US Presidential Election 2024 - Trump vs ??? - Vote Hard with a Vengence

[Brad Sallows]

You seem to be minimizing what she has done and aggrandizing Vance’s record.

Comparing a presidential candidate to a VP candidate is an odd choice of framing, but for those who want to make it the point stands that his undertakings are a bit broader than hers. If Kelly gets the Democratic VP slot, then both parties will have VP candidates whose life experience is broader than that of the presidential candidates.

The assessment I most commonly encounter (from US pundits across the spectrum) about the importance of VP candidates is that they aren't. Head-to-head comparisons don't matter. Their debate doesn't matter. Their strengths don't compensate for presidential shortcomings. At most they are usually chosen for demographic appeal (where the presidential candidate might be weak), or perceived advantage in a swing state. This election was looking like a bit of an outlier, with people able to reasonably calculate that either presidential candidate might not make it to the end of term (Biden: general health and mental fitness; Trump: legal liabilities), so the VP choices mattered more than usual. Harris's VP choice doesn't matter. Trump's: maybe a little.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Edit - Biden was taken down in a coup. This negates all the votes he originally recieved. I'm sure there are some dems not happy about their vote being dismissed so easily.
Harris has been annointed, outside the DNC, by some elites. The dems cannot defend that unless they hold the convention and a majority of normal members vote for her.

Biden voluntarily stepped aside. Everyone knows pressure was brought to bear, but the simple fact that he took the step matters. There is nothing wrong with his endorsement of Harris and encouragement to his delegates to support her. There is nothing wrong with all the other endorsements of Harris. There is usually a highly favoured candidate by convention time. The fact that the convention will simply affirm what everyone already knows along with being a party and a pep rally is the usual outcome.

 

[dimsum]

Edit - Biden was taken down in a coup. This negates all the votes he originally recieved. I'm sure there are some dems not happy about their vote being dismissed so easily.
Harris has been annointed, outside the DNC, by some elites. The dems cannot defend that unless they hold the convention and a majority of normal members vote for her.

Biden messing up on the debate and then stepping aside due to pressure from his party is not a “coup”. On this side of the border, if JT stepped down tomorrow based on the LPC share of polled votes, and with LPC members publicly calling on him to step aside, would that be an LPC coup?

You know what was an attempted self-coup? Jan 6, 2021.

 

[Remius]

Comparing a presidential candidate to a VP candidate is an odd choice of framing, but for those who want to make it the point stands that his undertakings are a bit broader than hers. If Kelly gets the Democratic VP slot, then both parties will have VP candidates whose life experience is broader than that of the presidential candidates.

That is exactly what they are doing. That she was the DEI VIP pick. She’s the presidential pick because she is the current pragmatic choice. Vance’s life experience is hardly more broad than either Trump, Harris or Kelly. He’s the least qualified of the 4.

The assessment I most commonly encounter (from US pundits across the spectrum) about the importance of VP candidates is that they aren't. Head-to-head comparisons don't matter. Their debate doesn't matter. Their strengths don't compensate for presidential shortcomings. At most they are usually chosen for demographic appeal (where the presidential candidate might be weak), or perceived advantage in a swing state. This election was looking like a bit of an outlier, with people able to reasonably calculate that either presidential candidate might not make it to the end of term (Biden: general health and mental fitness; Trump: legal liabilities), so the VP choices mattered more than usual. Harris's VP choice doesn't matter. Trump's: maybe a little.

Harris’s VP choice absolutely does matter as it will be based on what maximizes her chances at winning electoral votes.

Trump’s VP pick mattered as it was a message that they were doubling down on MAGA based on the situation at that time and they didn’t think they needed to broaden their vote. If Harris was running before Vance was picked they never would have picked Vance.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Did we miss Biden being legally elected by the DNC prior to the 27 June debate?

He was the incumbent president. Incumbent presidents have the right of way. And yes, he was elected. Then all those votes were overridden and discarded by a few party elites. Biden made the decision to step away. It was either that or face the 25th amendment and lose what he had left of his presidency. There was nothing honorable or patriotic about his decision. Jill and Hunter want to wring as much of the gig out of Joe that they can.

 

[Remius]

Fox News is reporting these numbers. Now I doubt these stay like this (and other polls are likely showing different but they all show a narrower race than when Biden was the candidate) as Harris will drop a bit after her honeymoon phase. But they’ll likely get another boost after their VP pick and again after their convention. They are in a position of momentum. The GOP knows this and are testing a variety of attack lines which only makes them seem a bit disjointed.

