145 thoughts on “Joe Biden Announces that he is not Running for Re-election”
Okay. The main thing that I am noticing is that Biden is going to ride out the rest of his term. He’s not resigning… he’s just not going for re-election.
So Kamala is walking into the convention as VP, not as P.
Other than that… well, things just got really interesting!
I don’t think it’s the worst thing tactically. I see some Republicans have already jumped on it saying ‘if he isn’t competent to run he isn’t competent to stay in office’ but that sounds like the kind of ‘well ACTUALLY’ stuff people don’t typically care about. The VP is notorious as an office light on official responsibility. It frees Harris to go make her case.
That said I’m also interested to hear what the media does with it. My biggest fear about a Harris candidacy has always been some kind of inane, media driven ‘Vote for Kamala to atone for the racism and sexism of your country that you should all be deeply ashamed of’ and that she leans into it. Of course I’d hope everyone is a lot smarter than that at this point.Report
Me fears that regardless of how she’s pushed, the counter narrative will strongly lean into “They’re only voting for her/wanting you to vote her because of racism/sexism past” thing. And given how effective the right wing propaganda/narrative machine is, it’ll take root.Report
Eh, the Republicans will always take that line of attack and there is a built in audience for it. What’s most important is not to respond by saying ‘yes we are for exactly what you accuse us of, thanks for noticing.’
Harris can portray herself as a great American success story, should she chose to do so.Report
Agreed but my FEAR is that Dems will respond by saying, “No, of course that isn’t why we are supporting her and that isn’t why you should support her. But… well, I mean, there IS a long history of racism and sexism and she is a woman of color so ya know, maybe that is a GOOD reason to vote for her and THOSE folks over there are racist and sexist for not doing so!”
I fear Dems will take the bait. Because they ALWAYS take the goddamn bait.Report
I only share that optimism if Harris is indeed the nominee AND if that is achieved by the Dems immediately rallying around her. Even if there might theoretically be a better candidate from the standpoint of “This person would make a better President once in the office” I think Harris is the only one with a chance at this point. The party needs to immediately rally around her and not continue the infighting around getting their preferred person the nomination.Report
Of course he’s not resigning. He has no earthly reason to resign. While the so-called liberal media is going nuts every time he fumbles somebody’s name, he’s been doing the job — and uncommonly well. It’s a fair question whether he still be capable a year or two from now, but all this talk about dementia in the present is pure BS.Report
And, once again, Trump is physically incapable of doing any sort of gracious action and immediately attacks him.
You know, the normal reaction to ‘This person is too old to be able to do things they once were able to and has to retire earlier than they want’: Vicious attacks on their competence.Report
Important to note that shortly after the Tweet shared here, Biden’s account sent out two more: one officially endorsing Harris as the candidate and another encouraging donations to her campaign.Report
I have to say… it feels very odd that every time I say, “Can you support this claim?” the response involves a question. Just make your damn argument!Report
John didn’t so much make an argument as an assertion. You asked for evidence, and since then we’ve been going in circles because neither he nor I can understand how the debate performance doesn’t count as evidence that he’s no longer fit for the job. There’s a legal term, res ipsa loquitor, which means “the thing speaks for itself”. There’s someone who isn’t forming sentences or holding thoughts – I don’t have to argue that he can’t handle the presidency.Report
Presidents don’t need to spend their time debating and offering zingers, as CJ notes below, but there are in fact times when they need to be able to take that “3 AM phone call”.
And if we see evidence of a candidate rambling and having verbal difficulty, or speaking in gibberish indicating a faulty mental acuity, it does question their fitness for the office, don’t you think?Report
You could bring up the Hur Report and every other data point fom the past 12-24 months and wouldn’t matter, so why bother? There is no cure for this type of willful blindness.Report
I don’t feed trolls man. My baseline assumption is that people who comment here have been following the very obvious mental and physical decline of the president. If you don’t recognize everything that has transpired – especially this year between the Hur Report to the debate – to his OWN PARTY throwing him off the ticket 100 days before election day- as evidence, what is the point of engaging an internet rando on the topic who demands I provide evidence. You sound like a nut. This isn’t 10th grade debate club and I don’t care if you are satisfied with my non-serious responses to your silly questions.Report
Presidents don’t spend their time debating. Verbal quickness and avoidance of gaffs are good for instilling public confidence, but what Presidents do is consider and absorb information from their aides and cabinet officers and chiefs of staff and applying deliberate judgment to come up with a sensible course of action. That they get someone’s name wrong — I’m a good bit younger than Biden and I do it myself more than I used to — or speak slowly has little to do with how they perform their substantive jobs.Report
Please, lets have a lengthy, in-depth discussion of why a doddering old man who can barely put together a coherent sentence should not be allowed to serve as President.
Yes please, lets discuss this. In detail.
Would anyone like some verbatim quotes from some old men who should not be President?Report
We will be navigating uncharted waters in the days ahead. But I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges. I believe that Joe Biden’s vision of a generous, prosperous, and united America that provides opportunity for everyone will be on full display at the Democratic Convention in August. And I expect that every single one of us are prepared to carry that message of hope and progress forward into November and beyond.
Click on the link. Do a ctrl-F and look for the string “Harris”.
We’ve got a bumpy road ahead.
I’m not saying that the Democrats are doomed. Indeed, I think that they have a shot now when, this time yesterday, I didn’t.
But, at the convention, we will see what can be, and we will find out whether we will be unburdened by what has been.Report
Obama supports a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges.
This is where the fight gets interesting. Say what you will about Bill Clinton but he’s getting up there (though, granted, he’s still younger than Trump). Will he be around in 10 years? I dunno.
I’m gonna sound like Alex Jones but I legit think they ran a coup on Joe. Here’s what I suspect we will find out to some degree or another (probably never confirmed fully.)
I understand the coup they ran on Trump with the FISA warrant so I’m cynical enough to imagine they would do this.
They threw everything at Biden get him to drop out. They tried to destroy his character (set him up with the debate, all the other character assassination.) Then Hunter and Jill put up a wall. The remaining avenue was to bribe them. I’m guessing they offered them pretty much anything.
But the issue to me fundamentally is you can’t offer something to the First Lady better than another term, and you can’t offer something to a father better than pardon power if he has a son whose past crimes are not fully understood and who may be entangled with things that lead to future crimes.
So where you end up is you have to reach deeper into the toolbox.
The way I think this goes is you realize that the way to finally get capitulation is to have the public believe for a news cycle that Biden has dropped out of his own accord, but hasn’t. In this scenario, it can’t be walked back (run it through.)
So to run this play you really just need two things: you need a way to distribute an ostensible resignation from a credible source, and you need the candidate to be maximally incapacitated to respond.
So, you flip the right comms people who can post to X and other social media.
Then (this is dark), you send people into the White House with COVID. This is where crimes may have occurred but it is basically a perfect crime.
Then, once the candidate tests positive, you do a dry run to see if your flipped comms people end up getting blowback for posting something the candidate would never allow. (“I’m sick”)
You also now leak fake stories to the press that the candidate is imminently going to drop out. You line up party leadership to agree that if Biden resigns they will line up the way you want.
If things look good, you wait until the day the candidate is maximally ill during the course of COVID and blast out a resignation. As long as you have a solid cycle where the candidate can’t even physically react, and his family knows that the game theory now is against them.
The public and even the party leadership is now set up entirely to accept the resignation, and many people who flipped have insane counterincentives to accept any claims by the candidate it was not intended.
And the candidate, of course, wakes up a day later, and realizes if they dispute the resignation they lose everything. Instead, they now take the deal, with the entire world already aligned on the new reality.
I’m not sure I even understand what this guy is saying. Clearly there was behind the scenes and not so behind the scenes pressure to convince Biden to end his candidacy. I don’t see how that’s a coup or a conspiracy. It also doesn’t require intentionally infecting anyone with covid or ‘flipping’ whoever runs the Twitter account.Report
So when Trump wrote that check to re-elect Kamala Harris in 2011, I bet he didn’t think she’d cash it in 2024! pic.twitter.com/78mR1LZyNN— Michael Steele (@MichaelSteele) July 21, 2024
While Biden won virtually all of the delegates to next month’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago and was the party’s presumptive nominee, he relinquished that title by stepping aside and has no direct power over choosing who those delegates will officially nominate.
That’s because the convention delegates, the people who actually pick the Democratic Party’s nominee, are not bound by any law or party rules to back the candidate they’re pledged to support. They only have to “in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.”
Biden can and likely will still hold enormous sway over the delegates who were preparing to nominate him. But those delegates are free to make up their own minds, both in terms of whether to back Harris and who they want to be the party’s vice presidential nominee, too.
