This subreddit is delusional, I wouldn't take any of these suggestions seriously.
Frankly, I feel people will be in for a disappointment with Keir Starmer in the UK as well. Any criticism of his agenda is downvoted into oblivion on this subreddit similar to anyone who suggested that Biden should step down, or that his cognitive abilities didn't appear solid. Until reality smacks everyone in the face this subreddit prefers to keep huffing copium.
No one is supposed to know who they are right now. But they can be introduced with a concerted effort and the average person can learn about them then.
There won't be a concerted effort though. it will be a division that we don't need right now. There is no one suggestion that everyone would fall behind without having ALOT of questions and discovery about that person. It would also give the opposition TONS of new attack lines and opportunities to sow dissent.
> Roy Cooper
It obviously can't be anyone other than Kamala Harris. Despite her unpopularity, the optics of passing over the first female, first POC vice president is untenable. We all knew that electing Biden was electing Biden's cabinet to govern and electing Trump was electing Trump to govern (because he burns through cabinet members so fast). Harris needs to come out and assure the nation that she will keep the cabinet steady and maybe even offer one new initiative to get excited about.
Kamala really would be the only way. Same admin, same campaign organization, and could run on continuing Biden’s legacy so no need to start new policy fights over Medicare for all or anything like that. Plus she was actually elected to the role of “Biden’s backup president”, so abdicating to Harris wouldn’t be seen as skipping the democratic process.
I’m no Kamala fan, but if people want Biden to step down then she really is the only viable alternative.
I was always against Biden stepping down because I’m aware that it would be nearly impossible to replace him with anyone other than Kamala Harris and I’m not a fan of Kamala Harris.
Now, I’m thinking that Kamala Harris would be an improvements.
5 months is plenty time. Europeans campaign for *2 months*. No voter cares if this makes Dems look in "disarray" (wouldn't it be more embarrassing if they *didn't* pick someone else?).
Just get someone who is at minimum physically and mentally able to perform the hardest job in the world. 2 week after picking a new candidate, this whole debate will be old news.
>5 months is plenty time. Europeans campaign for *2 months*.
WE ARE NOT EUROS PERIOD
>No voter cares if this makes Dems look in "disarray".
Swing voters do care, and they are arguably more important than solid Dem supporters. Solid Dem voters won't change their vote even if Trump ran against a wet sock. Swing voters do care about the appearance of a candidate and the overall vibes of the party.
>2 week after picking a new candidate, this whole debate will be old news.
Nope, I'm sorry, but it won't.
>WE ARE NOT EUROS PERIOD
Doesn't matter. Dems would stil have 2.5X more time than a European campaign. You can pitch a new President in that time.
>Nope, I'm sorry, but it won't.
Yes, it will. How long do you think news cycles last? You can't even recall headlines from last week.
Bottom line is that the sensible move is to pick a candidate who will surely be alive come election day.
Are you delusional? You think the average voter even knows what that is?
JFC this subreddit is as stuck in their beliefs as some of the other political echo chambers on this website
A dead man as president would certainly have advantages, sadly the constitution would instantly pass on the role to the next person in the order of succession.
This election will be far more about turnout and who chooses to vote third party than it will be about swing voters. I have no idea what the Dems should do, but swing voters should not be the concern.
The politically unengaged who are going to decide the election don’t actually care if Dems are in disarray. They won’t even pay attention. “Biden old” makes for easy TikTok’s and insta reels and YouTube edits. “Dems in disarray” does not.
I'll die on the hill that its harder to be an NFL QB than a central midfielder.
At any given time there are maybe 10-15 NFL QBs that are secure in their job, and being the 70th best quarterback in the world means you're working at a car wash or selling insurance.
There's fewer open positions to be an NFL quarterback, but that doesn't mean that the job is harder than a central midfielder.
You don't even have to be much of an athlete to be a QB, let alone be athletic *and* intelligent/skillful. (not to mention midfielders have to play continuously for 45m (twice), and take part in offense and defense)
I don't think you know anything about American football. Are you American?
All of the top QBs are athletic freaks.
Josh Allen is 6-5 240 lbs, and outruns and runs over defenders, who are themselves athletic freaks and amongst the biggest and fastest humans on earth. Reading variable NFL defenses is the most cerebral activity in sports and primarily why it's the hardest position in sports. two seconds to read 11 men on the field, make a decision and throw a ball 20/30 yards wile 5 giant dudes are trying to rip your head off.
