Democrats Overwhelmingly Want Biden Off Ticket
Efforts to oust him from the race have picked up steam.
The assassination attempt on former President Trump, followed immediately by the kick-off of the Republican National Convention, had seemed to take the focus off of President Biden and Democratic angst over his ability to campaign effectively. The respite was short-lived.
CNN (“President Joe Biden tests positive for Covid-19 at pivotal moment in reelection campaign“):
President Joe Biden tested positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday, disrupting a key campaign event meant to shore up support with Latino voters at a critical juncture in the election.
Biden, 81, was experiencing mild symptoms and has received his first dose of the antiviral drug Paxlovid, according to his doctor.
“I feel good,” Biden, who is fully vaccinated and boosted, told reporters Wednesday in Las Vegas, flashing a thumbs-up before boarding Air Force One to head to his Delaware residence. The president will self-isolate there in line with US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance.
Biden and his aides have repeatedly cited recent stops on the campaign trail as a demonstration of his vigor as the presumptive Democratic nominee, an attempt to tamp down growing anxieties within the party. Wednesday’s event in Las Vegas – where he was expected to speak at the UnidosUS annual conference – was billed as an example of that direct engagement, in this case with a diverse coalition.
WaPo (“Jeffries, Schumer privately warned Biden he could imperil Democrats“):
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, in separate private meetings with President Biden last week, told him that his continued candidacy imperils the Democratic Party’s ability to control either chamber of Congress next year.
Jeffries (D-N.Y.) met with Biden on Thursday night at the White House, and Schumer (D-N.Y.) met with him on Saturday in Rehoboth Beach, Del. In the meetings, the congressional leaders discussed their members’ concerns that Biden could deprive them of majorities, giving Republicans a much easier path to push through legislation, according to four people briefed on the meetings who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private talks.
In a separate one-on-one conversation, a person close to Biden told the president directly that he should end his candidacy, saying that was the only way to preserve his legacy and save the country from another Trump term, the person said. Biden responded that he adamantly disagreed with that opinion and that he is the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.
CNN (“Pelosi privately told Biden polls show he cannot win and will take down the House; Biden responded with defensiveness“):
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi privately told President Joe Biden in a recent conversation that polling shows that the president cannot defeat Donald Trump and that Biden could destroy Democrats’ chances of winning the House in November if he continues seeking a second term, according to four sources briefed on the call.
The president responded by pushing back, telling Pelosi he has seen polls that indicate he can win, one source said. Another one of the sources described Biden as getting defensive about the polls. At one point, Pelosi asked Mike Donilon, Biden’s longtime adviser, to get on the line to talk over the data.
This phone call would mark the second known conversation between the California lawmaker and Biden since the president’s disastrous debate on June 27. While the exact date of the conversation was not clear, one source described it as being within the last week. Pelosi and Biden also spoke in early July.
None of the sources indicated whether Pelosi told Biden in this conversation that she believes the president should drop out of the 2024 race.
Pelosi has spent the weeks following the debate listening to concerns from her colleagues. Pelosi made waves when she said in an interview last week: “It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We’re all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short.”
LAT (“Rep. Schiff calls on Biden to drop out, citing ‘serious concerns’ that he can’t win“):
Rep. Adam B. Schiff has called on President Biden to drop out of the White House race, becoming the most prominent Democrat in Congress to do so.
Wednesday’s statement from Schiff — the heavy favorite in his U.S. Senate bid and a frequent guest on cable news — brought a jolt to an effort that had grown quieter after the weekend assassination attempt on former President Trump.
The Burbank congressman cited “serious concerns” about Biden’s ability to beat Trump in November.
He is the latest Democrat to call for the president of his own party to exit the race amid growing questions about Biden’s age and mental fitness to do the job — worries that became more public last month after a disastrous debate performance, in which the incumbent at times appeared confused.
In a statement reported first by The Times, Schiff said Biden “has been one of the most consequential presidents in our nation’s history, and his lifetime of service as a Senator, a Vice President, and now as President has made our country better.”
“But our nation is at a crossroads,” he said. “A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the President can defeat Donald Trump in November.”
ABC News (“Biden held ‘tense’ call with group of House Democrats over concerns he can’t win“):
On Saturday, roughly an hour before the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump — President Joe Biden was in the midst of a heated phone call with moderate House Democrats.
The Zoom call, according to multiple sources, did not go well for the president.
The call was between the New Democrat Coalition, which includes a mix of nearly 100 moderate and some progressive-adjacent members, and President Biden, and focused mostly on members’ concerns about Biden’s ability to win the election.
One House Democrat on the call told ABC News that Biden was not prepared for questions, that he gave “rambling responses” without answering questions, and downplayed their concerns.
Members were largely dismayed with Biden’s presentation, lack of a strategy, and preparation for anticipated questions, according to sources.
