Yeah, the worst part is that the polls seem to not be that bad - just enough to give the Dems a false sense of security and then limp into a bad loss in November. Biden is not going to get better and he is going to get trounced again (!) in the September debate, unless the Dems wimp out of that.
I saw that like 33% of voters thought Biden won the debate. God bless them, but who the hell are those people?
Yes, in recent days I keep thinking of that Jeff Connaughton narrative strand in George Packer's "The Unwinding" (2013). It's an unflattering glimpse into Biden world, to say the least. Thanks for the piece.
I was really very taken with that. I'd gotten a bit into the 'Biden may not be the sharpest tool in the shed but at least he is a humble civil servant' narrative and Connaughton/Packer rip that apart. Biden is basically Bill Clinton with the same scuz but without the talent. They were part of a generation that found that the way to success was by just being a political animal - endlessly self-promoting and always playing to the next campaign. It's not bad as party politics - Connaughton actually calls Biden a "political genius" - but it's the usual thing where people get good at one thing and forget everything else, and in this case Biden forgot that the country is bigger than he is.
Over the weekend, I found myself imagining Joe with his family talking about the road ahead. And much of what I saw in my mind’s eye was a very specific chagrin, perhaps even rage, directed at all the insiders who told him he had to make way for Hillary in 2016, it being her turn, as they would have it, and now all piling on, telling him he simply has to go, being all too evidently enfeebled and incapable.
If I’m Joe, a big part of me is thinking, “I’ve already taken a bullet for you people and foregone my best chance, and now, after I loyally campaigned in 2016 (even making up a story to support my being passed over), and after you went out and lost a very winnable election that I almost certainly would have won (can anyone say Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan??), you want to crucify me. 'Come on, Joe,' you say, 'do the right thing'. Well, the hell with you, I say, and that means you, too, Barack and Bill. I’d rather die behind the wheel, and you’ll be in the car with me."
I'm not saying that that is where Biden is, but it also seems to me that a person can be put upon too much, and that it would be no strange thing if Joe were to be feeling something like fury, especially given the abject failure and arrogance of 2016 and the present willingness to mock him and view his dignity as expendable.
He was forced to wait too long, and now he's being blamed for lacking the qualities that the passage of time took from him. That's rather thick, I think.
Your analysis has nothing to do with civil service of the highest office and everything to do with maintaining power for the sake of power (and its hidden wealth grab). Not saying you’re wrong but simply pointing out your point of view in and of itself outlines the biggest problem facing American failing democracy- if you can even call it that anymore.
Yeah but, this is a question of the vice president's tie breaking vote being made out of conscience or expedience. A question of something rather than vacuity. We donot want to be governed by hand me down best practices but by a somebody rather than a title. Dangerous to have a Clinton at the height of his gaming the system, but better than a supreme judge who has debts , a for instance, more than he can pay. We want a reactive vital human, not an Old Kinderhook signature
You make my point for me but without realizing it. Thank you. When you use words like “but better than” “something rather than nothing” shows you’ve been trained to accept the worst as leaders and have to ask for something better when in reality a functioning democracy is the vitality and corruption-less process already self supporting and built into the fabric of the institution itself. Having to ask to rebuild one is the clearest sign it’s broken when that should never have been the case to begin with. All these institutions aren’t made from pixie dust, they are man made and man broken. Nothing here is complicated and yet you make it sound like a rubic cube that simply needs reorganizing.
Sorry I mistook . I could not grasp that you were replying to a person suggesting we wear Biden's shoes and walk in his head. It is Bernie or Gretchen or someone who took their geography classes seriously who needs to be asked to accept the nomination. Sincerity would be a winning strategy , on their part, in contrast to the deep faking the party is showing us. The parlor trick of Joe reading from left and right teleprompters his reaction to the court, made him look almost human, but we earn better than any more such magic tricks, we maintain this country in fact, we deserve Rhodes scholars even when they overreach, Clinton had hubris you know? Was what i was saying, for a naif like I was it was sometimes hard to watch at 15, you might be right that the constitution as writ should be the equal to what the Federalist society can throw out as fiats. You sir, are a very civil person, venture your thoughts to any one In DC who you think might listen. We feel as if the polls speak for us, we want this tired man to retire.
