Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

861–870 of 1001 posts

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#861

Post by hnfong »

jonp888 wrote: post #854
lisper wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airline pilots have a legally mandated retirement age of 65. Running the country seems like it's at least as mission-critical as flying a plane.

That's a completely different situation. It's measurable biological certainty that reaction times as measured in milliseconds and fine motor control degrade with age. Vision and hearing also degrade. The nature of hands on control of flying a plane means there are no ways to compensate for this. None of this applies to a politician making decision in a time span of hours, days or months and who can delegate tasks as…

It's a completely different situation for sure.

But I think the argument is still valid for other reasons.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#862

Post by esalman »

bitcurious wrote: post #817
esalman wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He tried a to push a lot of things in the positive direction. Democrats usually do. In addition to the chips act, there's infrastructure - saw a HN comment linking to database of where the infrastructure money went; insulin cost, public transportation, electric vehicles, climate in general, student loans. He tweeted imposing 25% tax on billionaires, which ultimately became his undoing.

> He tweeted imposing 25% tax on billionaires, which ultimately became his undoing. Unless you’re suggesting the billionaires made him senile that wasn’t his undoing. He was a decent president, and accomplished some nice things, but his undoing is the fact that he can no longer speak in full sentences without folks holding their breath.

Have you seen his opponent talk?

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#863

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

ajross wrote: post #413
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kamala looks unelectable. She had to quit the nomination race in 2020 even before primaries.

This is really misunderstanding how that works. The 2020 field at that point was wide open, no one candidate was looking dominant. She absolutely "could" have stayed in with a real shot at winning, which was true for basically all of them. She got out because (1) staying in costs money and fundraising in a wide-open primary is extremely hard and (2) she judged[1] that she'd have a better path to the presidency by pos…

"Sen. Kamala Harris drops out of 2020 presidential race": [0]

"Following that debate, her polling numbers dropped to the single digits — and never really recovered.

Amid those problems, Harris' campaign reorganized — laying off some staffers in early states to focus its resources and attention on Iowa.

The latest RealClearPolitics average of recent polling showed Harris with just 3.4 percent support nationally, and just 3.3 percent and 2.7 percent backing in the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, respectively."

[0]: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/sen-kamala-ha...

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#864

Post by brnt »

jonp888 wrote: post #854
lisper wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airline pilots have a legally mandated retirement age of 65. Running the country seems like it's at least as mission-critical as flying a plane.

That's a completely different situation. It's measurable biological certainty that reaction times as measured in milliseconds and fine motor control degrade with age. Vision and hearing also degrade. The nature of hands on control of flying a plane means there are no ways to compensate for this. None of this applies to a politician making decision in a time span of hours, days or months and who can delegate tasks as…

> That's a completely different situation.

Yet Biden (and for some reason not Trump, who's well documented to have the same kind of senior moments but they rarely make it to the news) is raked over the coals for them all the same. Why do we ask the president to be able to walk a stairs, remember pointless ceremony, and all the other things that have nothing to do with performance in office (on which there has been next to zero discussion this cycle)?

I can see that age is a risk factor you don't want for a commander in chief, anymore than you want it in fighter pilots. If so, age limits seem reasonable.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#865

Post by shiroiushi »

philsnow wrote: post #742
lisper wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airline pilots have a legally mandated retirement age of 65. Running the country seems like it's at least as mission-critical as flying a plane.

I heard just last night that domestically it’s now 68 years (or somebody is trying to make it 68), but this sucks for pilots who’ve been flying for a long time and are now doing mostly international flights, because the intl age is still 65. The upshot is they have to fly only domestically from 65-68 (and this can require retraining on smaller planes they don’t have currency with).

It's still bad, because at that age, close to retirement, they surely don't want to deal with all the nonsense and mayhem that US domestic passengers cause.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#866

Post by SllX »

ajross wrote: post #413
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kamala looks unelectable. She had to quit the nomination race in 2020 even before primaries.

This is really misunderstanding how that works. The 2020 field at that point was wide open, no one candidate was looking dominant. She absolutely "could" have stayed in with a real shot at winning, which was true for basically all of them. She got out because (1) staying in costs money and fundraising in a wide-open primary is extremely hard and (2) she judged[1] that she'd have a better path to the presidency by pos…

> She absolutely "could" have stayed in with a real shot at winning, which was true for basically all of them.

This was true for three of them: Sanders, Biden and Buttigieg; but if Buttigieg stayed in, it was looking like at the time that he and Biden both would have lost to Sanders. I remember my last act as a registered member of the Democratic Party was going to be to vote for the candidate who had the best shot at beating Sanders in my State specifically thus denying him some delegates, and I was having a difficult time up until nearly the last minute figuring out who that was going to be up until Buttigieg made the decision extremely easy by removing himself from the race.

Harris didn’t even make it to the starting line. Her campaign simply ran out of money in December before the Iowa Caucus.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#867

Post by shiroiushi »

wayeq wrote: post #680
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…

The number of voters aligned with old school Reagan/Bush era Republicanism has all but disappeared. The majority of GOP voters consider Romney to be part of 'the swamp'. Politics in America is increasingly driven by hatred of the out-group, so it is hard to imagine a mixed ticket doing well in 2024.

Yes, the vast majority of current GOP voters consider someone like Romney or McCain (RIP) to be a "RINO". Only Trump and his sycophants are "true Republicans" to them now.

However, having a mixed-party ticket like this doesn't need to worry about swaying the Trump voters; they're not going to change their vote for anyone. The appeal here is to get some of the minority of GOP voters, the "never-Trumpers" and others who really don't like Trump much, to switch their vote (or actually vote, if they're sitting it out in disgust).

I do think this idea would succeed in getting some of these peoples' votes. However, I have no idea if that would outweigh the number of votes they'd lose from people on the left.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#868

Post by latexr »

nothercastle wrote: post #785
latexr wrote: post #753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biden’s account is from 2007 and has over 38 million followers. There’s nothing strange about the way it was announced.

Why didn’t they announce at a scheduled time on a friendly network? Like there has to be an interesting story here, it would make a good or tv show.

It sounds you actively want to read too much into it and find some conspiracy.

Announcing a scheduled time would be as silly as your question. As soon as they scheduled it, it would leak and they would lose control of the narrative.

I don’t know if you noticed this, but the internet is kind of a big deal and politicians have been using social media as part of their campaign and communications for a while.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#869

Post by guenthert »

tiffanyh wrote: post #533

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

> Why don’t they have an age limit on the president (or any elected office)?

Because age is no indication of fitness for any kind of activity or role. It sure would be nice, if persons with high responsibilities would periodically undergo a fitness test. I'd think the founding fathers saw the election process as such fitness test and the electoral college as the judge of fitness of the presidential candidate.

Re: Joe Biden stands down as Democratic candidate

#870

Post by johnisgood »

guenthert wrote: post #869
tiffanyh wrote: post #533

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

> Why don’t they have an age limit on the president (or any elected office)? Because age is no indication of fitness for any kind of activity or role. It sure would be nice, if persons with high responsibilities would periodically undergo a fitness test. I'd think the founding fathers saw the election process as such fitness test and the electoral college as the judge of fitness of the presidential candidate.

> age is no indication of fitness for any kind of activity or role.

This is a generalization that overlooks the nuanced reality of human aging. Physical and cognitive functions become more pronounced in advanced age, such as above 70 or 80. Sure, age alone does not universally determine fitness for activities or roles, but it is a very important factor to consider. I am fine with fitness tests.

Post reply on HN