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Whither Biden and the Democrats?
What are these people going to do?
Forget the Vice President’s peculiar peccadilloes vis a vis touching and sniffing and (allegedly) forcing himself on women. There’s an easy way around that: the Democratic press can simply ignore it, knowing full well that the Republicans have a glass houses problem when it comes to sexual misadventure and so can’t throw many stones.
The real problem is that Mr. Biden is pretty clearly mentally incompetent; not merely to be a good President, he’s always been that, but even to successfully compete for the office.
I think it is extraordinarily doubtful that this man, who now seems unable to utter a diagrammable sentence of more than three words with or without a teleprompter, can take part in any debate that doesn’t immediately make his growing mental disability obvious even to his supporters. The current epidemic provides him a convenient excuse to hide from the cameras, but that can’t last indefinitely. When he eventually surfaces, the contrast in energy, coherence, and focus between him and President Trump will be glaringly evident.
It seems to me that long before November one of two things has to happen: either Vice President Biden must be gently escorted from the stage, probably with a modest acknowledgment on his part that his failing health leaves him no longer up to the task or he has to strategically choose a running mate with the explicit understanding that the running mate, and not Joe Biden, will be the de facto President.
I don’t know if that last is possible, politically speaking. But I don’t think this is something the Democrats can do with a knowing wink; I think they have to make it very clear that the ticket on the ballot is printed upside-down, and that Biden will relinquish the top position as soon as practical once assuming office. Because if that isn’t widely understood and acknowledged, the charge that the Democrats are knowingly running a mental incompetent for the highest office will stick, and that’s not a good look.
It seems likely to me that Biden will step down before November, probably well before. That brings up the Bernie problem: if he’s still sorta kinda in the running, how bad will the collateral damage be if someone other than everyone’s favorite unreconstructed communist gets the nod?
My own thinking is that someone perceived as popular and charismatic and suitably identitarian will be pulled in, Michelle Obama being the obvious and extraordinarily unpleasant pick. That’s my personal nightmare scenario, that we’ll get an awful person with high name recognition but an essentially opaque past, who will then enjoy a campaign season honeymoon and hagiography that will last as long as the press can sustain it, while the Republican opposition is savaged with ever more unhinged ferocity by a deeply and now openly corrupt press.
Not that I’ve called an election right in the last ten years, of course.
Published in Elections
Nothing personal, but I truly sincerely desperately hope that you aren’t calling this election right.
But they think the same of our candidate.
I agree that the thought of Michelle Obama makes me grind my teeth. But who else could they pick? Oprah Winfrey?
Past performance is no guarantee of future outcomes.
But given my track record, I’m willing to guess that it is. ;)
Yeah, but there’s senile and there’s senile. Trump is often random and inarticulate, but you can always pretty much understand what he’s saying, and he doesn’t inject a lot of long pauses while he’s trying to remember what he was just talking about. That last is a killer.
I can’t see the Democrat dilemma solved by VP choice. It just won’t fly if it’s overt. If it’s a truly stealth action, then Biden still has to be out front.
Their best bet is to escort him off-stage. I thought the town hall with Hillary was rather like how a therapist accepts and honors the new patient but is there to help. In order to un-endorse, you have to endorse.
I am desperately trying to game-plan but can’t imagine who it would be other than Hillary.
It has to be someone who can fundraise big time. Must have name recognition in the stratosphere, and be networked and ready-to-go.
All my ruminations lead to Hillary.
They have to keep the moderates, but they have to energize voters. Each cancels the other.
Michelle Obama doesn’t ever want to step foot in that god-forsaken White House again. That’s my understanding. And that’s one of the things I can like about her.
He reminds me a lot of Warren G. Harding.
This worries me too. But I wonder if MO is going to want to leave her beautiful new Martha’s Vineyard home and give up her glamorous Netflix gig in Hollywood for a return to the swamp to rescue Sleepy Joe, and then face a 50/50 risk of losing to Orange Man Bad in front of all the world? I wouldn’t if I were her.
