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Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

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Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#691
post #630
post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you must be younger than > the average life expectancy > (currently 73yo) - while in > office. As an aside, it's a common error to think that overall life expectancy is relevant to this sort of thing, it's not. That number includes those who die in infancy, etc. If you wanted to limit it by "life expectancy" you'd want to limit it by the statistical expected remaining years of life at the candidate's current age .…

> For example, while the overall life expectancy in the US is around 73, for an individual at age 50 it's around 80 Small but important note, you picked life expectancy for males, not all individuals. For females the life expectancy at birth is over 79 years. The average life expectancy for someone in the US without specifying their sex at birth is north of 76 years. And life expectancy is trending upwards and has fo…

> And life expectancy is trending upwards and has for a long time as we eliminate more early mortalities.

Sadly, that is not true in the US.

It's the only developed country where life expectancy is going down quite a lot.

https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-lif...

https://ourworldindata.org/us-life-expectancy-low

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately his domestic achievements have been somewhat mediocre. His signature achievements essentially were one time cash payments to people. I really do think his major failure was not pushing for a lasting achievement like implementing federal parental leave. He had the chance, but opted for a 1 year extension of child tax credits. And of course the US has an illegal immigration problem. European right on the…

"His signature achievements essentially were one time cash payments to people." Look at the $300bn climate funding in the Inflation Reduction Act and the impact on bringing chip manufacturing onshore with the Chips Act. All this with a nearly divided congress. Easily the most effective US president of my lifetime.

The inflation reduction act is essentially a bundle of small things, many that don't even go into effect for years.

We need permitting reform at this point to tackle climate change in any meaningful way, which unfortunately the left doesn't want to touch.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#693
post #325

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?

They can donate the entire fund to the DNC. And then the DNC can choose to transfer it to the new nominee. There are a few technicalities though.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#694
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.

A lot of it is just identity. They vote for Republicans because they are Republicans. It's that simple. You could introduce a moderate Democrat that ticks a lot of Republican policy boxes, and most Republicans still wouldn't vote for them.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#695

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?

It would be more politically palatable to pick a Senator Joe Manchin or Governor Andy Beshear. In other words, a Democrat so moderate that they can win in the reddest of states

Manchin is Independent (unless he thinks he can beat Harris at the convention) which might be even better in this case.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#696

Putting politics aside … Why don’t they have an age limit on the president (or any elected office)? E.g., you must be younger than the average life expectancy (currently men: 73yo / female: 79) - while in office. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

It's considered to be up to the voters to pick the best candidate.

> It's considered to be up to the voters to pick the best candidate.

Democrats didnt get a chance to do that with Biden this time, there was no primary.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#697

Oof. This guy has been the biggest positive surprise of the US presidents in my lifetime. Expectations were low, but he actually turned out to be a good president (from a European perspective). No new wars, no more talk about shifting defense focus to Asia, generally nothing unreasonable. Good support for Ukraine, no doubts about NATO - rather the opposite. Basically, the rich uncle on the other side of the pond has…

He got us out of Afghanistan too... this was a huge win and was very risky. Doesn't get enough credit for this one. Agreed on NATO + Ukraine too but I wish they would allow us to strike Russia directly even with NATO equipment.

> He got us out of Afghanistan too

Yeah, it turns out all we needed to do was run away in the middle of the night and let the country slide back into a illiberal theocratic hell hole.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#698

"Donald Trump is going to win. And I'm OK with that." - Jared Golden, Democratic House Representative of Maine I really hoped it wouldn't be so, but anyone that's ever seen Kamala speak will find she is about as compelling as Joe Biden on a bad day. I believe this means China and Russia can prevail in the short term, unless he actually boosts Taiwan's defence meaningfully, which I doubt he will after the Ukraine/Isra…

Its really simple though. Do you want a dictator with near unlimited legal immunity in charge of the country? Thats what the November vote is for. Everything else is secondary.

What? Presidents from now until forever have that near unlimited legal immunity, regardless of party. That's what the Supreme Court ruled. That question doesn't even make sense to a Democrat supporter, it's not that simple, because that's the same no matter who wins. And I want the non-Trump candidate to win, but the party has sabotaged their chances in a manner as to appear deliberate.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#699
post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you must be younger than > the average life expectancy > (currently 73yo) - while in > office. As an aside, it's a common error to think that overall life expectancy is relevant to this sort of thing, it's not. That number includes those who die in infancy, etc. If you wanted to limit it by "life expectancy" you'd want to limit it by the statistical expected remaining years of life at the candidate's current age .…

> it's a common error to think that overall life expectancy is relevant to this sort of thing, it's not. That’s why I purposely linked to the official US government Actuarial Table. Biden is 81. The statistics state that an 81yo will only live 7-more-years. When a presidential term (4-years) is more than half of your remaining life, the margin of error to die while in office is extreme high. —- Another way to look at…

But the issue isn't his age per se, it's his capacity to do the job. This isn't about ageism.

That aside, if there's an issue with age, its having a foundation and reference points that are disconnected and out of touch.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#700
post #406

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.

because we cant do that in the next 4 months as it would require a overwhelming enough demand from the electorate that a super majority of representatives in the house and senate along with the president would have to pass a constitutional amendment that is otherwise considered against their own interests, then it would need to be ratified by the states and pass through the inevitable challenges in the supreme court that seem dead set against anything resembleling democracy this year.
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