I've got my American citizenship and have lived there for 15 years. I also know Football from a European perspective.
Brady and Manning were not athletic freaks - not like Kante or Zidane. The pace of play in central mid is constant and non-stop for 90 minutes.
1. Anybody and everybody. Yes, including Kamala Harris. She can stand next to Trump and easily win the eye test as the far younger, more attractive human who speaks in normal, coherent sentences, which is really how low the bar is these days. She can do more and longer campaign rallies than Biden. She can take interviews and town halls. A lot of undecideds are begging for an alternative, and she gives them one. She has real issues, but the are not bigger than Biden's right now.
2. Who cares, honestly. The GOP was in insane levels of disarray with the speakers nonsense, but people forgot once it got figured out. When a candidate is selected in August, people will forget. The average voter still has no idea what the Speaker of the House even does.
3. The convention will be wall-to-wall coverage, people will see and have a few months to be acqauinted to the new candidate. We still talk about incumbency advantage and name recognition like it's 2004, and it's not. The media cycle moves very fast and people catch this quicker than ever with social media. A clean-ish slate is actually pretty attractive right now.
Yeah, her disapproval rating is lower than Biden's rating. I don't think she would worse than him.
>Kamala has a net approval of -10.1% compared to Biden's 16.9
All of this is from the FiveThirtyEight website
It wasn't because she was bombing on the trail or anything. It was because of strategic issues with the campaign. Not sure what lane to run in the Dem primary. Running out of money. Campaign infighting. She could've cut back on ads, gone on to Iowa and gotten a Klobuchar/Warren/Buttigieg level performance, but better to cut losses at that point.
Money and message aren't a problem in the 2024 general election. There's plenty of money, and the message is all the stuff they've done and how much Trump sucks.
I just have a hard time not seeing american voters are prettt racists and sexists. Give her the actual nom and my hypothesis is it triggers the a big backlash.
Do you think that speculative issue outweighs the concrete visible issue we already face?
I think this is where the Biden doomers are coming from. We are not looking for a perfect replacement.
You’re vastly overrating voters needing to “know” a candidate. Trump is not a popular figure, and Republican policies are equally unpopular. A young candidate who can stand up there and paint Trump as self-interested and themselves as working to preserve Medicare/medicaid/social security while restoring Roe is all it takes to win.
Do a thought experiment — reverse who’s getting replaced. If Nikki Haley replaced Trump, do you really think swing voters in Wisconsin who dislike Biden would suddenly all become firm Biden voters because they don’t know Haley well enough?
agreed. News can travel fast in the right environment. Think how fast Covid hit and became common knowledge in the minds of our country and everybody knew about it.
1) I think this debate has made the burden of proof fall equally on Biden supporters to prove he is the candidate most likely to win. Genuinely asking why people think incumbency is such a knock down argument.
2) They’re doing that already. But IMO, it looks pretty coordinated to say “we collectively rapidly decided Biden was no longer fit to serve, he agreed, he stepped down, we picked Harris/Newsom, they’re the nominee now. Back to your regularly scheduled coverage about Trump felonies.”
3) Agreed, but the second best time is now.
On the MI governorship it wouldn’t be a loss because the LT gov is also a democrat, and neither of them can run in 2026 for their current positions.
So the governorship is safe.
But ya Cooper would be an issue because nobody knows who he is.
If there’s a winning ticket it might be Whitmer/Booker but this all could change in a week when the post debate polls will start coming in. If there’s barely a change then we continue as normal, if it’s bad we might need to consider whitmer
1. Gavin Newsom, J.B. Pritzker, Josh Shapiro, Gretchen Whitmer, Sherrod Brown, and Kamala Harris come to mind. Hell, I’ll take Dean Phillips at this point.
2. I’m not worried about what the GOP and right-wing media would say. They’re going to find a negative spin no matter what, whether it’s to say Democrats are in disarray or that they’re highly competent evil Marxists who want to destroy America.
3. Yes. Ideally, sometime from February to April of 2023, Biden would have announced that he is not running for re-election. He could have endorsed Kamala while still allowing enough time for a competitive primary. That opportunity has passed. You’re right that scrambling to change candidates at the last second is an awful plan. But it is worse than sticking with Biden and losing? If Trump is an existential threat to democracy, are we going to sit back and watch in horror as the inevitable happens, or are we going to pull out all the stops? The Democrats got into this mess by telling polite lies instead of uncomfortable truths. Nobody’s denying that it’s a terrible situation with no right choices, but something has to change.
