In The Hill today:
1. Democrats have a Kamala Harris problem - https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4459705-democrats-have-a-kamala-harris-problem/
2. Bob Costas knocks Biden’s ‘hubris’ campaign: He must ‘be shown the door’ - https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4460600-costas-knocks-biden-hubris-campaign-must-be-shown-door/
I expect the drumbeat to get louder and louder over the coming weeks to months.
Might be Biden's most important moment in the public eye ever. If he knocks it out of the park and can gear up a campaign he's fine. If he flubs it the knives come out.
There's a New York Times OPED which addresses that today. The notion: pull an LBJ shortly before the election and release all delegates.
He can retire, get a yacht, and enjoy the anonymity of Rory B. Bellows. Might even be able to get a crew to throw the rope from the dock when he's getting his corroborating evidence from over by the throttle.
The superfluous third nipple?
She would slaughter Trump. The contrasts would be so stark: M vs F; dumb vs super smart; inarticulate vs polished; slob vs elegant; etc.
...smart, accomplished, state executive experience, and moderate, not fringe, within her party.
She'd be my first choice.
Is the “failed a previous primary” an eliminator?
Those two, Big Gretch, Newsom. All better than Biden and WAY better than Trump.
I don’t love any of them. But I do think that they will play the “traditional” role of president. Which, sadly, would be a huge win.
She didn't win, but was putting up good numbers prior to the consolidation around Biden.
Kamala fell apart before voting, that's failure.
killing. Her record as a prosecutor was held against her. And then Biden said it had to be a black woman. Game over.
It is also true, isn't it, that Minnesota politicians by and large don't travel well nationally? Lack of charisma? I don't know.
Lack of charisma/a bit chilly in person and no traction with the black vote. I agree, BLM killed her and probably cost Biden at the margin in the election. Then it got us Harris.
My bigger point is that Kamala is so inept politically that I bet she'd fall apart in a contested primary even as the sitting VP. If she looked good and won it'd change perceptions of her.
And I quote:
“Why is it so difficult to accept that this is the strategy? For three reasons.
First, Biden does often look and sound so enfeebled it’s hard to believe that a political party would really be pinning all its hopes — including purportedly saving American democracy — on him. In the latest NBC News poll, 76 percent of voters have concerns about whether Biden has the requisite mental and physical health to be president for a second term — a threshold question of fitness that wasn’t there in 2020.
If anything, those numbers could go up.
Considering this, and his dismal polling generally, Republicans believe that there must be some plan, when as a matter of fact, Biden is the plan.
Second, each side of the political divide tends to think the other is shrewder, more conniving and more in control than it is. The reality is that both left and right are buffeted by events and political forces beyond their mastery. But since the Democrats have a political establishment that has maintained more sway than its GOP counterpart, and the Democrats are more capable of coherent actions (getting Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg to quit the 2020 primary at the same time to back Biden is an example), Republicans attribute more power to Democratic string-pullers than they should.
Finally, there’s always the psychological satisfaction of supposedly knowing what’s really going on beneath the surface, when usually the muddle of the surface — like being yoked to a flawed incumbent for the lack of realistic alternatives — is all that there is.
It’d certainly be interesting if Joe Biden were about to be swapped out for Michelle Obama in a premeditated plan to wrongfoot Republicans and coast to victory. In reality, Democrats, figuratively and literally, are stumbling ahead with the guy they’ve got.”
I’m of the same opinion short of a health emergency it’s not happening, it’s as wishful a thought as Donald Trump stepping down from the GOP nomination. As everyone outside of the GOP has come to grips with Trump being the GOP nominee so too do you all have to accept Joe Biden is going to be the democratic one. Also against Donald Trump as my other choice provided that that person is willing to live up to the oath and preserve, protect, and defend the US I’m voting for them. I very much fear the constitution being deposed as the law of the land if Orange Jesus wins again.
As long as the candidate is named Trump, I can see the Democrats running Biden, not letting him off a script, and crossing one finger.
If his opponent was going to be moderate young and energetic, they would have jettisoned him already.
