Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

it's always other people's brains that are broken isn't it

i don't know why i'm back, i guess i just hate myself, but i just wanted to add some information regarding unperson's misleading "data point" upthread

Wigdor is well known for his work on prominent cases related to sexual harassment and assault. He represented six women who accused Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood producer, of sexual misconduct. He has also represented a number of Fox News employees in cases alleging gender and racial discrimination at the network, including Juliette Huddy, one of the women who accused Bill O’Reilly of pursuing a sexual relationship with her and retaliating when she refused. In 2018, he spoke out in the media defending Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

Wigdor has been a supporter of Trump and provided about $55,000 in campaign contributions in 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records. He has also given tens of thousands of dollars to state and local Democratic politicians in New York, including New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and New York Attorney General Letitia James. He has not donated to either Trump’s or Biden’s 2020 campaign.

https://apnews.com/10d2842623b2c299e2c673bf5a9e23ff

it's also because i'm a lawyer and it pisses me off when people go "OOOOH SHE GOT A LAWYER" as if it means anything other than they needed a fucking lawyer

This is a horrid thread and nobody should post to it anymore, it’s just an octagon at this point

Women otm but jesus fuck we have to beat trump

Twin Peaks - Deleted Black Lodge Scene (1991) pic.twitter.com/BjIp6YXt3l

— Florian 🥁 (@BetaODork) May 8, 2020

idk a few weeks back it was WAY worse b4 a certain shit stirrer was asked to leave

"women otm BUT"

engrave it on my headstone

its interesting that online spaces (threads, etc) where women are consistently otm with uncomfortable truths are always called shitshows. like "everyone should stop posting on this" -- a variant of that has been said in every comment thread i've ever been in on any forum when folks start talking about sexual assault

Sounds like end-to-end bollocks to me:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2020/05/joe-biden-presidential-plans.html?

"everyone should stop speaking", the minute there are no possible responses left, too embarrassing to defend. Not just you should stop speaking, but we all should stop speaking and maybe it will go away without having to sign your name to it

Bleak:

https://newrepublic.com/amp/article/157685/joe-biden-election-2020-mission?

https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/05/12/donald-trump-haters-joe-biden-clinton-244629

^^ read that story this afternoon -- fascinating

NEW this morning: Biden and Sanders roll out the members of the 6 Unity Task Forces that will offer recommendations to the DNC platform cmte and to Biden. Includes @johnkerry, @EricHolder, @vivek_murthy, @aoc, @RepJayapal, @rweingarten, @econjared, @StephanieKelton. pic.twitter.com/fGHHFJcUVE

— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) May 13, 2020

Man can’t we just have a Unity Task Force instead of a president

https://i2.wp.com/www.actionfigurepics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Legion-of-Doom-group.jpg?fit=700%2C466&ssl=1

i think it is good bernie is working with biden

Team America: Unity Task Force

i mean, this is the type of thing biden should have been doing. he has to 1.) break through, get his voice out there and 2.) demonstrate that he would be more competent in handling the crisis than trump

how can he "break through" other than by giving all those chats and Zoom town halls or whatever? I actually thought he gave a solid (for him) response last night (I paraphrase): "I'm following the rules, Trump isn't, that's why so many in the WH are sick."

He and his staff are running a Harding or McKinley let-the-incumbent-fuck-up campaign, which for a while is the only thing he can do.

I imagine part of the problem is that people have short memories, so doing a lot of stuff now may be detrimental if it means there are fewer opportunities to show good leadership closer to November.

i just don't think that's enough.

i am not sure how he breaks through, that is something for his comms team to figure out, but it's urgent. he needs to seem like a real alternative not a sleepy old guy.

Is it urgent though? It's May.

maybe not. and people do have short memories. like, trump was impeached less than 6 months ago and no one even mentions it.

I don't think it's urgent now. Trump is hanging himself.

treeship, it's May. I have no idea if we'll be dead.

Biden has run a very non-traditional campaign this entire time based on keeping a much lower profile than your average candidate. Part of it is running on the memory of Biden from 10 years ago, rather than the current reality, part is getting out of the way of opponents and letting them hang themselves. It's worked remarkably well so far. I have no idea if it will continue to work, but it seems like this is the strategy they are running with. All the calls for him to put himself out there more just haven't been correct so far.

A Sanders supporting buddy conceded last week that had Sanders been the nominee he'd likely run a similar campaign at this point, with Trump still tearing himself apart.

Right, I'm honestly not sure what more Biden can do given the practical limitations of running a campaign in the middle of a global pandemic and also the fact that Trump's daily fuck-ups suck up all the oxygen.

It's worked remarkably well so far

it has? He's running 4 points ahead of the guy who has basically abdicated his position and can be personally (if indirectly) responsible for tens of thousands of deaths

Don't ever focus on national polls.

If he was even semi-functional he'd have a press conference actually holding up the 69-page pandemic prep prepared by prior administration and explaining how Trump threw it in the garbage

this should not be hard, it's like watching somebody behind a scrim

I mean I'll start buying that this is some kind of rope-a-dope strategy when the guy demonstrates he actually has a punch to pull

my wife has a 9 year old student whose father works high up in the Biden campaign (she informed my wife she'd just been on a zoom call with Biden the other week) and has told us that the VP pick is Kamala Harris. I trust 9 year olds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7spOEfRN-0

interesting!
having been the 9 year old daughter of a person in politics, i too trust her judgement :)

Letting Trump punch himself seems to be working fine

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-idUSKBN22O3FG

https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2020/0512/For-some-seniors-virus-is-shifting-their-views-of-Trump

The public sees Trump as the stronger candidate for job creation, while Biden is seen as better suited on healthcare issues.

lol as if these were discrete issues!

from tomboto's second link:

According to a recent Morning Consult poll, Mr. Trump’s approval rating among voters over the age of 65 dropped 20 points between March and the end of April, making seniors more critical of the president’s performance than any other age group aside from 18- to 29-year-olds. Much of that decline seems directly related to the virus, which so far has posed a far more serious health threat to older people.

damn! that's quite a drop.

and he won them easily in 2016.

I guess it makes a difference when you suggest Grandma should die so you can go to Shake Shack.

I cast my vote for Bernie today in the Oregon primary. Warren was on the ballot, but at this point Bernie is the locus of any power progressives can still exert on the veep nomination and platform process, so I went that way. Tulsi Gabbard is also on the ballot and it will be mildly interesting to see if she manages to break above 1%.

That's interesting about the Unity Taskforce. Is it a real thing?

AOC and Kerry co-chairing on climate change ??

the drop among over-65's is a hopeful sign

xp

it's a real thing. it will be very interesting to see if the progressive voices can get any traction with all of the ancient people on the task force

I cast my vote for Bernie today in the Oregon primary.

GOOD MAN

aimless is solid as they come

Biden on Lawrence O'Donnell tonight:

Asked what he'd say to women who believe Tara Reade and are now struggling with their vote, Biden says: "If they believe Tara Reade, they probably shouldn't vote for me. I wouldn’t vote for me if I believed Tara Reade."

— Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) May 15, 2020

huh. fair

Can do