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Notes -
Ezra Klein saying BIden should step aside because of age, and a new candidate be chosen at the convention:
https://old.reddit.com/r/ezraklein/comments/1as537m/democrats_have_a_better_option_than_biden/
There's a link to the podcast episode in the (heavily downvoted) Reddit discussion above.
Quite frankly, that would be quite a stupid thing for Democrats to do. Last time that happened was 1968, with notable results. He then lists alternative candidates such as AOC, Newsom, Cory Booker, Gretchen Whitmer, and a bunch of randoms I've never even heard of, though his top pick is Kamala Harris.
What material does the GOP have on him to make him advise such obvious electoral suicide? Harris would never win, but passing over the black, female VP would come with tons of blowback. Plus all the infighting at the convention would make the DNC look like a party in chaos when they're trying to portray themselves as the stable, responsible alternative to MAGA craziness.
Getting rid of Biden this late in the game is simply not a winning move.
My advice: Get Biden's carcass over the finishing line in November, have Harris step in as replacement sometime early in 2025, and then start figuring out what to do about 2028 with four years breathing room, not a few months of lead time.
Maybe not, but Biden winning may not necessarily be a winning move either. There are people - republicans and democrats alike - who genuinely think that having a president with dementia may be severe national security threat. Presumably politicians are supposed to win for a reason, not just for the sake of it.
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Have you read Caiaphas Cain Warhammer series? There he often chooses almost certain death compared to the certain one. If Klein believes or knows that Biden will lose (probably he has enough dem and wh connections to know how bad the situation really is) then anyone else will be a better bet.
If Biden's situation is that bad, the last thing Klein should be doing (if he doesn't want a second Trump term) is shouting it to the world.
Just keep Biden's public appearances to a minimum until November and allow Trump to do his thing.
Nobody reads Ezra Klein. Whether he writes or not is irrelevant.
Does he not have any influence among Dems and progressives? In those elite and worker bee circles?
I assumed he did but it’s a bit hard to measure.
He absolutely does.
That was my sense, that he’s pretty influential with DC insider circles, so I don’t understand @FiveHourMarathon here.
But that's different from being a person who could harm the overall Democratic effort by saying Biden was old. DC insider circles 1) already know Biden is losing it 2) Already have their marching orders and commitments 3) obviously aren't a significant voting block.
No one reads Ezra Klein in the sense that no votes will be swayed, so he doesn't need to maintain party discipline. It would be much more harmful for, say, Beyonce or Bruce Springsteen to say Biden is too old and should be replaced. Ezra only talks to other people who think too much.
Inasmuch as Klein has influence among Dem insiders/elite, “saying the quiet part out loud” might matter.
I agree Klein isn’t going to change mass opinion, but then the common Dem voter is already quite likely to believe Biden is too old (and probably never had a strong attachment to him anyway).
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Betting markets are keen on Michelle to jump in there, but that seems especially insane to me.
It feels insane, but on the other hand I'm not sure.
It's not like there are many people who would refuse to vote for her but intend to vote for Biden, right? If you resent underqualified black women being shoved into positions of responsibility as publicity stunts, you're already voting for Trump.
(and it's not like a former first lady is a priori less qualified than a reality TV show host, 'qualified' has sort of stopped being a thing in politics anyway)
And she could certainly energize some groups of voters of the left who are pretty apathetic or hostile towards Biden, and might drive up turnout.
It's definitely a more all-in strategy, betting on going full polarization and driving turnout on the extremes, rather than the Biden strategy which is desperately clinging to the center and hoping to gather enough of the remaining scraps of the-world-as-it-was-20-years-ago to limp over the finish line.
But yeah, probably nuts, but more interesting than it might sound at first.
Or you told yourself it was okay cause the VP doesn't have a lot of power anyway.
Different brands. In response to Trump the Democrats have doubled down harder on qualifications and being the adults, allegedly.
This is assuming these apathetic, fringe types strongly favor of Obama or his wife? There's been a lot of disillusionment with the guy. You could say him not turning out to be a transformative president is the formative experience of many on the "Left". A lot of this is blamed on the GOP and McConnell denying his heavenly mandate but not all of it.