Anything written until the convention should be considered to be written in pencil.Report
The endorsements have poured in. And Harris, if nominated, still gets all of Bidens money and infrastructure because it’s her ticket too. If there’s going to be a non-Harris they’ll have to move, like, tomorrow. Newsome has endorsed her for instance. I doubt that there’ll be much of a challenge to her and very strongly doubt that it’ll be a strong challenge if one does arise.Report
It sounds like Marianne Williams threw her hat in….
But from what I’m reading Whitmer, Cooper, and many of the others whose names have been thrown around have already said they won’t run against her.Report
LOL, Manchin has absolutely no support among the Democratic Party leadership or activists (Which is what delegates mostly are) at this point. You don’t get to jump off the ship and then declare you should be captain.
Oh, and, hilariously, Manchin has until August 1 to change his political party affiliation if he wants to run as an Independent in a local WV election, which means he either has to give up that entire idea, or he would be trying to get the Democratic nomination not as a registered Democrat.
Which I don’t know that you even can, under the party rules?Report
Bernie changed to Democrat exactly because of that. So sorta did the exact opposite. I don’t know if that was _requirement_ of the nomination or not, no one seemed to say he had to do it back then, so it’s possible it’s not against the rules, he just wanted to look more on board with the Democrats.
But Bernie also had a lot more sympathy from the party establishment, as he had rarely gotten in the way of legislative priorities. He voted with the Democrats. Yes, he challenged them from the left, but that almost always went nowhere and he immediately fell in line. Bernie is only a problem in so much as he thinks he gets a turn to be president, and various Democrats in leadership think the opposite.
Whereas Manchin did get in the way, all the time, he was a constant problem they had to work around, and the only reason they put up with him is they would otherwise lose a Senate seat. He’s no Ted Cruz, but people on his side still don’t like him.
But if he’s president, the Democrats do not, in fact, have that Senate seat. There’s no reason to put up with him. It destroys the one reason Democrats haven’t filled his bed with poisonous snakes.Report
I think that’s right. The biggest flaw in the proposals around some sort of alternative process involving multiple candidates is that others have to actually want it. Unless someone serious materializes in the next week (and really more like 24-48 hours) I don’t see how it’s anyone other than Harris. I’m pretty sure all of the people who could make a contest of challenging have already said they won’t.Report
I think most of them have already endorsed her. But there’s this thing happening, where people see something unusual and think all the old rules are gone. If anything, unusual scenarios make politicians more risk-averse.Report
Newsom, Whitmer, Buttigieg, Pritzker, and Shapiro have endorsed her. The only ones who haven’t are the senior voices of stability (Obama, Pelosi, Jeffries, Schumer). It’s interesting that the Clintons have endorsed her, because it indicates that Hillary was still seen as viable.Report
As a long time fan of the Clintons I hate typing this but feel obligated to do so. I think the outcome of 2016 has put the Clintons at a lower tier of respect/stature that the senior leadership of the party which is why they felt no obligation to forbear from endorsing.Report
Sure. It’s just sad. I always liked Hillary but she put everything she had into getting that nod in ’16 and then she fished it up. Even in my own estimations they’re diminished and it makes me sad. They were the first American Presidential couple I became aware of (albeit my first election to vote in was 2000).
Biden’s endorsement of Harris is one of two things:
1. A way to yell “heck with you” to Obama, Pelosi, Jeffries, Schumer as he removes the knife from his back as he walks out the door
2. A way to use his last little bit of clout to ensure that the party is unified around Harris and it’s his way to avoid a fractious and divisive convention next month
Or maybe both.
You may remember a handful of people arguing against Biden stepping down by pointing out Harris’s polling against Trump.
If Biden didn’t believe the polls showing him lagging, maybe he doesn’t believe the polls showing Harris lagging. Maybe polls aren’t real and don’t matter. What are polls, anyway? A miserable pile of secrets.Report
Okay, here’s the hard truth: Polling is useless for the next week or so. Like, it’s not even going to be worth talking about the polls until Thursday next.
*MAYBE* the “who should be the nominee” polls *MIGHT* be worthwhile starting on Thursday or Friday? But there are people who still don’t know that Biden declared that he’s not going to be the nominee and won’t find that out until tomorrow or Tuesday. Or until after the World Series.
So tomorrow’s polls that tabulated all of the questions asked on Saturday? Worthless. All of Wednesday’s polls that will be tabulating all of tomorrow’s answers? Worthless.
AP is running an ongoing survey of delegates to the Democratic Convention. Last I looked, 725 supported Harris and 25 were undecided, with the large majority not responding yet.Report
Okay, what the hell is going on with Republicans pretending there’s going to be some ballot access issue due to ‘changes’? And I don’t mean random morons on Twitter, I mean random morons on Twitter who are a Speaker of the House.
Do they really not understand that Biden was just the presumptive nominee and that would become official at the DNC? And now that he’s dropped out, he’s presumably released his delegates to vote for anyone they want? (In fact, formally dropping out might count as releasing them, or, I dunno, maybe he has to talk to them at the convention or something.)
Of course, it is hypothetically possible that some of the delegates are required, under various state laws, to vote for Biden anyway at the DNC but:
a) Regardless of law, states don’t actually have any power in how the conventions picks their candidate anyway, the courts have been pretty clear about that. Laws about that are basically dead letter. The DNC national convention kicked out all Wisconsin delegates in 1980 due to state law allowing open primaries, aka, ‘Some regiestered Republicans could have, hypothetically, slightly influenced this vote’, and the Supreme Court declared that was fine. If they can do that, they can certainly kick out all delegates that were threatened under state law into voting a specific way.
b) Most importantly, Harris would get the majority of delegates anyway, even if some delegates do have to vote for Biden. If we imagine a universe where three or four state delegates are threatened, by Republicans, under a few state law, to not vote for Harris, that not only looks very bad, but they can just…ignore that. Harris will win anyway.
c) Or, do the funnier thing, where the delegate that ‘have to’ vote for Biden under their state’s law simply don’t vote at all. I’d like to see someone try to arrest a delegate for not voting, I’d like to see the court decision about the Most Compelled Political Speech of All Political Speech That Ever Existed, arresting someone for refusing to publicly express support for a presidential candidate.
There’s not actually any sort of legal issue here, at all. There is no way to keep the DNC for voting for Harris, and hence, no way to keep her off the ballot. (Which, again, is not ‘changing’ it, and everyone talking about laws that talk about changing the ballot have no idea what they are talking about.)
None of this is confusing.
Or is this some weird attempt by Mike Johnson to get across the claim that the Democrats didn’t have a primary and try to stir up resentment among Democratic voters? I mean, that might work if a single person who might have been a candidate was complaining about this, but, as far as I can tell, they are not.Report
The only democratic vote is the one that happens in November.
Parties are non-Profit clubs. I believe they can be sued by their donors if they violate their bylaws; but the bylaws are written by the club for the club. 100% sure there’s a bylaw that allows them to bypass a presumptive nominee who refuses the nomination.
The fact that we enable states to run statewide ‘elections’ for parties is a mistake that gives the impression that parties are more than just clubs. The fact that ‘voters’ think that Primaries are anything other than holding a finger in the wind to lend the club an air of consensus for their pick? That’s just on us for bad civics education.
There’s nothing the republicans or states can do as long as the correct forms are filed by authorized representatives of the club/party.Report
I believe they can be sued by their donors if they violate their bylaws; but the bylaws are written by the club for the club.
No, they can be sued by their members, not their donors. Or, specifically, they can be sued by their donors for how money is spent based on any statements made, but it’s only their members who get a say in things they vote on, and thus, the only people who can sue over a Bad Vote. Trust me, I’ve literally been involved in trying to legally hijack a non-profit back away from the people who sorta wandered off with it.
Fun fact: The delegates? Those are the members of the DNC. That’s what we were actually voting them into, membership into the DNC this year.
So to sue over a vote, you’d have to a) find a Biden delegate (No one else has delegates, IIRC) who is willing to sue over Harris, and b) prove some sort of rule was violated (which it won’t be) and c) the outcome was different than it should be (Which is essentially impossible as the vast vast vast majority of Biden delegates obviously have no problem with Harris.)
No one else has standing to challenge any of that, and as I said, the courts have basically said ‘Conventions set their own rules and are in charge of all that, states do not get to interfere’.
