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Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

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Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#331

Post by pessimizer »

thefaux wrote: post #297

Two points that people are making that I feel necessary to refute because they come across as being offered from a place of bad faith or ignorance: 1) the suggestion that Biden should resign from the presidency because he is standing down from running. Biden is not saying that he is incapable of running. He and his team just understand how to read polls and don't want their party to lose the election which seemed alm…

> There was no real 2024 democratic primary

This was also a subversion of the will of primary voters. It's not a defense. A huge portion of Democratic voters wanted the candidate replaced, and there were Democratic politicians that announced their intention to be the candidate that replaced him, and others undoubtedly who would have if there hadn't been so much pressure not to, yet a serious primary wasn't run.

Democratic insiders decided that no one was going to run against Biden, Democratic insiders decided after the debate that Biden was not going to run. Democratic insiders will also be choosing who will run. The most democratic and likely option will be Harris (because that's her job) but she was also chosen by Democratic insiders in 2020, not by Democratic voters, who mostly hated her. If not Harris, then Democratic insiders will either choose an arbitrary process or simply directly choose another candidate.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#333

Post by dbcurtis »

pan69 wrote: post #325
dbcurtis wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is that the campaign donations accumulated by the Biden/Harris ticket are only available to Harris. Anybody else is funding-challenged even more than Harris at this point. From the standpoint of campaign finance laws and the practical realities of fund-raising, it was Harris all along.

The Biden/Harris campaign can not donate their donations?

I must admit that I don't know all the nuance of campaign finance laws, but the donors gave their money to a particular campaign. It isn't completely clear to me under what circumstances those funds can be pledged to another candidate without getting the original donors' sign-off. But as I understand it, much of the Biden/Harris money is restricted to the campaign.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#335

Post by toast0 »

Maxatar wrote: post #243
coffeecloud wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political parties aren’t democratic institutions. They are essentially private organizations who can operate however they want. It’s only been the last 50 years or so that either party has used primaries as anything more than a straw poll

The DNC and RNC are legally bound to follow rules established both by state law and by Congress/legislation. Yes they are private institutions but they can not set arbitrary rules.

The rules set by state law and Congress for candidate selection offer a pretty wide berth in terms of methodology for selecting which candidates appear on the ballot. There's no (federal) Constitutional mandate for primaries; procedures for how a state selects its presidential electors are up to the legislators of each state.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#336

Post by ithkuil »

navjack27 wrote: post #120
readthenotes1 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't just his age, it's his decrepitude, both physical and mental. I know people in their 90s who are able to speak clearly at any hour of the day...

Speaking clearly has nothing to do with mental fortitude. Tons of things can affect the fluency of speech. We really need to move past the days where we judge people's intelligence and competence based on how well the connections of their brain are able to influence the movement of the vocal cords and the tongue the lips and the jaw.

And it's such a double standard. Trump never pretended to speak clearly and now people can in good faith point out that trump has not shown signs of regression because there was nothing he was curating about his persona in the first place and thus nothing to regress.

Whatever Trump says can be construed as some sort of 4d chess hidden message because of a cult of personality that has developed around him. He can hint that asylum seekers escaped from mental asylums but his base will not suspect that he may be the one confusing the two words and instead they will just cheer at the grotesque image because that's the kind of politically incorrect thing they want somebody to say (regardless of whether Trump did that on purpose or not).

I have the feeling that whatever Trump will say and will do will never ever be scrutinized by his side in a way that even remotely resembles the scrutiny to switch Biden has to be subjected to.

And that double standard speaks a lot on the troubled times we're living through.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#337

Post by woodruffw »

lilsoso wrote: post #319
gumby wrote: post #32

One of the most effective presidents since Johnson or Truman. But he did campaign on a single term. Let’s hope the Dem’s circular firing squad puts down its guns so they can quickly concentrate on winning the election with someone … probably Harris is the simplest answer.

Not according to Marc Andreessen & Ben Horowitz [1], Chamath Palihapitiya & David Sacks [2], possibly Zuckerberg [3], and others. And of course Elon, Thiel. Many such cases. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_sNclEgQZQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blqIZGXWUpU [3] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XgWFwVRGcf4

These videos would fit very nicely into an undergraduate course segment on motivated reasoning. As viewers, it's incumbent upon us to determine whether the Musks and the Thiels of the world have our best interests in mind and, if not, whether their support for any particular candidate might reflect that.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#338

Post by whycome »

navjack27 wrote: post #120
readthenotes1 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't just his age, it's his decrepitude, both physical and mental. I know people in their 90s who are able to speak clearly at any hour of the day...

Speaking clearly has nothing to do with mental fortitude. Tons of things can affect the fluency of speech. We really need to move past the days where we judge people's intelligence and competence based on how well the connections of their brain are able to influence the movement of the vocal cords and the tongue the lips and the jaw.

Nations first mute text-only President?

The current generation reaching voting age would much rather send a text than call so.....

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#339

Post by proc0 »

Sajarin wrote: post #25

> It’s a miracle, folks. Donald told the truth for once. It’s the most important election of our lifetimes. And I will win it. Curiously, his tweet from just 18 hours ago seemed like he was still in the race. I wonder what changed.

Exactly, people are overlooking how much he did not want to quit.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#340

Post by yieldcrv »

RaftPeople wrote: post #328
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #318

Not going to happen, but I wonder how a mixed party ticket would do. Kamala (or whoever) + Mitt Romney as VP ? Has it ever been done? Would it work to attract the center/swing vote, or more likely to be a negative?

That's a pretty interesting thought. I read something a few years ago that said moderates/non-affiliated make up the majority of voters with only a smaller percentage on left and right tied to the parties (somewhere maybe in 15% to 20% range on each side, can't remember exactly). So it seems like a good mix of moderate could possibly win, especially when the other candidate is so polarizing.

Yeah partisans arent good at winning friends and influencing people in their pathetic partisan power struggles

They’ve spent nearly a decade isolating themselves in an algorithm fueled mirror room, while disassociating from everyone that doesn't already agree with them 100%

instead of any color coded “wave” occurring despite their recurring delusions, there’s gridlock in the senate, no filibuster proof majority, they’ve lost affiliation and independents are the largest political affiliation in the country now with almost zero representation

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