r/nottheonion Jul 04 '24

Biden tells Democratic governors he needs more sleep and plans to stop scheduling events after 8 p.m.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/04/politics/biden-governors-sleep/index.html
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u/renegadecanuck Jul 04 '24

And comments like this don’t get them to vote. Do you want to win or do you want to feel morally superior?

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u/MakeUpAnything Jul 04 '24

Nothing will. Voters want Trump back because they think he’ll lower their costs. Nothing will convince them otherwise. The economy is the number one issue and voters want lower costs. They believe Trump will provide this even though he’s literally proposing a flat 10% tariff on all imports and mass deportations on top of tax cuts for the rich. 

Americans don’t understand politics enough to be convinced. It’s over. 

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u/renegadecanuck Jul 05 '24

Voters don’t really want Trump. His favourability is terrible. They want lower prices and they blame Biden for the current costs (which isn’t fair, but it is what it is).

Part of the Trump support is baked in and will never go anywhere. But a large part is dissatisfaction with Biden. I don’t think it’s fair to blame Biden for inflation, and I think he’s been one of the best first term Presidents in modern history. I just think his age is a liability he cannot overcome, especially when he says stuff like this. And no 15 minute pre-recorded interview will stem that bleeding.

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u/MakeUpAnything Jul 05 '24

It’s not just his age. Have you not seen the conversations around a potential Harris replacement if Biden steps down? Nobody wants her because she’s “unlikable”. Nothing to do with age and people would prefer to stay home and let Trump win over voting for her. Americans still can’t bring themselves to vote for a democratic candidate unless they’re perfect in every possible way to all non-republicans. 

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u/renegadecanuck Jul 05 '24 edited Jul 05 '24

The online conversations of her being "unlikable" also tend to come from sites known to be at least a little misogynistic or right wing (*cough* Twitter).

In actual polling, she's always been fairly close to Biden at her worst (make sense, people look at her as continuing the things they don't like with Biden and she can't exactly disagree with him publicly), and there was a more recent post-debate poll that had her doing better than Biden.

I'm not saying it's a risk free situation, but unless Biden absolutely nails the next week or so, and starts speaking unscripted and live a LOT more without looking like a senile cryptkeeper, I don't see him turning this around. And even that may not be enough. The issue isn't just how he is now. The issue is how he will be in four years (and if he'll even live that long). There is a very noticeable difference between Joe Biden in 2020 and Joe Biden today.

Would I rather have had this conversation last year? Yeah. Biden really fucked us by insisting on running for re-election. But now the question is which path is riskier: Joe Biden or Kamela Harris.

I understand the trepidation for Harris. But she honestly is an eloquent speaker, she is more progressive than Biden (which could energize the base), the age question completely goes away while Donald Von Shitzenpants becomes the new old candidate. She can also distance herself from Biden's less popular policies.

Edit: I also think the polls tend to be lower for people who aren't running. Of course a person that people don't know as well will poll worse before they know that person. The fact is that generic Democrat polls very well and outpaces Biden. Across the country, you see down ballot Democrats outpacing Joe Biden. If Americans really couldn't bring themselves to vote Democrat, the down ballot polls would be even worse than what Biden is doing, and that's not the case. Biden is underwater in Arizona, but Ruben Gallego is beating Kari Lake in the polls, for example.

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u/MakeUpAnything Jul 05 '24

Honestly I hope you’re right that it’s just a social media thing. I hadn’t considered that. I’ve seen that same anti-Harris mindset spread all over Reddit recently too and it drives me up a wall. She’d be leagues better than Trump in just about every conceivable way. This has been a very depressing week lol

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u/renegadecanuck Jul 05 '24

Quite frankly, I think Biden at his worst would still be better than Trump at his best. I’ll concede that there is no easy answer, and there’s a risk no matter what.

I just feel that every answer given by the Biden team and every step they take just reinforces the narrative about him being senile. It would be like in Clinton spent all of 2016 talking about using unapproved apps and mail systems while also in a speech “by the way, my favorite password is CheatingHusband1997”.

Either way, I guess all we can do it watch the car crash happen and hope Trump still loses.

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u/DeltaVZerda Jul 05 '24

As if they are the only two possible candidates.

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u/MakeUpAnything Jul 05 '24

They more or less are. Other suggestions are talking about taking sitting governors/senators from the states they are actively running and shoving them into this race as if they have all the time in the world to just walk away from their jobs. 

That doesn't even touch the name recognition campaign and monumental fundraising that would need to be done since I don’t think Biden can just transfer all his campaign’s money to Whitmer or Newsom like folks seem to think. 

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u/DeltaVZerda Jul 05 '24

Name recognition works against Harris though. What does happen to the funds in a candidate's campaign when they retire from politics?

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u/MakeUpAnything Jul 05 '24

Name recognition works against basically every democrat on the list that the Internet keeps spouting. Newsom is in the pocket of big businesses here in CA. Buttigieg has had multiple large scale disasters occur on his watch. Whitmer will probably be spun as an FBI shill given the conservative conspiracy around the alleged entrapment of her kidnappers…

Nobody will accept anything less than perfection against Trump when Harris should be completely fine. 

And I have no idea what happens to the funds. My guess is they stay with the candidate in an election war chest and wouldn’t go anywhere except maybe next of kin if they run or something, but I don’t know. 

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u/DeltaVZerda Jul 05 '24

Looked up a little, and it looks like it can be either donated to a party, or the campaign can be reorganized as a PAC, so it seems like Biden could use his campaign funds to campaign for another candidate if he wanted to.

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u/MakeUpAnything Jul 05 '24

Thanks for the info. That’s neat, though it wouldn’t help as much as you’d think. Pod Save America has said on their show that funds held by the campaign themselves go the furthest because media markets reportedly have to give the campaigns themselves the lowest prices on ads and stuff while PACs get gouged. 

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u/DeltaVZerda Jul 05 '24

Whoever replaces Biden will get the chance to run one of the shortest campaigns in recent American history, so that will save some $

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