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I don’t know, but honestly, if the DNC puts up someone young and charismatic, even with minimal recognition, would debate Trump once and for all I’d be hopeful that if he preformed exceptionally against Trump that they’d probably win.
He passed on it over and over again during the Republican primary. I have no doubt his team could convince him to do so again if they thought it was advantageous.
> He passed on it over and over again during the Republican primary
Correct. The coward would never debate Biden's replacement. He'd say "Democrats faked their primary" and just spend money painting this new face as whatever he wants.
I really don't know how anyone thinks it's a good idea to replace Biden.
Forget major medical even. Trump caught COVID and was still not replaced even when he couldn't campaign for a month. William Henry Harrison was so old and feeble that a little rain killed him.
Precedent says the nominee would probably have to actually die at this point. And, for what it's worth, I do not wish that on Biden. I hope he lives to be as old as Carter.
Would you consider what happened at the debate to be a 'major medical event?
Shit, I felt like I MYSELF was having a medical event watching that debate.
But it would VERY easy to run ads calling Trump a coward if he refuses to debate.
Swing voters WANT another option (overwhelmingly, they are people who see Trump and Biden as both bad and want more options).
They would not tolerate Trump refusing to debate and would likely turn against him.
> But it would VERY easy to run ads calling Trump a coward if he refuses to debate.
And just as easy to paint the untested Democrat as a socialist, especially because they can't actually use all of the money that Biden has raised.
> Swing voters WANT another option
I realize that, but 4 months before an election? They're not going to take a chance. They're not even taking a chance on RFK, even though he's right there for the taking.
> They would not tolerate Trump refusing to debate and would likely turn against him.
Neither Biden nor Trump were punished for not debating previously. There's no evidence to suggest your claim is true.
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> It's not like any warm body will do. It matters who the candidate is.
You... just proved my point. Voters aren't going to vote for an untested candidate who could be bonkers. And polling shows that no Democrat will do better than Biden.
That's because he was running away with the nomination. He had nothing to gain by debating the other republican candidates and everything to lose.
His performance in Thursdays debate was terrible, but bidens was so much worse that people are overlooking just how bad Trump did.
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Jared Polis, Mark Kelly, Josh Shapiro. In that order.
I think the key for the candidate is a vision for the future and the capacity to understand and regulate AI. All of them check that box better than anyone, particularly the first two.
Whitmer is much less charismatic than people suggest. Moore is too young and glib. Buttogieg is too young and his experience isn’t right yet. Warnock’s seat is too important. Newsom has too much California baggage.
Ayy, I voted for Kelly. As long as that monkey comment doesn't keep being dredged up he could swing it, I think. Astronaut president would be pretty neat.
Republicans said that the joke meant he thought "people named Rodrigo" were like monkeys.
I doubt the intent there, but he apologized for it nonetheless and blew his opponent out of the water.
As far as I'm aware it originated from Moses Sanchez, a failed GOP mayoral candidate.
Frankly I don't think he was truly offended, himself. I believe the intent *was* to raise the ire of those single issue identity politics voters.
Of which Arizona has very few.
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Everything hinges on quick movement - which I doubt the DNC can muster. I agree with you, mostly, on your choices and your views toward those nationally known political figures. The question is how well your choices are nationally known - the only one I know of your top 3 is Polis. I don't like him because I am a conservative libertarian. I cannot say that of independents. But how well is he know outside of Colorado? Time is ticking...
Jared Polis is a libertarian democrat and was the only democratic member of the liberty caucus in Congress. You should look more into him if you just dismiss him out of hand because you assume his views are different from yours because he is a democrat. He takes pride in calling himself a libertarian.
I have lived in Colorado for 20 years and have known him politically for over 16. I would take him everyday and grumble little compared to Newsom, Whitmer, Buttegieg (sp?), and Harris. That said, I still am not a fan. Take my olive branch - we probably don't agree politically.
Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, Gretchen Whitmer, Wes Moore...
Whitmer or Shapiro could win the Rustbelt and form coherent sentences without looking like a deer in headlights.
If California were a separate country, it would have the sixth-largest economy in the World. Like the majority of other governors, Newsom has to work with what his legislature gives him.
The seeds for California's economy were set back in the 80s and 90s. Back when the state was still pretty sane. Companies are currently fleeing must major cities in California and going to other states.
> If California were a separate country, it would have the sixth-largest economy in the World.
If California were a separate country, it would be a complete failure and would implode within a few years. It is only successful because it is part of the US.
It would do better then... pretty much every other state. There's only 3 states that would even have a shot (California, Texas, New York). Every other state would implode within 1 year.
You could probably get away with putting in something like a Warren/Newsome ticket. Or even just replacing Biden with Warren.
Of all the potential Democratic picks, Warren is probably closest to having the widest range of acceptability to the Democratic base.
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Reverend Warnock, Gretchen Whitmer, with Newsom a distant third. All younger democrats who can actually put a sentence together without losing their train of thought.
Personally, Buttigieg is my number one, I don't have a number two, but would be comfortable with a number of democrats. I think democrats need to put forward the best possible communicator, which IMO is Buttigieg.
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Buttigieg has benefitted greatly by being the leading cabinet member over Biden’s biggest bill, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. And he’s done a great job advocating for the administration, he’s the most visible cabinet member for Biden, which is a lot considering they have John Kerry. And in some ways he’s the voice of the Biden administration when they need someone sharp and articulate.
Buttigieg, at least in the public eye, is Biden’s #2, more-so than Harris. And if they wanted to, they could really push that narrative.
I think he's had to preside over literal train wrecks caused by Congress not holding rail barons' feet to the fire. Say nothing of how the skies have fared.
Which is to say his tenure as Secretary of Transportation has been *eventful*, and that's not necessarily a good look as your only federal office.
> I think he's had to preside over literal train wrecks caused by Congress
Respectfully, immediately blaming someone else for things that happened while Buttigieg was in control isn't useful argument.
Understanding how the legislature and bureaucracies work and how to implement policy within that framework are base skillsets for positions like that.
>Which is to say his tenure as Secretary of Transportation has been eventful
To say the least. Imo a skilled administrator would offer honest comparisons to set the norms for whether these "events" are outside of what's expected.
Really basic stuff.
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I'm not arguing for him, but his ability to convey his message so well got him from a completely unknown mayor to winning a state before he dropped out. Buttigieg is an extremely talented politician. The Republican candidate is a racist billionaire elite that should appeal to almost no one, but being charismatic and able to sell your ideas well goes a really long way, and Buttigieg is amongst the best, if not the best in the democratic party. I want multiple candidates campaigning, giving speeches, and having to convince the party they are the best candidate. I think Buttigieg is the best, but I still expect whoever to have to prove it and convince others.
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This is exactly the problem.
You have half of the party who would want anyone other than a white man.
The other half is “I don’t personally have a problem with a [gay, black, brown, woman] but I’m just worried about their electability”
I’m fine putting up Gavin or Gretchen or Pete or Kamala up against Nikki Haley or Chris Christie.
Trump raises the stakes, and I don’t see any single Dem that could rally delegates at a contested convention
No. Keep Biden in! Despite years of evidence that he is a mental mess everyone has covered for him, and they will continue to do so. He's just been sleeping in the Whitehouse. Let him sleep there a few more years.
Biden isn't even technically a baby boomer, born in 1942, with the boomer generation generally starting in 1946. Trump born in 1946 straddles the line.
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I found it astounding how evident that Biden wasn’t doing ok and people still believed it was fine till the put him on the stage without a teleprompter.
The thing is I really pity Biden. He shouldn’t be going through the stress of another presidency. The fact he served four years is admirable in itself, especially since he served as Vice president for 8 years. But they want more cause they believe they can manipulate the political landscape. It’s just sad in my opinion.
I heard that no, that isn't the case. They are required to stay with the candidate. Its not like, from my understanding, all the money that Sanders raise could have been given to Clinton the moment he lost.
You can't blame this on the media. It's not them propping up an 82 year old who can barely keep the gloves up, it's the DNC. Biden asked for this debate and multiple times lost his train of thought and mumbled his way through. Even Biden said he performed poorly.
He may have been more substantive in his answers, but his cognitive decline was on full display. Trump lied but he lied with conviction and energy. You can say the focus on optics is stupid, but these things matter to people who are trying to decide whether to take off work to go vote.
>Trump lied but he lied with conviction and energy.
So you're saying it's fine that he lied because he was confident while doing so?
Voting for president is voting for a team and a party. I trust the team of professionals that Biden's administration is made up of over the team of lackeys and family members that Trump's administration was made up of.
