Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean is from the critical swing state of Pennsylvania. She hit the campaign trail with President Biden over the weekend and as other House Democrats are asking him to drop out of the race. Rep. Dean joined Geoff Bennett to discuss her support.
Let’s be clear, this is not a repeat of 2024.
Even if it was, Biden won by unprecedentedly narrow margins in key states.
In the intervening 3.5 years, Trump has shorn up gaps in his base, motivating them to turn up to vote; his scotus nominations have ran roughshod over democracy.
Meanwhile it took Biden’s administration 2.5 years to get nuclear secrets or whatever back from the insurrectionist traitor who still walks free, and for some inconceivable notion, is running against him for president; has pissed away votes trying to chase centrists, pissed away vote supporting genocide, and pissed away votes by being entirely out of touch on “the economy”- which we all know really means “rich people’s yacht money.”
I don’t care about him being old- I care about him being competent.
Is he a fuckton more competent than Trump? Absolutely. It’s the difference between a hammer and a rock, but we’re trying to rebuild and should probably get an air nailer. even so, it’s asininely stupid to force Biden out if he doesn’t want to go.
If his ego won’t let him bow out for the sake of Americans, he’s absolutely going to ruin any chance anyone else has, too.
And massively lost. Let’s not forget that 2022 was an absolute route for the Republican Party, as has been nearly every special election. Their antics are a complete self-own. Trump’s dominance is anything but assured.
The public may have a short memory, but RvW is a dominant concern that the right will just not stop punching themselves in the balls with.
I just refuse to accept this gloom about Biden. Replace him and you lose the incumbent advantage and everyone is thrown into chaos and confusion and we go back to arguing about who the nominee should be like before the primaries instead of consolidating behind a single person. Harris is the only real logical replacement at this point and no one actually wants her. The only other names I’ve even heard are Newsome and Whitmer, who both lack national exposure because they haven’t been campaigning.
Maybe Biden will pull off a loss here, but I think it’s too late to unite behind anyone else.
Uhm. I wouldn’t call gaining control of the house a “rout”… Just saying.
In 2020, Georgia was one by less than 12k votes. Arizona was won by 10.4k votes. Pennsylvania 80k votes. Wisconsin 20k votes. These are infinitesimally small leads. Trump only needed three of the four to get the requisite EC votes to win.
By the way, by “shoring up” his base… that includes fucked up shit like getting laws passed to make it easier for republican assholes to overturn the will of their citizens, and continued gerrymandering bullshit.
Do not turn a blind eye to just how unpopular biden really is, and it’s not too late. The convention hasn’t even happened yet. If Biden did the right thing and bowed out and supported whoever replaced him as the candidate, it would work. Remember- all the idiots screaming “Vote Blue No Matter Who”? yeah… it goes both ways.
That said… he should not be forced out. Forcing him out is how you split the vote and hand Trump the win without even trying. Personally, I feel like Biden is holding the country hostage, but we won’t get into that.
In off election years (where there isn’t a presidential ticket), the party in power (this time it was the democrats) on average loses 30-40 seats. It’s a massive flip. The democrats actually won seats and if it wasn’t for the fuck face dem leader in New York fucking with the maps you would have seen dems in control of the house.
I’m going to argue some points here, but I appreciate your perspective. This is more conversational than argumentative.
Compared to what they were expected to gain, yes, they were completely dominated. They had all their “red wave” speeches prepared and it all melted away in a historically bad performance. They expected to control both chambers and have a significant margin in the House and we see how that turned out.
Man, gerrymandering pisses me off so much and I think it’s at the core of how partisan and fucked up things are right now. But I think there were a couple of significant wins on that front. Wisconsin, for sure. Seems like there was at least one other significant win. Florida? I haven’t been able to keep up with all of it.
Anyway your point is well made, they are doing everything they can to prevent people from voting - but I’m not sure how well those efforts have succeeded in specifically swing states.
In the other hand, covid deaths hit red areas and demographics at something like 2:1 compared to blue districts. At the tight margins you bring up, that can be a significant factor.
Dude has nothing on Hillary in 2016 (though that’s not helpful since she lost). The fact is, no one in the Democratic Party with national prominence is particularly well-liked. Bernie Sanders is probably the closest but for a litany of reasons I think that’s a no go.
The convention is a formality in the process. It’s not supposed to be, but it’s just too late in the election cycle. It would be absolute chaos. We’ll be arguing about who while Trump is campaigning.
Maybe. I could see it with Harris since she shares the incumbency. I worry about her ability to overcome misogyny and racism without a powerful and uplifting message like Obama had. I’d love to be proven wrong in this front, but the post-Obama era has lifted the veil on a level of racism that I didn’t even believe existed here 20 years ago, and I’m really concerned it has become even more mainstream since. I still think if Biden steps down she is our best chance.
Whitmer and Newsome both have to overcome obscurity, and Whitmer has the misogyny issue as well. Newsome I think has a head start there, but it’s going to take a lot of work and money to make either of them household names in Georgia and Pennsylvania. As a Michigander, I think Whitmer has been an outstanding Governor and would make a great President, but I don’t think she has the recognition right now.
Look, I think it’s too late, but if Biden stepped down I’d do my meager best to help elect whoever is the nominee, but I think out of all the risky paths in front of us, Biden is the least risky.
At the end of the day, I don’t care who the nominee is as long as trump doesn’t win.
Cheers.
About Harris… I’m just gonna vent here.
Biden gave her a massive finger and then left her to languish. She could have been out front getting face time, spreading that message. Doing campaign-y things.
I think the only thing I recall her stumping for is some abortion stuffs.
As a side note she could always campaign on law and order :/ or maybe reformed law and order. The violent crime rate is way down, and they’d could campaign on that along with no-contest policing reforms… like mandated training standards to receive that juicy federal funding. (Deescalation, mental health. Mandated liability insurance. Possibly “preventative care” therapy. Active shooter……. Fuck Uvalde Cops. My level 1 security guards have better fucking training and they’re contract security guards.)
It’s true that Biden really put her in a corner. She hasn’t really been able to differentiate herself in a meaningful way, and maybe that was strategic. It’s not that uncommon for vice presidents, but usually there is at least some distinctive role or signature issue that the VP works on.
Biden acted as an informal whip in Congress and as a diplomat in some international issues as VP. Pence acted as a media surrogate to the religious right, and as an advisor on appointments. I think he was once considered the most powerful VP of all time.
Harris reminds me of Veep, the Julia Dryfus show. I can’t recall a single signature issue or import role she has played in the past four years.
The truth of. ps is that you only pick a VP that stands out if you need them to for some reason. Usually you go with the bland people who couldn’t challenge you in a primary if they wanted too, because you want to avoid controversy.
Biden picked her for the law and order crowd because for some reason people see him as soft on that. She’s a prosecutor.
Also, she’s black and he’s soft there too.
There’s a few other groups there, but you get the idea.
Still she’s not particularly controversial. What that really means is she’s boring. I’ll take it over Biden if he’ll stump for her; in a heart beat. He’ll right now I’d take a cardboard cut out of Reagan over Trump.
He’s already got the incumbent advantage baked into his polling and he’s losing badly. Nevermind that 3 of the last 7 incumbents lost. The incumbent advantage, if there is one for the presidency, doesn’t seem to be particularly strong.