A recent episode of The Ezra Klein Show podcast, “The Real Danger Within the Democratic Party of a Fundamental Crack-Up,” is a conversation between the host, who was an early advocate for dumping Biden, and his NYT colleague Jamelle Bouie, who is very much a skeptic. It highlight ssomething that’s rather clear from these reports: that the main impetus behind the effort is doubt as to whether he can campaign effectively, not whether he can govern effectively. Or, as Bouie puts it:
[I]f you’re going to look at simply what has the administration been doing, has it been dropping the ball on critical concerns to both it and the country, I don’t think it has been. And so Biden seems capable of governing. Is he capable of the performance of governing? I’m not so sure he is.
Indeed, since Klein’s argument for an open convention predates the debate performance, that’s very much what was driving him initially.
Alas, as the conversation goes on, it’s clear that the distinction is not as black and white as it may at first appear. As even Bouie acknowledges, it’s really impossible for us to know how much of the day-to-day running of the administration is being done by the President versus his staff.
To be clear, both Klein and Bouie vastly prefer a government run by Biden’s staff to one run by Donald Trump. As do I. I vastly prefer the instincts and competence of those surrounding Biden. But, of course, a Biden who can’t perform the public duties of President is unlikely to be able to mount an effective campaign to retain the office.
Rank-and-file Democrats agree with the party leadership on this as well.
AP (“Nearly two-thirds of Democrats want Biden to withdraw, new AP-NORC poll finds“):
Nearly two-thirds of Democrats say President Joe Biden should withdraw from the presidential race and let his party nominate a different candidate, according to a new poll, sharply undercutting his post-debate claim that “average Democrats” are still with him even if some “big names” are turning on him.
The new survey by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, conducted as Biden works to salvage his candidacy two weeks after his debate flop, also found that only about 3 in 10 Democrats are extremely or very confident that he has the mental capability to serve effectively as president, down slightly from 40% in an AP-NORC poll in February.
Biden, who previously stated that only the Lord Almighty could make him quit the race, has now expanded the aperture a wee bit.
NYT (“Biden Says He’d Consider Dropping Out if a ‘Medical Condition’ Emerged“):
President Biden said in an interview released on Wednesday that he would re-evaluate whether to stay in the presidential race if a doctor told him directly that he had a medical condition that made that necessary.
Mr. Biden has said repeatedly that none of his doctors have told him he has a serious medical condition. Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the White House physician, wrote after the president’s physical in February that Mr. Biden is “a healthy, active, robust, 81-year-old male who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.”
[…]
In an interview with Ed Gordon of BET News, Mr. Biden was asked if there was anything that would make him re-evaluate staying in the race.
“If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem,” Mr. Biden said.
The comment is the latest in a series of shifting explanations by the president about what might cause him to reconsider. In an interview with ABC News this month, Mr. Biden said he would drop out only if the “Lord almighty” told him to. At a news conference in Washington several days later, he said he would stay in the race unless aides came to him with proof that he could never win.
In the BET interview, he conceded that he “made a serious mistake in the whole debate” and would re-evaluate his decision if one of his doctors changed their assessment of him.
Mr. Biden also said for the first time that he had expected to “move on” from the presidency and “pass it on to somebody else” but decided to run again because he believed his “wisdom” and experience would help heal the country’s worsening divisions.
Honestly, I had some hope of that as well. I believe he gave it an honest effort but, alas, it takes two to tango and few in the opposition party were willing to cooperate.
Whether he still has the capacity to govern, I don’t know. I’m highly skeptical that a man who can’t communicate in public can run the country. But there’s just no indication that he’s inclined to step aside and there’s nobody who can make him.
Kathy nailed it yesterday. This all has an air of a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point.
That smart people who know how much effort it takes to run a national campaign are continuing to drive this story into the spotlight is maddening. (Republicans would not do this.)
Somehow, these “party loyalists” believe that they can switch candidates and somehow win an election in less than three months.
That’s between half and a quarter of the amount of time the average American couple spends planning a wedding. It is not a serious suggestion. At all.
Hmmm. The idea that Dr. Joyner and Vlad Putin agree about Joe Biden gives me pause.
So far the count of prominent Dems (or any Dems) who have indicated themselves available as substitute candidate is zero. And there are downsides to them not waiting for a more opportune election cycle – identifying a candidate looks like a serious issue.
The whole thing looks pretty underpants gnome:
1. Dump Biden
2. ???
3. Glory!
@Jen:
Indeed. Even if the party decided tomorrow to drop this nonsense and line up behind Biden, the damage has already been done. What does it say about your confidence in the nominee if you’ve spent the last month trying to get him to quit?
Deleted.
This was a sockpuppet account for the troll formerly known as TheRyGuy, using an email address for a real person.
If that’s what Pelosi said, she’s lying. The polls show no such thing.
I got an envelope in the mail yesterday from the Biden team that said “your action today could save our democracy.” I can think of one person’s action that could go heck of a lot further than mine when it comes to saving democracy.
@Jen:
Indeed
As I wrote the other day:
Again, I am not making this argument as a Biden loyalist. Part of me would prefer he step aside, and do so, like, today (because the clock is ticking). But since I don’t think he will do so willingly, I think this fight is going to do more harm than good.