I agree we can start with the assumption that Joe will be retired as gracefully as they can manage, or not, sometime soon. Senility is the real reason but the sex fiend thing will be the excuse. That leaves, as you say, the Bernie problem. What to do with the crazy uncle, now that the family property has fallen into his lap thru misadventure. @garymcvey I bet there’s a comic movie from this or that era on that theme.
I’m thinking the left isn’t enlightened enough, nor is Michelle confident enough, nor is the harpy Warren acceptable enough outside Hillary’s old pup-tent sewing circle, nor can Harris service that many people, nor is Bootyjudge serious enough, for the Dems to nominate a woman this year. I can’t be certain of that, but it seems like a reasonable (un)likelihood. Michelle shows no sign of wanting to be President.
And I don’t think they can discard electoral niceties so easily, yet, either. Individual Democrats value their vote as much as I do.
So Joe will step down to spend more time with his family and talking to Corn Pop, and there will be a scramble for Joe’s delegates.
And I really think poor Bernie Sanders (whose initials are B.S.) does not want to be President, any more than does Michelle Obama. The Dems, by some mechanism, will draft an outsider because their entire field is so incredibly lame. I predict it’ll be Cuomo (one of them, anyway), but if not then still a politico and not Michelle. Unless they pick a woman candidate (Gretchen Dahmer? Nah.) their veep will be a chick, either Warren or just maybe Michelle.
Or maybe not. Keep that idea of the (socialist) Presidential candidate being an open-but-unacknowledged placeholder for the wink-wink socialist running mate. They might have once thought of doing that with Joe, but he’s gone bad too quick and now they have to improvise. Like you say – what are they to do? I feel such pity, such empathy for their plight, and it fills me with glee. Hee hee. This is almost as good as counting money.
You could be right. My mind refuses to even turn in the direction of that .. that palsied ..
FIFY
I bet Joe will keep the nomination. The election will all come down to who the VP pick is as everyone knows Joe is either gonna get 25th Amendment-ed out or Arkancided out in January 2021. What better way for an incoming VP to get national support and for Joe to go down as a martyr than a (staged) assassination? The media will setup some poor Trump-loving, right wing, gun loving nut as the fall guy and take down the GOP and NRA in one fell swoop.
I think you can tell when someone is not thinking of running, when they are not in good camera shape (read chubby). Contrast the older portrait on the left with that of Michelle in a recent picture on the right (dressed in blue). I think she has quarantine bod.
That’s painful to see.
Anyone that’s been prompted as a VP candidate is 1. A woman. 2. a woman all the Democrats did NOT vote for in primaries. How do you get past that if you’re a Democrat? Other than by mail in voting. And the DemEstablishment – FKA Obama – expects someone they are in charge of. Who’s that?
Nope. The money’s too good.
I’m positive she would beat her husband on one-on-one hoops.
I think Biden is being somewhat undersold. Or possibly I think the ability of others to de facto manage a candidate and/or POTUS is being undersold.
Yes, it’s pressure job–leader of the free world, etc. But, even when you factor in a well-managed campaign, it does not have to be “physical” in a way that’s disqualifying for Biden. I’m sure that, by now, he has some handlers that are pretty skilled at knowing what he can and can’t do, and Biden–being a career politician–will listen to his staff.
Yes, he has made gaffes and those gaffes have been magnified by the media that we tend to listen to. But he will have the MSM on his side and a base obsessed with beating his opponent. He’s capable of going into full politician mode for the required periods of time.
I’m not convinced that he’s capable of going into full politician mode for eight minutes. I’m not sure he can make it to November if he refuses to debate or speak extemporaneously for a few minutes.
He did what had to be done during the primaries, and that will be the model. One can belittle his competition all one wants, but a couple of them had committed bases. He will not refuse to debate .
Reading 18 of 20 comments, the word “dysfunctional” came to mind in regard to the Dims. Hoyacon makes me anxious.
By putting Michelle on his ticket he would be putting his old boss, Barack, on the ticket. And that would be installing Barack on the White House grounds. I can’t imagine that Joe Biden would like that any more than it would have worked for Ronald Reagan to have Gerald Ford as Vice President. Remember that when it was being considered, Ford wasn’t willing to be a mere Vice President. No President wants to be outshone or shown up by his VP, or his VP’s spouse.