I would campaign for Kamala, honestly it was why I voted for Hillary. We knew the courts were the arena since during President Obama. A president who would give hours every day to cases that could reiiterate our native faith in due process, president Harris could do that if tasked, I trust.
Basically, there was a triangle of Obama/Hillary/Biden. Biden thought he would be the heir to Obama, but in 2016 Obama discreetly gave the nod to Hillary. It sounds like that really enraged Biden and contributed to his 'it's me versus the the world' mentality. We all have this fantasy of Obama like rapelling up a back staircase of the White House and having a heart-to-heart with Biden, but I think the truth is that Biden feels Obama is part of the vast sea of people who have always 'underestimated' him. I suspect that the people around Biden - his wife, his sister, Anita Dunn - are all totally in a bubble. Without meaning to be outrageous, it's not so totally dissimilar to the mentality Putin was in at the launch of the 2022 war - suspicious of everybody else, and certainly 'conventional thinking,' and trusting only a very small coterie of loyal, sycophantic subordinates. It's still possible that Biden will withdraw - the chorus for it is so overwhelming, and as much as they're in a bubble, Jill and Joe seem to at least have an awareness of what's going on in the party and press - but it's an extremely difficult situation, where the Biden inner circle clearly is seeing a very different reality from everyone else.
Thanks, Sam. And my point was plainly not that Biden ought not withdraw now, but that his being passed over, slighted, and his loyalty taken for granted in 2016, all followed by the debacle of a botched Clinton campaign and a Trump victory, should not be forgotten as factors alive for him today. And it is wrongly dismissive, I think, to say that he is in a bubble, thus emphasizing self-indulgence and diminishing the reasons for his resentment, and it is in fact as straight-up outrageous as you fear it might be to suggest a direct comparison with Putin.
Ah I take your point. Yes, I agree that understanding where Biden is coming from involves understanding the rage that he would have had in 2016. I guess my feeling is that the highest art of a leader is knowing when to give up leadership. It's very hard to do because the qualities that make people president - ego, insane drive, a semi-messianic sense of their own indispensability - are exactly the qualities that make it hard for people to see past themselves and ultimately to stand down. I look at Biden and - whatever just resentments he may have - I see him abrogating that fundamental responsibility. I'm sorry if I'm being a bit harsh on Biden - whom I've liked up until this moment. I'm a bit emotional about this because I do genuinely feel that he and his circle deliberately misled the American people with potentially dire consequences.
Yes, he ought to have honored his pledge to serve one term and pass the torch, and I've been worried for many months about his decline and what it might cost us. I've even gone as far as writing a DNC friend and California delegate to this summer's convention, sending her clips from YouTube to underscore my panic at his frailty. And yet I cannot let us off the hook for 2016. That was about as bad as it could be, and Biden's persistence reads to me as a sort of coda or as a final demonstration of all that failure cost. Now we need Joe to take another one for the team. He should, and I hope that he will, but there are reasons he might not.
Elections Matter. If this country and its democracy are to survive, the crowning obligation of good American citizenship is to put country before party and person. It is now time for the Democratic National Committee to do just that. I am a 72 year-old Michigan Resident and a lifelong Democrat who grew up in suburban Philadelphia and generally supported Joe Biden throughout his career. Now, he says, it's about us, not him. Given the complex domestic and international challenges and opportunities in front of us, this country cannot afford four years of backwards Trump and neanderthal MAGA hands on the levers of government. If it's really about us (and I presume, his children and grandchildren), I hope he and Kamala will step aside on July 4th and get behind a new generation of Democratic leadership. A Gretchen Whitmer (age 52) and Ralphael Warnock (age 54) ticket would be my first choice. In addition, I wish they would pick up the phone and invite Taylor Swift and Beyonce to co-create a new song and video about the virtues of democracy, release it to the public, and then perform it live on the last night of the Democratic Convention in Chicago, preferably introduced by Joe and Jill. We Democrats probably need an 80 percent turnout in November in order to defeat Trump and MAGA.