And I will note again that this scenario is a major example of why I think some upper age limit for candidates is appropriate.
https://x.com/DanaHoule/status/1813760326585745620
Can’t replace Biden if there is no replacement.
@Kylopod:
Well the trend line for Biden isn’t good.
https://emersoncollegepolling.com/july-2024-swing-state-polls/
@Jen: has made a very cogent argument as to why Dems should stick with Biden. The problem is there is no upside with Joe and no way to mitigate his issue. For practical reasons, the only substitute candidate is Harris, who has issues, that can be addressed. Yglesias makes that argument.
The fear of Schumer, Jeffries, Pelosi and others, is that Biden is a drag on down ballot Dems, while Harris or another provides a candidate for Dems to rally around.
So, the commentariat here is certain that Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer and Adam Schiff don’t know anything about how elections work. I find that certainty ridiculous.
No one knows. Everyone is guessing. My bet was and is that more shoes would drop. Biden would fuck up another debate, or fall down a set of stairs, or have some sort of new health issue. A lot of people convinced themselves that the debate was a one-off, a bad night. Nonsense. It was disastrous because it confirmed the MAGA narrative. It could not have been better written to confirm the MAGA narrative.
Then: the ear. Followed now by covid. And will those be all the shoes to drop? Seems unlikely.
Biden’s job is not to hold onto the die-hards, his job is to take new territory, to turn some undecideds. He’s not doing that. Polls are not moving his way, and that’s what is required, so going on about how he’s holding onto die-hards is beside the point. He’s not in a trench holding a position, he needs to go up over the top and charge the barbed wire. And he cannot do that.
Can Kamala do it? Who knows. But she can at least make the effort which he cannot.
And Kamala changes the MAGA narrative rather than reinforcing it. It becomes a new race. I hope she’s up to it, because I don’t think Biden can stay in.
The Pelosi gang knows more about getting elected than any of us, and they see Biden up close and personal in ways none of us can. Heaping scorn on them is pointless. None of us here have any basis for certainty. But if I had to name one person I trust to assess the situation with a clear eye, it’s Nancy Pelosi.
I would suggest anyone 77 or older be disqualified from serving as President USA. This is coincidently one year younger than Trump is today. Get this restriction in place before November 5, 2024 and make it retroactive so Republican convicted felon private citizen Donald Trump can not be on the ballot. There will be an exception for the sitting President like President Harry Truman received when the 22nd Amendment was ratified.
This won’t work?
I think it is more likely to come about than the Democrats dropping President Biden and fielding a unity candidate that can get on all 50 state ballots and DC and conduct a winning campaign in the next 15 weeks.
@Michael Reynolds:
Sigh. I didn’t say that. I did say that three months is not sufficient time to recalibrate a national campaign, and I stand by that.
For all I know, Pelosi, Schumer, et. al. are responding to the hair on fire crowd and are butt-covering. Maybe they want Harris in the top spot (I do think that both Pelosi and Schiff might be getting intense feedback on that point from fellow Californians).
@Jen:
It’s no mystery what Pelosi et al want, they want a Democratic House and Senate. They aren’t responding to the ‘hair on fire crowd’, they are cold-blooded, professional politicians assessing the chances of winning. Something they are very well-qualified to do.
I’m quite open to the idea of having Harris replace Biden.
First, it would disrupt the media narrative;
Second, she would make a striking difference to Trump and I think the undecideds would break her way.
@Michael Reynolds:
Nice straw man, MR. Speaking for myself, that is not the claim. Indeed, I think Pelosi is one of the smartest politicians in recent memory if not an all-timer.
If she was, say, in charge of a strong party with the ability to act, she likely would have maneuvered the party into a better position some time ago. As it stands, I think what we are seeing is a divided party without a clear route to unify, and unless that gets figured out PDQ (including Biden being fully onboard, which he isn’t going to be), this is a slow-motion disaster.
The normal advice when you find yourself in a hole is “stop digging.” Anyone know what “stop digging” looks like in this case? I don’t.
As with Notorious RBG, we seem to be wishing fo better decisions 2 or 3 years ago. Very sad.
@Dgirl:
First, welcome to OTB–it’s great to have a new (?) commenter who appears to be leaning right wing/conservative. You’ll get a lot of pushback in the comments section, but I appreciate having a different position.
On the pushback thing, I think there are a few items in your list that I want to push on:
I see this being brought up often by conservatives and don’t understand its logic. Trump only served for 10-months of the COVID-19 epidemic (or is it an endemic now?). Further, while the vaccine had begun roll-out by the end of 2020, Republicans made resisting any mandates and anti-vaxing a core issue–to the point that former President Trump is reluctant to claim the rapid development of a vaccine as a major administrative win.
I’m not sure why Biden or his advisors deserve blame for the passage of 4 years, the natural evolution of the virus, or the anti-vax movement.
