Andy Craig

Nobody outside of Michigan *or* political nerds elsewhere, to be clear. I'm sure MI voters know who their governor is. And people in neighboring states people are probably a bit more aware of her. But nationwide name ID? Ask a person on the street in Atlanta or Philadelphia or Phoenix? Negligible.

Which isn't particularly a dig at her, or that she's in the Midwest. It's true of governors and senators in general. Very few have a national profile prominent enough that the median voter nationwide would even recognize the name.

The stepping on rakes will continue until morale improves.

The Philadelphia radio station WURD has parted ways with a host who interviewed President Biden on Wednesday using questions provided to her by the Biden campaign, after the station said the interview violated its journalistic independence.

Radio Host Who Was Fed Questions by Biden Campaign Leaves Philadelphia Stationwww.nytimes.com WURD said that the interview with President Biden was not up to its standards and that the host, Andrea Lawful-Sanders, had resigned in a mutual decision.

Normal times, this would be a pretty bad story to hit when both the interview and his trip today are all about showing strength with Black voters in Pennsylvania. As it stands, it's not even the worst development for Biden in the past six hours.

Reply to

Daniel Drezner

I don't think the polls are that good. They're not so far gone it's definitively impossible, but they are bad, and that's part of what's fueling these defections.

Even if you hypothetically had a nationwide Dem primary, tens of millions of voters, nobody is in a serious position to challenge Harris, and nobody who matters is suicidal enough to try. It's not a matter of refusing to have an open process, it's that Harris wins handily no matter how you slice it.

Even if Biden had bowed out before the primaries, the nominee would have been Harris. And post-primaries, there has never been any serious path to anybody credible challenging Harris.

Maybe it'd be a different story if there was some notably strong figure in the party who was clearly more popular. But when the most talked about alternative is Gavin Newsom? Or Gretchen Whitmer, who nobody outside of Michigan except politics nerds has ever heard of? Come on. Pure fantasy talk.

Reply to

Ryan Humphrey

Can't gin up a staged fight if nobody else notable is even willing to run.

Reply to

Jennifer Van Goethem

He's done in two years and after that, well sorry Gavin, looks like your state happens to have two freshly elected senators who aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

Reply to

Pwnallthethings

Right. The idea the decision would actually, substantively be left to the minor party functionaries who signed up just to be there in-person for the speeches is totally out of touch with who the delegates really are. They're not free agents and don't represent the party's voters in any real sense.

It's political nerd wish-casting for a 19th C. style convention ignoring the reality that the delegates already chosen are not 19th C. style delegates.

Reply to

nick

Under this proposal (which is just some memo this professor wrote), it'd be the top six with no minimum threshold. So, like, even one delegate potentially. But that's dumb and not how it would actually work. You set a minimum threshold, 10% of the delegates or whatever.

I don't have it offhand but I recall there's already something like this in the DNC rules. To be recognized for the roll call a candidate must have, I want to say one fifth but something like that, of the delegates co-nominating them. That's how you make sure you're not flooded with fringe nobodies.

So Dean Phillips can announce he's running again, or whoever, but it'd be the equivalent in a regular election of failing to make the ballot.

Reply to

Jennifer Van Goethem

Thank god it can't be Newsom.

Reply to

nick

That happened because California had extremely easy ballot access, so a bunch of joke candidates could file and get on the ballot. Not really applicable here. There's no 'getting on the ballot' except at the convention with some minimum threshold of delegate support, which nobody else would meet.

As a formal matter, it's true the delegates would be unbound and Harris wouldn't automatically be the nominee. But these pie in the sky schemes for some American Idol competition are nonsense, because no matter what the formal process is, nobody who matters will challenge Harris for the nomination.

Hey you guys wanna see the dumbest plan to replace Biden possible? www.semafor.com/article/07/0...

Every single one of these fantasy football picks--Newsom, Whitmer, etc.--would endorse Harris the day Biden drops out. And then it doesn't matter what over-engineered 'mini-primary' scheme you come up with, she's running effectively unopposed and is thus the presumptive nominee.

Reply to

Gregg McLennan

Canada has a weird quirk where they always do minority governments instead of a coalition, but it's the same thing, when the largest party lacks an absolute majority of seats (as it often does because they have viable other parties) they need the acquiescence of the smaller parties to stay in power.

Reply to

Quinta Jurecic

Yup. No state requires the major parties to certify their presidential nominees any sooner than August 21, and the state parties never do that until after the convention. As it stands now, it's no different than how they'd certify Biden when the time comes.

Reply to

Quinta Jurecic

Ballot access isn’t a problem, but the Biden/Harris campaign funds and the fact that nobody other than Harris can keep them is a huge problem. Whole idea’s dumb. Whatever the formal process is, nobody who matters is going to challenge Harris for the nomination.

Reply to

Andy Craig

Ditto for how the national popular vote vs. electoral college flips are less about how small states get a small boost in how many electoral votes they're allotted. It's the use of winner take all by the states and the fact that more Dems live in red states than Republicans live in blue states.