But, on top of that…that’s assuming anyone makes that imaginary guy, or anyone, vote for Harris to start with, which they won’t. He can cast a ballot for anyone in the race…or anyone who is not, even, like Biden, although they probably will not count those. I literally have no idea what this hypothetical disgruntled guy could be suing over. If there was some sort of imaginary rebellion against Harris by the delegates that _might_ result in a different outcome, sure, but how about we function in the actual world instead?
The Republicans know how insane that sequence of events sounds, so are instead yammering about how we (By which they mean Democrats) didn’t get a free vote to vote for some other candidate. Which ignores the fact that not only did we (The fact no one capable of winning chose to challenge Biden doesn’t change that fact.), our vote wasn’t for a candidate to start with, it was for people who would choose a candidate at the convention.
And unlike the votes cast by electors, that isn’t really a formality. We’ve had tons of elections where delegate ended up voting for someone else. As someone pointed out, Nikki Haley had some delegates she released when she dropped out, that then voted for Trump. I don’t see anyone calling those votes invalid somehow.Report
There are two people who have gone up in my estimation with this whole affair. One is Biden himself. Relinquishing power is never easy, especially after all this time seeking it. Having has to fight past people saying he couldn’t do it last time, only to triumph? And then to turn around listen to those same people now? Stepping down was both right and necessary, but people have held on for grim death in similar circumstances before.
The other person is John Stewart. He caught a lot of flack when he pointed out Biden’s age and speaking problems 5 months ago. Recent events have proven he was entirely justified. I can think of no one better to play the role of the US’s court jester.Report
Not the reporters on the right and some in the middle who have been coving Biden’s health decline for years?
As for my estimation of Biden, I can give him one cheer. He tried to run for four more years and got unanimously booed off the stage. He held off on doing the right thing and yelled at people who told him to do the right thing. He shouldn’t be president now, but he’s holding onto the job. And we all know that he didn’t step back out of duty, he stepped back because he was finally convinced he’d lose.Report
BS. Biden isn’t “holding onto the job,” he’s doing the job. Ask any leader of a NATO country.
“Snappy answers to stupid questions” was a Mad Magazine section. It’s a damned shame that we relabeled it “debates” and use it to choose a leader.Report
To get credit you have to meet some baseline of creditability in general and most reporters on the right have been claiming Biden was propped up Weekend at Bernies style for years which, obviously hasn’t been and isn’t the case. I’d definitely grant some credit to the reporters in the middle who’d been raising doubts and ultimately got proven correct but that’s a pretty broad gamut of people now from Klein and Chait on the left over to Sullivan and other righties on the center right.Report
Credibility is a function of, among other things, getting things right. The people who said stupid or crazy things should lose credibility – and that includes wacko right-wingers as well as mainstream press who denounced “cheapfakes”. The people who got things right deserve credit whether or not you agree with their politics.
I feel like the biggest thing the press is getting wrong is the context of the debate. The Trump campaign was willing to agree to any conditions to get a debate, something that neither candidate had bothered to do up until that point. They knew that Biden would fail on stage. They knew because the information was out there. Trump’s been on-message for months now, or staying out of the spotlight, and he’s never been self-disciplined before. You see Trump on that stage, you can sense when he realizes that Biden’s even in worse shape than they’d expected, but you can tell that they’d rehearsed for exactly this scenario. So, yeah, the people who were getting concerned a few weeks before the debate get a little credit, but the people who have been reporting on Biden’s continuing, accelerating health issues deserve more.Report
There were people, after the debate, who argued that the debate was a tie and any appearance of Biden having a bad debate was due to maybe Biden having a bad night due to travel and jet lag.
When these people tell you that Kamala is an even better candidate, remember how they felt about Biden until the moment they were told to feel something else.Report
“Was part of the organic coordination in which they abandoned their previous position because it offered too little advantage for a new one that offered more”.Report
Not the exact same people, just people on the same side. And I think the mainstream press is still suffering from the credibility loss when she crumbled on the sidewalk in New York.Report
This is your response to my comment about DavidTC’s response to my comment about North’s response to my comment about James K’s comment, and I have no idea what we’re comparing to being worse than what else. I generally give credit to reporters who get the story, no credit to reporters who miss the story, and negative credit to reporters who deny the story, if that helps to answer your question.Report
Sorry. It is hard to follow all the threads, isn’t it?
You wrote: And I think the mainstream press is still suffering from the credibility loss when she crumbled on the sidewalk in New York.”
My (expanded) reply: She didn’t “crumble,” she fell down. As do lots of us, all the time. The mainstream press didn’t think it was a story worth their time and energy to pursue. The right wing press insisted that it proved that she was at death’s door. Seems to me the mainstream press was much more on target here. You are free to disagree. The first amendment guarantees all of us the right to be silly.Report
Let me put it this way. We all have to evaluate our different news sources. If you know a source’s hobby horses, you can evaluate them more correctly. A person consuming media sources including right-wing ones could have known more than a person consuming media sources excluding right-wing ones. I think this applies to North’s comments just below, as well.
Clinton was having health problems before she fell down. The mainstream press didn’t cover it. The right-wing press exaggerated it. When she fell down, she had to be carried into the awaiting van. She was suffering from pneumonia, if I recall correctly. The person who only followed left-wing or mainstream press had been lied to by omission or outright deception. The person who followed right-wing press had been lied to by exaggeration. I understood the context of Clinton’s fall better than those who didn’t consume right-wing press. I understood the context of the debate better than those who didn’t consume right-wing press.Report
Yes, for sure, and spending four years saying “Bidens’ just a senescent puppet who can barely move” then getting one’s posterior handed to them repeatedly, by said allegedly senescent puppet, has a negative effect on one’s credibility. It’s like how inflation hawks who’ve been screeching about impending hyper-inflation since 2008 got very little credit when some actual honest to God(ess?) inflation actually popped up for a while.
Credit where it’s due, the right finally was more right than wrong about Bidens’ decline. Trump definitely played it correctly (or whomever has been telling him to lie low since the Debate has). That doesn’t erase they’ve been more wrong than right about it for four years.Report
You must read a lot more nutty right-wing stuff than I do – or you read the left-wing claims about what the nuttiest right-wingers say and assume that speaks for all of them.Report
If you want to claim Fox or OAN or similar right-wing media suspects have been measured and reasonable in their allegations of Bidens age related issues these past 4-5 years you can by all means but we’ll have to agree to disagree on the matter.Report
I was recently watching an interview with a well-known philosopher, Robert Pippin, filmed in November 2023, and he suggested Biden would harm the Democrats in the 2024 election because, as he argued, despite a very good record on crime and the economy, his age and cognitive decline made him incapable of making that case publicly, so that the Dems would be better off if Biden stepped down. I figure we have to giver jo, some props got calling that a year ago.Report
There’s a fun conspiracy theory out there that Joe is very bad off indeed and that’s why he hasn’t been seen since last week.
People are agitating to see “proof of life”.
It’s still early on a Monday morning… but there’s a time coming up, sometime this week, that will have normal people, not just paranoid people, asking to see him wearing a suit and waving from a lawn somewhere.Report
For this one, I’d say that if we don’t see Biden by tomorrow lunchtime, then that’s concerning.
Then we can have people say “No, that’s *NORMAL… I wouldn’t worry about it until Thursday” or “Yeah, it’s kind of weird that we haven’t seen him yet” or whatever.Report
“I feel like they’re grooming someone, and we all know it’s not Kamala [Harris],” Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, told the “Ruthless” podcast last week. “So I think they [Democrats] have a backup plan because every time I listen to the current president speak, I’m like, ‘Is this getting harder?'”
Like I said, the fans of conspiracy theories are the most gullible folks on God’s green earth. At some point I expect one of these guys to invest the entire campaign warchest with a corrupt Nigerian prince.Report
Yes, the 17th was the same day Biden tested positive for Covid. He’s in Delaware in self-isolation. His doctor has issued regular reports on his treatment and progress.Report
On the side debate of whether Biden should resign the office since he’s ‘admitting’ he’s too old to run for office… let me be clear, there’s no reason at all that he should have to do that. It’s perfectly reasonable to realize that he’s running for a 4-yr term and all he’s got left in the tank is 4-months. End of story.
However, if I’m thinking about Candidate Harris, I think (suspect? know?) that she will have trouble connecting with voters given her body of work, and that Doing Presidential Things Presidentially would be much better than her normal retail politics. Thinking that the Vice Presidency will free her up to do all the campaigny things that the President is partially constrained from doing by virtue of his other duties? Not sure that’s a win for her. So on purely those grounds, if I were leading the Dem Change Committee, I’d see if we could buy-out Joe’s retirement with a better offer so that Harris could partially shield herself with the Presidential Office.Report
Cynic me thinks we’ll have one helluva pardon party and then, once everything is signed, Biden will ride back to Delaware to spend more time with his family. This will allow Harris to ride into the convention as the *PRESIDENT*. It’s one thing for Marianne Williamson to want to throw her hat into the ring with the VP but the President Herself?
