2024 Elections Thread

[secundem_artem]

These are not "debates"  They are some weird case of political theater and all people care about is who "won".  I think the winner last night may have been Robert Kennedy.

As seen on Twitter:  I'm Joe Biden and I forgot this ad.

As seen on SNL: The most recent polls have Biden at 15% Trump at 15% and Dear God please kill me now at 70%.

My personal wish is that both candidates suffer an incapacitating stroke between now and November.

[kaysixteen]

Errrr.... when you say something like this, however (?) facetiously, you again imply that there is really no  substantive difference between Biden's age and reduced ability to discourse in public, etc., and Trump's mendacity and convicted criminality.  I just do not see it, myself.

[Langue_doc]

I've run out of my sharing freebies for the NYT, so this might be under a paywall.

To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race

The debates weren't so much as to who "won" or "lost" but a precursor of things to come age-wise. Biden would be even more mentally challenged a year from now, even more so two years from now--you get the picture. During Ronald Reagan's second term, it was Nancy who was running the country because Ronald was mentally incapacitated. If Biden's elected, Jill Biden will most likely be making decisions on behalf of Joe. The higher-ups in the party had more than four years to come up with a viable candidate, so they are the ones to blame for the fiasco.

Earlier this morning in the NYT:

A Fumbling Performance, and a Panicking Party
President Biden's shaky, halting debate performance has Democrats talking about replacing him on the ticket.

President Biden hoped to build fresh momentum for his re-election bid by agreeing to debate nearly two months before he is to be formally nominated. Instead, his halting and disjointed performance on Thursday night prompted a wave of panic among Democrats and reopened discussion of whether he should be the nominee at all.

Over the course of 90 minutes, a raspy-voiced Mr. Biden struggled to deliver his lines and counter a sharp though deeply dishonest former President Donald J. Trump, raising doubts about the incumbent president's ability to wage a vigorous and competitive campaign four months before the election. Rather than dispel concerns about his age, Mr. Biden, 81, made it the central issue.

Democrats who have defended the president for months against his doubters — including members of his own administration — traded frenzied phone calls and text messages within minutes of the start of the debate as it became clear that Mr. Biden was not at his sharpest. Practically in despair, some took to social media to express shock, while others privately discussed among themselves whether it was too late to persuade the president to bow out in favor of a younger candidate.

A group of House Democrats said they were watching the debate together, and one, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that it was a "disaster" for Mr. Biden. The person said the group was discussing the need for a new presidential nominee.

While Mr. Trump at times rambled and offered statements that were convoluted, hard to follow and flatly untrue, he did so with energy and volume that covered up his misstatements, managing to stay on offense even on issues of vulnerability for him like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack and abortion.

Mr. Biden appeared on defense much of the time and either did not use lines teed up for him by his campaign's predebate advertising or mumbled them in passing in such a way that they barely registered.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I have some memories of the Kennedy-Nixon debate, which I saw on television [mind you] at the age of ten. It was all about policy! Substance! Analysis! That was also the last debate I saw. But it's hard to miss the shitshow today.

Both politicians and the media know what they're doing. Quality has gone down because the median television viewer has gone down in quality. As usual, the problem is us.

There is a structural problem. We are not all boobs.

Used to be that state party nominating delegations hashed something out and went to the convention. Of course, there were a few states with primaries, and these few primaries produced information. The bosses in the smoke filled rooms took account of this information along with other information. I say information and not just preferences because the bosses wanted to win!

Then came '68! More democracy! Primaries everywhere one looks! But who votes in primaries? Ideologues, madmen, vegetarians, and other similarly situated people. We don't get two candidates close to one side of the median voter, but two candidates close to the median of each party.

So here we are.

That is valid criticism in general of the state of American democracy, but not really the problem in the Biden context. He could easily have been picked in a smoke filled room in 2020 - in fact, some would say that is essentially what happened.

Yes, and he won in 2020 in, IIRC, a more elegant version of the smoke filled room. There has been no smoke filled room this election year.

Yes, because he is the incumbent. How many times did the smoke filled room replace the sitting president with another nominee?