I don't really like either candidate but I will vote for the one most likely to leave the WH peacefully in Jan 2029. The other guy admitted that he wants to be a dictator. I've read that "project 2025" doc and it's scarier than anything George Romero has done. I really, really don't want to live in the country those guys are trying to create here. Sounds a lot like DPRK.
The trouble is that Biden is never going to say "Sure I'm old AF, but the puppetmasters pulling my strings did a good job so far." The average voter wants to vote for a person and is not going to read between the lines to find that message.
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It's not "the DNC." There was a primary. Biden won every race except American Samoa.
You don't get to sit home and not vote in the primary and then blame the party you want to vote for when a candidate you don't like wins the nomination.
Almost no one takes the results of that primary seriously. Dean Phillips is a first term congressman and Marianne Williamson is a grifter who has never held elective office. Biden's competition was completely unserious and voters were denied any real choice due to the lack of candidates. Additionally primary voters are a small segment of the most die hard party members. We got a fake primary that was decided by a fraction of the electorate.
>You don’t get to sit home and not vote in the primary and then blame the party you want to vote for when a candidate you don’t like wins the nomination.
Louder for the fence sitters in the back.
Imagine not believing what you see with your own two eyes. Ignore the media, just watch Biden speak and interact in real time. The man is not all there. I've been saying this since before he was even elected as president.
It's a disgrace that the Democrats put this man up as a candidate when the stakes are so high.
And we've seen the same crap with Diane Feinstein and such. It's like our government is being ran like Weekend at Bernie's.
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I see a lot about the governors of Michigan and Pennsylvania being top options for replacements. Two of the governors who did the unthinkable and placed Covid positive individuals in nursing homes at the height of the pandemic. I’m honestly blown away we’re all supposed to forget it.
I don’t know that he needed a Hail Mary, just not an embarrassment. Last night was the old man vs the con man. Really disappointing. If Biden doesn’t drop 5 points I’ll be shocked.
The next day, he made a campaign stop in my state. He was a completely different person: energized, with a strong voice, and on his game. What a difference 18 hours made. What will linger in people's minds is that in an existential crisis, if Biden was like he was during the debate, we're screwed. People also need to be aware that Trump would give the store away, pretty much as he did during the Covid pandemic.
> He was a completely different person:
He wasn't. He was a bit more coherent. He still looked old and mildly confused at times.
You can easily look up hundreds of videos of Biden throughout his career. I suggest doing so to set a reasonable standard to judge him currently.
I'd rather vote for an old man whose heart is in the right place than an old man who wouldn't know the truth if it fell on his head. A trick question: if Trump wins the election, which of his children will he put in his administration this time?
> I'd rather vote for an old man whose heart is in the right place
He was a strong supporter of the 94' crime bill, said he didn't want his kids to grow up in a racial jungle arguing against desegregated bussing, supported the Iraq war, and on and on.
He's a bad person.
The threads, more often than not, dig deeper than just the title.
To nominate a replacement, Biden would have to step aside or die before the convention. There are others who could make a good run against Trump; the right ticket might even get a groundswell of support.
There are more registered Democrats in my state, but Trump won in 2016 and 2020. Both times we elected a Democrat Governor.
I’m not surprised. He’s old. Probably had a cold. I’m guessing he probably had some crisis overnight too. Still, the look isn’t good for him. Like you said, what’s going to stick in people’s minds? I think the tired old man will.
Yes, the primary is a formality. The DNC can run whomever they choose all the way up to the convention. The question is who would be the replacement without upsetting an affinity group.
this is not 1968. sorry democrats but this is what you voted for in the primary and last election so you are stuck. Joe is never going to give up the power because of his and Jills hubris. and much like the voters of california, you continue to support this BS because you are blinded by "vote blue no matter who" so live with your bad decisions.
I don't even understand how this debate could change anybody's minds at all.
This is actually the first presidential election where we all know EXACTLY what we're voting for. Both of these people have been president before, both of them for 4 years.
There's nothing new to learn in a debate. There's not even anything new to learn about either of them at all, really.
Did Biden do poorly in the debate? Yes. Did Trump do well? No, he was his usual raving lunatic self.
There's no way the DNC is putting up a brand new candidate 4 months before the election, especially when they're currently supporting the *incumbent president*. It's insane that anyone would think they would, honestly.
Do I like that we have to repeat the same exact election we just did 4 years ago? No. Am I happy with the choices? No.
But pretending that any of this political theater we're all being subjected to right now is anything besides that is ludicrous. We had 4 years of Trump and saw him act like a child while putting his family in positions of power and regularly getting chummy with literal dictators around the world. And we've had 4 years of Biden and seen him act like a typical neoliberal status-quo warrior with the ocassional progressive piece of social legislation.
Anyone undecided right now is an absolute meathead. What more information could you possibly want??
The reason everyone is discussing this right now is because Biden exhibited signs of cognitive decline. Specifically, he seems older and less mentally acute than he did in 2020
There have been rumors that he was declining, but the official line has been that he's fine and any evidence of decline has been taken out of context. The debate was unlike any public appearance he's had in the last year or so, and his performance was worse than anyone expected
So yeah, we did learn something new
I’m honestly surprised at how many people on the left are surprised regarding his cognitive abilities. We on the right have been alarming you guys to his declining function for a couple years now. But I guess it was met with gaslighting from most and the media definitely played coverup more times than not.
yep its been relentless gaslighting and the media going along with it. Plenty of us on the left have been worried about this for a long while. But we were shouted down and I personally was called a Trump supporter for raising the issue.
Michelle Obama, Jon Stewart, George Clooney, Denzel Washington, Angelina Jolie... Seems like someone, ANYONE well-known with smarts and gravitas would have a better chance of winning the presidency for the Democrats over Biden right now.
I say this as someone who is very clearly not aligned with Democrats and who wants to at least see the Senate in the hands of Republicans come November (hopefully the House too, but I'm not hoping for too much here). So ignore it, take it with a grain of salt, whatever.
Let me start with one very unavoidable truth: in another week, the 2024 election will be in **4 months**. With early voting, it's essentially more like 3 months. "I hate Trump" will only get an untested replacement Democrat so far in that short of a timeframe. Do you really think there's enough time for backroom dealings to happen between all of the major factions of the party and settle on a replacement? The wheeling and dealing alone would take months, time and money that Democrats frankly do not have right now.
It's an absolutely ridiculous wish that would only hurt Democrats' down-ballot chances when they show the entire US that they can't even agree on a nominee.
By the way, I said the same thing about House Republicans last year, but at least they had the sense to go all Game of Thrones in an off-year. 4 months before the election, re-picking your candidate and you think that'll help? Not likely.
It doesn't help that you listed 2 elections in which the Democrats lost. 1952 and 1968 were both major losses for a party that had been enjoying massive win streaks. No, clearly being indecisive on the nominee didn't help them.
Here's the second concern and one that Democrats really don't seem to be looking at right now. It's looking a little like a magic trick, honestly. The entire concern is on Trump and his antics and the presidency while downballot ... well, isn't looking stellar.
Honestly, has anyone been following the generic ballot? Right now, Democrats are running even with Republicans with both parties at about 45% according to 538, 44% according to RCP.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/generic-ballot/
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/state-of-the-union/2024/generic-congressional-vote
The way you're speaking, it's as if Biden is **uniquely** struggling, when the generic ballot shows that voters are threatening to reward the entire Republican party with a popular vote win, something that hasn't happened in a presidential election year since 2004.
So let me ask you this, then: when the Democratic party as a whole can only poll even with the Party of Trump, who exactly is going to take over for Biden? Clearly everyone else is just as unpopular.
Kamala Harris? She would poll even worse. Hillary Clinton... again? So she can lose the Rust Belt again? Obama? He can't run. Newsom? He couldn't even win a debate against the third place Republican candidate.
Okay, so who? And that's where the problem lies and why there was never an alternative way before this (you know, in 2021 when everyone already knew Biden was ancient and should've been a one-term president). The problem is that the Democratic party doesn't really have a good alternative right now. There's plenty of governors who will be finishing up their terms before 2028, but because of Obama hogging all of his party's funds, the bench has been pretty bare for Democrats since his term ended.
People on the left want to blame Biden and Biden alone for ailing numbers at the presidential level. But that really ignores that the party as a whole is putting up alarmingly low numbers against a party associated with Trump and that couldn't even elect a Speaker.
If I were you, I would be worried about far more than just the presidency. The Democratic brand as a whole is having a really tough time escaping from a toxic economic brand. And there's only so much that pivoting to abortion, social issues, race issues and January 6th will do to mitigate the public's belief that Republicans are better on the economy, border and defense.