Nah.
Everybody else sighs and folds and then Harris only has to deal with the aftermath of Biden’s pardons (“What about Trump?” might be worth exploring here) and then Harris can lay the smack down on the various protestors outside of the convention and gather herself the Sista Soulja of all Sista Souljas and denounce Antifa.
Kamala is a Cop. Oh, and here’s one for all of the college educated ladies out there: “Abortion!”
And then she’s got a good chance of winning, assuming that she doesn’t implode.
The non-cynical version contains fewer pardons, a convention dedicated to Diversity, Being Black, Being Indian, Not Being White, and BEING A WOMAN! ABORTION!!! Also, here’s my VP, the Governor of Kentucky.
And the real thing that’ll happen is somewhere between there, probably.Report
I would like to note that, outside the desperate clucks of the media which wants a circus, everyone has -already- thrown in the towel, or more accurately seem to have enthusiastically united and wished our new candidate the best.Report
I don’t think she’ll win but it does look like Kamala will have all of the momentum and there’s a rumor that they’ll do something to make it official before the convention on August 1st (when states start printing ballots).
The drama at the convention won’t be on the floor. It’ll be a few blocks away involving the Free Speech Enthusiasts Opposed To Genocide.
The journalismists who are looking for good pictures, good quotations, and a good story are going to have to go there… as the convention itself isn’t going to even achieve “as interesting as 2016”.
The only question will be “how dumb will the messaging be?”
There’s an opportunity to hit it out of the park.
There are also opportunities to get mad at the media all over again.Report
It’s somewhat interesting to wonder how much Harris is going to deflate left protestors.
The premise was ‘We cannot reelect Biden while he’s supplying a genocide’, so…what’s the premise now?
Also…is Harris going to change anything there? Does anyone even know?
(Also, does the recent rulings by the ICJ matter at all?)
I don’t think she’ll win but it does look like Kamala will have all of the momentum and there’s a rumor that they’ll do something to make it official before the convention on August 1st (when states start printing ballots).
Okay, if there is any sort of Federal ballot law we’ve ever needed, it’s to disallow the printing of ballots before the candidate is officially decided on.
That is utter nonsense, it is complete gibberish to allow that. There _is not a Democratic candidate_ right now, legally speaking. And there wouldn’t be one if Biden hadn’t dropped out. The candidate has not been picked yet, and the fact ‘everyone knows who it will be’ has absolutely no legal bearing on ballot access.Report
I thought “I’ll search for ‘harris aipac’ on the twitters… how bad could it be?”
Anyway, the general consensus seems to be that Harris will not be changing anything there. I didn’t spend more than 30 seconds looking, however.
I think I agree about the printing ballots thing but I’m sure that the process is so cooked in the states that start printing in August that forcing them to start no earlier than September 15th would result in ballot shortages.Report
Anyway, the general consensus seems to be that Harris will not be changing anything there.
I think of Harris the same way I think of Hillary Clinton: Someone who is extremely pragmatic.
Biden was willing to go down with the ship supporting Israel’s right to kill a bunch of people with our weapons. Harris…is going to look at the actual situation and decide on something. I don’t know what she’ll decide, but I’m certain it won’t be the kneejerk support that Biden gave.
And, incidentally, Bibi is almost certainly about to throw a bunch more support to Republicans, and the ICJ has just come out and basically said that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is no longer legal(1), so it’s possible she’ll start making the calculated decision that ‘Maybe this is something we start backing off from a little’. I don’t know, and just as importantly here, I don’t know what others thinks about that.
However, regardless of whether or not people _think_ she’ll not change anything, the fact of the matter is that it is much easier to get people to protest someone who did X in the past and is still doing X and probably will keep doing X in the future…vs someone who is just probably going to do X in the future.
1) To be clear, this decision is not about the war, it is about the blatantly illegal settlements and cutting up the West Bank and Israel’s general behavior as the occupier. To the point that all other nations are required to not “not to render aid or assistance” to Israel’s behavior. Again, we’re not talking about the war, we’re talking about the norm before the war. It is has now been very clearly stated as illegal under international law not only to do that, but to help Israel do that.Report
Zei Squirrel, one of the crazy people I follow on Twitter, is a fierce anti-Genocide kinda squirrel. Their take is that Kamala will gleefully promise Netanyahu 100% support.
Now, I know that people who have one single note and just hammer that note over and over again aren’t likely to cheerfully concede that Harris demanded this or that concession in return but, from what I can tell, the “opposed to genocide” corner of Twitter is no more thrilled about Harris than they were about Biden.Report
Now, again, we’re talking about perceptions here, not actual positions. The perceptions of the protestors, and the perception that Harris wants people to have of her.
I think the perception she is pushing will, at minimum, dim the protestors a bit, along with the fact she has not actually _done_ the stuff they’re protesting Biden for doing. How much it will matter is unknown.
—
The thing that most people don’t understand is that Biden was sorta uniquely supportive of Israel within the Democratic party, well past the point of anyone else.
Literally any other Democratic would have had, at minimum, a problem with Netinyahu deliberately disrespecting him and supporting Republicans. (Which he is about to very loudly do in a speech to Congress.) I’m not saying the red lines would have had been any better, but Israel might have actually been held to them.
Biden, flatly, let Israel’s leadership walk all over him, and it made him look weak, and I’m trying to say that objectively, without bringing any sort of morality into it or any opinion about what is actually happening. Biden was just bad, _politically speaking_, on Israel, because he thinks Israel are unwavering Good Guys and he was perfectly willing to take anything from Netinyahu, and never hold him to anything.
It is extremely hard to imagine Harris being that bad. Literally J. Random Democratic Leader would have been better, if only so they didn’t look as weak.Report
I think I agree about the printing ballots thing but I’m sure that the process is so cooked in the states that start printing in August that forcing them to start no earlier than September 15th would result in ballot shortages.
If we need to standardize it, we need to standardize it.
Write a cutoff in the law. The due date for all candidates for Federal office can be no earlier than August 31. Every political party must have produced a name by that point via their convention or whatever.
This entire thing where states can do whatever dates they want, including being _very obviously_ before convention dates, is nonsense.
As is putting conventions after those dates, but the problem there is you can’t say ‘The parties should just schedule the conventions earlier so as to hit the deadlines’, that just means states will keep moving the deadline up and up, because what do they care? You actually have to pick a day, under Federal law, by which all this crap is due, then turn and look at the parties and say ‘And, obviously, schedule your stuff before that’.Report
Okay. The main thing that I am noticing is that Biden is going to ride out the rest of his term. He’s not resigning… he’s just not going for re-election.
So Kamala is walking into the convention as VP, not as P.
Other than that… well, things just got really interesting!
(I want to see how/if the media pivots.)Report
I don’t think it’s the worst thing tactically. I see some Republicans have already jumped on it saying ‘if he isn’t competent to run he isn’t competent to stay in office’ but that sounds like the kind of ‘well ACTUALLY’ stuff people don’t typically care about. The VP is notorious as an office light on official responsibility. It frees Harris to go make her case.
That said I’m also interested to hear what the media does with it. My biggest fear about a Harris candidacy has always been some kind of inane, media driven ‘Vote for Kamala to atone for the racism and sexism of your country that you should all be deeply ashamed of’ and that she leans into it. Of course I’d hope everyone is a lot smarter than that at this point.Report
Me fears that regardless of how she’s pushed, the counter narrative will strongly lean into “They’re only voting for her/wanting you to vote her because of racism/sexism past” thing. And given how effective the right wing propaganda/narrative machine is, it’ll take root.Report
Eh, the Republicans will always take that line of attack and there is a built in audience for it. What’s most important is not to respond by saying ‘yes we are for exactly what you accuse us of, thanks for noticing.’
Harris can portray herself as a great American success story, should she chose to do so.Report
Agreed but my FEAR is that Dems will respond by saying, “No, of course that isn’t why we are supporting her and that isn’t why you should support her. But… well, I mean, there IS a long history of racism and sexism and she is a woman of color so ya know, maybe that is a GOOD reason to vote for her and THOSE folks over there are racist and sexist for not doing so!”
I fear Dems will take the bait. Because they ALWAYS take the goddamn bait.Report
We are on the same page.