[dismalist]

I have some memories of the Kennedy-Nixon debate, which I saw on television [mind you] at the age of ten. It was all about policy! Substance! Analysis! That was also the last debate I saw. But it's hard to miss the shitshow today.

Both politicians and the media know what they're doing. Quality has gone down because the median television viewer has gone down in quality. As usual, the problem is us.

There is a structural problem. We are not all boobs.

Used to be that state party nominating delegations hashed something out and went to the convention. Of course, there were a few states with primaries, and these few primaries produced information. The bosses in the smoke filled rooms took account of this information along with other information. I say information and not just preferences because the bosses wanted to win!

Then came '68! More democracy! Primaries everywhere one looks! But who votes in primaries? Ideologues, madmen, vegetarians, and other similarly situated people. We don't get two candidates close to one side of the median voter, but two candidates close to the median of each party.

So here we are.

That is valid criticism in general of the state of American democracy, but not really the problem in the Biden context. He could easily have been picked in a smoke filled room in 2020 - in fact, some would say that is essentially what happened.

Yes, and he won in 2020 in, IIRC, a more elegant version of the smoke filled room. There has been no smoke filled room this election year.

Yes, because he is the incumbent. How many times did the smoke filled room replace the sitting president with another nominee?

Surely they would have this time. Perhaps they still will.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I have some memories of the Kennedy-Nixon debate, which I saw on television [mind you] at the age of ten. It was all about policy! Substance! Analysis! That was also the last debate I saw. But it's hard to miss the shitshow today.

Both politicians and the media know what they're doing. Quality has gone down because the median television viewer has gone down in quality. As usual, the problem is us.

There is a structural problem. We are not all boobs.

Used to be that state party nominating delegations hashed something out and went to the convention. Of course, there were a few states with primaries, and these few primaries produced information. The bosses in the smoke filled rooms took account of this information along with other information. I say information and not just preferences because the bosses wanted to win!

Then came '68! More democracy! Primaries everywhere one looks! But who votes in primaries? Ideologues, madmen, vegetarians, and other similarly situated people. We don't get two candidates close to one side of the median voter, but two candidates close to the median of each party.

So here we are.

That is valid criticism in general of the state of American democracy, but not really the problem in the Biden context. He could easily have been picked in a smoke filled room in 2020 - in fact, some would say that is essentially what happened.

Yes, and he won in 2020 in, IIRC, a more elegant version of the smoke filled room. There has been no smoke filled room this election year.

Yes, because he is the incumbent. How many times did the smoke filled room replace the sitting president with another nominee?

Surely they would have this time. Perhaps they still will.

The point is that Biden is not the nominee because he is an extremist or a partisan, but rather because he is the incumbent.

[dismalist]

I have some memories of the Kennedy-Nixon debate, which I saw on television [mind you] at the age of ten. It was all about policy! Substance! Analysis! That was also the last debate I saw. But it's hard to miss the shitshow today.

Both politicians and the media know what they're doing. Quality has gone down because the median television viewer has gone down in quality. As usual, the problem is us.

There is a structural problem. We are not all boobs.

Used to be that state party nominating delegations hashed something out and went to the convention. Of course, there were a few states with primaries, and these few primaries produced information. The bosses in the smoke filled rooms took account of this information along with other information. I say information and not just preferences because the bosses wanted to win!

Then came '68! More democracy! Primaries everywhere one looks! But who votes in primaries? Ideologues, madmen, vegetarians, and other similarly situated people. We don't get two candidates close to one side of the median voter, but two candidates close to the median of each party.

So here we are.

That is valid criticism in general of the state of American democracy, but not really the problem in the Biden context. He could easily have been picked in a smoke filled room in 2020 - in fact, some would say that is essentially what happened.

Yes, and he won in 2020 in, IIRC, a more elegant version of the smoke filled room. There has been no smoke filled room this election year.

Yes, because he is the incumbent. How many times did the smoke filled room replace the sitting president with another nominee?

Surely they would have this time. Perhaps they still will.

The point is that Biden is not the nominee because he is an extremist or a partisan, but rather because he is the incumbent.