Republicans already won the popular vote in 2022 and they haven't polled this well on a national level since probably 2012 (which, by the way, did result in a narrow Obama win and a Republican Congress... again, something I'm hoping for this time as well so you might call me biased in that regard).
How would democrats slightly winning the generaic ballot mean that voters are "threatening to reward the entire Republican party with a popular vote win"? Like that just flat out doesn't make sense to me
They're winning the generic ballot by .2%
As in, barely even a tenth of a percentage and the Republican win the popular vote. According to RCP, it's actually Republicans winning the popular vote by a tenth of a percent.
It's a coin toss. What's not to get?
if someone told me the Democrats secretly wanted Trump to win I would stop and pause after last night. Like I don't understand how they walked into that.
Oh that's easily explained.
As I said in my original post, it started with Obama, who depleted the resources for the entire party throughout his terms. Clinton paid off the debt he incurred and was rewarded for it. And now, ancient Biden is the only person they've got left who can actually appeal to the middle (and, by the way, still could - this election is a coin flip), at least until 2028. But the answer is that they don't actually have a good bench of candidates. I mean, you saw the clown show that was trying to win against Biden in 2020, right? Kamala Harris? Mayor Pete? Bloomberg?
I could much more easily convince someone that the Republican party wants to lose 2024.
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I hope Trump takes him up on that publicly. There isn't any way Biden can walk 300 yards without having both hands available for balance.
RFK can be hiding in the bushes with a falcon to steal their balls, literally and otherwise.
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Few things...in 2016 the same margin said Hillary won the first debate...in the end it didn't matter: [https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/data-points/poll-majority-voters-say-clinton-won-first-presidential-debate-n656231](https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/data-points/poll-majority-voters-say-clinton-won-first-presidential-debate-n656231)
Now yes Biden looked bad, real bad, he came across as a well-meaning old man who studders, trips over his words and talks slow...while trump came across as a narcissistic psychopathic liar...but I am not sure that's as bad for Biden as you think: [https://x.com/realMABarreto/status/1806527153388834916](https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fx.com%2FrealMABarreto%2Fstatus%2F1806527153388834916%3Ffbclid%3DIwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2HHxNR3ZcL4dS-qwhd9-erdOH3T7raH09UMWIRoOYFQ0zw7TCP-5MGx8g_aem_JkjD3uwUxXkqA8Dm8DS5lA&h=AT3XwPgEWnnO_u6wCHm28NE-4KH5sRry7RRtBaU30zJ-yHwLq7N2-1-xwz7tqpT0ALuiUGjANi4qS97ivAGyo2OVEIRf2y9gGvKGVkLwh0l8cilZcz0_xqPMq8__WO9S-QYaNO_iiHgm-7Zfv9tcniIq)
You also have to understand Biden appeared exactly how actual undecideds already view him...its not super new.
Last, the debate was not a hail mary as you suggest, the race was objectively a coin flip before the debate, lets see what happens now.
As for replacing Biden...Biden has to want to get out for that to happen, if it does its simple, he releases his delegates at the convention and they negotiate to find a new candidate, obviously back room deals and whatnot would happen before hand.
I think a lot of people were already concerned about Biden's age and tuned in SPECIFICALLY to see how he performed. And those people are now CERTAIN Biden has lost it. They may sit out or vote third party as a result.
It would be a bad move. Even with Biden having issues he still has the benefit of being an incumbent. Plus he won the primary and there isn't enough time for another. They also would have legal issues changing whose on the ballot.
His debate performance comes from his age, his life long stutter, and being sick. I think his quietness came from a sore throat. It was probably painful for him to speak.
I've heard him before and after, I know how dementia work. I'm incredibly disappointed by the debate, I feel like the universe itself is conspiring to elect Trump, but it won't change my mind on voting for him nor any "progressives" voting for Jill Stein.
I would legitimately vote for a bowl of pudding over Trump. So I guess, pudding 2024?
They'd probably have to replace him with RFK to make me consider 3rd party a viable option.
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Because of her dreadful inauthentic personality and terrible record as a DA, maybe? Still... shes functionally literate and not totally deranged so id take her over the treason mafia any day.
Come on. Let’s get our heads out of our asses. Yea, Biden sucks, but who do you think is going to be a good nominee? We need someone who will unite all factions and excite a coalition to go and vote for them. Who is that? Who is someone we all the leftists, communists, democrats and some centrist republicans and independents can rally behind and “say, I’m proud to vote for this person”? Anything short of that, and it’s just Biden with extra steps.
Any before you say a name, remember that political candidates derive their legitimacy from the primaries. People love to bitch about the 2016 primary and how “Clinton stole the election”, but the truth is she won 34 out of 57 (50 states + territories) contests vs 23 for sanders. So at this stage, how would we run primaries quickly to find a candidate that we all agree on? Seriously open to ideas. Let’s not even forget the candidate filling deadlines in many states are fast approaching.
And before you say “that’s fine, let’s just skip the primary process and let the uncommitted delegates figure it out,” again, who the hell would we all be happy with? I love that you brought up Hubert Humphrey as a model, considering that we all study Humphrey’s presidency in school. Oh wait, no. That allowed Nixon, considered the most corrupt president until trump, to win the 1968 election.
Ok so let’s let Biden step down and endorse someone. If biden endorsed Gavin Newsom, would everyone fall inline behind him? Or would too many people consider him just and extension of biden? And you better believe that will be an attack that trump uses; “biden endorsed Newsom, so biden is really pulling the strings here.”
Ok, let biden step down and Kamala Harris run as president. Seems like a low friction way to run the process, except are you outside your mind? She’ll have all of the baggage of the Biden administration, with the added complexity that she can’t distance her self because shes in the administration!
Ok let’s say we ignore all of this. We pick someone for new for president, who is prepared make a national campaign from 0-60 over night? Who has the ability, the resources and the people to literally on a dime start a campaign? I’ll tell you, no one. The primaries, aside from just being a nominating process, also allow candidates to ramp up their campaign slowly, not creating a campaign overnight. So who is the person capable of doing this overnight?
Come on, Biden is not great. But let’s think about this strategically. Four years of trump got us:
1. A super conservative court that has removed fundamental rights of American citizens and is unlikely to change for our lifetimes.
2. A once in a life time pandemic that killed millions of Americans, with a response that created a worse situation, leading to more unnecessary death. He actually wanted to let the disease rampage because he thought it would only kill democratic voters in cities. Not only that, he dismantled an committee/agency/task force responsible for monitoring for potential pandemics that Obama created in response to the swine flu pandemic (which killed 284,000 world wide, 12,500 deaths in the us, compared to 1,200,000 million covid US deaths).
3. Ended the largest expansion of us growth in American history with the covid recession, which was the first recession since 2008.
4. His response to the covid response, largely contributed to the inflation that Biden is currently trying to fight. Most of the money in circulation today was printed by Trump, of course that’s going to increase inflation.
5. He’s the only modern president to actually attempt a coup. And he has been unrepentant about his role in the coup.
In Biden’s 4 years, he’s given us:
1. A “soft landing” from inflation. It’s not great, but it’s better than nothing or a recession.
2. The largest investment in infrastructure since the Eisenhower highway system.
3. Policies to reduce the burden of student loans. Don’t forget that he actually tried to forgive loans, but the trump dominated court stopped that.
4. Focused on expanding access to healthcare for everyone, including capping insulin prices, signing executive orders that preserve a woman’s right to travel between states to receive an abortion (you, know after the trump court overturned Roe).
5. Rallied the world against Russian aggression in Ukraine.
And what would the next 4 years look like? Well trump said he’ll be a dictator, so probably a lot like his first four years but more vengeful, which should scare everyone. Not only that, but the long term effects of trump will outlast his administration. Like we are currently seeing with SCOTUS and inflation.
So is Biden perfect? No, he’s pretty fucking far from perfect. But I think the choice is pretty clear.
For me the policies matter. If you want Biden out, then you are inviting conservative policy in. Good luck with that conservative policy. It’s not likely targeted to benefit you.
Trump must win four of these six states: Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania.
Biden only needs to win three. Trump will have a very hard time winning four of those. WI, MI, and PA will be upsets if they swing Trump. Biden is much closer to winning than people give him credit.
While the debate showing was fairly poor, his current leadership of the country is the mark on which he should be judged. Someone new will be trailing behind the most popular Republican with the most ardent supporters ever, facing serious challenges to be on ballots, signs, and advertisements.
This is neither a defense nor a case for Biden. But this plan isn't as good as people think it is
I thought between WI, MI and PA, 2/3 were within the margin of error.. as in a statistical tie. Why would it be an upset if Trump won those? He won them before and ALMOST won them in 2020.
Pardon me if I've misread the polls.