But on the bright side I feel a lot more hopeful about the situation than I did this morning.Report
I only share that optimism if Harris is indeed the nominee AND if that is achieved by the Dems immediately rallying around her. Even if there might theoretically be a better candidate from the standpoint of “This person would make a better President once in the office” I think Harris is the only one with a chance at this point. The party needs to immediately rally around her and not continue the infighting around getting their preferred person the nomination.Report
You should change this title. It implies he is resigning.Report
Okay, sure.Report
Of course he’s not resigning. He has no earthly reason to resign. While the so-called liberal media is going nuts every time he fumbles somebody’s name, he’s been doing the job — and uncommonly well. It’s a fair question whether he still be capable a year or two from now, but all this talk about dementia in the present is pure BS.Report
And, once again, Trump is physically incapable of doing any sort of gracious action and immediately attacks him.
You know, the normal reaction to ‘This person is too old to be able to do things they once were able to and has to retire earlier than they want’: Vicious attacks on their competence.Report
A sample size of one, but a young, very pro-Palestinian relative who was refusing to back Joe, is now excited about backing Harris.
YMMV.Report
I am a member of an organized party, I am a Democrat!
My guy! Thanks Joe.Report
Apparently Biden wanted their to be a step 2 which maybe why everyone is lining up for HarrisReport
Important to note that shortly after the Tweet shared here, Biden’s account sent out two more: one officially endorsing Harris as the candidate and another encouraging donations to her campaign.Report
This is a half measure.
1. Biden is unfit for office now. That is abundantly clear to anyone with a functional brain.
2. Harris has a much better chance of winning the election for an office she already holds.
Both ethically and politically, he should resign.Report
What evidence do you have that Biden is unfit for office now?Report
What evidence do you have that Biden is fit for office now?Report
Sigh.Report
Same.Report
He’s doing the job. The real, substantive job, not the showbiz.Report
Right.Report
Yes, right. Glad we agree.Report
You made a claim. I asked you to support a claim. You did not answer that question and instead asked me to support a claim I never made.
Explain what I did to frustrate you here, please.Report
I can’t cure the blind.
Or the hopelessly obstinate.Report
I’m sorry you can’t back up your claims. Must be frustrating to be asked to actually construct a fact-based argument.Report
You saw the debate, right? You’ve seen previous footage of Biden in a visible daze, unable to follow a thought?Report
I watched most of the debate, yes.Report
So how can you write off the argument that he’s unfit for office? You don’t have to be persuaded, but you can’t act like there’s no evidence.Report
No argument was made. I asked for the argument to be made. A claim was made.
How can I engage with an argument that isn’t made?Report
You asked for evidence.Report
Yes. What evidence has been provided?Report
Would you agree with Democrats and Republicans that Biden couldn’t finish a thought during that debate?Report
I was not enthused by Biden’s debate performance.
I have to say… it feels very odd that every time I say, “Can you support this claim?” the response involves a question. Just make your damn argument!Report
John didn’t so much make an argument as an assertion. You asked for evidence, and since then we’ve been going in circles because neither he nor I can understand how the debate performance doesn’t count as evidence that he’s no longer fit for the job. There’s a legal term, res ipsa loquitor, which means “the thing speaks for itself”. There’s someone who isn’t forming sentences or holding thoughts – I don’t have to argue that he can’t handle the presidency.Report
I think this is a good point.
Presidents don’t need to spend their time debating and offering zingers, as CJ notes below, but there are in fact times when they need to be able to take that “3 AM phone call”.
And if we see evidence of a candidate rambling and having verbal difficulty, or speaking in gibberish indicating a faulty mental acuity, it does question their fitness for the office, don’t you think?Report
John never cited the debate. John never cited anything. He got grumpy and defensive and never backed up his claim.Report
LOL.Report
You could bring up the Hur Report and every other data point fom the past 12-24 months and wouldn’t matter, so why bother? There is no cure for this type of willful blindness.Report
LOL… you make a strong case!Report
I don’t feed trolls man. My baseline assumption is that people who comment here have been following the very obvious mental and physical decline of the president. If you don’t recognize everything that has transpired – especially this year between the Hur Report to the debate – to his OWN PARTY throwing him off the ticket 100 days before election day- as evidence, what is the point of engaging an internet rando on the topic who demands I provide evidence. You sound like a nut. This isn’t 10th grade debate club and I don’t care if you are satisfied with my non-serious responses to your silly questions.Report
Presidents don’t spend their time debating. Verbal quickness and avoidance of gaffs are good for instilling public confidence, but what Presidents do is consider and absorb information from their aides and cabinet officers and chiefs of staff and applying deliberate judgment to come up with a sensible course of action. That they get someone’s name wrong — I’m a good bit younger than Biden and I do it myself more than I used to — or speak slowly has little to do with how they perform their substantive jobs.Report
Another one going down with the ship!Report
We can revisit this in a few months, during which Biden will be Presidenting rather than campaigning.Report
Kazzy lets hold on a moment.
Please, lets have a lengthy, in-depth discussion of why a doddering old man who can barely put together a coherent sentence should not be allowed to serve as President.
Yes please, lets discuss this. In detail.
Would anyone like some verbatim quotes from some old men who should not be President?Report
If Republicans prefer to run against incumbent PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS instead of VP Harris, I’m…actually OK with that.Report
Per my original statement. President Harris has a better chance of winning than Vice President Harris.Report
President Kamala Harris goes into the Convention from a position of strength.
Vice-President Kamala Harris goes into the Convention from a position of a different amount of strength.Report
Sez who?Report
Sez me.
Have you seen Obama’s statement yet?
Click on the link. Do a ctrl-F and look for the string “Harris”.
We’ve got a bumpy road ahead.
I’m not saying that the Democrats are doomed. Indeed, I think that they have a shot now when, this time yesterday, I didn’t.
But, at the convention, we will see what can be, and we will find out whether we will be unburdened by what has been.Report
I actually agree that an incumbent president has an advantage over a VP.
I’m just not sure in this political moment and climate that it will change the outcome much either way.
The conventional rules of politics don’t seem to apply any more.Report
The Clintons support Kamala Harris.
Obama supports a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges.
This is where the fight gets interesting. Say what you will about Bill Clinton but he’s getting up there (though, granted, he’s still younger than Trump). Will he be around in 10 years? I dunno.
Will Obama? I betcha he will.
This is where the fight gets interesting.Report
My current favorite conspiracy theory:
Report
Well, that’s certainly a conspiracy theory all right.Report
Do you think it’s more crazy than the one than that Trump didn’t get shot or less crazy or just about equally crazy?Report
Well, there’s no video.Report
I’m not sure I even understand what this guy is saying. Clearly there was behind the scenes and not so behind the scenes pressure to convince Biden to end his candidacy. I don’t see how that’s a coup or a conspiracy. It also doesn’t require intentionally infecting anyone with covid or ‘flipping’ whoever runs the Twitter account.Report
Short version: Biden didn’t send the “I’m Resigning!” text. Megan Coyne did after running the “I’m sick” test run.Report
Do I have to point out that isn’t what ‘game theory’ means?Report
I don’t think it’s possible to run a coup on a dead guy.
Although the “plague blankets conspiracy” you present here is amusing.Report
Apparently Trump has endorsed Kamala Harris.
Report
A Mansplainer from NBC Los Angeles:
Anything written until the convention should be considered to be written in pencil.Report
The endorsements have poured in. And Harris, if nominated, still gets all of Bidens money and infrastructure because it’s her ticket too. If there’s going to be a non-Harris they’ll have to move, like, tomorrow. Newsome has endorsed her for instance. I doubt that there’ll be much of a challenge to her and very strongly doubt that it’ll be a strong challenge if one does arise.Report
It sounds like Marianne Williams threw her hat in….
But from what I’m reading Whitmer, Cooper, and many of the others whose names have been thrown around have already said they won’t run against her.Report
Manchin mentioned maybe coming back as a Dem.Report
LOL, Manchin has absolutely no support among the Democratic Party leadership or activists (Which is what delegates mostly are) at this point. You don’t get to jump off the ship and then declare you should be captain.
Oh, and, hilariously, Manchin has until August 1 to change his political party affiliation if he wants to run as an Independent in a local WV election, which means he either has to give up that entire idea, or he would be trying to get the Democratic nomination not as a registered Democrat.
Which I don’t know that you even can, under the party rules?Report
What did Bernie do in 2016?Report
NVM. Manchin has dropped out.Report
He probably asked literally anyone.Report
Bernie changed to Democrat exactly because of that. So sorta did the exact opposite. I don’t know if that was _requirement_ of the nomination or not, no one seemed to say he had to do it back then, so it’s possible it’s not against the rules, he just wanted to look more on board with the Democrats.
