Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

has anyone done a study to figure out which people are more likely to answer the phone when it's an unknown number, especially in the last couple years after the number of marketing/spam phone calls have skyrocketed?

I'm not saying all those people are Biden supporters, but polling organizations don't leave voicemail

There's been polls on who the voters prefer as their second choice, iirc, and Biden wins those as well. Sanders voters, especially, like Biden. And vice versa, Biden voters like Sanders.

The time to panic is now, honestly.

we're still eight months out. hold your horses

Anyone should just do what they think. Just don't wait until there's nothing to do but shout 'RIGGED' at the DNC. Again.

I'll be curious to see how aggressive other candidates will be willing to get towards him in the debates. Lord knows there's no shortage of material.

one thing he doesn't have is some golden aura where people would fear criticizing him. warren has already started that. i don't think it'll be a trump situation where the other contenders are too afraid of alienating his voters to say anything. (there may be some, particularly among the lowest tier, who are angling to be his VP pick of course.)

have a bad feeling that biden winning the primary will be the last hoorah of boomers fucking up the country bc his core constituency is 70 year olds

I'll be curious to see how aggressive other candidates will be willing to get towards him in the debates. Lord knows there's no shortage of material.

I don't see why they wouldn't be - situation doesn't seem analogous to Trump 16 at all. Don't see him lasting the debates, and there's potential big wins for whoever lands the first blows on him (especially as there's plenty of low hanging fruit to go for)

has anyone done a study to figure out which people are more likely to answer the phone when it's an unknown number, especially in the last couple years after the number of marketing/spam phone calls have skyrocketed?

Short answer: yes, lots of ppl. Polling organizations weight for that kind of stuff. I dont know the math details of exactly how it works under the hood, but pro polling orgs have an awareness of the differences between the demographics of who answers a telephone call in 2019 and whatever demo they're trying to poll. It's not just "25% of people we called said they like candidate x"

I don't see why they wouldn't be - situation doesn't seem analogous to Trump 16 at all.

It's not, but there is a different sort of pressure/mindset among a fair number of Democrats that "going negative" against your fellow Dems poisons the well. (Not that I expect this will deter Warren or Sanders; it's the others I'm wondering about.)

The online HRC fans who swear Bernie never endorsed or campaigned for her are legion.

speaking of "no shortage of material"

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign confirmed that he still supports a controversial ban prohibiting the use of federal funds for certain abortion services.

Campaign aides told The Hill that the 2020 presidential hopeful still supports the Hyde Amendment, which has prevented government health programs like Medicaid from paying for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the woman.

Biden’s campaign did say that Biden would be open to repealing the amendment if abortion access currently protected under Roe v. Wade was threatened.

NBC News first reported Biden's stance on the measure.

The support appears to differ from what Biden told an American Civil Liberties Union volunteer when asked about the Hyde Amendment last month.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/447023-biden-2020-campaign-confirms-he-supports-controversial-abortion-rule-report

(Not that I expect this will deter Warren or Sanders; it's the others I'm wondering about.)

― Simon H

It'll deter delaney and hickenlooper whoever the fuck that is and the also rans

wont deter Kamala surely? I guess you're thinking of Buttigeig/Beto? are we really consider anyone after that as a factor? Yang maybe wouldn't but not for this reason

if i were kamala i'd be pretty pissed off that the centrist donor support that should be mine is instead being thrown behind joe fucking biden out of what i would have a hard time not seeing as the misogyny+racism of those interests projected onto the american public they hate and fear, and i wouldn't see anything to lose in going after him hard

could be wishful thinking on my part because yeah if bernie+warren end up going it alone the bitching from the donors and media about treasonous probably-russian negativity and "circular firing squads" will never ever stop, and kamala joining an anti-biden bloc would make this harder for them. but as destroying him and taking his place seems like her path to the nomination i am hoping we are temporarily made allies.

buttigieg's version of going after biden will be to blather about how we need Youthful Leadership in a bid for the attention of that dumbest portion of my brain that is full of anti-boomer false consciousness. fortunately everyone in the country not crippled by g+t classes can see perfectly well that he is a vapid dweeb. beto i keep forgetting exists.

that all makes sense to me. i know making political predictions nowadays is idiotic but my inkling right now is that the nominee is either going to be Kamala or Biden. I just fear that Bernie and Warren have too much donor/Wall St/establishment animus to contend with, plus I have a lot of doubts about whether either of them can achieve substantial minority support -- no matter how much Bernie fans point to his favorables among African Americans, the fact remains that he got crushed in the South in 2016 and I don't see how that changes in 2020 vs. Obama's veep or an actual WOC.

Harris’s platform seems pretty good—support for green new deal and medicare for all and increased teacher pay—but is this something to take seriously? Like in a different year would she have a platform like this?

For sure i’d take her over biden or buttigieg (i liked him more before this supreme court thing) or lol beto but still.

Like in a different year would she have a platform like this?

no, but it's not a different year. president harris is not a jubilant prospect to me but it's not the death knell president biden would be. biden will never listen: he's running on not listening.

at this point I'm not terribly hopeful about what a Harris administration would look like. i mean, considerably more hopeful than Biden but way way less than Warren/Sanders, basically.

xpost, yup.

