350 Million Americans, surely there’s a viable candidate somewhere who would be a better choice than Joe Biden in his 80’s.
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Or maybe a time machine will do it.
I think they have been a bit disingenuous but they are claiming they never actually made that specific promise. What they are saying is they promised only to be a bridge to a new generation, and would make sure those people have a platform in their administration, but they never explicitly said they would only serve 1 term. I’m 99% sure they are technically correct, but they clearly allowed that to be the interpretation of his message last time around. Hence the unusual level of debate over his pick for VP.
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Yeah you’re right , but that was certainly the message they wanted out there without being explicit.
This from Politico from 2019 ;
'Former Vice President Joe Biden’s top advisers and prominent Democrats outside the Biden campaign have recently revived a long-running debate whether Biden should publicly pledge to serve only one term, with Biden himself signaling to aides that he would serve only a single term.
While the option of making a public pledge remains available, Biden has for now settled on an alternative strategy: quietly indicating that he will almost certainly not run for a second term while declining to make a promise that he and his advisers fear could turn him into a lame duck and sap him of his political capital.
According to four people who regularly talk to Biden, all of whom asked for anonymity to discuss internal campaign matters, it is virtually inconceivable that he will run for reelection in 2024, when he would be the first octogenarian president.
If Biden is elected,” a prominent adviser to the campaign said, “he’s going to be 82 years old in four years and he won’t be running for reelection.”
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How much of this is down to a lack of strong candidates that could appeal to both wings of the party though?
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Yeah, that seems to jive with my recollection. I remember it being a common understanding that he would only serve one term but couldnt say so because of the lame duck situation it would prodce. I think I even recall posting here that the midterms would be a good gauge of whether he was going to run again, as if he avoided announcing his refusal to do so fairly quickly afterwards it should be taken as an indication that he would.
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I doubt it. He himself really only appeals to one wing of the party, and the Bernie wing of the party has responded to him largely in line with the GOP attacks. There is seemingly nothing he can do even in the areas of their interest that is enough to avoid their criticism (see their response to his record on labor and student loan forgiveness). This is a big reason for his low approval ratings within the party.
I think the more likely situation is he’s spent 30 years positioning himself for the job and once he got he can rightly think he’s got a good record to be able to run on it again.
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After the Tlalib censure, I find myself thinking even more about the possibility of a Eugene McCarthy insurgency type of challenge to Biden, this time over Palestine/Israel. A candidacy never intended to win, but to highlight a moral position and the divide in the Democratic Party that the establishment position was ignoring. There is open discontent in the US Government, and not just at places like State and USAID, and no longer just confined to frustration with the Israeli government. Even White House staff are letting it be known they are struggling to defend Biden’s position.
Hard to see who would mount such a run though, there isn’t a remotely comparable figure in the Senate other than Sanders. Sanders doesn’t support a ceasefire, at least not right now.
Of course, the downside of all that being it got Nixon elected in '68.
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I’m afraid that him not holding his word and not letting his place to a younger candidate might be the nail in his coffin, and the best argument for Trump’s reelection.
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Although it would be hilarious to see Trump accusing someone else of being a liar.
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Seriously?
As far as I know, the argument that he is too old for a second mandate is one of the main arguments on the Republican side, is it not?
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Yet Trump is only marginally younger, would himself be the US’ oldest president if elected, and has shown far more deterioration (and while started from a far lower level of mental competency). The concern about Biden’s age is a real one, yet concerns about it lose their authenticity when the implication is having to vote to Trump.
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I agree with this, but wouldn’t you say that a younger democratic candidate, if he/she showed some competence and ability to express him- or herself, would absolutely wipe the floor with Trump, given the latter’s current problems? The fact that Biden lags behind Trump right now is pretty damning , is it not? Maybe it’s just me looking from afar, but as a democrat, I’d be really concerned about sending Biden into a new presidencial race.
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One of Biden’s biggest problems is the way he is perceived when he’s put in front of a teleprompter. His speech impediment makes it look like he’s stumbling over his words when in fact he’s not. It’s just a technique he uses to negate his stammer where he’s running ahead of himself reading while speaking.
Apparently , his team want to see less of these type of monologues now and actually show him interacting with others , where he’s much more spontaneous and able to show his natural empathy. They’d tried to avoid that kind of thing in the past wanting to eliminate the kind of gaffes that he’s famous for. They recognise now that it was probably a mistake.
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This is a credible argument in 2015. I don’t get how people still make this argument today. After one of the most consequentially bad tenures in history he still went into the next election as a powerful candidate and came close to winning. Many people, some very well credentialed have tried and failed to beat Trump in an election. Biden is the only person who has ever directly beaten him. He did so then as an old man.
I don’t think it really is. I think this is just the era we’re in. The toxicity of our politics and the way social media has made it difficult to escape means the bar for what a successful presidency looks like, one that people will vote for again, is far lower that it was even 20 years ago. If everyone has low approval ratings (and they dont already they will the second they step into a race) then a 44% approval rating doesnt mean what it used to.
This is not to say to pretend there is no issue. But it does mean it should impact what anyone thinks the right way forward is. You look at the difference in polling between a Trump-Biden match up vs a Trump vs Generic Democrat and it suggests Biden should step aside. But the point is the “Generic” gloss gets traded for personal disapproval the second that generic person gets turned into a real person with an identity. People need to understand that in thinking of the likelihood of success of a replacement candidate
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My point is based on a frustration that people in these positions, the narrative setters in the powerful media companies, can just never report on what is right in front of our faces. You dont need some trove of secret documents and communications to know this shit. You just need to have been present and not had your head up your arse while he was trying to do it in his first term.
Yes, it should be a story that his candidacy is incredibly dangerous. But it shouldnt be a new story. Any documents of plans pale into insignificance compared to his actual track record that we all saw with our own eyes. The media have this weird quirk of thinking they can only call out something if they obtain their knowledge of it through secret channels…exposing things people dont want you to see. When the very same things happening right in the open are treated as legitimate political debate that we cannot take a side on it because its important to be impartial.
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I find it hard to disagree with the former Prime Minister.
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