Odds on ol' Joe.

[FoxtArt]

Something to consider:
What if this is merely a ploy for the DNC to be able to hand-pick their candidate? Support crazy ol' JB until he becomes a liability and/or non-candidate (preferably last minute) and when he steps aside/drops out, slide in your preferred, pre-selected, uncontested candidate? None of the ugly press and bad optics from the previous election's obvious candidate-engineering/rigging by the DNC, yet same end goal.

Too conspiratorial? Not possible due to procedure/rules? I'm open to opposing opinions on this theory (thin as it is), but I wouldn't put anything past the DNC.


I will ETA that many, and possibly even the DNC may have initially believed him viable in the beginning. But he is practically the right's best asset at this point.

I've kind of wondered similar things. It seems unlikely it was planned from step one - from a perspective of "why" as it would seem to cause more damage than good than pursing the desired candidate from the inset (only scenario might be if they wanted to bypass vetting) - that said, Biden has never been their "ideal" guy in a voting contest with Trump. So I do think this opportunity is presented as a get-outta-Biden card that many in their party want to play - and slide in some yet-unnamed woman cheating the process again. (probably not Hillary).

I don't understand enough of the process to even begin to guess what happens next though. If he drops... do they just "default" all the votes to the presumptive VP? There's seems to be real risk of a last-minute shake up, but I don't have an earthly idea what to anticipate actually happening. The NBC interview was fairly light, and he didn't screw it up "as-bad" as Andrew, but I don't think it went well for him. If they find any evidence of a complaint of any type being made in paper, he's a cooked goose. And they might want to ditch him early in the process instead of having that liability show up now in October.

One thing I note is that he is VERY careful trying to avoid saying anything negative about Tara - I'm wondering if that isn't for sake of a risk of a defamation suit... which could open up the university files to discovery. There is public evidence the campaign staff went through those files right after these allegations first emerged, which doesn't help their argument for clamping them down now.

[crays]

I've kind of wondered similar things. It seems unlikely it was planned from step one - from a perspective of "why" as it would seem to cause more damage than good than pursing the desired candidate from the inset (only scenario might be if they wanted to bypass vetting) - that said, Biden has never been their "ideal" guy in a voting contest with Trump. So I do think this opportunity is presented as a get-outta-Biden card that many in their party want to play - and slide in some yet-unnamed woman cheating the process again. (probably not Hillary).

I don't understand enough of the process to even begin to guess what happens next though. If he drops... do they just "default" all the votes to the presumptive VP? There's seems to be real risk of a last-minute shake up, but I don't have an earthly idea what to anticipate actually happening. The NBC interview was fairly light, and he didn't screw it up "as-bad" as Andrew, but I don't think it went well for him. If they find any evidence of a complaint of any type being made in paper, he's a cooked goose. And they might want to ditch him early in the process instead of having that liability show up now in October.

One thing I note is that he is VERY careful trying to avoid saying anything negative about Tara - I'm wondering if that isn't for sake of a risk of a defamation suit... which could open up the university files to discovery. There is public evidence the campaign staff went through those files right after these allegations first emerged, which doesn't help their argument for clamping them down now.

I guess I'll have to break down and actually watch the whole interview. Was trying to avoid it, as he usually makes my head hurt just listening to him.

I'm generally tracking with you on the fact that this was probably not engineered from the get go, and certainly could be a timely bail out for them if he gets progressively worse. Maybe he was the best bet to oust bernie, and now they're circling the wagons while they do damage control... I can't even imagine who they want to present as a replacement.

And as I alluded to in my post and you said in your response, I'm not entirely clear what the rules/procedures/allowances are if he is removed.


ETA: Just saw your edit above, and that is spot on to my thoughts. I do feel if they go this route, there's at least an 80% chance it's a female, and probably non-caucasian.

[FoxtArt]

I can't even imagine who they want to present as a replacement..

That's the scary prospect. If they did default his existing votes to the presumptive VP once announced - the most restrictive governor (Michigan) is not out of question as the nominee, since she's favored. Such a nomination would be devastating to the market in of itself. But who the heck knows how that works, you halfway wonder if they even have "rules" that cover it, at all.

[crays]

That's the scary prospect. If they did default his existing votes to the presumptive VP once announced - the most restrictive governor (Michigan) is not out of question as the nominee, since she's favored. Such a nomination would be devastating to the market in of itself. But who the heck knows how that works, you halfway wonder if they even have "rules" that cover it, at all.

