All aboard the Biden train!!

[flash2015]

The problem is Orathaic is that unless the democrats define what this means very quickly in a non-ambiguous way (and everyone gets on board with exactly the same answer), Trump is going to define it for us in ways that scare the bejesus out of a significant section of the US population.

[Octavious]

Ora's description would scare the bejesus out of plenty of people even without Trump's help. The reality is that ora's suggestions don't sound much different to British policing. An unarmed police service who get on with day to day law enforcement, and several small scale professional firearms units for rare occasions. But moving from an American system to a British system will be scary, especially considering how many armed criminals are in America, and especially if done at pace. And looking further ahead, when unarmed policing units are killed (which is sadly inevitable to some degree) whoever came up with the idea will take a heavy political hit regardless of whether there's an overall improvement or not.

[Randomizer]

But that's not what it means. It means firing the local police and replace them with county or state police that lack the incompetence and current corruption. Not that there is a guarantee that the replacements will be better.

Trump would have to hope that his solution of sicking the military and unnamed federal agents is better and forgotten. When Putin gets to suggest using his tactics in the US is wrong you've got to wonder about Trump's chances.

[Crazy Anglican]

I was neutral last time (voted Johnson) but I am with you this time around BB. My son gets to vote for the first time this year too, so I am hopefully brining four votes with me (from the family)

[Fluminator]

I hope Biden picks Clinton as his VP pick. That would be funny.

[Randomizer]

Biden picks an Obama would be even funnier.

[orathaic]

Biden picks an Obama would be even funnier.

And then promptly resigns, giving Obama a third term.

[hooligannon]

The democratic party knows that they will probably lose regardless of who they put up. They are sacrificing Biden because they want to be able to blame him for the loss. This will save their policies from being perceived as unpopular. They will be able to say, "we lost because of Biden's unpopularity, not the unpopularity of our policies."

[MajorMitchell]

How do you define Trump's base? If it's the extremists then they probably or certainly won't change, but I'm wondering whether a lot of the dissatisfied voters who went with Trump, eg coal miners/workers in a
Industries/manufacturing struggling to compete with cheap imports who are now even more dissatisfied/ disillusioned and they just won't bother getting out for Trump or Biden.
The voluntary voting system & low voting rates are not only a fundamental weakness in the democratic process but perhaps also can.make results more unpredictable.
It's a bit sad that Biden is supposedly the best candidate the democrats could produce. Too old. They'd be better of with Dargoygel or possibly even Maniac.

[orathaic]

The democratic party knows that they will probably lose regardless of who they put up. They are sacrificing Biden because they want to be able to blame him for the loss. This will save their policies from being perceived as unpopular. They will be able to say, "we lost because of Biden's unpopularity, not the unpopularity of our policies."

They are still blaming Russia for Hillary's loss, so I don't see how you think they will blame Biden...

[flash2015]

The democratic party knows that they will probably lose regardless of who they put up. They are sacrificing Biden because they want to be able to blame him for the loss. This will save their policies from being perceived as unpopular. They will be able to say, "we lost because of Biden's unpopularity, not the unpopularity of our policies."

Is this for real? Have you not been paying attention to the news at all?

It is a bold statement to try to say that not only will Biden lose...but also that the democrats know that they never had a chance (Biden was chosen because he was the moderate alternative to Sanders/Warren). Even many right wing commentators and Trump himself know that Biden is way ahead at the moment in the presidential race. The current polling also suggests that the democrats have a good chance of taking the Senate too.

Of course there are still four months to go. Trump may come back. But as of right now it is not looking good for Trump at all.

[Octavious]

Of course there are still four months to go. Trump may come back. But as of right now it is not looking good for Trump at all.

Where have I heard that before?

Has the Biden replacement bus service actually started yet? I've never known a challenger make so little impression. If he ends up selecting a token black woman as VP he may yet snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The American electorate seem divided between those who like Trump and those who can't stand him, and all Biden is is an absence of Trump. The most enthusiastic thing I've heard said about him is that he might die and have someone else take over.

American politics has achieved the impossible and hit a new low

[orathaic]

Of course there are still four months to go. Trump may come back. But as of right now it is not looking good for Trump at all.

Where have I heard that before?

