Trump is still the world's best bet ...

[Uncle Gizmo]

David Aaronovitch, should be held accountable for his dangerous and irresponsible statement suggesting violence against the former President, Donald Trump. #CancelAaronovitch #NoToViolence

 

[ColinEssex]

There is alot of talk about Mr Biden's ability to run and possibly become President again. Various gaffs and stumblings have been shown on the news in the UK.
Question: I understand it to be true that (In the USA) the political party decides who will be Presidential candidate. Therefore, why doesn't the party Biden represents stop him from running and field a more energetic younger candidate?
At the moment, Trump virtually has to do nothing and Biden will dig his own hole.
Col

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

There is alot of talk about Mr Biden's ability to run and possibly become President again. Various gaffs and stumblings have been shown on the news in the UK.
Question: I understand it to be true that (In the USA) the political party decides who will be Presidential candidate. Therefore, why doesn't the party Biden represents stop him from running and field a more energetic younger candidate?
At the moment, Trump virtually has to do nothing and Biden will dig his own hole.

Colin, are you well? You appear to have posted something insightful and in support of the Americans! I can't believe it really.....

 

[ColinEssex]

Colin, are you well? You appear to have posted something insightful and in support of the Americans! I can't believe it really.....

Incredible isn't it? I like Americans actually.
I just can't get my head around why and how such strange candidates get chosen. I admit we do to, like Boris or Liz Truss but the USA always seemed so sensible.
Col

 

[Pat Hartman]

I understand it to be true that (In the USA) the political party decides who will be Presidential candidate.

No, although the Democrats cheat all the time. We have primary elections where the public votes for which candidate will represent their party. In most states, you need to be registered with a particular party to vote in the primary election. Then when you check in, you get the ballot for your party. You can only ever vote in your party's primary. But, like many things, state rules can vary.

The Democrats, some years ago, adopted what they call "super" delegates. These are party appointed delegates and they seem to be able to overrule the elected delegates when the votes are counted. This is most likely why Trump ran in 2016 as a Republican rather than a Democrat. The Dems had decided that it was Hillary's turn to be the Presidential candidate so no way was Trump being their candidate even if he did manage to win the primary. So, Trump, a lifelong Democrat, ran as a Republican. The hysterical thing about that was that it made the Democrats go 190 on many of their positions because they couldn't be on the same side of any policy as Trump

 

[AccessBlaster]

 

[ColinEssex]

No, although the Democrats cheat all the time. We have primary elections where the public votes for which candidate will represent their party. In most states, you need to be registered with a particular party to vote in the primary election. Then when you check in, you get the ballot for your party. You can only ever vote in your party's primary. But, like many things, state rules can vary.

Thanks Pat. So the registered members of a party - ie the people, do elect their candidate for possible president - if I read you correctly. If so (and for example) the Democrats registered members chose Joe Biden. Gosh, what must the other candidates have been like if Biden was the best person.
Col

 

[Pat Hartman]

Gosh, what must the other candidates have been like if Biden was the best person.

Biden wasn't the best pick. It was his turn. The Dems bypassed him in 2016 because they thought Hillary had a better chance of beating Trump. Usually, if the VP is relatively popular, he runs for President when his VP term ends but the party made it clear that they would not support Biden because they wanted Hillary.

Several of the other candidates were excellent. Had Trump not been running, I might have voted for Tulsi Gabbard. She has since left the Democrat party. Or as most people who leave say - the party left them and that is more accurate.

The best candidate for 2024 would have been Robert Kennedy, Jr but the Democrats would not let him on the primary ballot. Not clear to me why. Probably because he had an excellent chance of beating Biden. So Kennedy is running as a third party candidate. So, in the general election, Democrats who don't want to vote for Biden will vote for Kennedy and that alone will cause Biden to lose even if his polls don't fall even lower. There is only so many bogus ballots the Dems can get into the counting stream and the number required to beat BOTH Trump and Kennedy is probably too high to manage. The Dems would have had a far better shot in 2024 if they had allowed an honest primary. But they didn't and so, hopefully, they'll get what they deserve.

 

[AccessBlaster]

They can't replace Biden because they have already printed millions of pre-filled ballots.

 

[ColinEssex]

Thanks Pat. You know all these years we've been here and experienced several Presidential elections, and both you and Doc have explained the intricacies of the system. Plus, at voting time the BBC news try to explain how it works, often with diagrams, yet still the British people can't follow it, its just glazed eyes and over the head stuff.
I think it's best I leave it to the Americans here to continue as no doubt as election time approaches there will be agreement and disagreement. I would hazard a guess the only people who know what's what are Americans. To the rest of us I think nuclear physics is easier to understand.
Col

 

[Pat Hartman]

They can't replace Biden because they have already printed millions of pre-filled ballots.