1. Polis, Whitmer, Shapiro. That’s three great options right there.
2. And what, you think that’s worse than them running looping ads of Biden stumbling over basic questions for months is better than them rambling about the Dems nomination process?
3. Shoulda woulda coulda, he shouldn’t have run in the first place, but here we are.
Anything and anyone (besides Kamala) is better than this. I’m serious.
2 could be mitigated if Biden owns that it’s his decision to step down and takes full responsibility for it. It’s all about communications framing, but yeah either way it’ll make the Dems look disorganized. All that to say, it doesn’t matter if they look disorganized. Anything is better than this.
As for 3, I disagree. 5 months is a long time and a lot can be done. It’s unprecedented but not impossible.
We’re a laughing joke to the world right now.
At this point, most Americans would love to vote for a "normal" presidential candidate, i.e. a middle-aged white guy with some government and/or military experience, and mainstream policy positions.
(Democrats are going to have to defer on the goal of getting a minority or woman in the white house this time, it comes with too much risk and the stakes are too high. And they don't have another Obama.)
I'm not sure why Mark Kelly's name doesn't come up more.
Can you imagine how we can tell the black woman who’s next in line to wait longer for her turn in favor of a middle-aged white man without tearing the coalition apart?
The question isn’t whether your ideal candidate would be better than Biden, it’s whether Kamala Harris would be better than Biden.
Up until last night, my answer to that question would have been no, but i think that’s not true anymore. Kamala Harris, for all her flaws, is better than 2024 Joe Biden.
Constitutional next in line means nothing in the context of elections.
The only standard for "better than Biden" that matters is the ability win against Trump in the general election.
Kamala does not meet that standard. I like her, I know she is competent and capable, and I know she will lose if she is the top of the ticket.
1. An open question that has multiple plausible answers. The Convention is probably the right way to do it, getting publicity and procedural legitimacy. Personally, Gretchen Whitmer, while not S-tier famous, has all the right stuff (personality, state, rank/experience, etc). Losing governorship isn't as bad as losing presidency (consider the plans Trump may implement).
2. They're having a field day with Biden's health anyway. "We got our shit together, we are responsible adults-in-the-room and don't run bad candidates" is a story that can be played well, with an addition of "why can't Republicans replace the convicted felon"
3. Months ago things haven't gotten this bad, now they have. Obviously, the motion should start with his campaign, after all the prep is in place.
In five months this display is likely to repeat, maybe multiple times. Even withoud debates. Even smaller freezes will now hit as meaningful. With where the polls are, Biden is likely cooked.
>What's to stop the GOP from having a field day and saying that the Democrats are in disarray and can't get their act together?
This is what literally everyone in America thinks right now.
>then he himself **should've announced his desire to step down months ago**
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is now.
Seriously.
Many of us *were* screaming about this months ago. But I was told *inCumbEnCy aDVantAGe* was a context independent "Hat of Electability +1" we could *never* give up.
1. after last night a lot of people
2. they're going to say whatever they want, including as or probably more damaging things if Biden stays on the ticket
3. an additional 20% chance of keeping Trump out of office is infinitely more important than the Michigan governorship
1. There are many great candidates. The voters could still weigh in, there's still just barely enough time. A special caucus could be held next month if the DNC wanted, in whatever states they wanted. The DNC just has to pay for it.
2. We already look terrible because we put up a candidate who, turns out, can't communicate. It's a gamble to stick with him. He would almost certainly lose if the election were held today.
3. Sunk cost fallacy. It doesn't matter what happened in the past. What matters is what we do right now.
The “Never Trumps” and “Blue no matter who” are going to vote for any democratic candidate. They also voted for Hilary and Biden. What made the difference in those elections were the swing votes, independents, moderates, uninformed, etc. The people who are already dead set on voting Biden won’t be flopping over to the red. This comes down to five states with razor thin margins and Biden failed at the one thing he had to do. Of course this should have been the plan from the jump but Biden will not win and a Hail Mary is our only option.
So the two names I see a lot of Harris (the obvious choice as she’s VP and would be the least disruptive in a transfer) and Whitmer. The thing that I think people here need to hear is: people are MUCH more racist and sexist than they openly acknowledge.