Before he and his wife dove into sellout territory making Meghan Markle-esque bland podcasts or working behind the scenes to ensure a smoother primary win for Biden against Bernie.
Why on Earth wouldn't he help out the guy who'd been his VP for 8 years?
Nobody said it was irrational for him to do.
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I don’t disagree with your overall point, but.
I do resent affirmative action and I am very much not a Trump voter. Pretty sure I’m not alone even if our numbers are small.
Yeah. This bloc feels a lot bigger than 'fervent Democrat/Obama supporter who'd be lulled to the polls by a WOC with a big surname', especially since Clinton had relevant experience and Obama decidedly does not.
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Everyone wants a third Obama term. The Hapsburgs were onto something. Get around term limits with this one weird trick.
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It wouldn’t be smart for her to jump in now. But I think cons are kidding if they don’t agree she comes across much nicer than Hillary.
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I don’t think there is a winning strategy here. Biden can’t win either. They’ve been very obviously hiding him since he began running, and those few times he has spoken he is simply confused and incoherent. By the time debates roll around in the fall, Biden is unlikely to be coherent at all. How is Biden going to win if he goes on the debate stage rambling like Grandpa Simpson about wearing onions on his belt?
The ideal option seems to be the 25th amendment. Harris is an extreme long shot, but she’s at least aware and coherent and able to display that fact openly. It avoids the issue of a messy caucus at the convention. It allows her to begin on a higher note as a continuation of the Biden presidency.
He can just refuse to debate, like Trump did. I mean, he won in 2020 without leaving his house.
Trump is refusing the GOP nomination debates, not the general election debates. He’s also leading by a substantial margin in the GOP to the point that the other candidates are basically in it to be the VP nominee.
The formal debates in September and October are held by the League of Women Voters, and no candidate has ever won if he hasn’t been on those debates.
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Refuse to debate in the general election, like Trump refused to debate in the primary election? Big difference between those two.
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Seriously what is the steelman for Biden wanting to be POTUS?
Winning once makes sense. You go down as an emperor of Rome during its golden age. Winning twice if he’s in decline as much as said sounds awful compared to a nice beach house retirement.
Only thing I can think of is a one term POTUS is viewed as a failure but I think that is lessened if you’re followed by your own party. Then you are the guy who beat Trump.
If he steps down for health reasons, he proves his critics right, and I think he is just too proud to admit he is no longer fit for the job.
Also you have to wonder what drives career politicians like Joe Biden. He has spent most of his life in politics. The office of president is the culmination of his career. I think it's plausible that he would much rather die in office as the most powerful man in the world, than spend his final years comfortably in a beach house while being politically irrelevant.
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Biden considered committing to be a one-term president in 2020, but decided to go again since he really doesn't like Trump, and thinks he's person with the best shot at stopping him.
Eh, that might be the rationalization, but I heavily suspect the actual reason is the same as it is for almost all politicians - Biden likes power.
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Everyone knows that Gavin Newsom will be the next ‘major’ Democratic candidate for President barring unforeseen incident.
But it’s a bad idea for him to run now against Trump, because if he loses it’s over for him. In 2028 Trump won’t be running and Newsom can be the handsome and vaguely charismatic guy up against goofy personality void De Santis or whoever else.
It’s not catastrophic for the US left if Trump wins this year. Four more years of sclerosis, possibly even without a congressional trifecta for the first two years, with continuing huge rifts among GOP congressmen on major issues and Trump hellbent on personal revenge rather than policy or governing.
That’s better than using Newsom now and risking being in a much worse position in 4 years.
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I can see an argument for replacing the senile old man with, say, Newsom. I think it’s probably the wrong move electorally, but it makes sense in my head that it could work in the right circumstance.
But out of Trump, Biden, and Harris, Harris has the lowest approval rating. She was an electoral flop in the democrats primary, where you’d expect her to have higher support, and it generally seems like the more the public hears of her the less popular she is. Now the democrats can’t bypass the black woman VP, but if they had a face saving way to retire the entire ticket, pulling in Newsom or something would be a reasonable Hail Mary. They don’t, though.