I like the Whitmer/Warnock ticket! And btw whatever happened to the Deep State plot for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce to denounce Trump at the pivotal moment? Is that still the October surprise? Agreed that Biden absolutely must put party and country first.
Swift and Kelce, e.g. can't wait till October, a lot of young people aren't even registered to vote and many States have very early mail in voting that is tailored to "busy" young folks.
gee, I wonder where people got the idea that Biden was too old and that meant too feeble in mind (body doesn't really count absent a stroke or heart attack, neither of which seem to be an impending problem)
Could it have been the relentless pounding of the idea by the NYT and other MSM? Could it have been Hur deciding that Biden lacked focus on Hur's questions the DAY AFTER THE HAMAS ATTACK? Could it have been relentless lies from the GOP? Could it have been widespread cheapfakes? (The most recent ones are indeed only the most recent.)
Ever heard of Occam's Razor? Which is more likely: that Biden suddenly (in the months since the SOTU) went gaga or that he had a bad cold and was loaded on antihistimines.
Look up the concept of "framing" and "priming" in psychology and tell me how none of that entered into evaluations of Biden's capacity either in the past or even more now.
I was pulling for him and against the disgusting framing around his age. My heart sank in the debate, not because they were right, but because he’s toast and now the entire republic can see it. You’re disbelieving your own eyes and writing what the Party says you saw. It’s delusional to call yourself honourable while that once-great president, now hubristic candidate dishonours his supporters and hands them ro Trump.
What I saw with my own eyes was a man with a cold. And I know he wasn’t doddering because I read the transcript and he made perfect sense even WITH the cold. I’d like to see you do better in the circumstances. Interestingly as Jay Kuo pointed out Latino voters who saw the close captions actually reported that they changed TO Biden. Give me ANY evidence that any of the alternate contenders could do as well against tRump. Any polls? Any campaign funds to blitz the ads? Have any of them “debated” tRump and his non stop lies?
One of the things eyes are good for is reading words. Read his and tell me he’s feeble.
Or go on drumming up pie in the sky dreams and just keep dividing the voters.
I’m confident that Joe WILL do better. And that his doing better will be the news—as well as trump’s lies, which he isn’t going to stop spouting anytime soon.
Bothsiding Trump won’t convince anyone to vote for Joe unless he proves this was a blip and not a condition. That’s a hard sell. Today, Pelosi agreed "I think it's a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is this a condition?" "When people ask that question, it's completely legitimate — of both candidates."
The future actions will show whether it is a blip or a condition. We’ve already seen the NC rally (and don’t go on about teleprompters. Even if used Biden can READ them; trump often can’t.) Best bet for Dems is to meet regularly with Joe and report on his “adequacy” in dealing with the topics of the meeting. Certainly his recent meetings with foreign ambassadors and leaders haven’t led to any adverse comments. And he doesn’t conduct THOSE with teleprompters.
I still don't see why a 90 minute debate with 2 and 1 minute time limits is a particular skill a president needs in great depth. Are ANY problems people bring to him thus limited as they discuss the issue?
Thank you David. The shame of this is that Trump really is very vulnerable. A normal Democratic primary leading to a normal Democratic candidate - Whitmer, Buttigieg, Pritzker, Newsom, just about anyone really - likely would have given us the election. A last-minute candidate selected at the convention may still do it. But Biden tottering to victory and then thinking he's going to govern like this for four more years? (And what? Putin and Hamas and Xi all agree to only launch attacks between the hours of 10am and 4pm EST when Biden is sharp?) This is all so crazy.
If Joe goes now, in the aftermath of the debate, then the whole Democratic-media establishment look like foolish liars for letting him run. This will be blindingly obvious to most voters and they don't have a strong enough back-up candidate to make up for that.