But Bernie also had a lot more sympathy from the party establishment, as he had rarely gotten in the way of legislative priorities. He voted with the Democrats. Yes, he challenged them from the left, but that almost always went nowhere and he immediately fell in line. Bernie is only a problem in so much as he thinks he gets a turn to be president, and various Democrats in leadership think the opposite.
Whereas Manchin did get in the way, all the time, he was a constant problem they had to work around, and the only reason they put up with him is they would otherwise lose a Senate seat. He’s no Ted Cruz, but people on his side still don’t like him.
But if he’s president, the Democrats do not, in fact, have that Senate seat. There’s no reason to put up with him. It destroys the one reason Democrats haven’t filled his bed with poisonous snakes.Report
I think Bloomberg still has a shot!Report
Allegedly some of the donors are floating Manchin (no spring chicken) but it will
go nowhere hopefullyReport
It went nowhere.Report
No one but Harris wants it, and no one wants to be viewed as trying to take it from her. It’s Harris’s.Report
I think that’s right. The biggest flaw in the proposals around some sort of alternative process involving multiple candidates is that others have to actually want it. Unless someone serious materializes in the next week (and really more like 24-48 hours) I don’t see how it’s anyone other than Harris. I’m pretty sure all of the people who could make a contest of challenging have already said they won’t.Report
I think most of them have already endorsed her. But there’s this thing happening, where people see something unusual and think all the old rules are gone. If anything, unusual scenarios make politicians more risk-averse.Report
Newsom, Whitmer, Buttigieg, Pritzker, and Shapiro have endorsed her. The only ones who haven’t are the senior voices of stability (Obama, Pelosi, Jeffries, Schumer). It’s interesting that the Clintons have endorsed her, because it indicates that Hillary was still seen as viable.Report
As a long time fan of the Clintons I hate typing this but feel obligated to do so. I think the outcome of 2016 has put the Clintons at a lower tier of respect/stature that the senior leadership of the party which is why they felt no obligation to forbear from endorsing.Report
You can take comfort that their endorsement still carries weight though.Report
Sure. It’s just sad. I always liked Hillary but she put everything she had into getting that nod in ’16 and then she fished it up. Even in my own estimations they’re diminished and it makes me sad. They were the first American Presidential couple I became aware of (albeit my first election to vote in was 2000).
This time passing thing is something else.Report
Biden’s endorsement of Harris is one of two things:
1. A way to yell “heck with you” to Obama, Pelosi, Jeffries, Schumer as he removes the knife from his back as he walks out the door
2. A way to use his last little bit of clout to ensure that the party is unified around Harris and it’s his way to avoid a fractious and divisive convention next month
Or maybe both.
You may remember a handful of people arguing against Biden stepping down by pointing out Harris’s polling against Trump.
If Biden didn’t believe the polls showing him lagging, maybe he doesn’t believe the polls showing Harris lagging. Maybe polls aren’t real and don’t matter. What are polls, anyway? A miserable pile of secrets.Report
I think it helps Biden’s legacy if his chosen VP succeeds him. I think that’s all he was thinking about.Report
My money is on 3.
Nancy said so.Report
Okay, here’s the hard truth: Polling is useless for the next week or so. Like, it’s not even going to be worth talking about the polls until Thursday next.
*MAYBE* the “who should be the nominee” polls *MIGHT* be worthwhile starting on Thursday or Friday? But there are people who still don’t know that Biden declared that he’s not going to be the nominee and won’t find that out until tomorrow or Tuesday. Or until after the World Series.
So tomorrow’s polls that tabulated all of the questions asked on Saturday? Worthless. All of Wednesday’s polls that will be tabulating all of tomorrow’s answers? Worthless.
We ain’t got no good polls until August 1st.
Dem Convention starts on the 19th.Report
AP is running an ongoing survey of delegates to the Democratic Convention. Last I looked, 725 supported Harris and 25 were undecided, with the large majority not responding yet.Report
Current count is 856 Harris, 25 undecided. (1,976 needed to win.)Report
Pelosi is on board… if Obama sighs and endorses Kamala too, it’s over.
And then the *REAL* game begins.
“WHO IS THE VP?!?”
Oh, jeez. We might need *ANOTHER* prediction thread…Report
1,152 Harris, 56 undecided.Report
All of California pledged.
She’s got a majority.Report
ActBlue raised over 50 million dollars todayReport
Okay, what the hell is going on with Republicans pretending there’s going to be some ballot access issue due to ‘changes’? And I don’t mean random morons on Twitter, I mean random morons on Twitter who are a Speaker of the House.
Do they really not understand that Biden was just the presumptive nominee and that would become official at the DNC? And now that he’s dropped out, he’s presumably released his delegates to vote for anyone they want? (In fact, formally dropping out might count as releasing them, or, I dunno, maybe he has to talk to them at the convention or something.)
Of course, it is hypothetically possible that some of the delegates are required, under various state laws, to vote for Biden anyway at the DNC but:
a) Regardless of law, states don’t actually have any power in how the conventions picks their candidate anyway, the courts have been pretty clear about that. Laws about that are basically dead letter. The DNC national convention kicked out all Wisconsin delegates in 1980 due to state law allowing open primaries, aka, ‘Some regiestered Republicans could have, hypothetically, slightly influenced this vote’, and the Supreme Court declared that was fine. If they can do that, they can certainly kick out all delegates that were threatened under state law into voting a specific way.
b) Most importantly, Harris would get the majority of delegates anyway, even if some delegates do have to vote for Biden. If we imagine a universe where three or four state delegates are threatened, by Republicans, under a few state law, to not vote for Harris, that not only looks very bad, but they can just…ignore that. Harris will win anyway.
c) Or, do the funnier thing, where the delegate that ‘have to’ vote for Biden under their state’s law simply don’t vote at all. I’d like to see someone try to arrest a delegate for not voting, I’d like to see the court decision about the Most Compelled Political Speech of All Political Speech That Ever Existed, arresting someone for refusing to publicly express support for a presidential candidate.
There’s not actually any sort of legal issue here, at all. There is no way to keep the DNC for voting for Harris, and hence, no way to keep her off the ballot. (Which, again, is not ‘changing’ it, and everyone talking about laws that talk about changing the ballot have no idea what they are talking about.)
None of this is confusing.
Or is this some weird attempt by Mike Johnson to get across the claim that the Democrats didn’t have a primary and try to stir up resentment among Democratic voters? I mean, that might work if a single person who might have been a candidate was complaining about this, but, as far as I can tell, they are not.Report
The only democratic vote is the one that happens in November.
Parties are non-Profit clubs. I believe they can be sued by their donors if they violate their bylaws; but the bylaws are written by the club for the club. 100% sure there’s a bylaw that allows them to bypass a presumptive nominee who refuses the nomination.
The fact that we enable states to run statewide ‘elections’ for parties is a mistake that gives the impression that parties are more than just clubs. The fact that ‘voters’ think that Primaries are anything other than holding a finger in the wind to lend the club an air of consensus for their pick? That’s just on us for bad civics education.
There’s nothing the republicans or states can do as long as the correct forms are filed by authorized representatives of the club/party.Report
I think that is very cogently written and agree entirely.Report
No, they can be sued by their members, not their donors. Or, specifically, they can be sued by their donors for how money is spent based on any statements made, but it’s only their members who get a say in things they vote on, and thus, the only people who can sue over a Bad Vote. Trust me, I’ve literally been involved in trying to legally hijack a non-profit back away from the people who sorta wandered off with it.
Fun fact: The delegates? Those are the members of the DNC. That’s what we were actually voting them into, membership into the DNC this year.
So to sue over a vote, you’d have to a) find a Biden delegate (No one else has delegates, IIRC) who is willing to sue over Harris, and b) prove some sort of rule was violated (which it won’t be) and c) the outcome was different than it should be (Which is essentially impossible as the vast vast vast majority of Biden delegates obviously have no problem with Harris.)
No one else has standing to challenge any of that, and as I said, the courts have basically said ‘Conventions set their own rules and are in charge of all that, states do not get to interfere’.
But, on top of that…that’s assuming anyone makes that imaginary guy, or anyone, vote for Harris to start with, which they won’t. He can cast a ballot for anyone in the race…or anyone who is not, even, like Biden, although they probably will not count those. I literally have no idea what this hypothetical disgruntled guy could be suing over. If there was some sort of imaginary rebellion against Harris by the delegates that _might_ result in a different outcome, sure, but how about we function in the actual world instead?