I'm not entirely convinced they don't make up their own, as they feel the need to...

[FoxtArt]

I'm in general agreement too that the allegations aren't all that strong, but still have much more foundation than the Kavanaugh allegations, which couldn't be really-substantiated by anyone other than the accuser and was very vague. This has the Larry King audio from her mother calling in, a neighbor, a friend, various family, etc, so it's not on the same page, but still as of yet unsubstantiated - it does seems unusual to allege filing a written complaint if you knew in advance it didn't exist, unless she simply thought that couldn't be proven in time for November.

I somewhat wonder if it isn't a case of normal employee-employer disagreements and she may have filed a generic complaint which she now hinges this upon; but even then, a generic complaint would really undermine Biden so hard, whether there actually was a sexual assault or potentially just a verbal one 27 years ago. I don't doubt that he doesn't have an ounce of memory for whatever the truth is, as he hardly seems to have a memory for when he was VP, much less a young Senator - and the real issue is undoubtedly his growing ineptitude, because they've never seemed too creeped out over his skeletons in all the years prior to now.

One bit of joy - Biden's choking on crow hard for sticking his nose into the Kav hearings.

[CS1983]

At this point, him being allowed to keep embarrassing himself is akin to elder abuse. However, if it means no democrat president for 4 more years, let's beat the crap out of grandpa.

[DavieD55]

I'm guessing he will drop out at the last minute and then they'll replace with soetoro's wife or something like that.

[two shoes]

I'm guessing he will drop out at the last minute and then they'll replace with soetoro's wife or something like that.

This or HRC jumps back in...

[DavieD55]

This or HRC jumps back in...

Another possibility could be that he selects bho for vp and then resigns for the retirement home after he's elected leaving America with another 4 years of new world order globalism.

[Martinjmpr]

I'm guessing he will drop out at the last minute and then they'll replace with soetoro's wife or something like that.

This or HRC jumps back in...

Eh, I don't see either as particularly likely. One possibility is that some faction of the Dems might have just written 2020 off in hopes of getting in better position for 2024.

If you look back at all the elections since WWII one of the things that is very clear is that any election where there is a sitting, elected* incumbent president, the president is almost always reelected.

* Note that when I say "elected" I mean elected to either the presidency or the vice presidency. So LBJ would be an example of a sitting president who was previously elected as a VP. By contrast, Ford was not elected to either office, he was appointed to the VP slot after Agnew resigned in disgrace and ascended to the presidency when Nixon did the same thing.

There seems to be a kind of "presidential momentum" that makes reelection a near certainty. So much so that I think it's worth it to consider the only two times since the end of WWII that a sitting, elected president was NOT re-elected: Carter in 1980 and Bush 41 in 1992.

Carter, besides being a rather weak and ineffectual politician to begin with (who only beat Ford because Ford was tainted with the scandals of the Nixon administration) was hit with the triple crises of economic stagnation, inflation, and international humiliation in Iran and Afghanistan (where our boycott of the 1980 Olympics just made us look like sore losers.)

Bush 41, who was riding so high after the first Gulf War that Saturday Night Live even ran a skit called "Election '92 - The Race To Avoid Being The Guy Who Loses To Bush" was also a weak candidate to begin with and the Democrats had had 12 years out of the White House to find a candidate - young, charismatic and well-spoken Bill Clinton, as well as a minor recession.

But look at Bush's successors: Clinton had huge "negatives" going into the 1996 election and so did Bush 43 going into the 2004 elections, and both won re-election easily. Same for Obama in '12.

It doesn't hurt that in all 3 of these elections, the opposing party ran a lackluster party insider either - which is exactly what Biden appears to be.

As far as Michelle Obama or Hillary jumping back into the race, I just don't see it happening. First of all, Hillary has had her two bites at the apple and now she has the taint of "loser" about her. Nobody serious is going to support her.

And while Michelle Obama might have a lot of people who like her, in modern politics, that's not enough. You have to have POLITICAL supporters which means people who's backs you've scratched and who owe you one, people who are willing to stick their necks out for you and who have something concrete that they want in return. It takes time and effort to build up that kind of "support base" and Michelle hasn't done that.

That shit happens on TV shows like "House of Cards" but in the real world of politics, people with money and power won't waste their efforts on a rank amateur (Michelle Obama) or a proven loser (Hillary.)