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Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

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Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#471

Post by Aloisius »

lann wrote: post #406
temporarely wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a "radical" idea: why not actually let the constituency of this party make the choice.

Or actually radical: switch from our terrible first-past-the-post voting system to - say - ranked choice (or one of many alternatives; they're almost all better than fptp) and then primaries won't be so important and parties won't have so much power over our kinda-democratic-but-actually-oligarchic political system.

California state primaries are top-2, not FPTP turning the general election into essentially a run-off. Parties still dominate. Same with my city elections which use RCV.

I’m not sure why they would reduce party influence either. Features like being robust against spoilers would seem to most benefit major party candidates.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#472

Post by ufo »

majewsky wrote: post #110
bilekas wrote: post #22

This is wild. It seems super late in the game but okay. I'm super interested to see what will become of his chips act etc. The push he has tried to do to remove dependencies on TSMC is very forward thinking. Hopefully the next candidate takes up the momentum. Edit : Typo in TSMC

> It seems super late in the game but okay. Why does the US in specific have such drawn-out campaigns? Earlier this week, I saw a pundit commenting that 4 months before the election is too short notice to pick a new candidate. But there's countries in Europe that announce elections, pick candidates, do the campaigns, go to the pools, do the counts, and have the electees take office, all in less than 4 months (see e.g…

Great Britain has a parliamentary system. In the US, the presidential election is drawn out but the campaigns for congress only heat up in the last months.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#473

Post by cheema33 »

ethagnawl wrote: post #376
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?

> Has it ever been done? McCain/Lieberman almost happened in 2008.

As a liberal, I thoroughly despised Lieberman. I had a much more favorable opinion of McCain.

If my only two choices were McCain/Lieberman vs McCain/Palin, I would hold my nose and vote for the second.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#474

Post by macintux »

dheera wrote: post #460
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?

No. The staunch Republicans will still vote for Trump and the only way to beat that is for there to be an incredibly cohesive force among a population that isn't very cohesive in the first place. The Republicans actually have it easy, they align and bond on lots of things. The center and left align on very few things and fight amongst themselves. A mixed ticket isn't going to align them better.

I’m curious: what do the Republicans align on, besides “Win at all cost” and “Liberals are bad”?

Trump doesn’t care about the budget, doesn’t care about protecting our allies, doesn’t care about abortion. I’d wager he doesn’t care about immigration, either, except as a way to get votes.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#475

Post by woodruffw »

cheema33 wrote: post #459
woodruffw wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not going to happen, but I wonder how a mixed party ticket would do. Kamala (or whoever) + Mitt Romney as VP ? I think it would be very hard to convince the liberal-progressive base (i.e. the core of the party) of the DNC to go for this. > Has it ever been done? Before the 12th Amendment was passed, the VP came from the opposing party[1]. This didn't work particularly well in practice, which is why nobody remembers…

> I think it would be very hard to convince the liberal-progressive base (i.e. the core of the party) of the DNC to go for this. I am quite liberal. I'd vote for this a million times before I'd consider Trump as a president.

Congratulations, that makes you a member of the largest DNC voting demographic! But the DNC doesn't win elections based on internal pluralities; if it did, we'd be living in a very different political landscape.

(To be clear: in a sufficiently dire situation, I would also vote for a cross-party ticket. But I know a lot of people who wouldn't, and there's a basic sense that their lack of turnout matters much more than my tepid support.)

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#476

Post by rsynnott »

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

Ah, yes, just the people I ask for a sensible objective view on the world.

Like “well, this collection of the weirdest Silicon Valley people available took some time out of their busy schedule of hawking bitcoin or metaverses or magic robots or whatever to give a Very Important Opinion” is _not_ the world’s strongest argument.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#477

Post by dheera »

macintux wrote: post #474
dheera wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The staunch Republicans will still vote for Trump and the only way to beat that is for there to be an incredibly cohesive force among a population that isn't very cohesive in the first place. The Republicans actually have it easy, they align and bond on lots of things. The center and left align on very few things and fight amongst themselves. A mixed ticket isn't going to align them better.

I’m curious: what do the Republicans align on, besides “Win at all cost” and “Liberals are bad”? Trump doesn’t care about the budget, doesn’t care about protecting our allies, doesn’t care about abortion. I’d wager he doesn’t care about immigration, either, except as a way to get votes.

> what do the Republicans align on

Christianity, God Bless America, conservative immigration law, well-being of rural people and small towns, second amendment, Made in USA, white-normalized culture ...

Democrats very rarely align. They fight between factions about whether BLM, LGBT, or Stop Asian Hate is more important, ffs. They can't even come together and fight for all of the above.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#478

Post by _heimdall »

wilg wrote: post #238
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.

> But he did campaign on a single term. He did not really do this.

I never could find a direct quote of Biden himself saying he would be a single term president, but his campaign team said it regularly in public interviews.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#479

Post by dimal »

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.

> probably Harris is the simplest answer

And probably the wrong answer. I don’t see her winning over swing voters. Gretchen Whitmer seems like the best option to me. I’d enjoy watching her debate Trump.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#480

Post by gota »

bushbaba wrote: post #291
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.

[flagged]

The slow ongoing death of Pax Americana is hardly his fault, and reviving it was likely in the cards for him - or anyone in his place
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