Put a different way, even if Trump wins in the fall, I expect that by 2028, there will be more COVID deaths under his combined two administrations than during the Biden years. I’m interested in hearing how you expect them to avoid that.
Which Trump has some ownership of as well given that his administration negotiated with terrorists (the Taliban) to set the aggressive withdrawal date. Now whether or not Biden should have honored that date… I think that’s a really fair discussion.
I’m interested to understand how a Trump administration would have prevented either of these things from happening. Fair or not, this feels like a Green Lantern argument. Likewise, other than stopping all aid to Ukraine or providing more material support and removing any constraints on Benjamin Netanyahu how Trump will solve the challenges. And in both cases Trump has provided very few details other then “I am the only person who can make a deal.”
Again, this seems to ignore the Trump adminstration’s role in this–in particular how consumer inflation began with his tariff policies and supply chain issues under COVID-19. Granted, I agree that the Biden administration’s decision to keep most of those tariffs in place, among other things, helped make the situation worse.
All that said, I haven’t seen any Trump supporters engage with all the economists who keep pointing out that Trump’s promise to double down on tariffs will only INCREASE inflation.
It also appears that many conservatives are reversing their view of low interest rates being used to “juice” the economy and pushing for Trump to influence the Fed to lower interest rates more quickly.
This is one that I feel is really opinion-based–in particular, on how people are personally evaluating Biden’s overall health. However, I think it’s really important to point out how, on the whole, transparent the White House has been with Biden’s health evaluations–up to and including yesterday’s announcement he has COVID-19.
This can be contrasted with how utterly opaque the Trump administration, and the Trump campaign continues to be, about the former President’s health–unless you think “he’s the healthiest president ever” constitutes ongoing transparency. For example, there has been no medical report released post assassination attempt. Which is totally their right, but is yet another example of how opaque team Trump is.
@Jen:
Indeed.
@Matt Bernius:
No, it isn’t.
First, endemic is not a noun.
Second, an ongoing phenomenon with an indefinite but long time span is not an event.
Third, there are a number of pathogens endemic to the human population. Some regional, some global. If we are in a trump virus “endemic,” then we’re also in flu, rhinovirus, adenovirus, norovirus, amoeba, E. coli, etc. “endemics”.
@Sleeping Dog:
One poll does not a trend make. There’s been no clear trend across all polls. Trump is ahead in the averages, but only by narrow margins in the Rust Belt states, and the amounts have been flat for several weeks. The picture isn’t great for Biden, but it doesn’t make the statement “The polls show Biden can’t win” any truer.
What’s really irritating is the way so many people are unable to distinguish between the polls and their assumptions about the polls. That’s exactly what happened in 2022. The polls never showed a red wave. At best, they showed Republicans with a modest advantage–and Republicans did end up winning a narrow majority in the House. But pundits became so certain the polls were underestimating Republicans, they imagined that a poll that showed Republicans up by 1 literally meant they were up by 5. It was the very definition of allowing bias to cloud one’s perception of reality.
The same is true for the current polls. And no, I’m not saying that because there was no red wave two years ago, that means Biden will inevitably beat the polls and win. It’s certainly possible that the results in November will be exactly as most polls today suggest, and if so, Biden’s toast. It’s also possible the polls are seriously underestimating Trump and that he’ll win a total blowout. The problem is not that Dems are accepting those possibilities, but that some are treating them as virtually inevitable, to the point they’re imagining that’s what the polls are actually saying. Vibes are not data.
@Matt Bernius: Trump ran the most corrupt administration since Warren G. Harding. Trump’s claim to fame was the economy. However, his economy was at best mediocre. Despite inheriting a structurally fixed economy from the Obama administration. GDP growth never exceed 3% despite promising much more. Deficits exploded in a a growing economy, the opposite of what should happen. Tax cuts barely helped the middle class and below. But massively helped Trump and his cronies. And so on.
Karl Rove’s great campaign insight is that you attack your opponents strength. Trump claims his prowess on the economy. But like his multiple bankruptcies and business failures, his claims are illusions and need to be attacked.
@Dgirl:
I would like to congratulate D on her transition. Life is better when you aren’t living a lie on basic things like gender or sexuality. While there will certainly be challenges ahead, particularly for a Republican transgender woman, it’s going to be better in the end. 😉
What I’m not hearing from anyone who interacts with the president regularly is that he is unfit for the job — the closest we have gotten is George Clooney. And the 25th Amendment is the only way to force Biden out. I don’t think Biden is going anywhere.
There are doubtless other ways to turn a campaign around than dumping the nominee, and the attacks from Democrats are making those impossible.
Way to snatch crushing defeat from the jaws of a toss up.
This cannot go on without doing more damage.
The prominent Democrats who are doing this either have to fall in line, or get the VP and cabinet to vote on the 25th. If they’re just concerned about the campaign, they need to suck it up and stop trying to destroy the campaign. If they are instead trying to spare a the senile old man’s feelings and reputation, and he’s not listening to private statements that he is unfit, they need to go for the jugular and start calling for the 25th.