Franklin Pierce
John Tyler
Millard Fillmore
Andrew Johnson
Chester Arthur

were incumbents and not renominated.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I have some memories of the Kennedy-Nixon debate, which I saw on television [mind you] at the age of ten. It was all about policy! Substance! Analysis! That was also the last debate I saw. But it's hard to miss the shitshow today.

Both politicians and the media know what they're doing. Quality has gone down because the median television viewer has gone down in quality. As usual, the problem is us.

There is a structural problem. We are not all boobs.

Used to be that state party nominating delegations hashed something out and went to the convention. Of course, there were a few states with primaries, and these few primaries produced information. The bosses in the smoke filled rooms took account of this information along with other information. I say information and not just preferences because the bosses wanted to win!

Then came '68! More democracy! Primaries everywhere one looks! But who votes in primaries? Ideologues, madmen, vegetarians, and other similarly situated people. We don't get two candidates close to one side of the median voter, but two candidates close to the median of each party.

So here we are.

That is valid criticism in general of the state of American democracy, but not really the problem in the Biden context. He could easily have been picked in a smoke filled room in 2020 - in fact, some would say that is essentially what happened.

Yes, and he won in 2020 in, IIRC, a more elegant version of the smoke filled room. There has been no smoke filled room this election year.

Yes, because he is the incumbent. How many times did the smoke filled room replace the sitting president with another nominee?

Surely they would have this time. Perhaps they still will.

The point is that Biden is not the nominee because he is an extremist or a partisan, but rather because he is the incumbent.

Franklin Pierce
John Tyler
Millard Fillmore
Andrew Johnson
Chester Arthur

were incumbents and not renominated.

Right, those are some pretty idiosyncratic situations, both in terms of the presidencies themselves and the historical time period - which is also quite removed from 1968... Anyway, the point is that while you are correct in saying that the primary system can elevate extreme candidates, that dynamics is not what brought us Biden, either in 2020, when he won the nomination because he was not seen as extreme, or in 2024, when he won as a result of incumbent advantage. He may still be replaced by the smoke filled room, as you say, but of course that would not support your contention that there is no smoke filled room post-1968. 

[dismalist]

I have some memories of the Kennedy-Nixon debate, which I saw on television [mind you] at the age of ten. It was all about policy! Substance! Analysis! That was also the last debate I saw. But it's hard to miss the shitshow today.

Both politicians and the media know what they're doing. Quality has gone down because the median television viewer has gone down in quality. As usual, the problem is us.

There is a structural problem. We are not all boobs.

Used to be that state party nominating delegations hashed something out and went to the convention. Of course, there were a few states with primaries, and these few primaries produced information. The bosses in the smoke filled rooms took account of this information along with other information. I say information and not just preferences because the bosses wanted to win!

Then came '68! More democracy! Primaries everywhere one looks! But who votes in primaries? Ideologues, madmen, vegetarians, and other similarly situated people. We don't get two candidates close to one side of the median voter, but two candidates close to the median of each party.

So here we are.

That is valid criticism in general of the state of American democracy, but not really the problem in the Biden context. He could easily have been picked in a smoke filled room in 2020 - in fact, some would say that is essentially what happened.

Yes, and he won in 2020 in, IIRC, a more elegant version of the smoke filled room. There has been no smoke filled room this election year.

Yes, because he is the incumbent. How many times did the smoke filled room replace the sitting president with another nominee?

Surely they would have this time. Perhaps they still will.

The point is that Biden is not the nominee because he is an extremist or a partisan, but rather because he is the incumbent.

Franklin Pierce
John Tyler
Millard Fillmore
Andrew Johnson
Chester Arthur

were incumbents and not renominated.

Right, those are some pretty idiosyncratic situations, both in terms of the presidencies themselves and the historical time period - which is also quite removed from 1968... Anyway, the point is that while you are correct in saying that the primary system can elevate extreme candidates, that dynamics is not what brought us Biden, either in 2020, when he won the nomination because he was not seen as extreme, or in 2024, when he won as a result of incumbent advantage. He may still be replaced by the smoke filled room, as you say, but of course that would not support your contention that there is no smoke filled room post-1968. 

