Last weekend, the elite business and financial interests that fund the campaigns of many moderate/conservative Democrats panicked. They were facing the prospect of Bernie Sanders winning a large number of delegates in a fractured field, making his nomination almost certain. This panic was frantically conveyed to the Democratic establishment, which faced the prospect of losing its funding and therefore its only claim to power within the party.
That panic has led to an unforced error, the consequences of which will manifest themselves within the coming weeks and months. If we’re lucky, we can course correct before the general election. It’s up to the Democratic primary voters, who will have to decide whether or not this is an error they wish to carry into the general election, where it could easily lead to a Trump victory. I will vote for Biden, but I’m not the vote he needs.
Forcing Pete Buttigieg, Michael Bloomberg and Amy Klobuchar out of the race was a mistake. Choosing Joe Biden as the standard bearer for the establishment was a mistake.
92% of the people frequenting this website knew that at one time, but have forgotten. 8% was where Biden’s straw poll numbers were stuck before Super Tuesday.
I understand why it was done. Biden had just come off a victory in South Carolina. He also gave a less messy than expected debate performance. But (and more on this later), he only spoke for 12.5 minutes.
There are a lot of reasons not to vote for Joe Biden. There’s the past. His vote for war with Iraq, his weird affinity for Republicans and desire to curry favor with them, his advocacy for cuts to social security in tandem with Paul Ryan, his failures during the Anita Hill testimony, I mean this sentence could run on forever.
This is a weak candidate, not in keeping with the times or needs. I’ll let Kamala Harris explain:
Harris during the debate went after Biden for his record on busing, sharing a story from her childhood and saying, "There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bussed to school every day. And that little girl was me." — theweek.com/...
If you want to read the whole sorry tale of how proudly Biden wore his conservatism for decades, you could read Yesterday’s Man: The Case Against Joe Biden. Yesterday’s Man, and that would be why Biden is polling in single digits among voters under 45. Voters who need to be energized to show up. What solutions does Biden have for our systemic failures?
Why would we trust someone who helped cause disasters like Iraq and the bankruptcy crisis to offer solutions to them? Here’s Elizabeth Warren explaining why she ran:
On the day he entered the race, in April, she said the fact that she had sided with consumers and families was a “matter of public record.”
“I got in that fight because they just didn’t have anyone,” Ms. Warren said, “and Joe Biden was on the side of the credit card companies.” — www.nytimes.com/…
Those quotes will be aired over and over again. There’s more:
Trump is already laying the ground work for this line of attack by claiming he's reforming criminal justice. It won't win him many black/brown voters, but it may well help him overcome the skepticism of some white voters and it may lead others to stay home. To get people to say “a pox on both houses” is Trump’s strategy.
This is Joe Biden’s third run for the presidential nomination. He’s faltered twice before, and neither failure was accidental. His conservative legislative history and penchant for exaggeration has led to his prior campaigns imploding.
He has already made one gaffe that should have ended his campaign:
Joe Biden was not arrested in South Africa while trying to see Nelson Mandela, his campaign has conceded.
The US presidential contender had repeatedly said he was arrested during a trip there in the 1970s, when South Africa was under apartheid.
But a deputy campaign managers told reporters Mr Biden had been referring to an episode where he was "separated" from black colleagues at an airport. — www.bbc.com/...
Oh, you didn’t hear about that? It was ignored when he was fading, but it will come up again. Let’s forget the gaffes and exaggerations. Let’s pretend the media won’t report them and won’t cover Trump’s jabs about them. Let’s pretend Joe Biden can be protected from himself for the next 8 months and from his past.
That still leaves out the really important reason to pick someone other than Joe. Our future.
He doesn’t support the progressive policies we do. He’s not for Medicare for All, or for a living wage, or College for All.
But fearful people might look past all of that you say. That’s true, a lot of this country is afraid of Trump and will vote for a return to normal, which is all Joe is offering. Another big chunk has gotten used to him and another 40% is all in for him. Impeachment hasn’t dented their enthusiasm.
What they won’t look past is the evidence in front of their own eyes. In the next debate, where Bernie and Biden are on stage for two hours straight and Biden has to fill more than 12 minutes. There won’t be seven candidates clamoring to speak. Biden’s campaign knows the problem, and I’m sure many of you do as well. His campaign staff have protected him by coaching him to minimize his time by saying “and my time’s up”. It won’t fly when he has to fill an entire hour on the stage against Bernie. With Trump, it will be a disaster.
Here, why don’t I let Biden explain the problem:
Many Democrats are afraid, and a slim majority of Americans say they want a return to “normalcy” and an end to Trump. I want an end to Trump‘s power, and a better future. I would accept normalcy.
But I’m a solid vote. Much of this country won’t “Vote Blue no matter who”, and Biden is not going to be able to persuade them. Here, let’s let him explain in his own words:
These issues are likely part of the reason Biden’s former boss tried to dissuade him from running:
The two men spoke at least a half dozen times before Mr. Biden decided to run, and Mr. Obama took pains to cast his doubts about the campaign in personal terms.