We elected a black man as president and the right is actively burning down the country. A lot of people who are looking third party may suddenly decide that the “risk” of a black woman is too great.
If it’s Whitmer and race is taken out of the equation (which will draw very valid criticism from the black community), well I think we can all say that Clinton was a great candidate who was discredited due to relentless sexism (and decades of sexist propaganda). Whitmer doesn’t have decades against her, but that unspoken sexism may sway a lot of undecided voters or right wing dropouts to suddenly vote R once in her right starts churning out easy rhetoric.
I just don’t see an option for him stepping down at this point.
The other option is Mark Kelly. Which while i do not like the idea of having yet another senate election he would poll rather well.
Space guy, military veteran, from a swing state, has a pretty strong connection to those who suffer from shootings, and has a pretty good approval rating.
If we have to replace the top of the ticket then he might not be a bad idea.
Though I honestly think we should stick with Biden and see how things go
I just had to Google who Roy Cooper is. That's not a good start.
I've had to Google pretty much every suggestion on this subreddit. And I promise your average voter is even more confused than I am.
This subreddit is delusional, I wouldn't take any of these suggestions seriously. Frankly, I feel people will be in for a disappointment with Keir Starmer in the UK as well. Any criticism of his agenda is downvoted into oblivion on this subreddit similar to anyone who suggested that Biden should step down, or that his cognitive abilities didn't appear solid. Until reality smacks everyone in the face this subreddit prefers to keep huffing copium.
No one is supposed to know who they are right now. But they can be introduced with a concerted effort and the average person can learn about them then.
There won't be a concerted effort though. it will be a division that we don't need right now. There is no one suggestion that everyone would fall behind without having ALOT of questions and discovery about that person. It would also give the opposition TONS of new attack lines and opportunities to sow dissent.
Precisely my point.
> Roy Cooper It obviously can't be anyone other than Kamala Harris. Despite her unpopularity, the optics of passing over the first female, first POC vice president is untenable. We all knew that electing Biden was electing Biden's cabinet to govern and electing Trump was electing Trump to govern (because he burns through cabinet members so fast). Harris needs to come out and assure the nation that she will keep the cabinet steady and maybe even offer one new initiative to get excited about.
Kamala really would be the only way. Same admin, same campaign organization, and could run on continuing Biden’s legacy so no need to start new policy fights over Medicare for all or anything like that. Plus she was actually elected to the role of “Biden’s backup president”, so abdicating to Harris wouldn’t be seen as skipping the democratic process. I’m no Kamala fan, but if people want Biden to step down then she really is the only viable alternative.
Just gona respond to one point that’s false, we don’t lose the MI governorship. The LT Gov is a dem and fairly well liked in the state.
I was always against Biden stepping down because I’m aware that it would be nearly impossible to replace him with anyone other than Kamala Harris and I’m not a fan of Kamala Harris. Now, I’m thinking that Kamala Harris would be an improvements.
That’s also just untrue. There’s atleast 12 democratic front runners that could jump in the second the hat drops
Having 12 jump in at once is exactly what we need to avoid. And the only way to avoid that is Kamala Harris
I would much rather have a quick primary than a quick loss. This version of Joe cannot campaign and convince people to win.
5 months is plenty time. Europeans campaign for *2 months*. No voter cares if this makes Dems look in "disarray" (wouldn't it be more embarrassing if they *didn't* pick someone else?). Just get someone who is at minimum physically and mentally able to perform the hardest job in the world. 2 week after picking a new candidate, this whole debate will be old news.
>5 months is plenty time. Europeans campaign for *2 months*. WE ARE NOT EUROS PERIOD >No voter cares if this makes Dems look in "disarray". Swing voters do care, and they are arguably more important than solid Dem supporters. Solid Dem voters won't change their vote even if Trump ran against a wet sock. Swing voters do care about the appearance of a candidate and the overall vibes of the party. >2 week after picking a new candidate, this whole debate will be old news. Nope, I'm sorry, but it won't.
>WE ARE NOT EUROS PERIOD Doesn't matter. Dems would stil have 2.5X more time than a European campaign. You can pitch a new President in that time. >Nope, I'm sorry, but it won't. Yes, it will. How long do you think news cycles last? You can't even recall headlines from last week. Bottom line is that the sensible move is to pick a candidate who will surely be alive come election day.
The debate is likely already getting kicked off the headlines since Chevron was killed
Nah, normies don’t understand Chevron, as awful as that ruling and its implications are.