It seems to me the only way forward that saves some face (and this is important for the reputation of the party and the votes they receive now and in the future) is to wait a couple of weeks for the hype to die down, and then for Biden to die or have an obviously disqualifying medical event. And Biden doesn't seem the type of guy to die for his country - although maybe he would die for his reputation! But maybe he could be convinced to fake a stroke. I'm only being a little facetious.
What I fear will happen is when the post-debate polls are published, little will have changed. Biden will be a little further behind, but it will not be looking like a Reagan vs Mondale slaughter. But the challenge for the Biden team to win -- and at this point that really is the point -- is to get some fence sitters or persuadable voters to vote Biden, there are precious few of those at this point. No one can look at Thursday night and say he has improved his hand with them. Nor any way to change the reality that he is old and addled. It is like Steve Kornacke calling a race that is very, very close with the assessment that there are just not enough votes left to count for the laggard to win.
Most likely team Biden will soldier on, lose by an inch or two, and people will be saying that for but a few thousand (or hundred thousands) of votes by the least engaged in our Republic, America went down a rabbit hole from which it could not recover. Until no one talks much about America at all.
I really agree with that Larry. The snap polls seem to show little change. 33% of voters apparently thought Biden won the debate - which is staggering to me. There's a huge chunk of the electorate that says it's going for Kennedy. A normal Democratic candidate would be able to pick up a healthy slice of that vote and win the election based on that even without cutting into Trump's bloc. It's true that the Democratic base will continue to vote for this version of Biden over Trump but there's zero chance of Biden's picking up any swings or independents. Even with the Biden-bubble, someone or other MUST be able to see that.
I’ve been hoping for truly awful polls that might knock some sense into Team Biden. I fear their willful blindness has no limits.
Yeah, the worst part is that the polls seem to not be that bad - just enough to give the Dems a false sense of security and then limp into a bad loss in November. Biden is not going to get better and he is going to get trounced again (!) in the September debate, unless the Dems wimp out of that.
I saw that like 33% of voters thought Biden won the debate. God bless them, but who the hell are those people?
Clear eyed yet discouraging.
Thank you GD.
Yes, in recent days I keep thinking of that Jeff Connaughton narrative strand in George Packer's "The Unwinding" (2013). It's an unflattering glimpse into Biden world, to say the least. Thanks for the piece.
I was really very taken with that. I'd gotten a bit into the 'Biden may not be the sharpest tool in the shed but at least he is a humble civil servant' narrative and Connaughton/Packer rip that apart. Biden is basically Bill Clinton with the same scuz but without the talent. They were part of a generation that found that the way to success was by just being a political animal - endlessly self-promoting and always playing to the next campaign. It's not bad as party politics - Connaughton actually calls Biden a "political genius" - but it's the usual thing where people get good at one thing and forget everything else, and in this case Biden forgot that the country is bigger than he is.
Over the weekend, I found myself imagining Joe with his family talking about the road ahead. And much of what I saw in my mind’s eye was a very specific chagrin, perhaps even rage, directed at all the insiders who told him he had to make way for Hillary in 2016, it being her turn, as they would have it, and now all piling on, telling him he simply has to go, being all too evidently enfeebled and incapable.
If I’m Joe, a big part of me is thinking, “I’ve already taken a bullet for you people and foregone my best chance, and now, after I loyally campaigned in 2016 (even making up a story to support my being passed over), and after you went out and lost a very winnable election that I almost certainly would have won (can anyone say Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan??), you want to crucify me. 'Come on, Joe,' you say, 'do the right thing'. Well, the hell with you, I say, and that means you, too, Barack and Bill. I’d rather die behind the wheel, and you’ll be in the car with me."
I'm not saying that that is where Biden is, but it also seems to me that a person can be put upon too much, and that it would be no strange thing if Joe were to be feeling something like fury, especially given the abject failure and arrogance of 2016 and the present willingness to mock him and view his dignity as expendable.