But this cannot go on.
——
*: I assume Biden would step down from the campaign if forced out of office. I also mostly assume Biden would step down after a cabinet vote, without forcing the country through the congress having to do their part of the 25th.
And that upper age limit is set by the voters. So far, the Democratic primary voters and they deemed Biden’s age no problemo…at the time. Perhaps there was some hiding the decline, but the voters have spoken
More drip, drip, drip.
Party elites are finally coming around to where the public has been for months. Biden can’t seem to get through even friendly interviews or teleprompter events without forgetting, brain farting, or misspeaking.
People keep claiming the contest is still a tie – but Silver’s model only gives him about a 30% chance to win – roughly the same chance Trump had in 2016. And that’s with most people not really paying attention – Americans typically don’t pay close attention to the race until after the conventions.
I’ll ask again – what is Biden’s theory for victory? He’s historically unpopular, a huge majority thinks he’s too old to serve another term, including it seems now a majority of Democrats. Democratic candidates for Senator and other offices are polling ahead of him by huge margins. Biden is cognitively unable to run the kind of vigorous campaign that he needs to.
I don’t see how he wins except by luck or a black swan. Who here really believes he can serve until January 2029? Most Americans don’t think he can even if he didn’t come with the unpopularity that he hasn’t been able to shake.
And the cope arguments are becoming ridiculous such as the idea alluded to in the OP that I’ve seen elsewhere that Biden’s staff is great, so it’s OK if Biden isn’t all there. As much as people may wish otherwise, a decisive and non-trivial number of people are not going to just ignore all of this and vigorously support a candidate they think can’t win and can’t do the job for another four years.
And then you have the GoP who want Biden to stay in the race because they believe and their polling tells them that Biden is the easiest to beat.
@Matt Bernius: All well and good, but I doubt more than 15% of voters are sophisticated enough to factor all the points you make into their decision. For many of them it’s simply their grocery prices are up and the candidate is too old and feeble. The inflation idea is baked in, so only the old and feeble can be addressed. Immigration is also an issue and waiting until the last 12 months to address it was a mistake. Most of this is not Biden’s fault, but it is the perception.
@Gustopher: It looks like the prominent Democrats are going to keep ratcheting up the pressure on Biden to step aside, and he’ll either remain the nominee or not… and the “not” seems more and more likely.
Forcing him out via the 25th Amendment is out of the question unless he has a sharp downturn. Note that he had fairly impressive NATO briefing and press conference after Clooney’s editorial was published.
@Kylopod:
I agree, but it should be considered the condition of trailing a candidate as deeply, peg-the-meter deeply flawed as Trump is should be causing some level of panic. Hell, not leading by a wide margin should be. What we are seeing is to be expected.
I remain angry that people couldn’t work this through in their heads four years ago.
I hate being boxed into an unpleasant scenario.
For good or ill, there are two possible ways for Biden to leave the race, other than via death/serious illness:
1) He chooses to do so
2) His cabinet invokes the 25th amendment
I don’t know how he is, mentally, and I don’t know what he is capable of, or will be capable of in four years. But if this is really an emergency, then people should be going with option #2. Anything other than that isn’t serious. As has been observed on this site, parties are weak; there is no “Democratic Party” that can force Biden to do anything. Maybe his donations do dry up, but that’s still not a way to force him to leave the race; it just makes it more likely he will loose. Anything that doesn’t involve the 25th amendment and him having to step down immediately (and then I imagine Biden sending a letter to Congress saying he’s fine, which then throws the matter to Congress, and I imagine that will go just great) just isn’t a serious effort, and makes the likelihood of a Trump victory greater.
And anyone who is proposing any action to remove Biden, without saying explicitly that that means Kamala is the only possible successor, isn’t serious either. There is no unicorn candidate in waiting that will please everyone, and fix all the problems, the largest of which is that something like 50% of the country is willing to vote for Trump.
@Jen:
There’s nothing more frustrating than knowing what should have been done and when, two to four years too late.
I think Biden will drop out, but only because the side that wants him gone has made it their mission to do so. It seem overwhelmingly likely by now they’ll continue to try to get him to drop out until election day.
And I think that’s when the stuff will hit the fan and the situation will look a lot worse than it does now.
Ah yes this is the Democratic party I remember. The party that snatches defeat from the jaws of victory because of stupid freakouts like this..
Yes lets throw everything out and start over from zero at 3 months and see how that goes…
@Sleeping Dog: YOu cannot address the real issue of her being female and black. You cannot address the issue of her being hamstrung by laws and lawsuits galore. You cannot address the issue that the democratic party is looking like feckless morons while the republican party stands strong with their nominee. Trump could be a corpse at this point and he’d still be in the same spot in the polls…
@dazedandconfused:
Panic is not a good place to be in when strategizing. And there’s no particular evidence that Trump is so awful a candidate that anyone other than Biden would be beating him. Indeed, some polls have shown Kamala and others performing worse against him, and those that show her doing better (within the MOE, of course) are still premature, because we have no idea how the race will shake up after Dems take the historically unprecedented step of retroactively nullifying the choice of their party’s own voters.
