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Who else could they have possibly picked on such a short notice? I think, it made sense at the time - now, of course, we can all Monday morning quarterback.

zerreh50 2y ago
The short notice was a self inflicted problem. Biden's issues did not start in July 2024
- starik36 2y ago
  For sure. I am asking who could they have picked after Biden's performance at the debates? E.g. after the damage was done. Kamala was probably the most prominent of all democrats at the time. The alternative would have been some no name senator or Hillary.
cyclecount 2y ago
They could have turned to the second place contestants from their sham primary election which was held this Spring and largely ignored by the media.
saghm 2y ago
Back in the spring, I had a long conversation with my father (a lifelong Democrat whose only vote in a presidential contest that wasn't for the Democrat candidate was for John Anderson in 1980) about Biden's chances against Trump. He insisted that Biden made the right choice to run because nobody else seemed like they would have a good chance against him, but I argued that this was because Biden choosing to run again essentially made it impossible for anyone else to make a serious attempt at it, and that the best thing would have been for him to announce within the first couple years of his term that he wouldn't be running for reelection, which would have given other candidates a chance to make a case. I still think that I was right about this; anyone competent enough to be a worthy candidate in the general election would know that they'd have no chance at winning the nomination against Biden running as an incumbent, even if they'd have a better chance at winning the general election. Anyone reasonable who was concerned with Trump winning had no incentive to enter a contest they couldn't win and risk being perceived (perhaps correctly) as a spoiler who hurt Biden's chances, so the smartest thing for them to do both for themselves and the country would be to hide their ambitions until next time and hope for the best. I know that I've probably been wrong ten times for every time that I've been right about something like this, but that didn't make it any easier to watch the last six or seven months. You're correct that there was nothing else anyone could have done to avoid the train wreck by the time Biden withdrew because the only way to avert it would have been to change speeds way back before we got to the sharp curve. The worst part is that I don't even think that Harris would have necessarily been a bad candidate if she had been given a proper chance from the start; there are articles as far back as early 2022 mentioning that her public appeal was hurt by the Biden administration tying her to issues like immigration and election reform. At minimum, ignoring the harm to her future electability showed extremely poor foresight, and it's not hard to imagine that it went beyond negligence to the point of outright sabotage of someone viewed as a potential threat.
- pm90 2y ago
  It’s very unlikely that he would deliberately kneecap her. But I agree with you…that it was too late by the time he dropped out, the electorate had already made its mind. In the end, I think his policies turned out to be great. But he didn’t have the skills to capitalize on the gains, to seize them and point to them as “wins”. Instead we often saw a somewhat slow, very old but good natured grandpa who was clearly not fully present all the time. The policy on Gaza though, that made 0 sense. He had the power to bully Netanyahu into stepping back but consistently took no action. Solving that crisis would have been HUGE for reelection, keeping them festering only contributed to the feeling of chaos.
  - starik36 2y ago
    [flagged]
kylehotchkiss 2y ago
We both know who. Gavin. That would be landslide GOP, California goes red bad.

zerreh50 2y ago

The short notice was a self inflicted problem. Biden's issues did not start in July 2024

starik36 2y ago
For sure. I am asking who could they have picked after Biden's performance at the debates? E.g. after the damage was done. Kamala was probably the most prominent of all democrats at the time. The alternative would have been some no name senator or Hillary.

cyclecount 2y ago

They could have turned to the second place contestants from their sham primary election which was held this Spring and largely ignored by the media.

saghm 2y ago

Back in the spring, I had a long conversation with my father (a lifelong Democrat whose only vote in a presidential contest that wasn't for the Democrat candidate was for John Anderson in 1980) about Biden's chances against Trump. He insisted that Biden made the right choice to run because nobody else seemed like they would have a good chance against him, but I argued that this was because Biden choosing to run again essentially made it impossible for anyone else to make a serious attempt at it, and that the best thing would have been for him to announce within the first couple years of his term that he wouldn't be running for reelection, which would have given other candidates a chance to make a case. I still think that I was right about this; anyone competent enough to be a worthy candidate in the general election would know that they'd have no chance at winning the nomination against Biden running as an incumbent, even if they'd have a better chance at winning the general election. Anyone reasonable who was concerned with Trump winning had no incentive to enter a contest they couldn't win and risk being perceived (perhaps correctly) as a spoiler who hurt Biden's chances, so the smartest thing for them to do both for themselves and the country would be to hide their ambitions until next time and hope for the best. I know that I've probably been wrong ten times for every time that I've been right about something like this, but that didn't make it any easier to watch the last six or seven months. You're correct that there was nothing else anyone could have done to avoid the train wreck by the time Biden withdrew because the only way to avert it would have been to change speeds way back before we got to the sharp curve. The worst part is that I don't even think that Harris would have necessarily been a bad candidate if she had been given a proper chance from the start; there are articles as far back as early 2022 mentioning that her public appeal was hurt by the Biden administration tying her to issues like immigration and election reform. At minimum, ignoring the harm to her future electability showed extremely poor foresight, and it's not hard to imagine that it went beyond negligence to the point of outright sabotage of someone viewed as a potential threat.

pm90 2y ago
It’s very unlikely that he would deliberately kneecap her. But I agree with you…that it was too late by the time he dropped out, the electorate had already made its mind. In the end, I think his policies turned out to be great. But he didn’t have the skills to capitalize on the gains, to seize them and point to them as “wins”. Instead we often saw a somewhat slow, very old but good natured grandpa who was clearly not fully present all the time. The policy on Gaza though, that made 0 sense. He had the power to bully Netanyahu into stepping back but consistently took no action. Solving that crisis would have been HUGE for reelection, keeping them festering only contributed to the feeling of chaos.
- starik36 2y ago
  [flagged]

kylehotchkiss 2y ago

We both know who. Gavin. That would be landslide GOP, California goes red bad.