He was forced to wait too long, and now he's being blamed for lacking the qualities that the passage of time took from him. That's rather thick, I think.
Your analysis has nothing to do with civil service of the highest office and everything to do with maintaining power for the sake of power (and its hidden wealth grab). Not saying you’re wrong but simply pointing out your point of view in and of itself outlines the biggest problem facing American failing democracy- if you can even call it that anymore.
Yeah but, this is a question of the vice president's tie breaking vote being made out of conscience or expedience. A question of something rather than vacuity. We donot want to be governed by hand me down best practices but by a somebody rather than a title. Dangerous to have a Clinton at the height of his gaming the system, but better than a supreme judge who has debts , a for instance, more than he can pay. We want a reactive vital human, not an Old Kinderhook signature
Something rather than nothing is the math.
You make my point for me but without realizing it. Thank you. When you use words like “but better than” “something rather than nothing” shows you’ve been trained to accept the worst as leaders and have to ask for something better when in reality a functioning democracy is the vitality and corruption-less process already self supporting and built into the fabric of the institution itself. Having to ask to rebuild one is the clearest sign it’s broken when that should never have been the case to begin with. All these institutions aren’t made from pixie dust, they are man made and man broken. Nothing here is complicated and yet you make it sound like a rubic cube that simply needs reorganizing.
Sorry I mistook . I could not grasp that you were replying to a person suggesting we wear Biden's shoes and walk in his head. It is Bernie or Gretchen or someone who took their geography classes seriously who needs to be asked to accept the nomination. Sincerity would be a winning strategy , on their part, in contrast to the deep faking the party is showing us. The parlor trick of Joe reading from left and right teleprompters his reaction to the court, made him look almost human, but we earn better than any more such magic tricks, we maintain this country in fact, we deserve Rhodes scholars even when they overreach, Clinton had hubris you know? Was what i was saying, for a naif like I was it was sometimes hard to watch at 15, you might be right that the constitution as writ should be the equal to what the Federalist society can throw out as fiats. You sir, are a very civil person, venture your thoughts to any one In DC who you think might listen. We feel as if the polls speak for us, we want this tired man to retire.
I would campaign for Kamala, honestly it was why I voted for Hillary. We knew the courts were the arena since during President Obama. A president who would give hours every day to cases that could reiiterate our native faith in due process, president Harris could do that if tasked, I trust.
I came across a really dispiriting description of the Obama/Biden dynamics. Politico has the story here: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/08/14/obama-biden-relationship-393570
Basically, there was a triangle of Obama/Hillary/Biden. Biden thought he would be the heir to Obama, but in 2016 Obama discreetly gave the nod to Hillary. It sounds like that really enraged Biden and contributed to his 'it's me versus the the world' mentality. We all have this fantasy of Obama like rapelling up a back staircase of the White House and having a heart-to-heart with Biden, but I think the truth is that Biden feels Obama is part of the vast sea of people who have always 'underestimated' him. I suspect that the people around Biden - his wife, his sister, Anita Dunn - are all totally in a bubble. Without meaning to be outrageous, it's not so totally dissimilar to the mentality Putin was in at the launch of the 2022 war - suspicious of everybody else, and certainly 'conventional thinking,' and trusting only a very small coterie of loyal, sycophantic subordinates. It's still possible that Biden will withdraw - the chorus for it is so overwhelming, and as much as they're in a bubble, Jill and Joe seem to at least have an awareness of what's going on in the party and press - but it's an extremely difficult situation, where the Biden inner circle clearly is seeing a very different reality from everyone else.
Thanks, Sam. And my point was plainly not that Biden ought not withdraw now, but that his being passed over, slighted, and his loyalty taken for granted in 2016, all followed by the debacle of a botched Clinton campaign and a Trump victory, should not be forgotten as factors alive for him today. And it is wrongly dismissive, I think, to say that he is in a bubble, thus emphasizing self-indulgence and diminishing the reasons for his resentment, and it is in fact as straight-up outrageous as you fear it might be to suggest a direct comparison with Putin.