Tbh I’m not sure if normies cared about the debate either. All they saw was Crazy Trump and Old Biden which means their opinion doesn’t change
There is zero truth to this. C'mon man.
Are you delusional? You think the average voter even knows what that is? JFC this subreddit is as stuck in their beliefs as some of the other political echo chambers on this website
A dead man as president would certainly have advantages, sadly the constitution would instantly pass on the role to the next person in the order of succession.
This election will be far more about turnout and who chooses to vote third party than it will be about swing voters. I have no idea what the Dems should do, but swing voters should not be the concern.
The politically unengaged who are going to decide the election don’t actually care if Dems are in disarray. They won’t even pay attention. “Biden old” makes for easy TikTok’s and insta reels and YouTube edits. “Dems in disarray” does not.
2 weeks after the debate the whole debate will be old news. Some of you attach way too much significance to the immediate moment you live in.
The hardest job in the world is NFL starting QB. There are literally thousands, if not 10’s of thousands of people who could be adequate presidents.
Most important job Also, in this case the hardest job in the world is central midfielder.
I'll die on the hill that its harder to be an NFL QB than a central midfielder. At any given time there are maybe 10-15 NFL QBs that are secure in their job, and being the 70th best quarterback in the world means you're working at a car wash or selling insurance.
There's fewer open positions to be an NFL quarterback, but that doesn't mean that the job is harder than a central midfielder. You don't even have to be much of an athlete to be a QB, let alone be athletic *and* intelligent/skillful. (not to mention midfielders have to play continuously for 45m (twice), and take part in offense and defense)
I don't think you know anything about American football. Are you American? All of the top QBs are athletic freaks. Josh Allen is 6-5 240 lbs, and outruns and runs over defenders, who are themselves athletic freaks and amongst the biggest and fastest humans on earth. Reading variable NFL defenses is the most cerebral activity in sports and primarily why it's the hardest position in sports. two seconds to read 11 men on the field, make a decision and throw a ball 20/30 yards wile 5 giant dudes are trying to rip your head off.
I've got my American citizenship and have lived there for 15 years. I also know Football from a European perspective. Brady and Manning were not athletic freaks - not like Kante or Zidane. The pace of play in central mid is constant and non-stop for 90 minutes.
250,000 people run the boston marathon every year. going 6 or 7 miles over 90 minutes is not that impressive to me.
They don't do it playing Champions League football.
1. Anybody and everybody. Yes, including Kamala Harris. She can stand next to Trump and easily win the eye test as the far younger, more attractive human who speaks in normal, coherent sentences, which is really how low the bar is these days. She can do more and longer campaign rallies than Biden. She can take interviews and town halls. A lot of undecideds are begging for an alternative, and she gives them one. She has real issues, but the are not bigger than Biden's right now. 2. Who cares, honestly. The GOP was in insane levels of disarray with the speakers nonsense, but people forgot once it got figured out. When a candidate is selected in August, people will forget. The average voter still has no idea what the Speaker of the House even does. 3. The convention will be wall-to-wall coverage, people will see and have a few months to be acqauinted to the new candidate. We still talk about incumbency advantage and name recognition like it's 2004, and it's not. The media cycle moves very fast and people catch this quicker than ever with social media. A clean-ish slate is actually pretty attractive right now.
Yeah the "Harris is uniquely, atrociously bad" idea is conventional wisdom in some circles, but I don't think it's well founded at all.
Yeah, her disapproval rating is lower than Biden's rating. I don't think she would worse than him. >Kamala has a net approval of -10.1% compared to Biden's 16.9 All of this is from the FiveThirtyEight website
I mean, there’s a good reason she withdrew from the race before the Iowa caucuses even took place. Her campaign was a disaster
It wasn't because she was bombing on the trail or anything. It was because of strategic issues with the campaign. Not sure what lane to run in the Dem primary. Running out of money. Campaign infighting. She could've cut back on ads, gone on to Iowa and gotten a Klobuchar/Warren/Buttigieg level performance, but better to cut losses at that point. Money and message aren't a problem in the 2024 general election. There's plenty of money, and the message is all the stuff they've done and how much Trump sucks.
I just have a hard time not seeing american voters are prettt racists and sexists. Give her the actual nom and my hypothesis is it triggers the a big backlash.