I’m disgusted by Democratic leadership right now. They’re hinging their current “strategy” on the assumption that they know Biden can’t win. First of all, they don’t know shit. They’re claiming a certainty they don’t possess, while at the same showing no evidence they’re aware of the profound risk of switching to a different candidate at this stage or how they plan to handle the situation when and if it happens, and they’re using this false certainty as a pretext to very publicly knife Biden so that, if their initial assumption that he’s unelectable wasn’t correct, they’re going to do everything they can to make sure it becomes a reality.
I hope they’re happy when they discover too late that doing this Hail Mary doesn’t solve their problems and we’re still looking down the barrel of the end of American democracy.
@Kylopod: Indeed poll results for anyone not Biden should be taken with a grain of salt. Those people haven’t been attacked by the right wing and their media enablers yet. None of them have done any real campaigning or interviews. Those numbers they are polling at are most likely going to drop once everything starts getting serious.
@Matt:
Biden is not yet the Dem nominee, until that occurs the threat of lawsuits is moot. Funny how progressives are now worried about the viability of a black, female candidate.
@Sleeping Dog:
I think Harris would be a perfectly good president.
I also think a lot of people, especially men, say enough to provide a tiny (0.1-0.2% margin) in swing states, are perfectly willing to vote for a women running for president, just not “that woman.”
“That woman” being defined as whatever woman is running for president.
Well, it looks like the average American doesn’t give crap enough about the poison that is Trump to do anything about it.
As Ben Franklin said: “a republic—if you can keep it.”
What strikes me is that there hasn’t even been a Great Depression/coerced reparations/great disaster. The whole mess is being run off self-pity by a bunch of sulky white men and “trad wives” who are complaining because…why? Because they can’t find jobs that pay higher than what darker-skinned workers get? That they have to work next to those darker-skinned workers? That darker- skinned people don’t tug their forelocks and step off the sidewalk when they pass by anymore?
Yeah, and the leopard will definitely eat YOUR face, lady. Don’t think you’ll be protected. Especially if your hubby wants to turn you in for another Trump Blonde.
@Sleeping Dog: I bet if you went and polled the American public you’d find a vast majority would say that Biden is the nominee. All the stuff Biden has reserved for his campaign over the last +year from AD slots to building rental/leases are all under Biden not “the democratic nominee”. It’s absolutely inevitable that the GOP will jump all over any change from Biden with lawsuits galore. Even without the GOP’s lawsuits Harris is going to be severely hampered by both federal and state laws.
Oh neat I’m a progressive now. Last month I was a right wing gun nut.
I can’t help but notice you didn’t address the issues I raised in any meaningful manner.
I was against Harris from the get go because she has even more going against her than even Hillary. My candidate was Pete and I warned people here that Biden was going to be an anchor in this election…
@Kathy: You nailed it. Like I said prior the ladies I work with are already starting to talk about Harris like they did with Hillary….
I have issues with Harris that have nothing to do with her being female or black.
Regardless I would still vote for Harris if she was the top of the ticket.
@Matt:
I’d advocate voting for Bob Menendez if he were atop the ticket…
It strikes me that if Biden will drop out, he should do it today, to steal the thunder from Convicted Felon’s prime time address at the convention.
Meantime, rationality from the younger generation:
“It’s simple: Trump (sic) can’t just call for “unity” only when it serves him and only after he’s targeted by the kind of violence he’s repeatedly incited.”
@Kylopod:
Can’t recall another major party candidate who had two impeachments, multiple criminal indictments, a finding of committing rape in a court of law, and was a shamelessly obvious pathological liar and a rude a-hole to boot. I must respectfully beg to differ with the notion there is no clear evidence of Trump being an epically bad candidate. This thing shouldn’t be close.
But I agree it might not be because of Biden’s personal flaws. It seems to be what the current American people have become. If so it will make no difference whether or not Joe is the candidate.
To paraphrase Bob Dylan, “you don’t need a pollster to know which way the wind blows”
So, when Joe has another collosal meltdown (which is inevitable) what do you deluded Biden supporters say then?
Two words for you: Diane Feinstein
We don’t know how bad his cognitive decline is. But when you can’t remember your own Secretary of Defense, it speaks volumes. And our side keeps excusing these obvious signs of decline. Why?
Catch the clip of Kamala yesterday vigorously talking about child care tax credits and other working class policies which have helped the blue collars as opposed to billionaires getting tax cuts under Trump. Then, see a dottering old man who fractures syntax like Trump lies.
Joe just can’t campaign. The Lester Holt interview was originally scheduled for 40 minutes. His staff cut it to 22. I will leave it for you geniuses to come up with the myriad of excuses as to why that was done.
I get the GOP has turned off its collective brain, when did Dems start to do the same thing?