Maybe Joe Biden wouldn’t have anything to say about it, but do the Democrats really want it to be that obvious that Biden won’t have any say in his own presidency?
But just in case, it would be wise for Republicans to be prepared to run against Barack Obama again. And if Michelle is there, that’s who they have to run against. The good thing would be that this would keep the Republicans from taking the easy way out, or the sleazy way out.
Longer speeches can be edited down for TV news shows to only the moments of competency — sort of the opposite of what the media does with Trump, where he’s edited to highlight the alleged gaffes — but the live TV appearances have grown more and more problematic due to his inability to maintain focus. Biden might get enough of an adrenal rush in a debate with Trump to get the thought processes working again for a short while, as he did in the last debate with Sanders, but his problem here may end up being whether or not the other Democrats in key positions will cover for him once the VP is chosen, if hiding the problems becomes too tough and starts being reflected in the polls.
The press is actually getting a little more inquisitive about the Reade allegations now, but Pelosi and the others in the leadership are showing they’re perfectly willing to stonewall for now, since the fear is if Joe’s dumped prior to the convention, they’ll lose the Bernie Bros in November if they don’t give Sanders to nomination, and they’ll lose all the swing voters if they do.
“When he eventually surfaces, the contrast — in energy, coherence, and focus — between him and President Trump will be glaringly evident.”
This is why there is a debate among the Dems. They know Biden will lose in spite of the virus, so his Veep pick is crucial in two regards. First, Biden wouldn’t last a week in office if he did win. The Veep and Dem leadership won’t have to push Good Ol’ Joe aside – he’ll fall off the stage on his own. Look for the Dem elite to make the pick for Joe.
My new thinking is they will force Biden out before the election and move his Veep up to the top slot. Another good pick for the new Veep is their only shot to beat Trump and Pence, and I still doubt they’d win. But like Henry, I haven’t been right on a Presidential election since 2004 . . .
Because saying it, is the same as doing it.
Leaving aside Trump’s proclivities, do we have credible evidence that he forced himself on staffers (or anyone else, for that matter)? That’s an honest question. Has he pushed a woman up against a wall, put his mouth on her, and his fingers….?
Sex is its own little universe, Spin, and it all blends together. I picked my words carefully: the President has a history of sexual misadventure. Almost certainly, there will never be proof that Vice President Biden raped a woman, though that’s the allegation. People aren’t going to be nuanced about which man is beyond the pale when it comes to sexual misbehavior, they’ll just point at the other guy and say “well, he exploits women too, so what’s your point?”
I think sexual misconduct is off the table. That, unfortunately, is a cost of electing a man of loose morals.
[ Disclaimer: I voted for Trump, and will vote for him again. I support him, I wear the Trump2020 hat, and I defend him enthusiastically. I think he’s done a pretty good job. ]
Biden’s appearance on Morning Joe today was instructive as to the playbook. Whether one found him convincing or not, he did not come off as a doddering buffoon with no idea where he was. Mika what’s-her-name actually pressed him (surprise!) and Biden simply held his ground with prepared denials in a relatively short appearance. He can be managed, although a debate would probably be an area of concern for his staff/handlers.
Looking at the clips, aside from the question “Will Mika still have a job and a husband Monday morning after practicing journalism on MSNBC?” it did show both that Biden can stay focused in short spurts, probably when he gets that something is important to him, as with this interview or the final debate with Sanders. But at the same time he also looked lost when he was asked about opening his records at the University of Delaware, even though the WaPo and a couple of other outlets already had called on him to do so, probably because of that surprise thing of having someone at a preferred news outlet practice journalism on a Democrat (Pelosi didn’t look good, either the day before when some reporter did that to her on the Reade/Ford hypocrisy question).
So for the Trump team, the message would be don’t expect wacky-but-lovable Uncle Joe to drool on himself at any debate. But the other thing to take away from the interview is Biden isn’t going to look very good if he gets anywhere near the scrutiny Trump’s gotten from the media.
And that’s a compliment.
I think they will force him out before the convention, and pick someone there.