other hypothetical victims of Biden’s predatory tendencies to come forward with credible claims.
I would ask Sanders supporters to take a minute and consider how they would feel if the situation was reversed.
Suppose Sanders had held on to his early momentum and he now had a substantial lead in delegates. Let’s say it was Sanders who had 1435 delegates pledged to him from various primaries and Biden had 984.
How would you feel if, at this point, people were saying “I think Sanders should consider dropping out. Sure, he got the delegates but I feel a lot of people who voted for Sanders felt pressured and they really wanted to vote for Biden instead. And those Biden supporters really seem to believe Biden is a better candidate and they seem really upset he lost. I think we need to acknowledge their feelings and arrange something at the convention so we can nominate Biden.”
Those darn Dem primary voters went for Biden, though, dang their hides. Popular vote wins shouldn’t count! Let wise party elders pick the candidates. That worked for Harding.
Who will the (D) candidate be in November? We can HOPE no terrible tragedy breaks the nomination process. We can HOPE Biden lives till autumn and isn’t placed in protective custody after the national lockdown (with troops) takes effect. But our hopes might not matter. The electoral system is rigged to install luzers. Watch this play out.
Ok, lets say between now and the dem convention Biden gets sick or has some major gaffes or something, the sexual allegations against him dont go away, I dont know, could the dems reconsider him for someone else?
Granted the democrats have already put their money on this one bet but could they switch horses at the last moment?
The party could change their mind at any point up to the convention. If they were to do so, it would almost certainly be to whomever Biden was planning on picking as a running mate. I mean, it could be Sanders, but then, it could be Jimmy Carter, too.