Do you think that speculative issue outweighs the concrete visible issue we already face? I think this is where the Biden doomers are coming from. We are not looking for a perfect replacement.
Talk to normies. They don't even know who Harris is. Only terminally online liberals and conservatives have feelings about her.
Kamala Harris speaks in coherent sentences? She's famous for incomprehensible word salads.
Agree with everything you said. I’ve said it a million times, but we can’t stoop lower than this.
You’re vastly overrating voters needing to “know” a candidate. Trump is not a popular figure, and Republican policies are equally unpopular. A young candidate who can stand up there and paint Trump as self-interested and themselves as working to preserve Medicare/medicaid/social security while restoring Roe is all it takes to win. Do a thought experiment — reverse who’s getting replaced. If Nikki Haley replaced Trump, do you really think swing voters in Wisconsin who dislike Biden would suddenly all become firm Biden voters because they don’t know Haley well enough?
agreed. News can travel fast in the right environment. Think how fast Covid hit and became common knowledge in the minds of our country and everybody knew about it.
1) I think this debate has made the burden of proof fall equally on Biden supporters to prove he is the candidate most likely to win. Genuinely asking why people think incumbency is such a knock down argument. 2) They’re doing that already. But IMO, it looks pretty coordinated to say “we collectively rapidly decided Biden was no longer fit to serve, he agreed, he stepped down, we picked Harris/Newsom, they’re the nominee now. Back to your regularly scheduled coverage about Trump felonies.” 3) Agreed, but the second best time is now.
On the MI governorship it wouldn’t be a loss because the LT gov is also a democrat, and neither of them can run in 2026 for their current positions. So the governorship is safe. But ya Cooper would be an issue because nobody knows who he is. If there’s a winning ticket it might be Whitmer/Booker but this all could change in a week when the post debate polls will start coming in. If there’s barely a change then we continue as normal, if it’s bad we might need to consider whitmer
What's the feeling on Hakeem Jeffries?
Too unknown at this point. The main problem is that he comes from NYC and that’s not exactly a great look for the rest of the country.
I like Hakeem, he needs to stay in the House though and hope for speakership in 26
He’s on track for a speakership in 24
I’m too young to remember—was there ever talk about replacing Kerry or Gore as the nominee?
I think Kerry but not Gore
He is not going to be fit to be president in 4 years, even if you make the argument that he is right now.
1. Gavin Newsom, J.B. Pritzker, Josh Shapiro, Gretchen Whitmer, Sherrod Brown, and Kamala Harris come to mind. Hell, I’ll take Dean Phillips at this point. 2. I’m not worried about what the GOP and right-wing media would say. They’re going to find a negative spin no matter what, whether it’s to say Democrats are in disarray or that they’re highly competent evil Marxists who want to destroy America. 3. Yes. Ideally, sometime from February to April of 2023, Biden would have announced that he is not running for re-election. He could have endorsed Kamala while still allowing enough time for a competitive primary. That opportunity has passed. You’re right that scrambling to change candidates at the last second is an awful plan. But it is worse than sticking with Biden and losing? If Trump is an existential threat to democracy, are we going to sit back and watch in horror as the inevitable happens, or are we going to pull out all the stops? The Democrats got into this mess by telling polite lies instead of uncomfortable truths. Nobody’s denying that it’s a terrible situation with no right choices, but something has to change.
1. Polis, Whitmer, Shapiro. That’s three great options right there. 2. And what, you think that’s worse than them running looping ads of Biden stumbling over basic questions for months is better than them rambling about the Dems nomination process? 3. Shoulda woulda coulda, he shouldn’t have run in the first place, but here we are.
Anything and anyone (besides Kamala) is better than this. I’m serious. 2 could be mitigated if Biden owns that it’s his decision to step down and takes full responsibility for it. It’s all about communications framing, but yeah either way it’ll make the Dems look disorganized. All that to say, it doesn’t matter if they look disorganized. Anything is better than this. As for 3, I disagree. 5 months is a long time and a lot can be done. It’s unprecedented but not impossible. We’re a laughing joke to the world right now.
At this point, most Americans would love to vote for a "normal" presidential candidate, i.e. a middle-aged white guy with some government and/or military experience, and mainstream policy positions. (Democrats are going to have to defer on the goal of getting a minority or woman in the white house this time, it comes with too much risk and the stakes are too high. And they don't have another Obama.) I'm not sure why Mark Kelly's name doesn't come up more.