It only took ~ 40,000 ballots in six critical precincts to swing 2020 out of 86 million cast. It really doesn't take much. Hillary would have won in 2016 if the Dems had had any idea how popular Trump actually was. You have to insert a believable number of ballots and that is a balancing act that will be very difficult this time. Trump will likely get even more votes than he got in 2020 and who is actually going to believe the number that will be recorded for Biden in order for him to win the Electoral College?

Mail in ballots makes the job of inserting bogus ballots very much simpler. I'm pretty sure that no precinct actually scans the ballots and compares the ballot number that was received with the ballot number that was sent to Mr. Jones, if they bother numbering them at all. So, Mr. Jones can vote multiple times as long as blank ballots can be obtained. In the precincts where ballots are sent to every registered voter whether they asked for one or not, they'll have a lot of ballots to play with.

One of the "tells" in 2020 was the number of ballots that had only a single box ticked - the one for Joe. Who bothers to vote and never ticks any down-ballot choices? Most people at least check the party line if they don't want to make individual choices. But, don't look here, these are not the droids you're looking for.

In my state, and in others that only send out mail-in ballots by request, if you request a ballot, your name is crossed out on the voter list. So, if you got a mail-in ballot and go to the polls anyway, they will let you vote but make your ballot provisional. That means it would only be counted if there were a tie. Again, if nobody matches ballots sent to Mr. Jones to a ballot received from Mr. Jones, who is to say that Mr. Jones didn't vote by mail as well as in person?

Other state residents, please comment if you know your state's process.

 

[Isaac]

There is alot of talk about Mr Biden's ability to run and possibly become President again. Various gaffs and stumblings have been shown on the news in the UK.
Question: I understand it to be true that (In the USA) the political party decides who will be Presidential candidate. Therefore, why doesn't the party Biden represents stop him from running and field a more energetic younger candidate?
At the moment, Trump virtually has to do nothing and Biden will dig his own hole.
Col

The general calling for him to step out and allow someone else to run the Democrat campaign is growing larger and larger every day.

But they are screwed either way, because candidates normally take the whole 1.5 years of campaigning to get people on their side.

Who could come in now and become successful in the next 3-4 months? Hint, it rhymes with BOBAMA but I hope and doubt he will get involved again.

 

[Pat Hartman]

Why hasn't anyone reminded Biden that he promised to be a 1-term president?

 

[AccessBlaster]

Watch for Dems to release the Hur tapes if they are serious about ousting Sleepy.

 

[ColinEssex]

It was mentioned on the BBC news today that in the event of Mr Biden not running for president, the current Vice President would take his place.
Is that a good thing? Or better to stick with current president.
Col

 

[GaP42]

 

[ColinEssex]

Cant see that image - sorry
Col

 

[Pat Hartman]

It was mentioned on the BBC news today that in the event of Mr Biden not running for president, the current Vice President would take his place.
Is that a good thing? Or better to stick with current president.

The VP ran for President in 2020. She got less than 1% of the votes in the first few states that ran Presidential primaries. It wasn't enough to allow her into the 2nd debate so she dropped out. But, one of her most viewed moments during the first debate was when she called Joe a racist. Apparently that moment was all for show since she had no problem accepting the VP position when it was offered. It was not offered to her due to her popularity or competence. Her other viewable moment from that debate was when Tulsi Gabbard (my personal favorite former Democrat) called her out for smoking pot and laughing about convicting other people for doing the same thing. She had been the District Attorney (I think) for San Francisco. The video of her cackling about the pot is also required viewing if you think you want to vote for her.

She got to be VP because she ticked the right boxes.
1. Color - her mother is from India, and her father is from Jamaica so she is "black"
2. Sex - we think she is a female
3. Child of Immigrants - see #1

There is no way that she can win in the general election. However, the Dems cannot discard her because they will be called racists or something else depending on who they replace her width.

If the Dems don't replace Biden with Harris, I don't think the replacement candidate gets to keep the money donated so far to Joe's campaign. I'm not sure what happens to it though.

At the moment though, the pressure to discard Biden (who promised in 2020 to be a ONE TERM President - I guess he lied) is building and so they are talking about having an open convention where they get to nominate someone else. That doesn't happen until August and 2/3 months is nowhere near enough time to mount a Presidential campaign so bottom line - Joe is the candidate unless he actually crokes. But even then, they may still run him. Remember the movie "Weekend at Bernies" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098627/


One of our left leaning members should probably give you their answer to your question. I would actually like to hear their opinion.

 

[Pat Hartman]

In my opinion, the Dems should have thought harder about a successor for Joe who promised to be a one term President and found someone that might actually be electable in 2024. But the Dems are pretty much into instant gratification and they thought they could buy votes in 2020 with her and deal with having to get rid of her later. Whoops.

 

[AccessBlaster]

They fined Trump 2x more for accurately appraising his home than Boeing got fined for killing people in 2018-2019.