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

we don't need help w that

No?

My impression this was a cool, even-handed place to kick it.

I mean we don't need new stimuli to be in a tizzy!

Presumably Klobuchar's camp leaked this, imagining that it would give her an advantage over other candidates being vetted.

Remember when Klobuchar was talking about the big tent including pro-lifers? Cool cool.

they hate abortion AND trump

she's going to throw a 3-hole punch at joe biden's head and he will die and she will claim it was an accident

Klobuchar's NARAL rating is 100%. Cool cool.

if ilx fails to mobilise milo then trump's victory is our fault imo

Should Descendants reunite, there's always an album called Milo Goes to Mobilize to record.

That’s their Iraq War album

I think the VP pick this time needs to address two things above all else: 1) help get out the kind of turnout there was in 2008/12; 2) if Biden were to win, there's a possibility he wouldn't survive one term (sorry to be morbid)--they always ceremonially pretend that ready-to-step-in is a big consideration, but this time I think it actually should be.

Trump himself takes care of the first to a large degree, but I wouldn't count on him taking care of all of it. I doubt Biden contributes much, and I can't see Klobuchar contributing anything; Harris and Warren, sometimes in the same way and sometimes in different ways, do. (I'd rather have Harris, but Warren probably has an edge there.) Abrams does too, but based on the little I know about her, she seems awfully inexperienced, even in comparison to 2008 Obama. (Trump not a useful comparison point there...he's not useful for any kind of positive comparison.)

Has a campaign logo ever gone with beige before?

xp there is no electoral advantage to choosing Harris but she could help bring in California donors, and he's going to need money

Wasn't the main advantage of Biden's candidacy supposed to be his appeal to working class white voters in the Midwest/Pennsylvania? Not sure what Klobuchar adds to that

Harris, theoretically, boosts turnout with black voters, which is way more than you can say of Klob/Warren/etc..

Shoring up the ‘kids these days’ old white vote is a Kaine 2.0 movie.

Move.

Nothing against Amy Klobuchar personally, but that strikes me as Tim Kaine all over again: I'm going to win, just pick someone who's not going to alienate anyone, no sudden movements.

Tim Kaine was very alienating, at least to me! I can at least respect Klobuchar's hustle as a legislator

I definitely concede that Harris or Warren bring zero electoral benefit; I just doubt Kobuchar does either. I can't see her motivating potential fence-sitting Biden voters, even in Minnesota (someone there can speak to that), to get out and vote--I have to believe the issues they'd have with Biden would far outweigh that. (Klobuchar would even exacerbate some of those issues.) I can see Harris or Warren motivating enough potential fence-sitting Biden voters--across the country--to take a deep breath, close their eyes, and vote, enough to maybe make a difference.

Too bad Tim Kaine’s cool son is ineligible.

A real May-December ticket.

I definitely concede that Harris or Warren bring zero electoral benefit

Warren would be a better campaigner than any of the other options, and taken more seriously in that role than she was by many folks who disregarded her in the primary.

I agree with this.

When was the last time a running mate helped win a state that a nominee couldn't win on his own? JFK and LBJ? The geography argument feels like an artifact of the mid-20th century.

— Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) May 21, 2020

Kennedy did worse in '60 than Stevenson did four years earlier, though.

VPs can’t win a state necessarily but they can counter the perceived weaknesses of a candidate. Which is why another white centrist (Klob) does nothing and an old white liberal (Warren) does almost nothing (Warren’s core are Vote Blue No Matter Who). Biden needs a younger woman of color for the VP pick to even theoretically make a difference.

Harris doesn’t seem to be gunning for the job, given she has a better one, which leaves Stacy Abrams of the known options.

Do the betting markets have odds for Tammy Duckworth?

I don't think Harris would turn down the offer. I do hope it will be her fwiw

I noted a week or two ago that Dolores Huerta had been on team Harris, so maybe she could wrangler the Latino vote.

By which I mean Huerta could campaign for Biden/Harris.

Fox News poll:

Biden 48
Trump 40

Biden makes inroads with two key groups: independents prefer him by 13 points and voters ages 65+ by 17 points. In 2016, Trump won independents by 4 and seniors by 7.

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 21, 2020

Kennedy did worse in '60 than Stevenson did four years earlier, though.

Not in Texas--Eisenhower won Texas in '56 55%-44%--which is Tumulty's point. (I wish I could use "tumulty" in Scrabble, where I'm u-phobic.)

I'm not following you. Am I missing something?

1960 (in TX)

JFK: 50.52%

Nixon: 48.52%

1956 (same)

Ike: 55.3

Stevenson: 44

lol

never mind

I just saw the numbers

Sorry.

From most accounts, LBJ may have helped Kennedy more than by merely being a favourite son--it may have been a little more, uh, hands-on.

polls should factor in a cheating handicap (thrown out ballots; tampered with voter rolls; too few polling stations; miscellaneous republican ratfackery; whatever the hell the kremlin's up to; etc) -- maybe 5%? 10%?

i know we've totally moved on from nathan robinson but i don't want to start a thread for him but i do want to share this excerpt + photo

this man is an ayn rand villlain cruelly gifted with sentience, complete with her fashion sense and level of writing ability pic.twitter.com/Bna3kZekRf

— The Online-Normie Complex (@canderaid) May 21, 2020

I know we shouldn't judge someone by the way they dress but fuck me it's hard not to sometimes.

we're not?

I mean "we shouldn't?"

i don't even know who that is

a m'lady socialist

they say 'clothes make the man', so it would be a fair inference to think clothes can also be a man's undoing

It's genuinely odd to me that so many ppl here keep insisting that anyone who goes out of their way to point out or openly discuss the myriad list of abhorrent things Biden has done/said/voted for/credibly alleged to have done/supports must be equating him with Trump. Like a candidate for the highest office of authority on the face of this Earth shouldn't be subjected to the highest possible scrutiny and shouldn't be held accountable for their past actions and words.

If discussion of Biden's politics and past/present transgressions upsets you so badly that you're hallucinating or gaslighting fictional South Park libertarian talking points to argue at (that don't seem to exist in reality; Can you actually show us some examples of all these "so many ppl" you're referring to?)... maybe you shouldn't be so eager to roll over and vote for such a person at the drop of a hat?

― Sabre of Paradise (trevor phillips), Thursday, May 21, 2020 11:28 AM (yesterday)

what i said was that biden wasn't my candidate and mentioned some of the things i disliked about him, including a past vote i called "abhorrent." but you seem determined to interpret anything anyone says in the most grotesquely unfair light, so i can understand why you decided to pretend that i didn't say that.

for what it's worth, i think that anyone who says that we shouldn't be "eager to roll over and vote" for joe biden in the general election, in which there are only two candidates who could plausibly win the presidency, is effectively equating him with trump. (if you need a clearer example, yesterday someone literally said on this thread that "i'm still not 100% convinced biden is going to be better than trump.")

I am critical of Joe Biden in <these ways> but I'm going to vote for him anyway falls firmly under the ignore everything before the but

Expressing concern about the possibility that he committed sexual assault or helped push us into a criminal war that killed over a million innocent people but you're going to help make him the most powerful human being on the planet - like, just don't say anything or pretend that deal breakers exist.

'I have concerns about Joe Biden' or Chuck Schumer or Pelosi or party leadership is the Democratic voter 'thoughts and prayers.'

from my original post:

"i find biden's vote for the iraq war abhorrent"

in the future maybe read what you're responding to

but you're going to vote for him anyway, and not particularly grudgingly, right. That was the point. His cheerleading (not just a single vote) for the criminal war is not abhorrent enough to actually matter.