Yeah i agree. But i just wonder if she’s going to seem “inauthentic” versus trump, who tore apart of a bunch of career politicians in 16 on these grounds

everything depends on building and sustaining a mass movement; i remain a berniebro because he's the only one who behaves as if that is primary. will admit that prospects are not even that great even under him and less so under harris, but at least she moves.

trump tore apart republicans. everyone hates republicans

Harris doesn't really scan as "career politician" to me. she's maybe too guarded but she seems way more comfortable with sparring than Hillary, if that's what you're worried about.

yeah, i mean who knows. she will be better than hillary probably but i think trump will be in a better electoral position this time.

Especially bc he is going to do more fucked up disinformation stuff probably. My big prediction is that he js going to open an investigation against his opponent.

i suspect, on the merits or not, Harris is going to have a "Willie Brown cycle" in the news

Yeah something like that if she runs against Trump. I think we are in for an unbelievably ugly few months if Trump doesn’t have a heart attack or something

we are in for an unbelievably ugly next 18 months (until the election) no matter what, and if trump loses there is a high likelihood that he is going to go down kicking and screaming and contesting the election for many more months after that.

If he somehow died it would still be ugly but less bad. I also think it would help the democrats chances—trump’s cult of personifg is buoying a lot of unpopular policies

One of my friends who works in politics as a fundraiser for Democratic candidates is incredibly concerned about Harris as a candidate, not because he thinks she is terrible but because the prosecutor toolkit that makes her an effective and impressive Senator in Congressional hearings is uniquely unsuited towards doing well in a Presidential run. Harris is good at constructing a narrative and breaking down a witness to build upon that narrative; in the current context, she does not get to flex those muscles and is effectively just giving closing arguments constantly, which doesn't let her get to the meat of how she outlines/defines a position. (This may also account for why she's criticized as being disingenuous aside from the regular sexist/racist baggage.)

Yeah i mean who knows. I think being able to hammer soundbites is important now—a less flattering possible (and partial) explanation for bernie sanders’ success.

Harris did a decent job pumping up the crowd and speaking in a folksy way when I saw her stumping for midterm candidates last year. Not Obama-level, but not bad. Actual debates will flush out her narrative-building ability, I would guess.

I can't think of a single Sanders soundbite that's really punchy! His shtick is doggedly sticking to the basics, to the detriment of not catering speeches well to specific interest groups.

I can't think of a single Sanders soundbite that's really punchy! His shtick is doggedly sticking to the basics, to the detriment of not catering speeches well to specific interest groups.

This is his strength for sure, he's like a broken record, and easily pariodable but when you parody him you end up just repeating his platform! this is good. Most of the others don't really have a platform, or at least not one you can remember, but, weirdly, they don't really seem to have memorable catchphrases either (yet)

it's hilarious when someone tries to use a clip of Bernie saying something thirty years ago as a gotcha moment only to realize he said the exact same thing yesterday

Joe Biden's a bum. A right-wing chauvinist, good time prick, arrogant bastard creep who thinks that because he's got a $3,000 suit and the cachet of a lifetime sinecure in the Senate we should bow down to his beaming smile. A real racist piece of work. https://t.co/jPvivMUf5R

— Sen. Mike Gravel (@MikeGravel) June 6, 2019

The most consistent through line of Biden‘s career is his lack of respect for a woman’s autonomy. Not only does he pet and paw at women publicly, but he refuses to work to make abortion easier by supporting the monstrous Hyde Amendment. https://t.co/WJEDuihZT4

— Sen. Mike Gravel (@MikeGravel) June 5, 2019

where do I find some teens to run my twitter account? the Gravel kids are getting some good sniping in

Biden supports the carbon capture and storage (CCS) faith based initiative, and his staff are plagiarists.

The paragraph in Joe Biden’s climate plan about carbon capture and sequestration includes language that is remarkably similar to items published previously by the Blue Green Alliance and the Carbon Capture Coalition.

— Josh Nelson (@josh_nelson) June 4, 2019

all of the above! including the really pointless, dumb, expensive and bad ideas

I'm officially convinced that there is absolutely no way in hell Biden should be the nominee due to his abortion record. This election is going to largely be determined by women, and abortion is going to be a hugely galvanizing issue. This should really put an end to any "electability" debates about him. He is not electable.

along with Anita Hill, "I have no empathy" for millennials, credit card co Muppet, Iraq vote, etc

I hate Biden, but you can find bad stuff about any candidate, but anita hill and the iraq war vote are not going to be defining issues of 2020. Abortion almost certainly is.

It's a spectrum, but Biden isn't that far removed from Trump. There is no sharpening that tool.

I wouldn't go that far. But I won't think about it because he ain't getting that nomination.

i'm not so certain but i hope you're right because I absolutely think he would lose to Trump.

as D Perrin's podcast cohost said last week, the Dems nominating him and losing pretty much exactly as HRC did would be the ultimate self-inflicted Groundhog Day.

That's fine, but I'm really only interested in hearing opinions like that from people who think it would be a bad thing.

I can hear Perrin's giddiness.

^^^ pair of bad-faith comments

but i'm glad you're listening to it, Alfred!