President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

Ragu doesn't post solutions, or proposed solutions. He doesn't have any.

 

Then please give us one, because the promise of four more years of Donald Trump feels considerably closer this morning.

 

Jimmy Carter available?

 

Yes it should on both accounts.

Who gives a fuck what he "means to say" because he had no idea what he was trying to say.

 

Welcome to the Highlight Zone where your performance in a debate counts more than your record. Criminal or otherwise.

 

One guy did. A sitting Congressman.

Dean Phillips couldn't even get interviewed on MSNBC.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/01/12/dean-phillips-msnbc-joe-biden-00135134

Since declaring his candidacy on Oct. 27, Phillips says, he hasn’t been interviewed once on the favorite network of his fellow Democrats. Ditto big Sunday shows. He’s been on CNN a handful of times, but never given the town-hall treatment afforded fellow single-digit candidates like Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie, both of whom happen to have challenged Donald Trump rather than Biden.

The only broadcast outlets that seem to want him, Phillips tells me, are the ones that deploy him as a way of tweaking the Democrats.

“Right media has been more than invitational,” Phillips says. By contrast, “I don’t think there’s an MSNBC viewer that even knows that I’m a congressman, because what’s being portrayed is designed to prevent that education.”

***
“There’s a story there that is literally being denied to the entire population, because they’re being deluded into believing that Joe Biden is just fine,” he says. “And I will tell you from our own research, in every market we’ve been, people don’t know how precarious Joe Biden’s reelection chances are. … And they’re not giving me any platform whatsoever” to say so.

He ran. He wasn't given a chance. And he was right.

And here we are today, with Biden incapable of a coherent debate (or a closing statement) and rampant speculation that the party will just have to pick somebody to put up at the convention. And Phillips, the guy who actually ran, did it the right way, won't be that somebody.

This reflects horribly on the Democratic Party. The party of Clinton and Obama - true upstarts - twice put a thumb on the scale against Sanders, will now, almost certainly, make a pick.

 

Sorry - when we said "post a solution," we meant, "post a solution which has a chance of becoming reality." If you think the common people are angry now, just wait until you return us to the policies of the gilded age.

I'm sorry to break the bad news, but no one is going to slash federal spending to nearly zero, return us to the gold standard, or abolish the Fed.

 

I don’t think exhuming William McKinley’s corpse is the right answer.

 

So who would the Democrats put up as their Presidential candidate if President Biden dropped out? Who has enough national name recognition? Perhaps Gov Whitmer? I doubt Kamala Harris would be their pick, nor Hillary Clinton.

 

Admittedly, I watched it at a debate watch party (won a bingo!) so it wasn't that clear - I thought Biden was Biden. But yeah, he's declined, and unless the post-debate polls show him up 5 on Trump he should drop his reelection bid. His challengers dropped out in 2020 to give Dems the best chance against Trump, he should think about it as well. His best line against Trump - "You're such a whiner!" But style matters. Either of the candidates would have been declared the loser in any other Presidential or vice-presidential debate I've ever seen. Trump didn't have a grasp of facts, and had bad body language and pretty much a one-note johnny on the immigration stuff.
I really wish they asked the "age" question at the top of the broadcast. Let both of them play in the next "Duel" or whatever that stupid golf match is called in Vegas now - but we deserve and need better candidates for President.