Can you imagine how we can tell the black woman who’s next in line to wait longer for her turn in favor of a middle-aged white man without tearing the coalition apart? The question isn’t whether your ideal candidate would be better than Biden, it’s whether Kamala Harris would be better than Biden. Up until last night, my answer to that question would have been no, but i think that’s not true anymore. Kamala Harris, for all her flaws, is better than 2024 Joe Biden.
Constitutional next in line means nothing in the context of elections. The only standard for "better than Biden" that matters is the ability win against Trump in the general election. Kamala does not meet that standard. I like her, I know she is competent and capable, and I know she will lose if she is the top of the ticket.
Because we like our senator and don’t want senator election round 4 down here
1. An open question that has multiple plausible answers. The Convention is probably the right way to do it, getting publicity and procedural legitimacy. Personally, Gretchen Whitmer, while not S-tier famous, has all the right stuff (personality, state, rank/experience, etc). Losing governorship isn't as bad as losing presidency (consider the plans Trump may implement). 2. They're having a field day with Biden's health anyway. "We got our shit together, we are responsible adults-in-the-room and don't run bad candidates" is a story that can be played well, with an addition of "why can't Republicans replace the convicted felon" 3. Months ago things haven't gotten this bad, now they have. Obviously, the motion should start with his campaign, after all the prep is in place. In five months this display is likely to repeat, maybe multiple times. Even withoud debates. Even smaller freezes will now hit as meaningful. With where the polls are, Biden is likely cooked.
>What's to stop the GOP from having a field day and saying that the Democrats are in disarray and can't get their act together? This is what literally everyone in America thinks right now. >then he himself **should've announced his desire to step down months ago** The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is now.
Seriously. Many of us *were* screaming about this months ago. But I was told *inCumbEnCy aDVantAGe* was a context independent "Hat of Electability +1" we could *never* give up.
1. after last night a lot of people 2. they're going to say whatever they want, including as or probably more damaging things if Biden stays on the ticket 3. an additional 20% chance of keeping Trump out of office is infinitely more important than the Michigan governorship
We’d do both when it comes to the governorship actually. The Lt Governor is a Dem and well liked. Whitmer has a lot of upsides.
Biden aint popular, the DNC simply FORCED him onto us! Replace him!
1. There are many great candidates. The voters could still weigh in, there's still just barely enough time. A special caucus could be held next month if the DNC wanted, in whatever states they wanted. The DNC just has to pay for it. 2. We already look terrible because we put up a candidate who, turns out, can't communicate. It's a gamble to stick with him. He would almost certainly lose if the election were held today. 3. Sunk cost fallacy. It doesn't matter what happened in the past. What matters is what we do right now.
he just needs to say 'yeah I'm old but at least I won't force your 13 year old daughter to have her uncles baby'.
The “Never Trumps” and “Blue no matter who” are going to vote for any democratic candidate. They also voted for Hilary and Biden. What made the difference in those elections were the swing votes, independents, moderates, uninformed, etc. The people who are already dead set on voting Biden won’t be flopping over to the red. This comes down to five states with razor thin margins and Biden failed at the one thing he had to do. Of course this should have been the plan from the jump but Biden will not win and a Hail Mary is our only option.
Bernie has polled better than any neo lib for the last EIGHT years. Stomps Trump actually, are y'all ready for that
So the two names I see a lot of Harris (the obvious choice as she’s VP and would be the least disruptive in a transfer) and Whitmer. The thing that I think people here need to hear is: people are MUCH more racist and sexist than they openly acknowledge. We elected a black man as president and the right is actively burning down the country. A lot of people who are looking third party may suddenly decide that the “risk” of a black woman is too great. If it’s Whitmer and race is taken out of the equation (which will draw very valid criticism from the black community), well I think we can all say that Clinton was a great candidate who was discredited due to relentless sexism (and decades of sexist propaganda). Whitmer doesn’t have decades against her, but that unspoken sexism may sway a lot of undecided voters or right wing dropouts to suddenly vote R once in her right starts churning out easy rhetoric. I just don’t see an option for him stepping down at this point.
The other option is Mark Kelly. Which while i do not like the idea of having yet another senate election he would poll rather well. Space guy, military veteran, from a swing state, has a pretty strong connection to those who suffer from shootings, and has a pretty good approval rating. If we have to replace the top of the ticket then he might not be a bad idea. Though I honestly think we should stick with Biden and see how things go