2024 US Presidential Election

[DJChameleon]

I'm pretty sure the polling threshold for independents to do general debates used to be much lower. Fact check me on it, but I'm pretty sure they raised it after Ross Perot in 92. It's the Democrats and Republicans colluding to ice out their competition.

Yeah Ross Perot only had 7 percent and attended all three debates. After him they rose the minimum to 15 percent.

[SGR]

Yeah Ross Perot only had 7 percent and attended all three debates. After him they rose the minimum to 15 percent.

Sounds right. If RFK had qualified, they'd have raised it to 20% or 25% next year.

[Psy-Fi]

We just witnessed the end of Joe Biden's presidency

[DJChameleon]

The rally he had the next day after the debate.

[Lisnaholic]

The underlined is a thought-provoking question. I think it really depends on the big issues the president in question is tackling. There are certain issues that we might find benefit in having a president with a salesman mentality (international trade agreements, military defense agreements, certain foreign policy) and certain big issues that we'd find not benefit, but detriment in having a president with a salesman mentality (like COVID and the pandemic). It's sort of similar to a military president (one who has served in the military) and a career politician president would each have pros and cons depending on the issues you're tackling.

Yes, quite right that any President brings to the job character traits from previous jobs - but most of them don't just stay like that. A US President who is ex -military doesn't then run the country like a military junta. With Trump, there are two probs: (i) as you yourself said he can't shug off his salesman attitude and (ii) as Trump University and other scams have proven, he's more conman than salesman. I don't think many of the issues facing the US today are best resolved by having a conman choose the option that will work best for him (and eff the consequences to the people without power). Even negotiating on the international stage, where you might think a salesman's approach would strike a tough bargain, hasn't played out well for Trump: the Mexicans didn't pay for the wall, NATO survived his bullying about payments, etc. Trump's legacy has been to denegrate the standing of the US, while he profited from deals with shady Saudi leaders and blew through all the "emoluments" safeguards that prevented other presidents from blatantly declaring "President for sale here."

I didn't double check your math, but if Trump only lied once every four minutes of speaking time, I'd be greatly surprised.  I'd expect the number to be much bigger.

^ Yes, I just read another fact-checker who (instead of 11 lies), declared that Trump lied 30 times in the debate. If accurate, it's a pretty sad reflection that he's considered the winner. It's a triumph of style over content.

But yeah, I suppose you could call it a 'tolerance', but I'd characterize it more as an 'understanding'. Not just with Trump, but also with Biden. These guys are politicians, and they will lie. Sometimes, not even purposely. What I mean is, any time Trump and Biden start talking numbers, there will probably be a 'lie', even if it wasn't intentional.

Biden just had an optics disaster at the debate. The Democrats, assuming they're going to stick with Biden (and I think they will), need to find some kind of message to counteract or blunt the effect of that optics mess. So saying "Biden had an awful debate, but Trump lied more" is a valid way to play it, but I just doubt it's going to be very persuasive to anyone who was on the fence about who to vote for - I have massive doubts there are any swing-voters out there who upon hearing that message will have a moment of revelation and say: "Wait, really? Trump lies more than Biden?!" 

I would note though, if there was one new big lie by either candidate, that might make a difference, but looking through the AP link, the lies listed are essentially the same (or in the same ballpark of lies) they've both told many times over in the past.

This kinda goes back to a previous discussion you and I had which essentially boiled down to: do voters vote with their hearts or with their minds? I leaned towards heart, and you seemed to lean towards mind. I think people will largely vote on how a candidate makes them feel. Here's an interesting article on the subject:

So my argument essentially is that the Democrats, just like the Republicans, know that their optics and how they make the voters feel is more important to winning votes than any running fact-check/lie count between the candidates, and often times, even more important than specific policy differences between the candidates. It's why liberal media was ablaze after the debate, and even the New York Times has formally called on Biden to step down. It's also why Trump, with the aforementioned 'salesman schtick' goes out and says he had 'the greatest economy in history', rather than 'the greatest economy since Clinton'. It's all about how it makes the voters feel.