Ah I take your point. Yes, I agree that understanding where Biden is coming from involves understanding the rage that he would have had in 2016. I guess my feeling is that the highest art of a leader is knowing when to give up leadership. It's very hard to do because the qualities that make people president - ego, insane drive, a semi-messianic sense of their own indispensability - are exactly the qualities that make it hard for people to see past themselves and ultimately to stand down. I look at Biden and - whatever just resentments he may have - I see him abrogating that fundamental responsibility. I'm sorry if I'm being a bit harsh on Biden - whom I've liked up until this moment. I'm a bit emotional about this because I do genuinely feel that he and his circle deliberately misled the American people with potentially dire consequences.
Yes, he ought to have honored his pledge to serve one term and pass the torch, and I've been worried for many months about his decline and what it might cost us. I've even gone as far as writing a DNC friend and California delegate to this summer's convention, sending her clips from YouTube to underscore my panic at his frailty. And yet I cannot let us off the hook for 2016. That was about as bad as it could be, and Biden's persistence reads to me as a sort of coda or as a final demonstration of all that failure cost. Now we need Joe to take another one for the team. He should, and I hope that he will, but there are reasons he might not.
A tragic and terrifying case of folie à deux.
Elections Matter. If this country and its democracy are to survive, the crowning obligation of good American citizenship is to put country before party and person. It is now time for the Democratic National Committee to do just that. I am a 72 year-old Michigan Resident and a lifelong Democrat who grew up in suburban Philadelphia and generally supported Joe Biden throughout his career. Now, he says, it's about us, not him. Given the complex domestic and international challenges and opportunities in front of us, this country cannot afford four years of backwards Trump and neanderthal MAGA hands on the levers of government. If it's really about us (and I presume, his children and grandchildren), I hope he and Kamala will step aside on July 4th and get behind a new generation of Democratic leadership. A Gretchen Whitmer (age 52) and Ralphael Warnock (age 54) ticket would be my first choice. In addition, I wish they would pick up the phone and invite Taylor Swift and Beyonce to co-create a new song and video about the virtues of democracy, release it to the public, and then perform it live on the last night of the Democratic Convention in Chicago, preferably introduced by Joe and Jill. We Democrats probably need an 80 percent turnout in November in order to defeat Trump and MAGA.
I like the Whitmer/Warnock ticket! And btw whatever happened to the Deep State plot for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce to denounce Trump at the pivotal moment? Is that still the October surprise? Agreed that Biden absolutely must put party and country first.
Swift and Kelce, e.g. can't wait till October, a lot of young people aren't even registered to vote and many States have very early mail in voting that is tailored to "busy" young folks.
gee, I wonder where people got the idea that Biden was too old and that meant too feeble in mind (body doesn't really count absent a stroke or heart attack, neither of which seem to be an impending problem)
Could it have been the relentless pounding of the idea by the NYT and other MSM? Could it have been Hur deciding that Biden lacked focus on Hur's questions the DAY AFTER THE HAMAS ATTACK? Could it have been relentless lies from the GOP? Could it have been widespread cheapfakes? (The most recent ones are indeed only the most recent.)
Ever heard of Occam's Razor? Which is more likely: that Biden suddenly (in the months since the SOTU) went gaga or that he had a bad cold and was loaded on antihistimines.
Look up the concept of "framing" and "priming" in psychology and tell me how none of that entered into evaluations of Biden's capacity either in the past or even more now.
I was pulling for him and against the disgusting framing around his age. My heart sank in the debate, not because they were right, but because he’s toast and now the entire republic can see it. You’re disbelieving your own eyes and writing what the Party says you saw. It’s delusional to call yourself honourable while that once-great president, now hubristic candidate dishonours his supporters and hands them ro Trump.