Many here think this is just about November. What about June 2026. Or August 2027. What condition do you think Biden will be then? Improved? Over his jet lag?
Really, some of the defense of Biden here and the anger directed to those that want him out are borderline silly.
As to some who say you can’t run a 3 month campaign, you don’t know history.
It was done in 1968 with Humphrey who lost by a whisker after being far behind in the polls.
So it can be done. We need someone who can take the fight to Trump and Joe is just too frail mentally and physically to do it.
How many of you can’t see this is more astounding to me then the brainwashed Trumpers blindly following their flawed leader.
@The Q:
I’m not a deluded Biden supporter. In fact, I supported another candidate back in 2020 BECAUSE I WAS CAPABLE OF ADDING +4 TO BIDEN’S AGE even back then.
I’m a former campaign professional who understands the structural garbage that happens behind the scenes, though. The vast network of direct mail houses and list purchases and phone vendors and GOTV–and now, digital (I’m old enough that this was not part of the process when I worked in campaigns). The setting up and scheduling of campaign fundraisers. I’ve done the literal foot work of going door-to-door, and pulling competitor TV and radio ad buys. Etc.
Campaigns are not magic, all of the GOTV materials and candidate support, down to the distribution of yard signs, has a structure behind it, and it’s taken years to get into place.
Switching candidates now is something akin to discovering a hole in the boat, and instead of one person grabbing a bucket to bail water and another to patch the hole, everyone’s decided that the right option is to try and build another boat.
ETA: I missed this gem:
“It was done in 1968 with Humphrey who lost by a whisker after being far behind in the polls.”
That happened before I was born. Campaigns have changed quite a bit just since I left, and they most certainly have changed since 1968.
Jen, the Biden/Harris Dem machine is already up and running so I don’t see your point. We won’t be starting from scratch and modern technology has made it easier, not harder to run campaigns. Licking stamps, delivering door hangers et al are obsolete. At the touch of a button, texts are sent to millions asking for donations (I’m sure everyone on here has been deluged).
Social media networks make it much easier to spread the candidate’s message than a whistle stop tour.
We will just substitute Kamala for Joe. It’s not rocket surgery.
ETA: I wasn’t born in the 30s but I know fascism when I see it. If we are only left to see what happened in our own lifetime how can we learn from history. Some things change, some things stay the same
@The Q: Kamala Harris is the only one who would be able to slide into the campaign structure, but first of all, I’m not seeing a unified front saying she’s the candidate. I’m seeing Democrats float names like Mark Kelly and Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer.
Modern technology has made some aspects easier, but it’s incorrect to make a blanket statement that it’s all easier. You now have to do an extensive amount of data cleaning and there’s an entire new industry of list management, website hosting and security, design, and so on. It all needs to play nicely with each identified supporter’s records. This is all harder than just pushing buttons.
(I’m going to stop now, because one of the things that always drove me crazy about working in politics was when I encountered people who felt that their strongly held opinions were on par with my years of work experience. I used to get upset about it until I saw the same thing happen to literal doctors during the pandemic.)
@Jen:
Quite.
But aside the inexorable sweep of history, Johnson withdrew from the race in March 31st, so Humphrey had seven months, not three, to campaign. He also began to run before most delegates were apportioned (not all through primaries at that time), and amidst a crowded Democratic field that included Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, and RFK Sr. (who’d be assassinated in June that year).
So, the situations are not even remotely close to being comparable.
Jen, Thanks for your condescending response as if you are the only one who has worked on campaigns and you are the font of knowledge on how campaigns work.
What drives me crazy is know it alls ostentatiously parading their supposed superior knowledge as fact.
@Kevin: I don’t think it’s quite 50%, but you’re on point that it’s important to remember that roughly 45-47% of the voting population will vote for a bag of gummi bears provided that it’s a Republican bag of gummi bears.
Kathy, Humphrey NEVER ran in the primaries!!!! He didn’t have 7 months to run. He inherited LBJ’s delegates but never “campaigned”.
It was a race between RFK and Eugene McCarthy and we all know what happened to RFK and how the convention nominated Humphrey/Muskie without HHH ever running in a primary.
Sheesh.
@The Q: Not meant to be condescending. It is, I think, just a very human response to this whole…mess…to be trying to find an easy answer. Campaigns are not easy, even when you have a lot of time. You work EVERY DAY. No breaks. You travel a lot. You eat a lot of crappy food. You work insane hours. Unless you are at the very top of the food chain, you get paid a garbage salary. The only thing that gets you through it is knowing you are doing really important work, and usually that means considerable fealty to a candidate. That doesn’t always transfer. Some people are likely to quit. I do bristle when people imply it’s easy.
@Kathy:
Additionally, Humphrey was not remotely the presumptive nominee, for the simple reason that the concept didn’t exist yet–it was a direct result of the post-1968 reforms, which reoriented the nomination process away from the convention and toward the primaries. In 1968, only 16 states held primaries, and Humphrey didn’t participate in a single one of them, yet was still nominated at the convention. Since 1968, there have been only three conventions that could arguably be described as “open” or “contested”: 1976 GOP, 1980 Dem, and (in a very narrow technical sense) 1984 Dem–all campaigns which went on to lose.