^ You make some good points about the way the Dems can or should move on from the debate fiasco.

As you say, we've talked before about voters - are they governed by their hearts or heads? I suppose the reality is that at this stage, Biden are Trump are new to nobody: they've both been in the public eye for so long that they carry a whole bunch of associated baggage with them. Everyone has an opinion of them based on memories of past speeches, actions, rumours both true and false, video clips etc. It is as all the pundits declare: most of America is already firmly in one camp or the other.
To influence that small percentage of undecided voters, the optics are important, as you say. Luckily for the Dems, though, there isn't a very solid correlation between winning a Presidential debate and winning the election. So I think this talk of ditching Biden will blow over, (especially as there are real probs about changing a candidate at this stage, with no time, afaik, to go back and redo all the Dem Primaries.)

If I was Joe Biden, I think I'd get Gavin Newsom to be my running mate, then I could campaign on the slogan, "If I die in the Oval Office, Gavin will take over and do a decent job."
(*apologies to Kamala Harris*)

[Jwb]

He's not polling well enough though.

This is what I found.

Nobody is going to be able to poll that well while being iced out by the two parties. So that's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. Biden would probably have less than that amount of support at this point if he didn't have entire weight of the democratic party. And like SGR said, I think they raised the criteria. 15% as a threshold sounds higher than I remember, iirc

[SGR]

Yes, quite right that any President brings to the job character traits from previous jobs - but most of them don't just stay like that. A US President who is ex -military doesn't then run the country like a military junta.

That's not really what I meant to convey. Not that a former general would run the country like a military junta and a salesman (like Trump) would run the country like a marketeer or anything, just that those different backgrounds would provide strengths and weaknesses as candidates depending on the country's situation and what problems it's primarily trying to solve (a former general might, for example, be a better president than a career politician or a salesman during wartime).

With Trump, there are two probs: (i) as you yourself said he can't shug off his salesman attitude and (ii) as Trump University and other scams have proven, he's more conman than salesman. I don't think many of the issues facing the US today are best resolved by having a conman choose the option that will work best for him (and eff the consequences to the people without power). Even negotiating on the international stage, where you might think a salesman's approach would strike a tough bargain, hasn't played out well for Trump: the Mexicans didn't pay for the wall, NATO survived his bullying about payments, etc. Trump's legacy has been to denegrate the standing of the US, while he profited from deals with shady Saudi leaders and blew through all the "emoluments" safeguards that prevented other presidents from blatantly declaring "President for sale here."

I won't argue with any of that. Ultimately, it's going to come down to US voters deciding which president they want. Trump is one of the most beatable candidates there's ever been, he's widely disliked for a number of reasons. But unfortunately for US voters, the only other real choice is an 81 year old who, based on his debate performance, looks like he might need to be in hospice care soon. For the average Democrat or Independent who isn't really tuned in to politics, doesn't pay close attention, etc. you'd have to think they were experiencing a mixture of shock and anger watching the debate. Republicans have been labeling Biden as demented, senile, etc since 2020. Democrats though, have up until now, largely downplayed, minimized, or outright denied these claims ("President Biden has always had a stutter..."). Independents and Democrats on debate night had to realize that the Republicans may have been closer to the truth than the Democrats were. And if we're being honest, it's not like the Democrats/White House insiders didn't know how bad Biden's gotten in terms of his physical and mental health. The Biden that we saw on that debate stage is something very familiar to them. If they were honest about that with the voters, they could've decided to have a real open primary to decide on a successor candidate to run against Trump - but they didn't, and now they're in a mess because of it that they're going to need to find a way to clean up. Even if Biden has some good public performances, people are going to be keyed in now watching for any 'senior moments' Biden has, and they'll think back to that debate performance. The guy is 81 unfortunately, he's not going to get better if you know what I mean, especially with a job as physically and mentally taxing as being POTUS.