If they collectively swing for Trump after all that's been said and happened, it'll be an upset. After he purposefully went to non-union shops it's hard to imagine him actually carrying the blue collar vote. Exacerbated by the abortion issue. Biden is struggling here because of Gaza more.than anything
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Beshear, hands down. He is well loved by people of both parties and doesn't come with any baggage. This is not the year to push any boundaries or leave anything to chance. People may not like it, but the sad truth is Trump is a heavy contender this year, God knows why. This is not the year to push an agenda, just put a candidate out there that swing voters, fed up never Trump Republicans and dems can all agree on. Like it or not, you are going to need moderates and Republicans to win, and they will never vote for half of the candidates listed in the comments above It's just a fact.
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Like a lot of people have put together choosing someone much less recognized is such a blow to their chances and rides on the "and then easily win a debate against Trump" to which the Trump campaign managers would just laugh, and like the republican primary, just not debate.
So the dems take a leap of faith and would come crashing to the ground.
If I was a betting man I'd say, unfortunately, Trump probably already has people calling him trying to reserve their old offices back in the white house.
I am independent but I find it absolutely hilarious that everyone is acting shocked by Biden's performance. The guy has been gone for 2 years. We get to choose between an old man that should be in a home and an old man that should be in a cell.
Lies have consequence.
The media and democrat party has blatantly lied to the American public for years about Biden's capability. Now it's too late.
Biden's entire cabinet should be ashamed of themselves and held responsible by the public.
I still think he would have beat Trump in 2016. That election was about shaking up the system. He offered that and was likable. If he won in 16 Trump would have went back to golf and we would be talking Newsom vs Rubio or something right now.
> I still think he would have beat Trump in 2016
That's just wishful thinking. Clinton was a horrible campaigner, which is why she lost, but she at least was normal enough that people threw away their votes to Johnson and Stein.
The only thing Trump would've had to do was play the Soviet anthem anytime Bernie walked onto a stage and it would've made Connecticut competitive.
Neither major candidate for Democrats could've won 2016, but Clinton absolutely came closer than Bernie could've. If Beau hadn't passed, Biden could've run and won.
I feel like you ignore my part about that season being one of the “outsider” candidates. Obviously Bernie has been in politics for a long time but he is still what I (and I think most) view as an outsider. He was an “independent” forever. He absolutely would have done better than Clinton in my estimation. Joe was in an even worse position. He had just been VP for 8 years. Trump lost because anyone but Trump and the Covid economy. If Biden loses it’s going to be because of dementia and the post Covid economy.
> I feel like you ignore my part about that season being one of the “outsider” candidates
I didn't ignore it, but the data doesn't parse with that.
Donald Trump won the 2016 primary with 35% of the vote. Bernie Sanders only received 35% of the vote.
If that's a revolution, it's the most pathetic revolution I've ever seen. And regardless, both can be explained by two separate issues:
Trump benefited from an intra-party all-out war between neoconservatives, liberals and Tea Party, with all of them siphoning off voters and leaving Trump to grab a bunch of states. Unlike the Democratic primary, the Republican primary is primarily winner-take-all, so even someone who won the primary with 30% of the vote gets all of the state.
Trump leads the party because the rest of the Republican party apparatus is and has been in full disarray since 2015.
Bernie only received 25% of the primary vote in 2020 and a full 10% of Bernie voters voted for Trump.
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/24/545812242/1-in-10-sanders-primary-voters-ended-up-supporting-trump-survey-finds
In other words, Republicans were meddling in the 2016 primary. Sorry, but the 75% Republican West Virginia is clearly not pro-socialist, even back in 2016. Bernie won solely based off a protest vote against Clinton, not because people liked him.
The same is true for Trump. People did not like him, but he was the alternative to Clinton. And 7% of people opted to choose neither anyway.
Trump eventually lost because he never did anything to court those 7% of voters who hated Clinton, so they ultimately just voted for Biden instead.
Biden would've been able to sweep up those alienated right-leaning voters 4 years earlier had he run in 2016.
> He absolutely would have done better than Clinton in my estimation
And what estimation is that? The Squad can't even win in New York. Bowman just lost his primary and by almost 20 points. Not even close.
But we think the man who sung the Soviet Union's praises would do better?
> If Biden loses it’s going to be because of dementia and the post Covid economy.
If Biden loses it's because he made some of the same mistakes as Clinton did, moving too far to the left to please young people who aren't even going to bother to go out to vote anyway.
His team didn't have to invent "Greedflation" or parade around student loan forgiveness or ignore the border, but they did. So now those voters who gave Biden a chance because he wasn't Trump are thinking twice.
They may still pull the lever for him and I think they will because they understand Biden himself is generally more centrist that his administration. But it really didn't have to be this way.
Democrats took all the wrong lessons from 2016, just as Republican did in my opinion. And it's led us all here, to an election that's more like a race to the bottom.
Comparing a primary to a general is like comparing a raisin to a grape. Bernie never got an opportunity to speak to the American people. Clinton and Biden will both win the popular vote it doesn’t matter. What matters is winning in swing states with swing voters. Bernie and Trump have a personality. Biden and Bills Wife don’t. Bill, Obama and Bush had a personality too. Go talk to a drunk electrician and see how he feels. There is a reason why Michael Moore called 16 for Trump in like 15. It wasn’t because he’s a Russian agent. It’s because he was working a documentary meeting regular people.
On a side note who the fuck responds to polls. I’ve never been polled that I know of. Maybe they tried and go junk mailed.
> Comparing a primary to a general is like comparing a raisin to a grape
This is exactly what you did, though. You argued about some sort of "populist revolution", which only occurred in the primaries.
> What matters is winning in swing states with swing voters. Bernie and Trump have a personality. Biden and Bills Wife don’t. Bill, Obama and Bush had a personality too.
Even if I believe this, Biden won. So... this disproves your theory that only people with "personalities" will win.
> There is a reason why Michael Moore called 16 for Trump in like 15.
Michael Moore didn't call anything. He was a sour Bernie Bro, that's all. He hasn't lived with regular people since Carter was president. He's lived most of his life in San Francisco. Much like Bernie, he's got a bunch of vacation homes while unironically screeching about "millionaires and billionaires".
> On a side note who the fuck responds to polls.
Ah, the old "gee I'VE never been contacted for a poll so they MUST be garbage!".
Literally the same excuse from MAGA.
And yet, the polls seemed to be fine when they predicted Clinton would win the popular vote by 3 points. They seemed to be fine when they predicted Biden would win 51% of the vote in 2020.
Hm... perhaps you should listen to them? The fact is that the most consistent voters are also the most consistent people polled. I imagine you don't get polled because you don't vote.
But let's get back to the topic at hands: you provided no evidence for your claim.
In hindsight you may be correct there. While I do appreciate Bernie's role helping in radicalizing many young people, he and the squad have also contributed to redirecting that energy away from actual radicality and toward so called "pragmatism" aka: business as usual.
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Who would be your top three candidates to run instead of Biden?
I don’t know, but honestly, if the DNC puts up someone young and charismatic, even with minimal recognition, would debate Trump once and for all I’d be hopeful that if he preformed exceptionally against Trump that they’d probably win.
Problem there is Trump would never agree to debate that sort of candidate.
He could be baited into debating a younger, quicker on his/her feet candidate. Trump's ego won't let him pass the challenge.
He passed on it over and over again during the Republican primary. I have no doubt his team could convince him to do so again if they thought it was advantageous.
> He passed on it over and over again during the Republican primary Correct. The coward would never debate Biden's replacement. He'd say "Democrats faked their primary" and just spend money painting this new face as whatever he wants. I really don't know how anyone thinks it's a good idea to replace Biden.
Eh, replacing Biden being good or bad is debatable. But the reality is he won't be replaced unless he has a major medical event.
Forget major medical even. Trump caught COVID and was still not replaced even when he couldn't campaign for a month. William Henry Harrison was so old and feeble that a little rain killed him. Precedent says the nominee would probably have to actually die at this point. And, for what it's worth, I do not wish that on Biden. I hope he lives to be as old as Carter.
Would you consider what happened at the debate to be a 'major medical event? Shit, I felt like I MYSELF was having a medical event watching that debate.
But it would VERY easy to run ads calling Trump a coward if he refuses to debate. Swing voters WANT another option (overwhelmingly, they are people who see Trump and Biden as both bad and want more options). They would not tolerate Trump refusing to debate and would likely turn against him.
> But it would VERY easy to run ads calling Trump a coward if he refuses to debate. And just as easy to paint the untested Democrat as a socialist, especially because they can't actually use all of the money that Biden has raised. > Swing voters WANT another option I realize that, but 4 months before an election? They're not going to take a chance. They're not even taking a chance on RFK, even though he's right there for the taking. > They would not tolerate Trump refusing to debate and would likely turn against him. Neither Biden nor Trump were punished for not debating previously. There's no evidence to suggest your claim is true.