What I saw with my own eyes was a man with a cold. And I know he wasn’t doddering because I read the transcript and he made perfect sense even WITH the cold. I’d like to see you do better in the circumstances. Interestingly as Jay Kuo pointed out Latino voters who saw the close captions actually reported that they changed TO Biden. Give me ANY evidence that any of the alternate contenders could do as well against tRump. Any polls? Any campaign funds to blitz the ads? Have any of them “debated” tRump and his non stop lies?
One of the things eyes are good for is reading words. Read his and tell me he’s feeble.
Or go on drumming up pie in the sky dreams and just keep dividing the voters.
Susan, I don’t need to do better. Joe has to. I’m not against him, or you. I’m against Trump. Latinos aren’t going to replace the lost votes.
I’m confident that Joe WILL do better. And that his doing better will be the news—as well as trump’s lies, which he isn’t going to stop spouting anytime soon.
Bothsiding Trump won’t convince anyone to vote for Joe unless he proves this was a blip and not a condition. That’s a hard sell. Today, Pelosi agreed "I think it's a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is this a condition?" "When people ask that question, it's completely legitimate — of both candidates."
The future actions will show whether it is a blip or a condition. We’ve already seen the NC rally (and don’t go on about teleprompters. Even if used Biden can READ them; trump often can’t.) Best bet for Dems is to meet regularly with Joe and report on his “adequacy” in dealing with the topics of the meeting. Certainly his recent meetings with foreign ambassadors and leaders haven’t led to any adverse comments. And he doesn’t conduct THOSE with teleprompters.
I still don't see why a 90 minute debate with 2 and 1 minute time limits is a particular skill a president needs in great depth. Are ANY problems people bring to him thus limited as they discuss the issue?
Well said. Needed to be said. Needs to be acted upon. Where are those protestors when you need them!?
Thank you David. The shame of this is that Trump really is very vulnerable. A normal Democratic primary leading to a normal Democratic candidate - Whitmer, Buttigieg, Pritzker, Newsom, just about anyone really - likely would have given us the election. A last-minute candidate selected at the convention may still do it. But Biden tottering to victory and then thinking he's going to govern like this for four more years? (And what? Putin and Hamas and Xi all agree to only launch attacks between the hours of 10am and 4pm EST when Biden is sharp?) This is all so crazy.
So true.
If Joe goes now, in the aftermath of the debate, then the whole Democratic-media establishment look like foolish liars for letting him run. This will be blindingly obvious to most voters and they don't have a strong enough back-up candidate to make up for that.
It seems to me the only way forward that saves some face (and this is important for the reputation of the party and the votes they receive now and in the future) is to wait a couple of weeks for the hype to die down, and then for Biden to die or have an obviously disqualifying medical event. And Biden doesn't seem the type of guy to die for his country - although maybe he would die for his reputation! But maybe he could be convinced to fake a stroke. I'm only being a little facetious.
Lol!
What I fear will happen is when the post-debate polls are published, little will have changed. Biden will be a little further behind, but it will not be looking like a Reagan vs Mondale slaughter. But the challenge for the Biden team to win -- and at this point that really is the point -- is to get some fence sitters or persuadable voters to vote Biden, there are precious few of those at this point. No one can look at Thursday night and say he has improved his hand with them. Nor any way to change the reality that he is old and addled. It is like Steve Kornacke calling a race that is very, very close with the assessment that there are just not enough votes left to count for the laggard to win.
Most likely team Biden will soldier on, lose by an inch or two, and people will be saying that for but a few thousand (or hundred thousands) of votes by the least engaged in our Republic, America went down a rabbit hole from which it could not recover. Until no one talks much about America at all.
I really agree with that Larry. The snap polls seem to show little change. 33% of voters apparently thought Biden won the debate - which is staggering to me. There's a huge chunk of the electorate that says it's going for Kennedy. A normal Democratic candidate would be able to pick up a healthy slice of that vote and win the election based on that even without cutting into Trump's bloc. It's true that the Democratic base will continue to vote for this version of Biden over Trump but there's zero chance of Biden's picking up any swings or independents. Even with the Biden-bubble, someone or other MUST be able to see that.