^ Yes, I just read another fact-checker who (instead of 11 lies), declared that Trump lied 30 times in the debate. If accurate, it's a pretty sad reflection that he's considered the winner. It's a triumph of style over content.

Yeah, that number sounds more accurate.  If you told me Trump lied 11 times in his most recent public appearance, I'd have assumed it must have been a brief 15-minute press conference.  But yeah, unfortunately the presidency is a kind of popularity contest, and optics are very important for that. For example, it hasn't been since the late 70s that we've had a president shorter than 6 feet in height.

^ You make some good points about the way the Dems can or should move on from the debate fiasco.

As you say, we've talked before about voters - are they governed by their hearts or heads? I suppose the reality is that at this stage, Biden are Trump are new to nobody: they've both been in the public eye for so long that they carry a whole bunch of associated baggage with them. Everyone has an opinion of them based on memories of past speeches, actions, rumours both true and false, video clips etc. It is as all the pundits declare: most of America is already firmly in one camp or the other.
To influence that small percentage of undecided voters, the optics are important, as you say. Luckily for the Dems, though, there isn't a very solid correlation between winning a Presidential debate and winning the election. So I think this talk of ditching Biden will blow over, (especially as there are real probs about changing a candidate at this stage, with no time, afaik, to go back and redo all the Dem Primaries.)

Yup, I don't think there is a correlation between winning debates and winning elections. Trump, most people agree, lost most of his debates to Hillary and went on to win. Obama lost his first 2012 debate to Romney and went on to win. But we might be in uncharted territory a little bit. It isn't just that Biden 'lost the debate', but rather that the gravity of his ailing physical and mental state was exposed to over 50 million Americans. It's not like Obama, who just had a bad debate performance, this was an 'emperor has no clothes' moment, which I think is unprecedented in Presidential Debates. And as I've said, people know that at Biden's age, he's not going to get better...he's only going to get worse. That's why Democrats are so panicked. At first, I didn't think the Democrats would replace him. But my god, the backlash and outrage has been so massive, they might actually do it.

If I was Joe Biden, I think I'd get Gavin Newsom to be my running mate, then I could campaign on the slogan, "If I die in the Oval Office, Gavin will take over and do a decent job."
(*apologies to Kamala Harris*)

I don't see that one playing out well. Besides the fact that I doubt swapping Kamala with Gavin would provide any real boost for Biden, the reason Kamala was chosen to be VP, if we're being honest, was for optics. The Democrats, the party that celebrates diversity, needed something to counterbalance the fact that they were running a doddering, old-as-dirt white guy as their candidate. Kamala being a black woman fit the bill. I don't know how Democrats could sell replacing the first black female VP, who's next in line to the presidency, with another white dude. Again, another way Democrats have kinda shot themselves in the foot. It would be perfect if Kamala was charismatic and well liked, but unfortunately, her approval rating is even worse than Biden. And Biden, despite his advanced age, is still somehow more charismatic and disarming than the 59 year old Kamala Harris.

[Jwb]

Kamala is already pissed that her name isn't the the mix for people to potentially replace the old man. Imagine how she would take being ousted from the ticket entirely? That would be hilarious lol.

I don't think Newsom has any intention of tying himself to this failing campaign either. He's certainly willing to provide the moral support of lecturing us all about how much we owe Biden our unwavering support after "all that he's done for us" though.  He says you don't turn on your candidate after one bad performance.

But it wasn't one bad performance. It's a consistent issue with him that has been one of the most used lines of attack against him, going back to 2020. He had his viral old man moments during the Dem primary debates back then too. Remember the fuckin record player speech?

It's been the elephant in the room for the last 4 years, and going into this debate it was even openly expressed by pundits that all Biden really had to do in this debate was show up and look alive. And that was before the debate. So the problem is that it's a persistent issue  that only seems to get worse and that naturally we would expect to continue to do so.