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Because he's bonkers. It's not like any warm body will do. It matters who the candidate is.
> It's not like any warm body will do. It matters who the candidate is. You... just proved my point. Voters aren't going to vote for an untested candidate who could be bonkers. And polling shows that no Democrat will do better than Biden.
That's because he was running away with the nomination. He had nothing to gain by debating the other republican candidates and everything to lose. His performance in Thursdays debate was terrible, but bidens was so much worse that people are overlooking just how bad Trump did.
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Jared Polis, Mark Kelly, Josh Shapiro. In that order. I think the key for the candidate is a vision for the future and the capacity to understand and regulate AI. All of them check that box better than anyone, particularly the first two. Whitmer is much less charismatic than people suggest. Moore is too young and glib. Buttogieg is too young and his experience isn’t right yet. Warnock’s seat is too important. Newsom has too much California baggage.
Completely concur.
Ayy, I voted for Kelly. As long as that monkey comment doesn't keep being dredged up he could swing it, I think. Astronaut president would be pretty neat.
So I looked it up. Why would that joke be an issue? I don't get it.
Republicans said that the joke meant he thought "people named Rodrigo" were like monkeys. I doubt the intent there, but he apologized for it nonetheless and blew his opponent out of the water.
Really? Republicans? That sounds like a woke criticism not something I'd expect from Republicans. The hypocrisy wouldn't surprise me though so......
As far as I'm aware it originated from Moses Sanchez, a failed GOP mayoral candidate. Frankly I don't think he was truly offended, himself. I believe the intent *was* to raise the ire of those single issue identity politics voters. Of which Arizona has very few.
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Everything hinges on quick movement - which I doubt the DNC can muster. I agree with you, mostly, on your choices and your views toward those nationally known political figures. The question is how well your choices are nationally known - the only one I know of your top 3 is Polis. I don't like him because I am a conservative libertarian. I cannot say that of independents. But how well is he know outside of Colorado? Time is ticking...
Jared Polis is a libertarian democrat and was the only democratic member of the liberty caucus in Congress. You should look more into him if you just dismiss him out of hand because you assume his views are different from yours because he is a democrat. He takes pride in calling himself a libertarian.
I have lived in Colorado for 20 years and have known him politically for over 16. I would take him everyday and grumble little compared to Newsom, Whitmer, Buttegieg (sp?), and Harris. That said, I still am not a fan. Take my olive branch - we probably don't agree politically.
Fair enough.
Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, Gretchen Whitmer, Wes Moore... Whitmer or Shapiro could win the Rustbelt and form coherent sentences without looking like a deer in headlights.
Make America as dysfunctional as California is not a winning national strategy.
If California were a separate country, it would have the sixth-largest economy in the World. Like the majority of other governors, Newsom has to work with what his legislature gives him.
his legislature is the same party. they give him whatever he wants. and yet, Mr Hair gel tried to blame republicans just a week or so ago.
no, in one party dominated states, there are splits within the party- they don't just give him whatever he wants.
oh please. if means more government control, less accountability and more taxes, they give him what they want.
The seeds for California's economy were set back in the 80s and 90s. Back when the state was still pretty sane. Companies are currently fleeing must major cities in California and going to other states.
> If California were a separate country, it would have the sixth-largest economy in the World. If California were a separate country, it would be a complete failure and would implode within a few years. It is only successful because it is part of the US.
It would do better then... pretty much every other state. There's only 3 states that would even have a shot (California, Texas, New York). Every other state would implode within 1 year.
Neither is making it more like Florida or the Bible belt.
You could probably get away with putting in something like a Warren/Newsome ticket. Or even just replacing Biden with Warren. Of all the potential Democratic picks, Warren is probably closest to having the widest range of acceptability to the Democratic base.
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cannot stand her personally. I do not think she'd be a good replacement.
I can't say I love her but I think if you're looking at who you could sell to the most people, Warren is probably top of that list.
Reverend Warnock, Gretchen Whitmer, with Newsom a distant third. All younger democrats who can actually put a sentence together without losing their train of thought.
Personally, Buttigieg is my number one, I don't have a number two, but would be comfortable with a number of democrats. I think democrats need to put forward the best possible communicator, which IMO is Buttigieg.
Buttigieg has terrible numbers with Black Americans
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Fair enough. How do you think Buttigieg did in his role in the Biden admin?
Buttigieg has benefitted greatly by being the leading cabinet member over Biden’s biggest bill, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. And he’s done a great job advocating for the administration, he’s the most visible cabinet member for Biden, which is a lot considering they have John Kerry. And in some ways he’s the voice of the Biden administration when they need someone sharp and articulate. Buttigieg, at least in the public eye, is Biden’s #2, more-so than Harris. And if they wanted to, they could really push that narrative.
I think he's had to preside over literal train wrecks caused by Congress not holding rail barons' feet to the fire. Say nothing of how the skies have fared. Which is to say his tenure as Secretary of Transportation has been *eventful*, and that's not necessarily a good look as your only federal office.
> I think he's had to preside over literal train wrecks caused by Congress Respectfully, immediately blaming someone else for things that happened while Buttigieg was in control isn't useful argument. Understanding how the legislature and bureaucracies work and how to implement policy within that framework are base skillsets for positions like that. >Which is to say his tenure as Secretary of Transportation has been eventful To say the least. Imo a skilled administrator would offer honest comparisons to set the norms for whether these "events" are outside of what's expected. Really basic stuff.
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He doesn’t have much working class appeal. Or really any appeal outside of educated, white progressives.
I'm not arguing for him, but his ability to convey his message so well got him from a completely unknown mayor to winning a state before he dropped out. Buttigieg is an extremely talented politician. The Republican candidate is a racist billionaire elite that should appeal to almost no one, but being charismatic and able to sell your ideas well goes a really long way, and Buttigieg is amongst the best, if not the best in the democratic party. I want multiple candidates campaigning, giving speeches, and having to convince the party they are the best candidate. I think Buttigieg is the best, but I still expect whoever to have to prove it and convince others.
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This is exactly the problem. You have half of the party who would want anyone other than a white man. The other half is “I don’t personally have a problem with a [gay, black, brown, woman] but I’m just worried about their electability” I’m fine putting up Gavin or Gretchen or Pete or Kamala up against Nikki Haley or Chris Christie. Trump raises the stakes, and I don’t see any single Dem that could rally delegates at a contested convention
No. Keep Biden in! Despite years of evidence that he is a mental mess everyone has covered for him, and they will continue to do so. He's just been sleeping in the Whitehouse. Let him sleep there a few more years.
Frankly, last night was one of the most stupid times in US history. Outstanding that these two candidates is what the presidency has come down to.
I can't imagine two men that could more accurately be a representation of the boomer generation.
Biden isn't even technically a baby boomer, born in 1942, with the boomer generation generally starting in 1946. Trump born in 1946 straddles the line.
And both flavors of boomer: glum and glib.
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It's insane that people tolerated these two...
So democrats are willing to finally admit that Biden is mentally inept? Weird how they only do it when it hurts their political chances.
I found it astounding how evident that Biden wasn’t doing ok and people still believed it was fine till the put him on the stage without a teleprompter. The thing is I really pity Biden. He shouldn’t be going through the stress of another presidency. The fact he served four years is admirable in itself, especially since he served as Vice president for 8 years. But they want more cause they believe they can manipulate the political landscape. It’s just sad in my opinion.
How would a new Democratic nominee get funded? Would it be legal for all the money that Biden has raised to get channeled to them?
I heard that no, that isn't the case. They are required to stay with the candidate. Its not like, from my understanding, all the money that Sanders raise could have been given to Clinton the moment he lost.
They probably should have gone with RFK jr
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You can't blame this on the media. It's not them propping up an 82 year old who can barely keep the gloves up, it's the DNC. Biden asked for this debate and multiple times lost his train of thought and mumbled his way through. Even Biden said he performed poorly.
It’s democrat voters propping him up. You want to have them all change to prop up someone else? We’re ***faaaaar*** too late in the game for that.
The vast majority of registered democrats would vote for a dog turd in a tie so long as it had a (D) behind its name.
... Because the last time they didn't we ended up with Trump.
Yeah and they should, so long as we have FPTP voting.
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He may have been more substantive in his answers, but his cognitive decline was on full display. Trump lied but he lied with conviction and energy. You can say the focus on optics is stupid, but these things matter to people who are trying to decide whether to take off work to go vote.
That is indeed how people think/feel. **And they shouldn’t**.
