bouie is literally the only person on the NYT board who is behaving and responding to the debate like a professional that has followed and covered a presidential election. i mean that seriously, i'm not being snarky.
if you actually get *paid* to write about politics for a living, screaming that the nominee has to drop out after one bad debate *in june* (and one in which the challenger did not do well, either), you are unqualified for your job and your salary
Biden steps down. Harris is muscled aside in favor of Andy Beshear. Jim Clyburn and other high ranking blacl Democrats says “wait a sec, why are we elevating Harris?” what happens next?
“buh you just love identity politics” doesn’t get around the fact that parties are coalitions, Harris has a real and influential constituency, and ignoring it could prove a problem.
I’m torn on this question and think you’re making a compelling serious argument. But I will say the one bit of evidence we *do* have that a non Biden D would not be saddled with the unpopularity is that D’s are polling like 5-7 points ahead of Biden in basically every statewide race.
Why are people even considering this? It's bizarre to me. Biden's been perceived as a shambling corpse for basically his entire presidency, but there's also no clear substitute that can be produced at this time. I assumed everyone understood that a Guy Who Acts Old is what we were getting?
But isn’t that an unfair comparison, since they don’t have the MSM or Republican $ gunning for them the same way they are Biden? All Democratic politicians start to lose popularity when they become the main grist in the conservative/MSM mill.
Well put, I've been trying to say something similar all day. And I think the right wing media spotlight is an important factor. And I'm pretty sure Fox producers have lines of attack ready to be deployed on people like Whitmer and Newsom.
Whitmer and Newsom would absolutely be destroyed. Right wingers tried to kidnap her, and Gavin is Gavin. And on our side, there’s “I’d vote for a woman, just not THAT woman.”
Beyond that, mail & early voting starts in ≤ 85 days in ME & IL, and 100 in most other states.
There’s a genuine ballot access issue, and saying that there will be a contested convention is a terrible idea, and luckily, wishcasting.
The delegates are committed to Biden and a Biden surrogate will nominate him.
This isn’t a mystery. It’s how modern day political conventions work.
Yup. Whitmer is fantastic yet the punditry will end her candidacy for being too risky (female, same as Harris) and Newsom is the walking incarnation of the conservative media liberal caricature, a slick suit who literally represents the state Hollywood comes from, all synonymous with Satan to MAGA.
Newsom would be good for the exact reason Biden is bad. People want the image and tone of a leader, that is why Biden appearing to old is a problem. Newsom looks like a leader, isnt old, and has some political talent. He would definitely beat Trump imo and I don’t even like him
Newsom has never beaten Trump, so we don’t know that. He has massive down sides in image (coastal elitist with an expensive haircut, Hollywood values), the MSM would get to work unearthing every skeleton in his closet (helped along by Republican opposition research) immediately before voting
Coronating him over the sitting VP is also a very clear signal to both black people and women about how little the party truly cares about seeing them represented, in an election in which people are going to be asked to clear huge hurdles to cast their votes. Why do this?
Let Biden do his thing. All of you have your knickers twisted into knots! This is the time to stand behind him, NOT abandon him. He's had our backs for 4 years and the best Dems can do is run around like blue arse flies looking to replace him.
yes
literally: he alienated so many potential voters (I know, I know: young people don't vote: stfu. SOME do) over genocide support. He knows he's losing votes from that. He HAD to pick up independents to replace them. Y
Liberal pundits utterly refuse to acknowledge the cost of of Israel love
A lot of the people minimizing his abysmal performance are treating it like it happened in a vacuum and we’re all just overreacting to 1 bad debate. Sorry no, he’s been repelling voters across the spectrum for a multitude of reason lately. The debate was just an opportunity to plug 1 of many holes.
agreed.
We're not over reacting to one event. A reasonable person will look at that and say, I'm not showing up to the polls for a guy with aphasia--no offense: it really sucks.
How is Biden not only going to get as many votes as last time in MI/AZ/GA, but _replace_ anti-genocide voters?
I have no idea how people can be optimistic about his chances to do that. There are numerous scenarios where he loses the 40,000 votes that made the difference last time. Depressed turnout over Gaza and his age are 2 that come to mind. Then there’s the economy. It’s way too precarious for my liking.
But don't you think that dropping the incumbent -whose record isn't actually bad in many areas - 5 months before the election is kind of the stupidest thing any party could do? It screams we have no idea what we're doing.
C'mon.
Once Whitmer (or whoever) becomes the national nominee, people will start picking at her resume and Republicans who didn't care when she was just a governor will now hate her.
It's just like Hillary being popular as a Senator and Sec of State, but as a prez candidate, her negatives shot up.
Fine. Republicans will hate her. That's not a question. But she, or Harris, or Beshear or whoever would remove "he's soooo old" from the media narrative and we could get a little more appreciation of the good he's done in office.
From now until he pulls out or election day, his age is story #1.
The statewide contenders do not get the 24/7 onslaught of right wing media fury that President Biden receives. Even someone they despise as much as Gavin Newsom gets a fraction of the attention President Biden does.
Any replacement moves to the #1 position, & polling will go down accordingly
Has anyone polled how the democratic base—Black people—would feel about having the incumbent president and his Black VP tossed in the garbage in favor of "Non Biden D"?
If someones position is that Joe Biden needs to drop out for the sake of the nation, but that Trump is fine to stay in, they're not a serious person, because Trump has no business managing a book club, let alone a nation-state. But Dems must do the right thing and be adults, and Repubs ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Trump could fuck the wives of the editors of all the major newspapers on live TV and they’d still ask Biden to resign because they hate him more. Like Israelis hatred of Palestinians and Palestinians hatred of Israelis, there’s something more sinister and sectarian about their dissonance.
Meanwhile CNN continues to get away with their farcical attempts at hosting Trump. No real time fact checks. Leading questions. If America does become a dictatorship, they need to take some of the blame for facilitating Trump’s propaganda and for missing the ethical dilemma of enabling a rapist.
The sheer glee of Biden’s failure by his spin Dr’s. on CNN, despite Trump being a truly awful candidate, shows that US politics is all about the oppression of one group of Americans over another not the seeking of compromise for an alternative point of view. This will lead to violence. Lots of it.
It's probably easier to be popular in one state than 25 states. I also think Biden is subject to disapproval from both the right (often labeled moderate) AND the left of his own party.
Look, you all can go round and round on this all you want, the people who aren't partisans are not going to vote for the guy who was on stage last night, no matter how absurd Trump is, he looked vibrant and did not seem diminished
To casual voters, independents, and undecideds, that will matter
Certainly by July 11th (Trump's sentencing date).
Besides, if it turns out that Biden is really just down with a cold--which might very well be the case, if reports are to be believed--then the debate may not be an accurate indication of his performance.
I mean, don't get me wrong, in my ideal world, we would've nominated Gretchen Witmer (with maybe Wes Moore as VP) instead of Biden--but the time for that was *last year*, if not earlier.
Not even sure what that is supposed to mean Mr. Uncle Dude but I would suggest you go back and check a few moments in Presidential history, start with "Dukakis in the tank" if that doesn't work go check out Gary Hart...when people's fears about someone are confirmed it often leaves a mark