The Republicans know how insane that sequence of events sounds, so are instead yammering about how we (By which they mean Democrats) didn’t get a free vote to vote for some other candidate. Which ignores the fact that not only did we (The fact no one capable of winning chose to challenge Biden doesn’t change that fact.), our vote wasn’t for a candidate to start with, it was for people who would choose a candidate at the convention.
And unlike the votes cast by electors, that isn’t really a formality. We’ve had tons of elections where delegate ended up voting for someone else. As someone pointed out, Nikki Haley had some delegates she released when she dropped out, that then voted for Trump. I don’t see anyone calling those votes invalid somehow.Report
Doesn’t.. what’s his name… Jason Palmer? Have a delegate from American Samoa?Report
I think they built their entire campaign strategy around Biden being the nominee and now it is going away and they are having a meltdown.Report
There are two people who have gone up in my estimation with this whole affair. One is Biden himself. Relinquishing power is never easy, especially after all this time seeking it. Having has to fight past people saying he couldn’t do it last time, only to triumph? And then to turn around listen to those same people now? Stepping down was both right and necessary, but people have held on for grim death in similar circumstances before.
The other person is John Stewart. He caught a lot of flack when he pointed out Biden’s age and speaking problems 5 months ago. Recent events have proven he was entirely justified. I can think of no one better to play the role of the US’s court jester.Report
Not the reporters on the right and some in the middle who have been coving Biden’s health decline for years?
As for my estimation of Biden, I can give him one cheer. He tried to run for four more years and got unanimously booed off the stage. He held off on doing the right thing and yelled at people who told him to do the right thing. He shouldn’t be president now, but he’s holding onto the job. And we all know that he didn’t step back out of duty, he stepped back because he was finally convinced he’d lose.Report
BS. Biden isn’t “holding onto the job,” he’s doing the job. Ask any leader of a NATO country.
“Snappy answers to stupid questions” was a Mad Magazine section. It’s a damned shame that we relabeled it “debates” and use it to choose a leader.Report
To get credit you have to meet some baseline of creditability in general and most reporters on the right have been claiming Biden was propped up Weekend at Bernies style for years which, obviously hasn’t been and isn’t the case. I’d definitely grant some credit to the reporters in the middle who’d been raising doubts and ultimately got proven correct but that’s a pretty broad gamut of people now from Klein and Chait on the left over to Sullivan and other righties on the center right.Report
Credibility is a function of, among other things, getting things right. The people who said stupid or crazy things should lose credibility – and that includes wacko right-wingers as well as mainstream press who denounced “cheapfakes”. The people who got things right deserve credit whether or not you agree with their politics.
I feel like the biggest thing the press is getting wrong is the context of the debate. The Trump campaign was willing to agree to any conditions to get a debate, something that neither candidate had bothered to do up until that point. They knew that Biden would fail on stage. They knew because the information was out there. Trump’s been on-message for months now, or staying out of the spotlight, and he’s never been self-disciplined before. You see Trump on that stage, you can sense when he realizes that Biden’s even in worse shape than they’d expected, but you can tell that they’d rehearsed for exactly this scenario. So, yeah, the people who were getting concerned a few weeks before the debate get a little credit, but the people who have been reporting on Biden’s continuing, accelerating health issues deserve more.Report
There were people, after the debate, who argued that the debate was a tie and any appearance of Biden having a bad debate was due to maybe Biden having a bad night due to travel and jet lag.
When these people tell you that Kamala is an even better candidate, remember how they felt about Biden until the moment they were told to feel something else.Report
Biden looked bad at times during the debate.
Biden also cited actual policy accomplishments and policy goals.
Trump lied for 2 hours.
Score that how you will.Report
Does Kamala strike you as a better candidate than Biden, a worse candidate, or about equal?
(In the interest of fairness, my answer is “better, indeed, *MUCH* better”.)Report
“they were told”?Report
“Was part of the organic coordination in which they abandoned their previous position because it offered too little advantage for a new one that offered more”.Report
All this would be a much more plausible argument if the exact same people hadn’t been arguing that Hillary was on death’s door in 2016.Report
It was just a fainting spell!Report
Not the exact same people, just people on the same side. And I think the mainstream press is still suffering from the credibility loss when she crumbled on the sidewalk in New York.Report
That’s worse than the right wing press screeching that she was at death’s door?Report
This is your response to my comment about DavidTC’s response to my comment about North’s response to my comment about James K’s comment, and I have no idea what we’re comparing to being worse than what else. I generally give credit to reporters who get the story, no credit to reporters who miss the story, and negative credit to reporters who deny the story, if that helps to answer your question.Report
Sorry. It is hard to follow all the threads, isn’t it?
You wrote: And I think the mainstream press is still suffering from the credibility loss when she crumbled on the sidewalk in New York.”
My (expanded) reply: She didn’t “crumble,” she fell down. As do lots of us, all the time. The mainstream press didn’t think it was a story worth their time and energy to pursue. The right wing press insisted that it proved that she was at death’s door. Seems to me the mainstream press was much more on target here. You are free to disagree. The first amendment guarantees all of us the right to be silly.Report
Let me put it this way. We all have to evaluate our different news sources. If you know a source’s hobby horses, you can evaluate them more correctly. A person consuming media sources including right-wing ones could have known more than a person consuming media sources excluding right-wing ones. I think this applies to North’s comments just below, as well.
Clinton was having health problems before she fell down. The mainstream press didn’t cover it. The right-wing press exaggerated it. When she fell down, she had to be carried into the awaiting van. She was suffering from pneumonia, if I recall correctly. The person who only followed left-wing or mainstream press had been lied to by omission or outright deception. The person who followed right-wing press had been lied to by exaggeration. I understood the context of Clinton’s fall better than those who didn’t consume right-wing press. I understood the context of the debate better than those who didn’t consume right-wing press.Report
Grading your own papers again, Pinky?Report
Yes, for sure, and spending four years saying “Bidens’ just a senescent puppet who can barely move” then getting one’s posterior handed to them repeatedly, by said allegedly senescent puppet, has a negative effect on one’s credibility. It’s like how inflation hawks who’ve been screeching about impending hyper-inflation since 2008 got very little credit when some actual honest to God(ess?) inflation actually popped up for a while.
Credit where it’s due, the right finally was more right than wrong about Bidens’ decline. Trump definitely played it correctly (or whomever has been telling him to lie low since the Debate has). That doesn’t erase they’ve been more wrong than right about it for four years.Report
You must read a lot more nutty right-wing stuff than I do – or you read the left-wing claims about what the nuttiest right-wingers say and assume that speaks for all of them.Report
If you want to claim Fox or OAN or similar right-wing media suspects have been measured and reasonable in their allegations of Bidens age related issues these past 4-5 years you can by all means but we’ll have to agree to disagree on the matter.Report
I was recently watching an interview with a well-known philosopher, Robert Pippin, filmed in November 2023, and he suggested Biden would harm the Democrats in the 2024 election because, as he argued, despite a very good record on crime and the economy, his age and cognitive decline made him incapable of making that case publicly, so that the Dems would be better off if Biden stepped down. I figure we have to giver jo, some props got calling that a year ago.Report
Biden’s schedule for the next week:
There’s a fun conspiracy theory out there that Joe is very bad off indeed and that’s why he hasn’t been seen since last week.
People are agitating to see “proof of life”.
It’s still early on a Monday morning… but there’s a time coming up, sometime this week, that will have normal people, not just paranoid people, asking to see him wearing a suit and waving from a lawn somewhere.Report
What’s with this new hobby of yours? Half the benefit of being on this site is not seeing the latest conspiracy nonsense.Report
It’s the whole “what’s the difference between a conspiracy theory and the news?” thing.
(“Three days.”)
It’s enough to make you wish for a halfway decent press…Report
I think you could maybe vette the ‘interesting’ observations from ‘idiot on the internet’ for us, though.Report
Perhaps.
For this one, I’d say that if we don’t see Biden by tomorrow lunchtime, then that’s concerning.
Then we can have people say “No, that’s *NORMAL… I wouldn’t worry about it until Thursday” or “Yeah, it’s kind of weird that we haven’t seen him yet” or whatever.Report
Maybe we can just refuse to engage when he doesn’t.Report
Well I’m pretty sure JB doesn’t post his more outlandish ones thinking that maybe Marchmaine and Pinky will bite…Report
Lemme tell ya, “Biden being bad off” isn’t *THAT* slim of a reed given Biden’s posted schedule for the week.
