MSNBC Lawrence O’Donnell comes across to me as purely partisan talking points. Let me caveat, I would vote for literally any Dem, or frankly a small soap dish, over Trump.
Look, Team Biden agreed to the terms and went into the debate knowing:
Donald’s playbook: outright lies, not answering the question, blasting out a word salad of unrelated topics, ad nauseum. This was not a surprise to anyone paying attention for the past decade.
CNN’s format (including CNN would not be fact checking)
No teleprompters or candidate notes
Even if it was the lowest watched debate live, it is probably the most cherry picked clip watched evah. Tic Tock, YouTube, Facebook, Twitless, whatever has reposted the debate.
Please share the top 5 moments that Biden pawned Trump from the debate. Full disclosure, I couldn’t watch the whole thing, but from a sound byte perspective Joe lost hands down.
Dishonest that other candidates would not have funding for a federal election. I’m 99% sure the DNC funds and super Pacs can all spend money on any candidate (correct me if this is mistaken?). Kamala has been out raising donor money like crazy, and I believe her husband has been as well. It is fair to say that the other non Kamala (who isn’t “my” choice but simply trying to be objective) haven’t been raising money for a federal campaign and it’s pretty late to be building out that rolodex.
No one “won” the debate, America lost, and Biden clearly lost. Biden’s mission was
lay to rest he’s too old
Fact check The Donald and bitch slap him down a few pegs
Show all double haters and young voters that there was a stark choice between the two.
And all the above were not “mission accomplished”.
This thread goes so fast that things I wanted to comment on get lost before I get around to them. But just as a set of highlights.
Y’know, words mean things. A poor performance not just on presentation but on counterargument IS a legitimate cause for concern as SenorBeef indicates. Urgency to address a serious existential threat is good. Sharp pain calls attention to the problem. Aggressive damage control is necessary. A call for all to come around the table and let us hear options, is useful… Panic OTOH isn’t. Panic makes you flail blindly. Panic renders your unit combat-ineffective. So, indeed, Don’t Panic. Get your heads together like your lives depend on it and come up with a well-thought-out plan because they do.
It has been observed by many that some mainstream venues like the Times, Time and CNN are engaging in a sort of act of terminal pernicious “fairness”. Anything to prove they are not “liberal biased” AND feed horse-race sales.
Harder to do when people are saying the name on the ballot should not be there.
And let us be perfectly honest: “Not Trump” is what won the LAST election. The platform was supposed to be “return to Normal”.
Which could have been except for one critical component that nobody could really control: Trump and the MAGA cult did not go away. So Joe could not graciously walk off into the sunset saying “my job is done” in 2024 with normality restored and hand things over to whoever’s chosen as the new generation of leadership, as many thought was the plan.
James Carville – himself, no political dilletante – doesn’t think Joe will be the candidate come Election Day:
I don’t have an opinion on the matter as yet. I truly don’t. I also think that We may panic if we choose to, provided that They – the people who truly sit in rooms and hash out this shit, and then make either recommendations or decisions to the people who actually matter here – don’t.
It isn’t productive either way, but I’ve bitten my nails more than once in the 4th quarter of a close and consequential game. It changed nothing and hurt nobody … save for my non-existent manicure.
Not in recent memory. And the Sanders group yelled and screamed and help their breath until they turn blue over Super Delegates and some favoritism from the DNC Rigged! Bogus!
Unfair!
But he isnt. You are basing this on one debate. Not his State of the Union speech, not speeches made later after he apologized for a poor showing.
Yes, if Biden actually dropped out, she would have to be the choice.
One of the hallmarks of a cult is that members cannot criticize or challenge their leader. After Trump’s verdict, a Republican politician running for office had the temerity to say we should trust the court’s decision. The MAGAsphere ripped him a new asshole, including our pal MTG telling the press he had ruined his political career. MAGA politicians have bragged about running anyone away who wasn’t behind Trump 100%. They attacked DeSantis and Haley because they dared make a bid for the presidency.
Republicans killed a border deal they were happy with at the behest of Trump. The Republicans were willing to sacrifice a border deal they genuinely thought was good for the country because Trump was afraid it looked good for Biden.
This kind of behavior is far different from Democrats backing Biden. It’s not even in the same ballpark.
In the second deate it will not be enough to keep Trump from interrupting Biden. When Trump ignores the question, and repeats one of his talking points his microphone needs to be cut off, he needs to lose time, and the moderator needs to demand, “Answer the question!” Also, when Trump lies there should be a timeout, and the lie should be exposed.
Re talk about loss of campaign funding if Biden drops out, this is overblown. Evidence for campaign spending, beyond a low threshold, affecting results, is weak. Trump only won the time he was outspent 2-1. Money is what to NOT panic over!
Above assumes that Biden can’t give his raised funds to other candidates. Probably he can, but even in the worse case it hardly matters. TV ads remind the other side to vote!
Funds may be better used by congressional candidates Biden would transfer money to.
He can’t. He either has to spend it on getting Joe Biden elected president or return it to his donors. Sure, those donors might want to donate it back to the new candidate, but there’s no guarantee they’d even get their funds back before the election. Meanwhile, you have staff to pay, offices to rent, no access to AF1, no rallies scheduled, you can’t run ads…
Trump may have been outspent 2-1. Candidate X would be jumping in four months before the election having been outspent by ∞-0.
Who really cares about this, honestly? No one is super into Biden, hardly anyone voted in the democratic primary, and if you’re such an enthusiastic voter / democratic die hard that you voted in a non-competitive primary then you’re obviously going to be against Trump no matter what.
How many primary voters do you think will actually be upset that Biden isn’t the democratic candidate and won’t vote for the replacement? I don’t mean as a percentage, I don’t mean as a hypothetical, I mean, how many actual voters? Like, 3? Less?
The idea that there are masses of voters out there who will vote for Joe Biden but wouldn’t vote for Harris or any other democrat strikes me as implausible. No one is voting for Biden because they love Joe Biden, they’re voting against Trump.
In any case, the concern about their votes being taken away from them in smokey back rooms is pretty simple to solve - have Biden voluntarily withdraw and continue the ticket with Harris. Then it becomes Biden’s personal decision, and not a party decision against his will.
I mean if Biden dropped dead tomorrow, that’s what would happen anyway, right? Harris would be able to take over the campaign? That seems like the simplest option that allows her to keep the campaign machinery going. I don’t think she’s a good presidential candidate at all but it may be the least disruptive choice if we’re concerned about continuing the legality of the campaign.
A leadership PAC can’t just be a shadow fund for another presidential candidate’s campaign.
They are free to donate up to $2,000 to the presidential candidate of their choice, which might be enough to buy the candidate and two of his friends business-class airfare to DC to attend Trump’s inauguration.