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Joe Biden announces re-election run

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Re: Joe Biden announces re-election run

#21

Post by dragonwriter »

hotpotamus wrote: post #20
dragonwriter wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've concluded that women are weak candidates for president based on the fact that no woman has ever won the presidency in over two centuries. Concluding that weak general election candidates on that basis would be making the same mistake, with a different time window, as Clinton boosters: mistaking strength in the nomination process with strength in the general election process. As general election candidates, wel…

> women didn’t generally have the vote for more than a century of that time, Yes, I consider that a significant weakness. You keep differentiating between the primaries and general, but to quote you above "Yes, well, getting the right votes are part of campaign performance." In the US, part of being a strong candidate means not only winning the Electoral College, but also winning a major party primary prior to that.…

> Yes, I consider that a significant weakness

How can a cobdition which no longer exists be a current weakness in anything except your attempt to generalize from it to current reality?

> In the US, part of being a strong candidate means not only winning the Electoral College, but also winning a major party primary prior to that.

Obviously, winning a nominating contest is part of being a successful candidate, and there are contexts where that is relevant, and being a strog general election candidate is a subset of that.

However, when the context is general election strength, no, ability to win preceding nominating contests is immaterial.

Re: Joe Biden announces re-election run

#22

Post by hotpotamus »

dragonwriter wrote: post #21
hotpotamus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> women didn’t generally have the vote for more than a century of that time, Yes, I consider that a significant weakness. You keep differentiating between the primaries and general, but to quote you above "Yes, well, getting the right votes are part of campaign performance." In the US, part of being a strong candidate means not only winning the Electoral College, but also winning a major party primary prior to that.…

> Yes, I consider that a significant weakness How can a cobdition which no longer exists be a current weakness in anything except your attempt to generalize from it to current reality? > In the US, part of being a strong candidate means not only winning the Electoral College, but also winning a major party primary prior to that. Obviously, winning a nominating contest is part of being a successful candidate, and ther…

> How can a cobdition which no longer exists be a current weakness in anything except your attempt to generalize from it to current reality?

Let's say that's my way of saying that I think that the misogyny that gave rise to those policies might not be completely gone from the country.

> However, when the context is general election strength, no, ability to win preceding nominating contests is immaterial.

I have to disagree. As far as I know, there is no rule that says that you have to win any kind of primary to run in the general election (I'm told getting onto all state ballots is quite a feat though). And also as far as I know, no one has ever won without the backing of one of the major parties. To be fair, I suppose my thinking isn't so much that any of them are just great candidates, it's more that they suck the least out of any of the options. Perhaps we just don't have any really good candidates any more.

Re: Joe Biden announces re-election run

#23

Post by jkmcf »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #13
swader999 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They decided to drop debates too. Makes sense, there's no point to that.

No point for who? For Joe Biden? Absolutely. For the other candidates? There absolutely is a point. For the party as a whole? Depends on what they want. Do they want the best candidate they can get? Or do they want their preferred candidate to be undamaged? (And why should they tilt the scales in the direction of a "preferred" candidate? Arguably, it worked for them in 2020 - they avoided a messy primary that would h…

I'm hoping he was being sarcastic.

Re: Joe Biden announces re-election run

#24

Post by BulgarianIdiot »

krapp wrote: post #10
BulgarianIdiot wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those parties are literally run like a Hollywood studio. "Let's see if we can get a Biden sequel going in, if not, maybe we can use other existing IP, like a Kennedy. What other things are popular now? Women! Oof, Hillary in 2016, though, that underperformed at the box office..."

I mean, you're not wrong, but the sitting President always runs for a second term when feasible (barring exceptions I cant think of off the top of my head at the moment.) That the best position of strength to be in for an encumbent party, otherwise you risk splitting the vote on behalf of the other side. Also, the narrative that Hillary Clinton somehow failed spectacularly is a retrofiction. She got millions more vot…

Biden is of fragile state at this point. It's just insane to make him go through another 4 years of this. It's nuts that we're even discussing with a straight face that traditionally we do such and such.

What the heck are our priorities here?

Re: Joe Biden announces re-election run

#25

Post by krapp »

BulgarianIdiot wrote: post #24
krapp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you're not wrong, but the sitting President always runs for a second term when feasible (barring exceptions I cant think of off the top of my head at the moment.) That the best position of strength to be in for an encumbent party, otherwise you risk splitting the vote on behalf of the other side. Also, the narrative that Hillary Clinton somehow failed spectacularly is a retrofiction. She got millions more vot…

Biden is of fragile state at this point. It's just insane to make him go through another 4 years of this. It's nuts that we're even discussing with a straight face that traditionally we do such and such. What the heck are our priorities here?

Sure Jan. Did he catch the crippling dementia again?

Re: Joe Biden announces re-election run

#26

Post by BulgarianIdiot »

dragonwriter wrote: post #11
BulgarianIdiot wrote: post #2

It's bizarre no one else form the party is willing to step up.

Non-fringe challengers to incumbent Presidents from within their own party are rare since (1) they are essentially guaranteed to lose the nonination contest, (2) they weaken the party in the general, and (3) running such a campaign (because of #2) burns bridges in the party for the candidate for a future run that isn’t against an in-party incumbent.

If you think about it, you're telling me that detailed intelligent assessment of the situation is irrelevant, as the party behaves according to a basic, short list of absolute rules, which are considered non-negotiable, can't be questioned, and have no chance of being broken.

In essence, the party is stupid. Both are, obviously.

And... this is exactly the problem. People together are supposed to be greater than the sum of us. But we see exactly the opposite. We discard our intelligence in favor of much simpler institutional and cultural algorithms, which fail us repeatedly. Extremely frustrating.

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