[SGR]

Kamala is already pissed that her name isn't the the mix for people to potentially replace the old man. Imagine how she would take being ousted from the ticket entirely? That would be hilarious lol.

I don't think Newsom has any intention of tying himself to this failing campaign either. He's certainly willing to provide the moral support of lecturing us all about how much we owe Biden our unwavering support after "all that he's done for us" though.  He says you don't turn on your candidate after one bad performance.

But it wasn't one bad performance. It's a consistent issue with him that has been one of the most used lines of attack against him, going back to 2020. He had his viral old man moments during the Dem primary debates back then too. Remember the fuckin record player speech?

It's been the elephant in the room for the last 4 years, and going into this debate it was even openly expressed by pundits that all Biden really had to do in this debate was show up and look alive. And that was before the debate. So the problem is that it's a persistent issue  that only seems to get worse and that naturally we would expect to continue to do so.

Yup, totally agreed it has been a consistent issue for years now.

Democrats have largely ignored, downplayed, or denied it - which has now come to bite them in the ass. One thing I find interesting, in recent times, it seems like Republicans and Democrats are in the same theater, but they're always watching completely different movies. Whether it's about COVID, Russia/Ukraine, Israel, the border, Donald Trump's criminal charges, or Biden's health, if you ask a Republican and a Democrat about these things, you'll get two very different answers. Regarding Biden's health though, this debate felt like a merging of our collective alternate realities into one reality that we now all see and agree on.

Did you see how Jill talked to him after the debate? It seemed awfully patronizing and infantilizing to me. This man is your husband and the President of the United States. You shouldn't be talking to him like he earned an extra scoop of ice cream. It's sad, truly.

[SGR]

Man, I really wish @Rubber Soul was around to give me some feedback on this. I'm a fan of history, particularly US history, but there's no doubt I have plenty of blind spots.

I was wondering what the precedents were for a party being deceitful and hiding the health of the President, while the president continued to carry out his term (so no, James Garfield being bedridden after the assassination attempt doesn't count for me - Zachary Taylor and William Henry Harrison died so quickly after their ailment set in that I wouldn't count them, even if their party did downplay their health issues for a brief time). The immediate examples that popped up in my mind were mostly Democrats:

• Woodrow Wilson - had a stroke, which wasn't conveyed to the public - he was bedridden, and his wife Edith Wilson basically ran the country for a year or so in his second term; in some ways, you could consider her the first woman president
• FDR - he had polio so he needed to utilize a wheelchair - this didn't affect him mentally, but they didn't want the bad optics of a President in a wheelchair
• Biden

I can only think of one Republican offhand - Ronald Reagan - though I was born in '94 so I didn't get to witness this firsthand, but many believed he had alzheimer's during his second term, and it negatively affected his cognitive abilities.

Am I missing anyone?

[Jwb]

Wasn't Reagan's mind turning to mush by the end of his reign?

[SGR]

Wasn't Reagan's mind turning to mush by the end of his reign?

Yes, I mentioned him. He was, from my understanding, the US version of Brezhnev. Those are the stories I've heard, but I haven't seen like, y'know, clips of him seeming mentally gone. Maybe they do exist and I just haven't seen them. Maybe they don't exist and Republicans were just good at covering it up and medicating him.

[Psy-Fi]

It's Over

[Psy-Fi]

Biden's media bloodbath: How the liberal media finally knifed the ailing president after shielding him for four years

[SGR]

ANOTHER elected Democrat turns on Biden saying he's 'OK' with Trump winning

Psy-Fi's aforementioned media bloodbath continues. I've got to wonder, are there warring factions within the Democrat party right now about what to do, because that's what it seems like. Conventional wisdom would say that replacing Biden on the ticket at this point would doom the Democrats chances...but maybe some Democrats believe it's so bad now that their chances sticking with Biden are even worse.