You say that like you think the delegates are going to cook up a rock-star candidate, theyāre not. 90ās era Bill Clinton is not walking through that door, you can go with the VP or you can explain to the voters why Buttigieg is being flown in out of nowhere.
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My father is 89 and super super sharp - in structured, routine, familiar circumstances. Get up in the morning, have breakfast with him and talk about news or whatever, heās no less cogent than anybody here. Then take him out to a food hall for lunch and you better stick with him because heāll get discombobulated pretty easily.
So to me, Biden being great at a speech/event and then terrible when required to improvise makes all the sense in the world. It also gives an excuse for his handlers - theyāre used to seeing routine Biden, theyāre the ones managing the routine - and heās usually on point.
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This explanation is just not that complicated. āBiden stepped down because heās too old, and no one thought Harris was the best nominee.ā
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I donāt remember being asked whether I wanted another term of Joe Biden, who would be 86 by the time he finished that term. We need to get what we should have gotten in the first place, even if its way late, and abbreviated. Biden really should have known that being a one term guy should have been the plan from day one. That way Dems could have had a primary race without making it seem like everyone was ganging up on the current President. Such a mess.
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They why the heck did Biden pick her for the backup spot?
If the backroom delegates are going to cook up a dramatically better candidate than Harris, fine LET THEM COOK, but I just donāt see a 21st-centruty Abe Lincoln showing up.
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From the Internet: āWe could have had Bernie. Instead, we got Weekend at Bernieās.ā
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Who the fuck is running their socials???
Like. Sign the bill. Donāt post about it.
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I donāt really think this is that mysterious, Presidential noms have been choosing VPs for reasons other than āwould be the best President as a replacementā forever. VPs are always framed as being some kind of complementary name to appease some complementary voter base for the Presidential nominee. Even in the real world, itās super common for CEOs to pick a Chief of Staff or COO or CFO specifically for their ability to be great Number 2s, not because they are the best person to step in for the CEO.
Hereās an article from Vox in the 2016 cycle that goes into this in more detail.
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She was chosen as VP largely because she is a black woman and it may be true that most swing voters wonāt vote for her as President largely because she is a black woman. Ah well, nevertheless.
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We should at least be open to the notion that Biden picked Harris specifically because she did so disastrously in the primaries. He is one guy who could have seen this coming in advance
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yes. it can all go to the DNC and they can basically spend it on anything.
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Thenā¦ explain it? Voters donāt care about this stuff at all imo. We literally elected a deranged game show host with no relevant experience as president. Like at worst a low info voter is gonna raise their eyebrow for one second and then move onto learning about the actual candidate. I highly doubt people who like the new candidate will be so confused by the process that they stay home or vote Trump. People donāt care about process.
That all said, I absolutely agree that DNC delegates will use your line of thinking as an excuse to not act boldly and pick a better candidate. Democrats are masters at self imposing limitations that donāt actually exist.
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nobody picks a VP primarily to set that person up for the next campaign, they do it to shore up their current campaign.
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I think Biden is now DOA. The question of him being senile for so many days means even people who know nothing and didnāt watch the debate will assume the answer must be somewhere in the middle, which means Bidenās decline is partially true for them. I donāt see how he can win if the public perception is that heās only partially competent.
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Denied.
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Fwiw the WH denied this and said the nyt article is full of lies. Not that this changes anything.