@dazedandconfused:
And yet, here we are. Amazing! SMH.
@Jen:
That’s a really strong comparison. First class!!
Jen, I apologize for my remarks. It was a little too strong.
There was no certainty that Biden would decline markedly since last year, or even since the 2020 campaign season. Anthony Fauci is 83 and still sharp.
Even Ezra Klein, as noted “an early advocate for dumping Biden”, to his credit, stated on a podcast earlier this week that he could have turned out to have been wrong.
@The Q:
You might be sure, but you’d be wrong. I haven’t gotten a campaign funding request, or any other type of election contact since 2o22. (Then again, I don’t live in a swing state, either, and that might make a difference.)
@The Q:
I know history (I’m Clio’s long lost, more glamorous evil twin*). Do you know how to read?
@Kylopod:
The presumptive nominee in 1968 would have been LBJ by virtue of being the incumbent president, and still able to run for a full second term. He faced challengers within his party, figured he wouldn’t win the nomination, and chose to withdraw rather than face ignominy.
But the point remains Humphrey 1) had seven months for a campaign, 2) had to compete for the nomination with several other Democrats.
As Jen points out, things were vastly different then. For one thing, the party convention determined the nominee. Not all states ran primaries. So having three months as the official or presumptive nominee to run a campaign back then was the norm, not the exception.
To be equivalent, we would have had the argument about Biden dropping out back in March or April, and we would have had serious, well-funded Democrats running against Biden (say like Newsom or Whitmer, not Marianne Williamson or Dean Phillips).
*I look forward as well as back. It’s frowned upon.
@Jen:
One would hope these Democrats understand pushing Harris aside in favor of a white man would guarantee they lose the Black vote, maybe forever, and deservedly so. Even discussion of anyone besides Harris is idiocy, but not much about this mess has indicated much in the way of intelligence on the part of the Democrats.
If Biden is to step down, the ticket should be Harris at the top, of course. I’ve seen it suggested Mark Kelly be her running mate. He’s an effective and popular Senator, an actual astronaut (everyone admires astronauts!), and the Dems desperately need to win Arizona which they probably would with Kelly on the ballot. Also Arizona’s Dem governor would appoint another Dem to finish out Kelly’s term.
@Kathy:
Well no–he wouldn’t have been the presumptive nominee until and unless he had secured enough pledged delegates from primaries to be automatically nominated on the first ballot at the convention. That wasn’t even possible in 1968, for any candidate.
Kathy, HHH NEVER CAMPAIGNED. Why do you insist on this? Humphrey entered the race too late to participate in the Democratic primaries. He inherited LBJ’s delegates. To get the other delegates necessary to win, he relied on “favorite son” candidates to win delegates and lobbied for endorsements from powerful bosses to obtain slates of delegates.
You wrote “So having three months as the official or presumptive nominee to run a campaign back then was the norm, not the exception”
So you are unwittingly proving my point that a 3 month campaign CAN be done.
As far as all this “things have changed so much” nonsense that lessons can’t be learned from the past sounds like a Trumper.
So all this Dem talk of Trump echoing 1930s fascism can be dismissed by Trumpers as “that was so long ago in a different country that it’s absurd to claim him a threat to democracy?”
@Kylopod:
I admit I don’t know that much about how campaigns worked in the late 60s. But I assume there would have been the presumption he would run for a full second term, and would not be challenged seriously within his own party.
The latter is shaky, as there was strong opposition to his Vietnam policies. Not to mention he’d served the remainder of JFK’s term before serving his own, and Americans seem disinclined to let anyone have more than two terms, full or not.
@The Q:
Is it 1968 where you live?
No, I live in Realityville.
So what will be your response to those of us wanting Biden off the ticket when come the debate in September he melts down again and destroys any chance of winning and takes down the House and Senate with him?
“Ah, he had another bad night. No one could see this coming. Stop with the criticism. Trump is a liar and unfit for office bla bla…”
Meanwhile in Realtyville, we will shake our heads at how unbelievably stupid it was back in July to not get him off the ticket.
Harris gives us a much better upside than Old Joe.
@Kathy:
I was simply using the phrase “presumptive nominee” the way it’s commonly used today, as the candidate who has already acquired the delegate majority prior to the convention. I don’t know when the phrase originated exactly, but the concept it refers to literally did not exist in 1968. (Of course it’s possible there were offhand uses of the phrase at the time, but it wouldn’t have had the same meaning–sort of like the way the phrase “Native American” was once used to mean anyone born in the US. As a fellow language buff, I’m sure you can think of other examples.)
@The Q:
Just want to celebrate this act of public reflection.
Passions are running very high right now and feelings are fluid. This means it’s also a perfect time to practice recognizing when we might have gone too far and making public amends. Which also can take a lot of humility to do and ultimately will also lead to better discussions.