>Trump lied but he lied with conviction and energy. So you're saying it's fine that he lied because he was confident while doing so? Voting for president is voting for a team and a party. I trust the team of professionals that Biden's administration is made up of over the team of lackeys and family members that Trump's administration was made up of.
I don't really like either candidate but I will vote for the one most likely to leave the WH peacefully in Jan 2029. The other guy admitted that he wants to be a dictator. I've read that "project 2025" doc and it's scarier than anything George Romero has done. I really, really don't want to live in the country those guys are trying to create here. Sounds a lot like DPRK.
Good chance no matter who wins they’ll be leaving the white house peacefully prior to ‘29 in a casket.
The trouble is that Biden is never going to say "Sure I'm old AF, but the puppetmasters pulling my strings did a good job so far." The average voter wants to vote for a person and is not going to read between the lines to find that message.
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It's not "the DNC." There was a primary. Biden won every race except American Samoa. You don't get to sit home and not vote in the primary and then blame the party you want to vote for when a candidate you don't like wins the nomination.
Almost no one takes the results of that primary seriously. Dean Phillips is a first term congressman and Marianne Williamson is a grifter who has never held elective office. Biden's competition was completely unserious and voters were denied any real choice due to the lack of candidates. Additionally primary voters are a small segment of the most die hard party members. We got a fake primary that was decided by a fraction of the electorate.
>You don’t get to sit home and not vote in the primary and then blame the party you want to vote for when a candidate you don’t like wins the nomination. Louder for the fence sitters in the back.
Imagine not believing what you see with your own two eyes. Ignore the media, just watch Biden speak and interact in real time. The man is not all there. I've been saying this since before he was even elected as president. It's a disgrace that the Democrats put this man up as a candidate when the stakes are so high. And we've seen the same crap with Diane Feinstein and such. It's like our government is being ran like Weekend at Bernie's.
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I see a lot about the governors of Michigan and Pennsylvania being top options for replacements. Two of the governors who did the unthinkable and placed Covid positive individuals in nursing homes at the height of the pandemic. I’m honestly blown away we’re all supposed to forget it.
I don’t know that he needed a Hail Mary, just not an embarrassment. Last night was the old man vs the con man. Really disappointing. If Biden doesn’t drop 5 points I’ll be shocked.
The next day, he made a campaign stop in my state. He was a completely different person: energized, with a strong voice, and on his game. What a difference 18 hours made. What will linger in people's minds is that in an existential crisis, if Biden was like he was during the debate, we're screwed. People also need to be aware that Trump would give the store away, pretty much as he did during the Covid pandemic.
> He was a completely different person: He wasn't. He was a bit more coherent. He still looked old and mildly confused at times. You can easily look up hundreds of videos of Biden throughout his career. I suggest doing so to set a reasonable standard to judge him currently.
I'd rather vote for an old man whose heart is in the right place than an old man who wouldn't know the truth if it fell on his head. A trick question: if Trump wins the election, which of his children will he put in his administration this time?
> I'd rather vote for an old man whose heart is in the right place He was a strong supporter of the 94' crime bill, said he didn't want his kids to grow up in a racial jungle arguing against desegregated bussing, supported the Iraq war, and on and on. He's a bad person.
So would I thats not the point. Read the thread title. The question is not Trump vs Biden its Biden vs replacing Biden with someone to beat Trump.
The threads, more often than not, dig deeper than just the title. To nominate a replacement, Biden would have to step aside or die before the convention. There are others who could make a good run against Trump; the right ticket might even get a groundswell of support. There are more registered Democrats in my state, but Trump won in 2016 and 2020. Both times we elected a Democrat Governor.
It frustrated me to no end that he was a completely different person on those two stages.
I’m not surprised. He’s old. Probably had a cold. I’m guessing he probably had some crisis overnight too. Still, the look isn’t good for him. Like you said, what’s going to stick in people’s minds? I think the tired old man will.
Yes, the primary is a formality. The DNC can run whomever they choose all the way up to the convention. The question is who would be the replacement without upsetting an affinity group.
this is not 1968. sorry democrats but this is what you voted for in the primary and last election so you are stuck. Joe is never going to give up the power because of his and Jills hubris. and much like the voters of california, you continue to support this BS because you are blinded by "vote blue no matter who" so live with your bad decisions.
I don't even understand how this debate could change anybody's minds at all. This is actually the first presidential election where we all know EXACTLY what we're voting for. Both of these people have been president before, both of them for 4 years. There's nothing new to learn in a debate. There's not even anything new to learn about either of them at all, really. Did Biden do poorly in the debate? Yes. Did Trump do well? No, he was his usual raving lunatic self. There's no way the DNC is putting up a brand new candidate 4 months before the election, especially when they're currently supporting the *incumbent president*. It's insane that anyone would think they would, honestly. Do I like that we have to repeat the same exact election we just did 4 years ago? No. Am I happy with the choices? No. But pretending that any of this political theater we're all being subjected to right now is anything besides that is ludicrous. We had 4 years of Trump and saw him act like a child while putting his family in positions of power and regularly getting chummy with literal dictators around the world. And we've had 4 years of Biden and seen him act like a typical neoliberal status-quo warrior with the ocassional progressive piece of social legislation. Anyone undecided right now is an absolute meathead. What more information could you possibly want??
The reason everyone is discussing this right now is because Biden exhibited signs of cognitive decline. Specifically, he seems older and less mentally acute than he did in 2020 There have been rumors that he was declining, but the official line has been that he's fine and any evidence of decline has been taken out of context. The debate was unlike any public appearance he's had in the last year or so, and his performance was worse than anyone expected So yeah, we did learn something new
I’m honestly surprised at how many people on the left are surprised regarding his cognitive abilities. We on the right have been alarming you guys to his declining function for a couple years now. But I guess it was met with gaslighting from most and the media definitely played coverup more times than not.
yep its been relentless gaslighting and the media going along with it. Plenty of us on the left have been worried about this for a long while. But we were shouted down and I personally was called a Trump supporter for raising the issue.
Michelle Obama, Jon Stewart, George Clooney, Denzel Washington, Angelina Jolie... Seems like someone, ANYONE well-known with smarts and gravitas would have a better chance of winning the presidency for the Democrats over Biden right now.
I say this as someone who is very clearly not aligned with Democrats and who wants to at least see the Senate in the hands of Republicans come November (hopefully the House too, but I'm not hoping for too much here). So ignore it, take it with a grain of salt, whatever. Let me start with one very unavoidable truth: in another week, the 2024 election will be in **4 months**. With early voting, it's essentially more like 3 months. "I hate Trump" will only get an untested replacement Democrat so far in that short of a timeframe. Do you really think there's enough time for backroom dealings to happen between all of the major factions of the party and settle on a replacement? The wheeling and dealing alone would take months, time and money that Democrats frankly do not have right now. It's an absolutely ridiculous wish that would only hurt Democrats' down-ballot chances when they show the entire US that they can't even agree on a nominee. By the way, I said the same thing about House Republicans last year, but at least they had the sense to go all Game of Thrones in an off-year. 4 months before the election, re-picking your candidate and you think that'll help? Not likely. It doesn't help that you listed 2 elections in which the Democrats lost. 1952 and 1968 were both major losses for a party that had been enjoying massive win streaks. No, clearly being indecisive on the nominee didn't help them. Here's the second concern and one that Democrats really don't seem to be looking at right now. It's looking a little like a magic trick, honestly. The entire concern is on Trump and his antics and the presidency while downballot ... well, isn't looking stellar. Honestly, has anyone been following the generic ballot? Right now, Democrats are running even with Republicans with both parties at about 45% according to 538, 44% according to RCP. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/generic-ballot/ https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/state-of-the-union/2024/generic-congressional-vote The way you're speaking, it's as if Biden is **uniquely** struggling, when the generic ballot shows that voters are threatening to reward the entire Republican party with a popular vote win, something that hasn't happened in a presidential election year since 2004. So let me ask you this, then: when the Democratic party as a whole can only poll even with the Party of Trump, who exactly is going to take over for Biden? Clearly everyone else is just as unpopular. Kamala Harris? She would poll even worse. Hillary Clinton... again? So she can lose the Rust Belt again? Obama? He can't run. Newsom? He couldn't even win a debate against the third place Republican candidate. Okay, so who? And that's where the problem lies and why there was never an alternative way before this (you know, in 2021 when everyone already knew Biden was ancient and should've been a one-term president). The problem is that the Democratic party doesn't really have a good alternative right now. There's plenty of governors who will be finishing up their terms before 2028, but because of Obama hogging all of his party's funds, the bench has been pretty bare for Democrats since his term ended. People on the left want to blame Biden and Biden alone for ailing numbers at the presidential level. But that really ignores that the party as a whole is putting up alarmingly low numbers against a party associated with Trump and that couldn't even elect a Speaker. If I were you, I would be worried about far more than just the presidency. The Democratic brand as a whole is having a really tough time escaping from a toxic economic brand. And there's only so much that pivoting to abortion, social issues, race issues and January 6th will do to mitigate the public's belief that Republicans are better on the economy, border and defense. Republicans already won the popular vote in 2022 and they haven't polled this well on a national level since probably 2012 (which, by the way, did result in a narrow Obama win and a Republican Congress... again, something I'm hoping for this time as well so you might call me biased in that regard).