 

[Remius]

He was the incumbent president. Incumbent presidents have the right of way. And yes, he was elected. Then all those votes were overridden and discarded by a few party elites. Biden made the decision to step away. It was either that or face the 25th amendment and lose what he had left of his presidency. There was nothing honorable or patriotic about his decision. Jill and Hunter want to wring as much of the gig out of Joe that they can.

Is there evidence he was facing the 25th amendment? Seems like that would have been a dumb move. Pretty sure that’s just fantasy. And I have asked this before, under what section of the 25th?

 

[Brad Sallows]

That is exactly what they are doing. That she was the DEI VIP pick. She’s the presidential pick because she is the current pragmatic choice. Vance’s life experience is hardly more broad than either Trump, Harris or Kelly. He’s the least qualified of the 4.

He's as qualified as any of them. He might be the least credentialed, or the one with the least time on his resume in relevant positions. Some people with credentials and time-in-position aren't very useful mammals, though, so it's worth looking at their actual body of work and where they've applied themselves with result.

Harris’s VP choice absolutely does matter as it will be based on what maximizes her chances at winning electoral votes.

It might matter a little, but overwhelmingly the top of the ticket is what drives American voters and as partisanship increases the usefulness of a VP pick seems to be decreasing. Maybe a VP can bring home a swing state, but that's valueless if that one state isn't enough to tip the EV count. Maybe a VP can attract certain slices of the population by gender, culture, etc, but there isn't really any way to measure how much the VP pushes other slices of the population - or the votes in other swing states - away. The VP choice might not even be particularly inspired - I doubt Clinton needed Kaine to help secure VA, and I doubt Kaine pulled in enough votes to make up for Clinton's own negatives.

Trump’s VP pick mattered as it was a message that they were doubling down on MAGA based on the situation at that time and they didn’t think they needed to broaden their vote. If Harris was running before Vance was picked they never would have picked Vance.

Like much of what we discuss, that's just a hypothetical. My hypothetical is that Trump is so overwhelmingly polarizing that very few people voting for or against him care about his VP. Most of the first takes I read about Vance noted that he probably wasn't needed to bring home OH for Trump, and probably wasn't needed to attract the white males who might be considering voting for Trump. Trump picked a lieutenant for his presidency, not an attractant for his election.

 

[Brad Sallows]

He was the incumbent president. Incumbent presidents have the right of way. And yes, he was elected. Then all those votes were overridden and discarded by a few party elites. Biden made the decision to step away. It was either that or face the 25th amendment and lose what he had left of his presidency. There was nothing honorable or patriotic about his decision. Jill and Hunter want to wring as much of the gig out of Joe that they can.

Assuming you mean the 25A provision for declaration of inability, the VP has to be part of the group. If Harris had joined that in the absence of a truly serious presidential debility (more than Biden's occasional demonstrations of age-related decline), she might as well have resigned immediately after securing the appointment of her own VP. She would not realistically have been electable. The people talking about applying the 25A were either thinking wishfully (Democrats) or goading mischievously (Republicans).

I reiterate that there's no mechanism by which the party elites can have intervened to override pledged delegates. No such thing can happen until the convention is held. No-one has done anything to the delegates.

Incumbency is a privilege, but not a right-of-way. Lyndon Johnson was challenged in his re-election primary, and he withdrew (1968). What pushed Biden away was the mix of open and backroom notifications of losses of funding, endorsements, and support. At some point he and his inner circle had to stop lying to themselves that an election in which the polls showed him trailing consistently could be won under the additional burden of party dissension.

 

[Brad Sallows]

The GOP knows this and are testing a variety of attack lines which only makes them seem a bit disjointed.

Parties often try out ideas, and the targets always try to portray them as "disjointed" until the trials yield results and the useful hits start to land.

 

[The Bread Guy]

From the same people bringing you big leads for Team Blue in Canada ....

Game Change: Invigorated young Democrats give Harris slight lead over Trump -

Four-in-five believe this to be ‘one of the most important elections’ in American history July 29, 2024 – A whirlwind month in politics appears to have catalyzed the presidential race, with reports that Kamala Harris has the support of enough delegates to receive the Democratic nomination...

angusreid.org

Beware headline inflation -- with this margin of error, the #'s could also be read as "pretty much neck & neck"

Bit too early for any major blips to be seen, one way or another, methinks ....

 

[Good2Golf]

And yes, he was elected.

No.

By the DNC, he was not.

They never got around to formalizing his place on the ticket. Even mid-July they were still pondering how/when to officialize the nomination.