Right, five idiosyncratic situations.

Then there were situations in which incumbent Presidents chose not to run again: James K. Polk, James Buchanan, Rutherford B. Hayes, Teddy Roosevelt [once], Calvin Coolidge, and Harry S. Truman, Lyndon Johnson. The smoke-filled rooms would have had some influence here.

Neither Biden nor Trump are extremists to their own primary voters. Rather, they are near the respective party's median voter. They are extremists only to the other side's primary voters. The system produces two bad candidates. One of them has to win.

If Biden was nominated in 2020 by a smoke filled room, it did a good job: Biden won! Since the Democratic primary is over, only a smoke filled room can do a Johnson [or a Nixon] on him. Smoke filled rooms change their minds easily.

"Incumbent advantage" is a chimera. Over one quarter of incumbent Presidents did not run for a second term.

Gimme those smoke filled rooms!

[AmLitHist]

If Biden steps down there is no clear and immediate replacement.

Agreed--and for that, shame on ALL the Dems.

I like Joe and campaigned for him in 2020 and all that--just like I have for every Democrat since 1976--and I've been happy with parts of his admin and not so much with others. My problem--as a lifelong Democrat--has been that for all intents, Joe has been the party (much like Trump and the GOP). Even I've been saying for over a year that he needs to step out of the race, and now, here we are. Surprise, surprise.

In my voting lifetime, back to when Carter was in office, and certainly since Bill Clinton's adminstration, there were a lot of widely-known, well-established and well-regarded Democrats in the party and in the public eye. How many "leading" Democrats can most people even name right now?  Harris, of course; Newsome; Whittmer; Pelosi and Schumer; and maybe Durbin and Duckworth and Pritzker (the latter three, maybe not--I'm in IL and have long known and campaigned for all of them); maybe, a year ago, Adam Schiff. . . . but beyond that? Of course, Sanders and Warren are around, but again, they're the old guard. Who's our upcoming young Obama-like character, who is setting the party on fire with speeches at conventions now (or back in 2020), ready to jump in for the next go-round (or more to the point, now)? Maybe Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, Eric Swallwell are that kind of young guard, but then . . . who?

Even if we look toward '28, if we'd have to lay out a "probable nominee/primary candidates" list today, how would that go?  Granted, there are another 4 years, but in the past, there has always been a pretty strong "rising stars" and/or "legacy" (e.g., Kennedys, Hillary Clinton, et al.} list, particularly going back to the '60s/'70s/'80s. There are a couple I'd be happy right now to see run in the 2028 primaries, but there's not a whole crop to choose from.

The Dems have worked ourselves into this corner by the deference to Joe--and again, I like the guy, a lot, and have for years. But it's like everyone has been on eggshells to defer to him since he beat Trump, and to my mind, he hasn't earned that deference. (We did something similar with Hillary, and we see how that worked out.) The "presumptive nominee as payment for past service" model doesn't work; I don't like it in a workplace or in politics.

At this point, what really irks me is Joe's constant harping about Trump being out only for Trump--and I agree with that.  But Joe's doing something very similar, to my mind: if we're worried about the future of democracy and the soul of the nation, then do what's best for your party, and not just what serves your own ego--get the hell out of the way (and, by the way, he could have done a lot more to nurture and groom younger Dems these past four years, as well, to have someone in the wings in the current situation).

Just my frustrated and grumpy $0.02 worth.

[Langue_doc]

48 Hours to Fix a 90-Minute Mess: Inside the Biden Camp's Post-Debate Frenzy
With countless calls and a rush of campaign events, the president's team began a damage-control effort to pressure and plead with anxious Democratic lawmakers, surrogates, activists and donors.

[spork]

Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I have some memories of the Kennedy-Nixon debate, which I saw on television [mind you] at the age of ten. It was all about policy! Substance! Analysis! That was also the last debate I saw. But it's hard to miss the shitshow today.

Both politicians and the media know what they're doing. Quality has gone down because the median television viewer has gone down in quality. As usual, the problem is us.