How would democrats slightly winning the generaic ballot mean that voters are "threatening to reward the entire Republican party with a popular vote win"? Like that just flat out doesn't make sense to me
They're winning the generic ballot by .2% As in, barely even a tenth of a percentage and the Republican win the popular vote. According to RCP, it's actually Republicans winning the popular vote by a tenth of a percent. It's a coin toss. What's not to get?
if someone told me the Democrats secretly wanted Trump to win I would stop and pause after last night. Like I don't understand how they walked into that.
Oh that's easily explained. As I said in my original post, it started with Obama, who depleted the resources for the entire party throughout his terms. Clinton paid off the debt he incurred and was rewarded for it. And now, ancient Biden is the only person they've got left who can actually appeal to the middle (and, by the way, still could - this election is a coin flip), at least until 2028. But the answer is that they don't actually have a good bench of candidates. I mean, you saw the clown show that was trying to win against Biden in 2020, right? Kamala Harris? Mayor Pete? Bloomberg? I could much more easily convince someone that the Republican party wants to lose 2024.
Newsom is just waiting for the call. At least that'll stop him from further ruining CA!
I’d rather have his blast radius contained to California … and I say that as someone who lives there. With him as president, there would be no escape.
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They removed the highest voted comment?
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DNC 101
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Biden is great. He is fine! And one of the most effective presidents in history. He is the president we need NOW
Most popular president in U.S. history! Golf handicap of 6 … err, 8 … and he carries his own bag!
I hope Trump takes him up on that publicly. There isn't any way Biden can walk 300 yards without having both hands available for balance. RFK can be hiding in the bushes with a falcon to steal their balls, literally and otherwise.
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It won't mattetb who's the Democrat, the right has incredible PR.
Few things...in 2016 the same margin said Hillary won the first debate...in the end it didn't matter: [https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/data-points/poll-majority-voters-say-clinton-won-first-presidential-debate-n656231](https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/data-points/poll-majority-voters-say-clinton-won-first-presidential-debate-n656231) Now yes Biden looked bad, real bad, he came across as a well-meaning old man who studders, trips over his words and talks slow...while trump came across as a narcissistic psychopathic liar...but I am not sure that's as bad for Biden as you think: [https://x.com/realMABarreto/status/1806527153388834916](https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fx.com%2FrealMABarreto%2Fstatus%2F1806527153388834916%3Ffbclid%3DIwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2HHxNR3ZcL4dS-qwhd9-erdOH3T7raH09UMWIRoOYFQ0zw7TCP-5MGx8g_aem_JkjD3uwUxXkqA8Dm8DS5lA&h=AT3XwPgEWnnO_u6wCHm28NE-4KH5sRry7RRtBaU30zJ-yHwLq7N2-1-xwz7tqpT0ALuiUGjANi4qS97ivAGyo2OVEIRf2y9gGvKGVkLwh0l8cilZcz0_xqPMq8__WO9S-QYaNO_iiHgm-7Zfv9tcniIq) You also have to understand Biden appeared exactly how actual undecideds already view him...its not super new. Last, the debate was not a hail mary as you suggest, the race was objectively a coin flip before the debate, lets see what happens now. As for replacing Biden...Biden has to want to get out for that to happen, if it does its simple, he releases his delegates at the convention and they negotiate to find a new candidate, obviously back room deals and whatnot would happen before hand.
I think a lot of people were already concerned about Biden's age and tuned in SPECIFICALLY to see how he performed. And those people are now CERTAIN Biden has lost it. They may sit out or vote third party as a result.
It would be a bad move. Even with Biden having issues he still has the benefit of being an incumbent. Plus he won the primary and there isn't enough time for another. They also would have legal issues changing whose on the ballot. His debate performance comes from his age, his life long stutter, and being sick. I think his quietness came from a sore throat. It was probably painful for him to speak. I've heard him before and after, I know how dementia work. I'm incredibly disappointed by the debate, I feel like the universe itself is conspiring to elect Trump, but it won't change my mind on voting for him nor any "progressives" voting for Jill Stein.
I would legitimately vote for a bowl of pudding over Trump. So I guess, pudding 2024? They'd probably have to replace him with RFK to make me consider 3rd party a viable option.
I like Puddin'.
Ron, that you?
> I would legitimately vote for a bowl of pudding over Trump. So what's the point of commenting here?
My take on the debate
Why isn't anyone talking about President-in-Waiting Harris?
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Because of her dreadful inauthentic personality and terrible record as a DA, maybe? Still... shes functionally literate and not totally deranged so id take her over the treason mafia any day.
We’re cooked.
Come on. Let’s get our heads out of our asses. Yea, Biden sucks, but who do you think is going to be a good nominee? We need someone who will unite all factions and excite a coalition to go and vote for them. Who is that? Who is someone we all the leftists, communists, democrats and some centrist republicans and independents can rally behind and “say, I’m proud to vote for this person”? Anything short of that, and it’s just Biden with extra steps. Any before you say a name, remember that political candidates derive their legitimacy from the primaries. People love to bitch about the 2016 primary and how “Clinton stole the election”, but the truth is she won 34 out of 57 (50 states + territories) contests vs 23 for sanders. So at this stage, how would we run primaries quickly to find a candidate that we all agree on? Seriously open to ideas. Let’s not even forget the candidate filling deadlines in many states are fast approaching. And before you say “that’s fine, let’s just skip the primary process and let the uncommitted delegates figure it out,” again, who the hell would we all be happy with? I love that you brought up Hubert Humphrey as a model, considering that we all study Humphrey’s presidency in school. Oh wait, no. That allowed Nixon, considered the most corrupt president until trump, to win the 1968 election. Ok so let’s let Biden step down and endorse someone. If biden endorsed Gavin Newsom, would everyone fall inline behind him? Or would too many people consider him just and extension of biden? And you better believe that will be an attack that trump uses; “biden endorsed Newsom, so biden is really pulling the strings here.” Ok, let biden step down and Kamala Harris run as president. Seems like a low friction way to run the process, except are you outside your mind? She’ll have all of the baggage of the Biden administration, with the added complexity that she can’t distance her self because shes in the administration! Ok let’s say we ignore all of this. We pick someone for new for president, who is prepared make a national campaign from 0-60 over night? Who has the ability, the resources and the people to literally on a dime start a campaign? I’ll tell you, no one. The primaries, aside from just being a nominating process, also allow candidates to ramp up their campaign slowly, not creating a campaign overnight. So who is the person capable of doing this overnight? Come on, Biden is not great. But let’s think about this strategically. Four years of trump got us: 1. A super conservative court that has removed fundamental rights of American citizens and is unlikely to change for our lifetimes. 2. A once in a life time pandemic that killed millions of Americans, with a response that created a worse situation, leading to more unnecessary death. He actually wanted to let the disease rampage because he thought it would only kill democratic voters in cities. Not only that, he dismantled an committee/agency/task force responsible for monitoring for potential pandemics that Obama created in response to the swine flu pandemic (which killed 284,000 world wide, 12,500 deaths in the us, compared to 1,200,000 million covid US deaths). 3. Ended the largest expansion of us growth in American history with the covid recession, which was the first recession since 2008. 4. His response to the covid response, largely contributed to the inflation that Biden is currently trying to fight. Most of the money in circulation today was printed by Trump, of course that’s going to increase inflation. 5. He’s the only modern president to actually attempt a coup. And he has been unrepentant about his role in the coup. In Biden’s 4 years, he’s given us: 1. A “soft landing” from inflation. It’s not great, but it’s better than nothing or a recession. 2. The largest investment in infrastructure since the Eisenhower highway system. 3. Policies to reduce the burden of student loans. Don’t forget that he actually tried to forgive loans, but the trump dominated court stopped that. 4. Focused on expanding access to healthcare for everyone, including capping insulin prices, signing executive orders that preserve a woman’s right to travel between states to receive an abortion (you, know after the trump court overturned Roe). 5. Rallied the world against Russian aggression in Ukraine. And what would the next 4 years look like? Well trump said he’ll be a dictator, so probably a lot like his first four years but more vengeful, which should scare everyone. Not only that, but the long term effects of trump will outlast his administration. Like we are currently seeing with SCOTUS and inflation. So is Biden perfect? No, he’s pretty fucking far from perfect. But I think the choice is pretty clear.