Biden winning in 2024 and dying in office, leaving the incumbent Harris to run in 2028 actually sounds like a disaster for Democrats. Possibly the easiest election route for DeSantis.
‘Having Harris on the ticket’ is bad for democrats, full stop. Joe’s not much better, mind, but a best case scenario is to be able to retire them both. Pulling Joe now raises the obvious question of ‘why michelle or Newsom and not Kamala Harris’, and I don’t think the DNC can handle that question.
The DNC doesn’t need to handle that question, but it does need to keep the key black political machines in some southern states happy (and they ensured Biden’s victory, too). These Jim Clyburn type figures want not just a black VP but a route to a black president, and really a black woman president given how much organizing in the black church is done by women and how black voters are very disproportionately women.
I think if they could be persuaded that Kamala was a definite loser they could endorse someone else, but the question is who. It could be Abrams, I suppose.
Abrams is probably dearer to their heart than Kamala, but I also think that process would lay bare just how much of this is all about corrupt bargains with different interest groups. So no go- they're stuck with Kamala.
The SCOTUS thing already laid that bare, the putative VP for every future white male (and probably white female) Democratic presidential nominee is going to be a black woman.
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Agreed, but at least in that scenario they have another term won in the pocket. Replacing Biden now and losing in 24 and possibly 28+++ is worse.
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It looks more responsible for the country to have a non-senile candidate for the highest office. Preferably one without corruption issues or child-sniffing too.
Aren't the Dems trying to lean into the 'we actually care about running things properly' angle? Keeping Biden in office is giving all kinds of Andropov/Chernenko vibes. Can't a country of over 300 million come up with a single charismatic, competent, young, energetic leader?
Yes. His name is Obama and he's unfortunately term limited at this point. Something weird happened these past few days for me. Every day I see mention of Michelle Obama running for president. Which doesn't even begin to make sense. But people are so hungry for a return to something like Barack Obama that they can't help but bring up his wife as an alternative.
But I agree: why can't we scrounge up a second one per generation is a good question.
Not sure Barack would want to run, even if he could. His hair looked a lot græyer in 2016 than 2008....
I think he would absolutely have run again in 2016 if he could, and he would have won.
I certainly don't dispute that part.
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In this election, both candidates are pretty well hated by the public.
If you say to someone, "you can have Donald Trump, Joe Biden, or the what's in the mystery box", many people will answer "The box. The BOX!"
https://youtube.com/watch?v=XsNIFD7TxwU
In this environment, swapping in a cipher like Michelle Obama at the last minute starts to seem like a pretty good idea! Let's not forget that Joe Biden was sort of in that same position 4 years ago. People didn't know much about him, he didn't stand for anything, and that was good!
Of course, a 3rd Obama term would be just like a 2nd Biden term. All the same people would be running the show. But there are lots of Americans who (wrongly) think that the problem with the Biden administration is Biden. It doesn't take too many people to fall into this trap to move the needle. I think Michelle Obama would capture enough of the middle to win by 10 points.
Now, Michelle Obama might not do it because she's smart enough to realize her reputation will go from great to dogshit in 18 months. But they could find someone. Hopefully someone who just says buzzwords like "hope" without getting into the specifics of how they're going to raise your taxes to give more money to people who don't work.
I don't think Michelle is interested in the job. She's never given off those political ambition vibes to me, unlike Hillary who couldn't wait for the chance to be the anointed Empress and tried three bites at the cherry (she was unlucky Obama ran the first time, and her campaign did not like that at all). If Hillary thought there was any chance under heaven that she'd replace Biden, she'd be shoving Joe aside so hard he'd end up in Australia.
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Biden's been in office making bad decisions for decades. He tried to get a precursor to the Patriot Act passed years before 9/11. In my extremely biased view he had many decades of examples of how to be a bad Democratic politician.
Perhaps you should re-evaluate based on him ascending to the presidency? He is an example of an excellent Democratic politician, even if such a thing succeeding is bad for the country.