“You don’t have to do this, Joe, you really don’t,” Mr. Obama told Mr. Biden earlier this year, according to a person familiar with the exchange. — www.nytimes.com/...
That instinct, shared by 92% of this site's readership, was the right one. Biden should have taken his former boss’s advice.
If Biden manages to chance his way into the nomination, it’s going to be a disaster in the general. True, Trump is also full of gaffes and forgetfulness. But incumbency is shield enough for him. People have seen him in the job for four years. Plus bullying comes naturally to Trump, he never gets mixed up when he is bullying people. Which will mean more episodes like this one:
President Trump and ex-veep Joe Biden threaten to fight each other
President Donald Trump lashed out at Joe Biden, after the former vice president said he would have “beat the hell out” Trump in high school for disrespecting women. —
www.cnbc.com/...
Those normalcy voters, the sole selling point of Biden’s campaign, they will be turned off and call a pox on both our houses.
Ah, but you say, electability and polls.
Wanna see how Fox News and Republicans are going to run with this? They’ve already got things ready to go:
Do me a favor and show that to a couple of friends who have some perspective, regular non-political junkies, perhaps even independents. It’ll be an interesting experiment. Or show it to a child, they are often a perfect proxy for the loosely-engaged marginal voter who shows up only in presidential years and treats politics as a chore to get over with in a week so they can get back to watching a more interesting sport.
And that is before the right wing smear machine, which has full control over the Senate and DoJ, rolls up its sleeves to malign Hunter Biden. They managed to malign John Kerry’s record as a decorated veteran, what do you think they will do to Hunter Biden’s?
One of the most vivid epiphanies I have had about American politics was sparked by overhearing a small group of high school students discussing Kerry on the subway. It was a racially diverse group of kids in one of the bluest parts of the country. They were talking about the candidates and then one of them said “yes, but I saw all these other veterans on TV saying he was lying about his service”. The rest of them nodded and they went back to talking about what high-schoolers talk about. I was stunned. I’d been volunteering for Kerry and couldn’t believe what I heard. That is the level of engagement most people have with politics, they’ve got other things going on in their lives. These lives are increasingly precarious, and Biden offers no comprehensible plans to make it better, just a return to the status quo. It won’t be enough against the smears.
This group of Republicans are going to drag Biden into the mud just as they did with Hillary Clinton. It didn’t work with Obama. But Obama’s halo is not going to protect Biden in the general election.
Democrats in the remaining states will see all this for themselves soon. The campaign won’t be able to keep Biden away from every microphone. He won’t be able to minimize his time in the debates by saying “my time’s up”.
Democratic primary voters want, above all, some who can beat Trump. Biden is a very risky candidate, and that will soon become apparent.
By clearing the way for Joe Biden, the Democratic establishment has made an enormous unforced error. They’ve cleared the way for Bernie Sanders.
And in that lies our way out of this mess. Don’t let the lobbyists and power brokers or momentum traders like Markos saddle us with their errors as they did in 2016 by clearing the lane for Hillary Clinton. It’s laughable that Markos would switch from Warren to Biden. From the person who fought the banks and predatory lenders to Biden?
Of course the establishment won’t pay the price. We have DNC members and super-delegates who continue their merry lives, donating to Mitch McConnell to gain “access”. They will do and say anything to preserve the power within a party that is the well-spring for their comfortable lives. They will take money from the corporate interests. Then they will look the other way when a footnote on page 38 drives you into poverty or bankruptcy.
The piss-poor political instincts of establishment Democrats has already cost us four years of pain and suffering. Trust your eyes and not the people who got us into this, and now have no plan to get us out apart from Joe. Biden is a decent guy, a breath of fresh air compared to Trump. But I fear he does not have the record, policies or discipline to win. He is a very risky bet against Trump. He is harking back to the past at a time when Democrats need a new generation to show up to win. He will have my vote in the general, but mine is not enough. Biden’s support among the 18-29 year old Democratic primary voters is under 10% in places. What will it be in the general population? I don’t want to find out. 50% of this country makes less than $50,000 a year. Many are over-worked, under-paid and exploited by a system designed to devalue their labor. They are struggling with poverty and injustice directed at them. What will they think of Biden’s record when their credit card bill comes in the mail?
Bernie Sanders has fought for us his whole career. At times those fights were lonely. They are not lonely now. He has inspired a coalition of younger voters of all races, unlikely voters and disenchanted Americans of all stripes. Bernie knows that you’ve got to ask for the pie if you want a piece. I am confident he will deliver on the issues that matter, Medicare for All, College for All, Justice for All, a Green New Deal.
Vote for Bernie, he is the safest choice to beat Trump.
A better world is possible.
— @subirgrewal