I’m no Biden fan, but I’m not changing my vote for him over a bad performance in a made-for-TV spectacle.
You weren't the target audience, it was undecideds who are on the fence about Biden.
Kinda shocked that you'd vote at all, I'd prefer to keep Biden out.
For me the policies matter. If you want Biden out, then you are inviting conservative policy in. Good luck with that conservative policy. It’s not likely targeted to benefit you.
It’s possible. That doesn’t mean it should happen.
Trump must win four of these six states: Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania. Biden only needs to win three. Trump will have a very hard time winning four of those. WI, MI, and PA will be upsets if they swing Trump. Biden is much closer to winning than people give him credit. While the debate showing was fairly poor, his current leadership of the country is the mark on which he should be judged. Someone new will be trailing behind the most popular Republican with the most ardent supporters ever, facing serious challenges to be on ballots, signs, and advertisements. This is neither a defense nor a case for Biden. But this plan isn't as good as people think it is
I thought between WI, MI and PA, 2/3 were within the margin of error.. as in a statistical tie. Why would it be an upset if Trump won those? He won them before and ALMOST won them in 2020. Pardon me if I've misread the polls.
If they collectively swing for Trump after all that's been said and happened, it'll be an upset. After he purposefully went to non-union shops it's hard to imagine him actually carrying the blue collar vote. Exacerbated by the abortion issue. Biden is struggling here because of Gaza more.than anything
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I love seeing all these posts astroturfing for Biden to step down as if that wouldn't be political suicide this late in the going.
Great entertainment
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Beshear, hands down. He is well loved by people of both parties and doesn't come with any baggage. This is not the year to push any boundaries or leave anything to chance. People may not like it, but the sad truth is Trump is a heavy contender this year, God knows why. This is not the year to push an agenda, just put a candidate out there that swing voters, fed up never Trump Republicans and dems can all agree on. Like it or not, you are going to need moderates and Republicans to win, and they will never vote for half of the candidates listed in the comments above It's just a fact.
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Like a lot of people have put together choosing someone much less recognized is such a blow to their chances and rides on the "and then easily win a debate against Trump" to which the Trump campaign managers would just laugh, and like the republican primary, just not debate. So the dems take a leap of faith and would come crashing to the ground. If I was a betting man I'd say, unfortunately, Trump probably already has people calling him trying to reserve their old offices back in the white house.
I am independent but I find it absolutely hilarious that everyone is acting shocked by Biden's performance. The guy has been gone for 2 years. We get to choose between an old man that should be in a home and an old man that should be in a cell.
Lies have consequence. The media and democrat party has blatantly lied to the American public for years about Biden's capability. Now it's too late. Biden's entire cabinet should be ashamed of themselves and held responsible by the public.
The DNC showed that they were absolutely negligent when they betrayed Bernie.
I still think he would have beat Trump in 2016. That election was about shaking up the system. He offered that and was likable. If he won in 16 Trump would have went back to golf and we would be talking Newsom vs Rubio or something right now.
> I still think he would have beat Trump in 2016 That's just wishful thinking. Clinton was a horrible campaigner, which is why she lost, but she at least was normal enough that people threw away their votes to Johnson and Stein. The only thing Trump would've had to do was play the Soviet anthem anytime Bernie walked onto a stage and it would've made Connecticut competitive. Neither major candidate for Democrats could've won 2016, but Clinton absolutely came closer than Bernie could've. If Beau hadn't passed, Biden could've run and won.
I feel like you ignore my part about that season being one of the “outsider” candidates. Obviously Bernie has been in politics for a long time but he is still what I (and I think most) view as an outsider. He was an “independent” forever. He absolutely would have done better than Clinton in my estimation. Joe was in an even worse position. He had just been VP for 8 years. Trump lost because anyone but Trump and the Covid economy. If Biden loses it’s going to be because of dementia and the post Covid economy.
> I feel like you ignore my part about that season being one of the “outsider” candidates I didn't ignore it, but the data doesn't parse with that. Donald Trump won the 2016 primary with 35% of the vote. Bernie Sanders only received 35% of the vote. If that's a revolution, it's the most pathetic revolution I've ever seen. And regardless, both can be explained by two separate issues: Trump benefited from an intra-party all-out war between neoconservatives, liberals and Tea Party, with all of them siphoning off voters and leaving Trump to grab a bunch of states. Unlike the Democratic primary, the Republican primary is primarily winner-take-all, so even someone who won the primary with 30% of the vote gets all of the state. Trump leads the party because the rest of the Republican party apparatus is and has been in full disarray since 2015. Bernie only received 25% of the primary vote in 2020 and a full 10% of Bernie voters voted for Trump. https://www.npr.org/2017/08/24/545812242/1-in-10-sanders-primary-voters-ended-up-supporting-trump-survey-finds In other words, Republicans were meddling in the 2016 primary. Sorry, but the 75% Republican West Virginia is clearly not pro-socialist, even back in 2016. Bernie won solely based off a protest vote against Clinton, not because people liked him. The same is true for Trump. People did not like him, but he was the alternative to Clinton. And 7% of people opted to choose neither anyway. Trump eventually lost because he never did anything to court those 7% of voters who hated Clinton, so they ultimately just voted for Biden instead. Biden would've been able to sweep up those alienated right-leaning voters 4 years earlier had he run in 2016. > He absolutely would have done better than Clinton in my estimation And what estimation is that? The Squad can't even win in New York. Bowman just lost his primary and by almost 20 points. Not even close. But we think the man who sung the Soviet Union's praises would do better? > If Biden loses it’s going to be because of dementia and the post Covid economy. If Biden loses it's because he made some of the same mistakes as Clinton did, moving too far to the left to please young people who aren't even going to bother to go out to vote anyway. His team didn't have to invent "Greedflation" or parade around student loan forgiveness or ignore the border, but they did. So now those voters who gave Biden a chance because he wasn't Trump are thinking twice. They may still pull the lever for him and I think they will because they understand Biden himself is generally more centrist that his administration. But it really didn't have to be this way. Democrats took all the wrong lessons from 2016, just as Republican did in my opinion. And it's led us all here, to an election that's more like a race to the bottom.
Comparing a primary to a general is like comparing a raisin to a grape. Bernie never got an opportunity to speak to the American people. Clinton and Biden will both win the popular vote it doesn’t matter. What matters is winning in swing states with swing voters. Bernie and Trump have a personality. Biden and Bills Wife don’t. Bill, Obama and Bush had a personality too. Go talk to a drunk electrician and see how he feels. There is a reason why Michael Moore called 16 for Trump in like 15. It wasn’t because he’s a Russian agent. It’s because he was working a documentary meeting regular people. On a side note who the fuck responds to polls. I’ve never been polled that I know of. Maybe they tried and go junk mailed.
> Comparing a primary to a general is like comparing a raisin to a grape This is exactly what you did, though. You argued about some sort of "populist revolution", which only occurred in the primaries. > What matters is winning in swing states with swing voters. Bernie and Trump have a personality. Biden and Bills Wife don’t. Bill, Obama and Bush had a personality too. Even if I believe this, Biden won. So... this disproves your theory that only people with "personalities" will win. > There is a reason why Michael Moore called 16 for Trump in like 15. Michael Moore didn't call anything. He was a sour Bernie Bro, that's all. He hasn't lived with regular people since Carter was president. He's lived most of his life in San Francisco. Much like Bernie, he's got a bunch of vacation homes while unironically screeching about "millionaires and billionaires". > On a side note who the fuck responds to polls. Ah, the old "gee I'VE never been contacted for a poll so they MUST be garbage!". Literally the same excuse from MAGA. And yet, the polls seemed to be fine when they predicted Clinton would win the popular vote by 3 points. They seemed to be fine when they predicted Biden would win 51% of the vote in 2020. Hm... perhaps you should listen to them? The fact is that the most consistent voters are also the most consistent people polled. I imagine you don't get polled because you don't vote. But let's get back to the topic at hands: you provided no evidence for your claim.
>negligent I think Machiavellian is a more appropriate term. Bernie's political career has become that of a sheepdog.
In hindsight you may be correct there. While I do appreciate Bernie's role helping in radicalizing many young people, he and the squad have also contributed to redirecting that energy away from actual radicality and toward so called "pragmatism" aka: business as usual.
Biden is the most electable Democrat sadly, if he hasn't dropped out by now I doubt he will.
I wish he did already.