There is a structural problem. We are not all boobs.

Used to be that state party nominating delegations hashed something out and went to the convention. Of course, there were a few states with primaries, and these few primaries produced information. The bosses in the smoke filled rooms took account of this information along with other information. I say information and not just preferences because the bosses wanted to win!

Then came '68! More democracy! Primaries everywhere one looks! But who votes in primaries? Ideologues, madmen, vegetarians, and other similarly situated people. We don't get two candidates close to one side of the median voter, but two candidates close to the median of each party.

So here we are.

That is valid criticism in general of the state of American democracy, but not really the problem in the Biden context. He could easily have been picked in a smoke filled room in 2020 - in fact, some would say that is essentially what happened.

Yes, and he won in 2020 in, IIRC, a more elegant version of the smoke filled room. There has been no smoke filled room this election year.

Yes, because he is the incumbent. How many times did the smoke filled room replace the sitting president with another nominee?

Surely they would have this time. Perhaps they still will.

The point is that Biden is not the nominee because he is an extremist or a partisan, but rather because he is the incumbent.

Franklin Pierce
John Tyler
Millard Fillmore
Andrew Johnson
Chester Arthur

were incumbents and not renominated.

Right, those are some pretty idiosyncratic situations, both in terms of the presidencies themselves and the historical time period - which is also quite removed from 1968... Anyway, the point is that while you are correct in saying that the primary system can elevate extreme candidates, that dynamics is not what brought us Biden, either in 2020, when he won the nomination because he was not seen as extreme, or in 2024, when he won as a result of incumbent advantage. He may still be replaced by the smoke filled room, as you say, but of course that would not support your contention that there is no smoke filled room post-1968. 

Right, five idiosyncratic situations.

Then there were situations in which incumbent Presidents chose not to run again: James K. Polk, James Buchanan, Rutherford B. Hayes, Teddy Roosevelt [once], Calvin Coolidge, and Harry S. Truman, Lyndon Johnson. The smoke-filled rooms would have had some influence here.

Neither Biden nor Trump are extremists to their own primary voters. Rather, they are near the respective party's median voter. They are extremists only to the other side's primary voters. The system produces two bad candidates. One of them has to win.

If Biden was nominated in 2020 by a smoke filled room, it did a good job: Biden won! Since the Democratic primary is over, only a smoke filled room can do a Johnson [or a Nixon] on him. Smoke filled rooms change their minds easily.

"Incumbent advantage" is a chimera. Over one quarter of incumbent Presidents did not run for a second term.

Gimme those smoke filled rooms!

Ok I'm not going to go back and forth with you forever, but read your own post that I initially quoted. I'm not arguing with your general point about the primary system sometimes bringing extreme candidates to the forefront. I'm saying that this dynamic is not what brought us Biden the candidate, either in 2020 or in 2024. Biden was hardly political extreme then or now and he did not beat out more centrist candidates in the 2024 primary because there was no opposition - which is the incumbent advantage.

And yes, you should read into those individuals you mentioned a few posts up. They all mostly around the civil war and the collapse of the Whig party.

[ciao_yall]

In 2016 "smoke-filled rooms" would have given us Jeb Bush as the R candidate. In 2008, McCain was the 3rd choice among the party powerful.

I'm not in a position to decide about Biden alternatives but the same bozos who agreed to a debate without fact checking with Trump by CNN aren't impressing me with their political savvy. Or common sense.

[ciao_yall]

These are not "debates"  They are some weird case of political theater and all people care about is who "won".  I think the winner last night may have been Robert Kennedy.

As seen on Twitter:  I'm Joe Biden and I forgot this ad.

As seen on SNL: The most recent polls have Biden at 15% Trump at 15% and Dear God please kill me now at 70%.

My personal wish is that both candidates suffer an incapacitating stroke between now and November.

Agreed.

If Trump goes, some surrogate will keep yelling about how Biden isn't far behind.

If Biden goes, anyone else will look like a hasty decision.

If both go, any Trump surrogate will sound unhinged trying to run on his momentum. Gavin Newsom will step in and appeal to a broad enough electorate.