We’ve seen crazier conspiracy theories among those who are still up in the air about whether Trump was even in Pennsylvania on July 13th.Report
Occam’s Razor, again. Old tired people with Covid don’t book a lot of meetings.Report
So let’s not bite.Report
Everything that’s happened has been predictable based on available evidence without any assumption of conspiracies. Occam’s campaign.Report
Nihilism and cynicism are not just indistinguishable from wide eyed credulity, but rely upon it.Report
Oh, and I was reminded of this conspiracy theory from October:
Republicans float a quiet conspiracy theory that Biden won’t be on the ballotReport
The Republican brain trust, ladies and gentlemen:
“I feel like they’re grooming someone, and we all know it’s not Kamala [Harris],” Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, told the “Ruthless” podcast last week. “So I think they [Democrats] have a backup plan because every time I listen to the current president speak, I’m like, ‘Is this getting harder?'”
Like I said, the fans of conspiracy theories are the most gullible folks on God’s green earth. At some point I expect one of these guys to invest the entire campaign warchest with a corrupt Nigerian prince.Report
So far as we know, he’s still testing positive for Covid and is in semi-isolation.Report
Someone on the twitters pointed out that the last time we laid eyes on Biden was the 17th when he was deplaning.
So Wednesday will be one week.Report
Yes, the 17th was the same day Biden tested positive for Covid. He’s in Delaware in self-isolation. His doctor has issued regular reports on his treatment and progress.Report
On the side debate of whether Biden should resign the office since he’s ‘admitting’ he’s too old to run for office… let me be clear, there’s no reason at all that he should have to do that. It’s perfectly reasonable to realize that he’s running for a 4-yr term and all he’s got left in the tank is 4-months. End of story.
However, if I’m thinking about Candidate Harris, I think (suspect? know?) that she will have trouble connecting with voters given her body of work, and that Doing Presidential Things Presidentially would be much better than her normal retail politics. Thinking that the Vice Presidency will free her up to do all the campaigny things that the President is partially constrained from doing by virtue of his other duties? Not sure that’s a win for her. So on purely those grounds, if I were leading the Dem Change Committee, I’d see if we could buy-out Joe’s retirement with a better offer so that Harris could partially shield herself with the Presidential Office.Report
I agree.
Cynic me thinks we’ll have one helluva pardon party and then, once everything is signed, Biden will ride back to Delaware to spend more time with his family. This will allow Harris to ride into the convention as the *PRESIDENT*. It’s one thing for Marianne Williamson to want to throw her hat into the ring with the VP but the President Herself?
Nah.
Everybody else sighs and folds and then Harris only has to deal with the aftermath of Biden’s pardons (“What about Trump?” might be worth exploring here) and then Harris can lay the smack down on the various protestors outside of the convention and gather herself the Sista Soulja of all Sista Souljas and denounce Antifa.
Kamala is a Cop. Oh, and here’s one for all of the college educated ladies out there: “Abortion!”
And then she’s got a good chance of winning, assuming that she doesn’t implode.
The non-cynical version contains fewer pardons, a convention dedicated to Diversity, Being Black, Being Indian, Not Being White, and BEING A WOMAN! ABORTION!!! Also, here’s my VP, the Governor of Kentucky.
And the real thing that’ll happen is somewhere between there, probably.Report
I would like to note that, outside the desperate clucks of the media which wants a circus, everyone has -already- thrown in the towel, or more accurately seem to have enthusiastically united and wished our new candidate the best.Report
Marianne Williamson withdrew?!? I hadn’t heard!
Yeah, just checked, she’s still in.
I don’t think she’ll win but it does look like Kamala will have all of the momentum and there’s a rumor that they’ll do something to make it official before the convention on August 1st (when states start printing ballots).
The drama at the convention won’t be on the floor. It’ll be a few blocks away involving the Free Speech Enthusiasts Opposed To Genocide.
The journalismists who are looking for good pictures, good quotations, and a good story are going to have to go there… as the convention itself isn’t going to even achieve “as interesting as 2016”.
The only question will be “how dumb will the messaging be?”
There’s an opportunity to hit it out of the park.
There are also opportunities to get mad at the media all over again.Report
It’s somewhat interesting to wonder how much Harris is going to deflate left protestors.
The premise was ‘We cannot reelect Biden while he’s supplying a genocide’, so…what’s the premise now?
Also…is Harris going to change anything there? Does anyone even know?
(Also, does the recent rulings by the ICJ matter at all?)
Okay, if there is any sort of Federal ballot law we’ve ever needed, it’s to disallow the printing of ballots before the candidate is officially decided on.
That is utter nonsense, it is complete gibberish to allow that. There _is not a Democratic candidate_ right now, legally speaking. And there wouldn’t be one if Biden hadn’t dropped out. The candidate has not been picked yet, and the fact ‘everyone knows who it will be’ has absolutely no legal bearing on ballot access.Report
I thought “I’ll search for ‘harris aipac’ on the twitters… how bad could it be?”
Anyway, the general consensus seems to be that Harris will not be changing anything there. I didn’t spend more than 30 seconds looking, however.
I think I agree about the printing ballots thing but I’m sure that the process is so cooked in the states that start printing in August that forcing them to start no earlier than September 15th would result in ballot shortages.Report
I think of Harris the same way I think of Hillary Clinton: Someone who is extremely pragmatic.
Biden was willing to go down with the ship supporting Israel’s right to kill a bunch of people with our weapons. Harris…is going to look at the actual situation and decide on something. I don’t know what she’ll decide, but I’m certain it won’t be the kneejerk support that Biden gave.
And, incidentally, Bibi is almost certainly about to throw a bunch more support to Republicans, and the ICJ has just come out and basically said that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is no longer legal(1), so it’s possible she’ll start making the calculated decision that ‘Maybe this is something we start backing off from a little’. I don’t know, and just as importantly here, I don’t know what others thinks about that.
However, regardless of whether or not people _think_ she’ll not change anything, the fact of the matter is that it is much easier to get people to protest someone who did X in the past and is still doing X and probably will keep doing X in the future…vs someone who is just probably going to do X in the future.
1) To be clear, this decision is not about the war, it is about the blatantly illegal settlements and cutting up the West Bank and Israel’s general behavior as the occupier. To the point that all other nations are required to not “not to render aid or assistance” to Israel’s behavior. Again, we’re not talking about the war, we’re talking about the norm before the war. It is has now been very clearly stated as illegal under international law not only to do that, but to help Israel do that.Report
Zei Squirrel, one of the crazy people I follow on Twitter, is a fierce anti-Genocide kinda squirrel. Their take is that Kamala will gleefully promise Netanyahu 100% support.
Now, I know that people who have one single note and just hammer that note over and over again aren’t likely to cheerfully concede that Harris demanded this or that concession in return but, from what I can tell, the “opposed to genocide” corner of Twitter is no more thrilled about Harris than they were about Biden.Report
Note that post is a screenshot of ‘Biden officials’ ascribing things to Harris, not the actual Harris.
Actual Harris has people out there making sure they understand that this has been her position:
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/14/kamala-harris-gaza-palestinians-00131633
Now, again, we’re talking about perceptions here, not actual positions. The perceptions of the protestors, and the perception that Harris wants people to have of her.
I think the perception she is pushing will, at minimum, dim the protestors a bit, along with the fact she has not actually _done_ the stuff they’re protesting Biden for doing. How much it will matter is unknown.
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The thing that most people don’t understand is that Biden was sorta uniquely supportive of Israel within the Democratic party, well past the point of anyone else.
Literally any other Democratic would have had, at minimum, a problem with Netinyahu deliberately disrespecting him and supporting Republicans. (Which he is about to very loudly do in a speech to Congress.) I’m not saying the red lines would have had been any better, but Israel might have actually been held to them.
Biden, flatly, let Israel’s leadership walk all over him, and it made him look weak, and I’m trying to say that objectively, without bringing any sort of morality into it or any opinion about what is actually happening. Biden was just bad, _politically speaking_, on Israel, because he thinks Israel are unwavering Good Guys and he was perfectly willing to take anything from Netinyahu, and never hold him to anything.
It is extremely hard to imagine Harris being that bad. Literally J. Random Democratic Leader would have been better, if only so they didn’t look as weak.Report
If we need to standardize it, we need to standardize it.
Write a cutoff in the law. The due date for all candidates for Federal office can be no earlier than August 31. Every political party must have produced a name by that point via their convention or whatever.
This entire thing where states can do whatever dates they want, including being _very obviously_ before convention dates, is nonsense.
As is putting conventions after those dates, but the problem there is you can’t say ‘The parties should just schedule the conventions earlier so as to hit the deadlines’, that just means states will keep moving the deadline up and up, because what do they care? You actually have to pick a day, under Federal law, by which all this crap is due, then turn and look at the parties and say ‘And, obviously, schedule your stuff before that’.Report