I envision Trump losing the election to a candidate named "not trump" but 7 points.
I think Biden's done fine enough as a fire tender as one can expect, absent a few stupid misfires.
He has the general candor and mental acuity of my father (who is about the same age). I don't particularly want my father to run for president of the rotary club, let alone the US, but I don't tend to agree with any of the analysis that pretend he's got one foot in the grave either.
All I really know for sure is that when I retire I'm going to go find a beach or something. I don't know what drives people to do this shit, let alone do it past 65-70.
I can only hope I live to see a post-Trump era with (at least) 2 healthy parties that may vie for a reasonable person's vote.
(And i know you were joking/exaggerating about the beach)
Don't find a beach, that will greatly hasten mental and physical decline. The key is to find a sweet spot where you neither overdo nor underdo it, but folks need to challenge themselves physically and mentally nearly every day to avoid falling apart.
We've talked a lot on these pages about obesity in Americans which is a huge issue (pun, sigh) but the American belief on retirement is another huge contributor to the "decade of slow death" I see too many patients and family members go through.
I think that'd be pretty awesome - pour at a winery, teach tech to kids (though by then they'll have all lapped me).
As they won’t have any time to campaign and spread their message. I guess you could make the argument they really only have to be known in the states that will actually decide the election (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada) but I don’t think there is a potential candidate that would do well in those states that isn’t a household name.
I think there are only a few names that fit that criteria that have any chance to warrant a nomination.
Bernie Sanders
Warren
Hillary Clinton
Newsom
Michelle Obama
Buttigieg
Klobuchar
I really hope the first 2 are a hard no. Hilary would take it in a heartbeat I assume but I think the party would say her time and chance has come and gone. Michelle has not shown any interest so doesn’t seem like she would take it if asked. I think Buttigieg doesn’t have the fan base to win the nomination. His approval ratings are not strong. klobuchar is probably more of wishful thinking on my part. Her name recognition is not great and she doesn’t seem to do well on the national stage.
Really Newsom seems like the only viable option. Not sure if he would go over well in a lot of the states mentioned above.
Sorry, Marine Domer, that was for you.
I can't say I have feelings one way or another for Pritzker. Said another way, I can understand why people have strong feelings about him both good and bad. I think he's done a reasonably good job as Governor, but I'll defer to others on whether that's true or far from it. I'm not sure I'd advocate too hard for him for President as he feels a little too slimy -- though that doesn't seem to be too much of a disqualifier anymore.
Up until 10/7
Now there is no way in Hell
Between Johnson’s handling of the migrant crisis and casting the tie breaker vote in a City Council Palestinian resolution, Priztker has had few kind words to say in public.
I expect the private conversations to be quite lively.
What a fatass phony nincompoop.
The fact the he even enters the conversation should display the collective malignancy of our politics.
I wonder what sissy says in private about her obese, baby brother. Nothing nice.
Barry can just replace one puppet with another.
Two-term governor from a swing state. Telegenic, likeable, pure-Midwesterner.
Team her up with Booker, Warnock, Patrick, and I think that's a winning ticket.
Captain in 82nd airborne, played football at John's Hopkins. Rhodes Scholar, investment banker, now governor. Black and moderate. He was also shotgunning beers at the most recent Ravens tailgate so he's probably good at retail politics.
but he would have to figure out how to dispose of Harris.
I think Emhoff would do some wheeling and dealing on her behalf.
I believe Harris has made it clear to anyone with a hint of decision making power that if Biden abdicates, anyone who stands in her way would be a misogynist racist anti-American. And she'd go scorched earth on that.
She would need to be offered big money and some title like Chancellor of UC Berkeley or similar to exit stage left gracefully.
And now I’m going to go throw up
And you split the black vote. She's also just bad at campaigning and seen as weak. I think Newsome is too slimey to pull it off.
That said, I would rather his self-absorbed goofiness than Harris'. So, I could live with it.
I really don't want Trump in office, and puppet master or not, I don't really don't think Biden has it in him.