Right: he's a 36 year Senator, then two term VP and now President. He's the best of their best by some measure that accounts for extreme seniority.
He's an example of their worst by my biased accounting against the Democratic party elite. "Consistently wrong for decades" and also ascending to the highest offices. Great for him, massively enriching to his entire extended family, bad in some larger sense by my estimation.
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I think this is a more suitable video.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=hXOjyv4d998?feature=shared
There's not really a plausible alternative to the two.
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Biden had a decades-long political career and was a former VP.
Not sure if anyone is seriously floating Michelle Obama, but I think Kamala Harris would be an absolute disaster.
Serious in the 'haha just kidding unless' since. No one is 'serious' since no one would 'seriously' try to directly unseat the sitting President, but if Biden were to fall for completely unrelated reasons, Michelle Obama would be one of the most serious contenders in a convention-negotiated candidate.
Among her positives, she has the name-recognition, is broadly associated with positive things/better times, is directly connected with the Obama-wing of the party which remains the dominant institutional actor of the party, and due to her 'inexperience' would be expected to/can credibly offer significant policy influence to the wings of the party in terms of appointments, more so than a more factionally-locked candidate might. She's also- significantly- not in a current position of importance/would not derail political careers/induce risk of election loss by stepping down as an incumbant and possibly open up a meaningful billet for an election loss.
This is all very, very positive in a convention-negotiation scenario, which would be an absolute disaster in general. No one from a back-room convention will be able to claim the mantle of legitimacy from all the state party selections, and in lieu of that it's critically important to have few in-party enemies (Michelle basically has none in the public awareness, unlike Hillary whose factionalism was legendary), have connections with other symbols of legitimacy (her marriage to Obama), have connections across a broad part of the Party (again, her marriage to Obama, who remains a key Democratic influencer), avoid sharing the issues the brought down the previous person and forced the choice (Michelle is young(er) and fit), and finally be able to take the dive gracefully in a way that sets up the next iterative round.
A Michelle election strategy would very likely run on a 'she's above the nastiness' while letting proxies attack, serving as best as possible as a foil rather than a mirror for Trump (where, whatever else one thinks of Biden, he also is easily cast as 'other old white corrupt liar'). It wouldn't necessarily be a bad strategy either- possibly the best from a bad hand- even as it (theoretically) could play to a lot of the Democrat's party interests and must-have coalition members, including the African-American vote, and the general professional female cohort. It's something more likely to help hold the party together in a way that appeals to its current core interests (urbanized professionals and progressive activists) than some of the other possibilities who could drive off the activists or deter the ongoing realignment progress of the national-security never-trump republicans, which has been party target since Hillary.
I think it’s widely acknowledged that Oprah (1st) and Michelle (2nd) would be the ‘ideal’ candidate. George Clooney is probably up there too. But none of them want to do it.
Oprah has way too many skeletons in the closet or she'd have run for something eons ago.
Hanging around shady Hollywood types like Weinstein wouldn’t sink her with the base, it’s not like Trump’s past affiliations sunk him. She’s also a woman (a black woman especially) which is Teflon against those accusations especially in front of a base that’s predominantly older women and POC. Any shady men she hung around can be excused as the kind of thing you have to do as a black woman to succeed in America. I think she just doesn’t want to do it.
I think Oprah is smart enough to realize that being a politician is a really bad deal, and michelle has enough first/second hand experience to know that. Besides, Oprah is an influential, household name already- it’s not like she needs to become a politician to get influence.
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This all hinges on her wanting the job. And I’m not certain that she does.
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I also think it is unserious (and not something she even wants). But I keep seeing mention of it. People missing the Obama presidency keep bringing her up.
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It could only work if there was a consensus and an orderly process that led to a competitive candidate.
That is a high-risk plan, but sometimes a Hail Mary is the best option. Biden does not look good in the polls and seems incapable of running a good campaign. Holding on and hoping Trump implodes might be riskier.
Klein is an interesting person to be advocating such a strategy. His advocacy for Harris does not lend credibility to his proposal even among his own followers on the sub.
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