I would feel better if those who are supposed to be political experts didn't beclown themselves this way. The choice is:
1) Biden
2) Harris
3) Total chaos / royal rumble, serious risk of coalition crack up.
Leading an anti-fascist coalition is very hard. There is no Aaron Sorkin solution here.
You could propose:
Biden holds a press conference from the East Room with Harris: "I don't think I can serve another full 4-year term. I'm not running, endorsing Harris, and telling all my delegates to vote for Harris."
At least that is a halfway plausible plan. Anything else courts disaster.
Absolutely. The complete failure to engage with the fact that a contested convention basically means - at best! - recreating the bitterest, sharpest rows from the middle of the primary season a little over two months before the election is maddening.
As you know, I am pretty sceptical of reading race into *everything*, but the repeated failure of all these people to admit that the only feasible non-Biden choice *is* the black Vice President is remarkably notable - absolutely honking foghorn here.
Do you think it’s that she’s black more than that she is a woman? Or both? (Genuine qu). What I see (from afar) of the red states seems to be v heavily and systematically targeting womens’ rights. Appreciate this is Dems but still…
I suspect it’s both tbh. Or a subtler thing where she isn’t perceived as what British politicians used to call “clubbable” (you could hang around with someone at your private club, rather than club to death) because of race and sex. But I doubt a white female VP would be overlooked like this?
Yet these pundit dipshits think people would magically stop being sexist and racist because someone didn't deal with a firehouse if lies on live TV is driving me up the wall.
Let’s say the pundits get their contested convention. Is there any realistic way that a brutal fight among delegates doesn’t alienate voters? And will those who favor someone who lost still vote for the winning candidate? This scenario is all downside.
Indeed. A brutal fight *on television*, where the people picking the nominee have not been chosen to actually pick a nominee but to lool good confirming Joe Biden - somehow going to produce an upside for the Democratic party…how exactly?
I’m not seeing any of their opinions explain why a “better”candidate than Biden would make a difference. Biden IS a better candidate than Trump but Trump voters are not assessing things rationally.
Oh, it’s terrifically written, and it’s great TV. But it is also great episodic TV, in that none of the characters’ left-right positions make sense *with reference to each other* let alone actual US politics.
My favourite post-Sorkin example being ‘The Supremes’ an absolutely wonderful 45 minutes of television that makes sense if your model of what justices do is the UK Supreme Court but is daylight madness for the US one.
Much like cop shows are fantasies based in a magical universe where justice exists, The West Wing is a fantasy show taking place in a universe where governance is magic.
The contortions to avoid Harris are deeply unseemly; the base could possibly get input as to who Harris should choose as her VP but that’s basically it.
And to what end? A candidate is supposed to be built up over many months. Of the 12-15 names regularly floated, the average voter would recognise the name of 3-4, but identify with any policy position? 0-1.
How would that be a viable candidate later this year?
They can't, but also they shouldn't.
Yes, obviously. The Democrats are not having a public fight on TV. Some Democrats are briefing the press about their panic - but that is many, many degrees less bad than doing it live on air.
I agree a contested convention could be ugly. But I think anointing a candidate without any democratic input, especially when that candidate has been chosen by the same people who insisted on Biden, will create its own unique ugliness - and people advocating that option are overlooking that.
No, they won’t have been chosen by the “same people who insisted on Biden”, partly because no-one is specifically advocating for Harris, they are saying “it’s Harris, Biden or chaos, pick one”. But also because 19 million primary voters chose Biden in 2020.