Has the Biden replacement bus service actually started yet? I've never known a challenger make so little impression. If he ends up selecting a token black woman as VP he may yet snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The American electorate seem divided between those who like Trump and those who can't stand him, and all Biden is is an absence of Trump. The most enthusiastic thing I've heard said about him is that he might die and have someone else take over.

American politics has achieved the impossible and hit a new low

At least if the Democrats take the seante, they can find something else to impeach trump for... And/or pass legislation to mitigate the majority of the President vs executive orders. Maybe roll back many as many of his powers... But I guess, even if they take the seante they will not have a supermajority, and thus be unable to override a presidential veto.

Thus paralysing the country for 2-4 years (and possibly leaving impeachment as the only option).

[flash2015]

Of course there are still four months to go. Trump may come back. But as of right now it is not looking good for Trump at all.

Where have I heard that before?

Has the Biden replacement bus service actually started yet? I've never known a challenger make so little impression. If he ends up selecting a token black woman as VP he may yet snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The American electorate seem divided between those who like Trump and those who can't stand him, and all Biden is is an absence of Trump. The most enthusiastic thing I've heard said about him is that he might die and have someone else take over.

American politics has achieved the impossible and hit a new low

I am not going to count those chickens before they hatch. That is why I added this statement. It is naive to see 2020 as a repeat of 2016 though. Trump will not be given the benefit of the doubt in the same way twice.

I am not sure why you are obsessed with the "black" part here. Would you call Pence a "token" evangelical? A bad VP choice of course could hurt him (i.e. Stacy Abrams)...but there is nothing new about choosing a VP to target a certain demographic or to try to carry an important state.

You are right that Biden is an absence of Trump. A path to a Biden victory comes by being a small target. It is probably a good strategy for him to just let Trump keep on shooting himself in the foot...at least for now.

You can argue that Biden is too old or raise worries that he isn't all there (which is what Republicans are doing in ads)...against another younger candidate that would be a good contrast. But I am not sure that is a good strategy when Trump is showing time and time again that he is also a few sandwiches short of a picnic...and he is obviously not in the best of health either. Democrats are currently running an ad showing Biden running up the ramp at West Point vs. Trump shuffling down it.

[Octavious]

An interesting definition of obsessed. I have literally mentioned the potential Democratic VP choice once. In what sense is that an obsession?

But no, I only mentioned it at all because the American left wing media (CNN, New York Times etc) seem to talk about the Democrats pressing Biden to take a black woman rather a lot. If he does it will impossible for anyone not to suspect tokenistic tick boxing had played a role.

[flash2015]

For the record, I am not a fan of Biden limiting his choices so early either.

But again, I don't see how this is different that narrowing down the choice by any other arbitrary criteria (e.g. VP must be from the south, VP must be from the midwest, VP must be help carry a specific swing state, VP must be an evangelical etc.). Whether his VP helps/hurts/is neutral still is going to come down to which candidate he finally selects. He still has quite a few choices.

[Octavious]

It isn't all that different, I agree, in much the same way the plague isn't much different to cancer. Both are pretty shit. But I think that your assessments of the wealth of Biden's options are overly optimistic. First and foremost he has to find a VP who doesn't embarrass him by being the clearly more competent of the two. That's a tall order in itself. If you add racial and gender tick boxes to the list then your options aren't great.

[flash2015]

Even with more alternatives democrats haven't been very good with VP choices in the past either. I thought it would be difficult for Hillary to find someone with even less charisma than her. She was up to the challenge unfortunately (Tim Kaine, ugh).

[cormorant]

Biden leads Trump by double digits in polls

Regardless of the polls The US deserves a decent person as president again.

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/9/4/h ... IuPrbdVMgU

please people VOTE!

BidenHARRIS2020

[MajorMitchell]

Well I hope Biden and Harris defeat Trump and Penske with thumping margin.. Biden is no Obama or JFK, but in my opinion he's far better than Trump, which is not a high bar to jump admittedly.
The way I see it, all the racists bigots, sexists, abusers, the AR15/Uzi & machinegun lovin' types they're all running home to the Republican Party and holding it hostage at the point of a pump action shotgun whilst dancing around a book burning while the ordinary citizens are trapped in a satanic conflagration in a dumpster bin that is Trump's USA, while Trumptoad & the wealthy live in luxury.
Meanwhile, everyone else who is decent, honest, compassionate is running to the Democrats, or should be.