Democrats plan to formally nominate Biden in early August, ahead of convention

Despite calls for more time to consider alternative nominees, Democrats are planning a virtual roll call vote weeks ahead of their national convention.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Good2Golf]

Don’t get me wrong. I think they should have…but they didn’t, for a whole host of reasons.

 

[KevinB]

Don’t get me wrong. I think they should have…but they didn’t, for a whole host of reasons.

I suspect many in the senior parts of the DNC truly knew that POTUS wasn’t up to run again.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I suspect many in the senior parts of the DNC truly knew that POTUS wasn’t up to run again.

If it hadn't been for the debate and showing Joe without clothes, they still be gaslighting the US populace. They've know he wasn't up to the job from day one. Hell, they had him campaign from his basement so the public couldn't see him perform in real life.

 

[brihard]

If it hadn't been for the debate and showing Joe without clothes, they still be gaslighting the US populace. They've know he wasn't up to the job from day one. Hell, they had him campaign from his basement so the public couldn't see him perform in real life.

The Republicans have been screaming from the rooftops that Biden wasn’t fit to run. Now that he’s stepped down and the Democrats have replaced him with a more popular candidate, the Republicans are all “wait no, not like that”. I guess they got a bit too much of what that wanted.

However you characterize it, Biden was not yet formalized as the nominee, he stepped down, and Harris now appears to have overwhelming support among the party’s delegates and within the party. There appears no barrier to her formally becoming the Democrat candidate for President. Trump’s gonna have to run the race he’s got, not the one he wanted. Might be the Republicans pushed too hard and too early and somewhat snookered themselves.

 

[Brad Sallows]

If it hadn't been for the debate and showing Joe without clothes, they still be gaslighting the US populace. They've know he wasn't up to the job from day one. Hell, they had him campaign from his basement so the public couldn't see him perform in real life.

A reduced schedule of public events was reasonable as pandemic mitigation. The "tell" that should not have been ignored was the frequency with which the public appearances he did make were truncated. "We're calling a lid."

I can see how people felt that enough time had passed since the "Russian Collusion" information operation to participate in another big lie ("Biden's the sharpest guy in the room! Young staffers can't keep up with him.) But the dust from that is still up in the stratosphere and some agencies have decided to just keep lying, shifting their effort to trying to obfuscate inconvenient facts about Harris. The lying has become approximately continuous. There is simply no basis for trusting any person or agency that tried to conceal Biden's weaknesses, or that is caught trying to edit Harris's history. I don't know why they even try. It's too easy for people to find the "receipts". Journalists are becoming (many have completed the journey already) an impediment to democratic accountability, not a help.

 

[Brad Sallows]

The Republicans have been screaming from the rooftops that Biden wasn’t fit to run. Now that he’s stepped down and the Democrats have replaced him with a more popular candidate, the Republicans are all “wait no, not like that”. I guess they got a bit too much of what that wanted.

Who is saying that? What I see is that some Republicans have escalated to calling for Biden to resign the presidency, which would hand Harris the incumbency advantage (which due to circumstances is probably almost worthless). And they're criticizing those who participated in trying to conceal Biden's deficiencies, particularly those who were boldly unrealistic. If they're criticizing the way it was done, that's just throwing FUD into the Democratic camp, inviting Democrats to claw at their own bellies.

Once the novelty of the past week's events wears off, it'll be back to highlighting Harris's record of achievement, including how much her staff liked working for her, how graciously she accepted being given real responsibility in Biden's White House, and how effective she was at exercising her delegated authority.

Democrats are temporarily in a better position. Harris isn't demonstrably feeble in any respect. They can use their Potemkin president to propose policies they think will benefit the campaign, while substituting Harris as the visible face of change without the burden of having to divide the candidate's time between governing and campaigning. But using the WH record to help make the "presidential" sale can't be done without tying Harris firmly to the WH record. And if most of the resulting enthusiasm just produces over-performance in states indisputably in the Democratic EV column, they don't gain much and do risk deluding themselves if they pay too much attention to popular vote/favourability polls instead of focusing on the likely match-ups (meaning: includes third parties likely to make the ballots) state-by-state in the swing states. There is too much time left to avoid having to re-inflate the momentum balloon a few times, and illusions won't do it.

 

[QV]

There is simply no basis for trusting any person or agency that tried to conceal Biden's weaknesses, or that is caught trying to edit Harris's history. I don't know why they even try. It's too easy for people to find the "receipts". Journalists are becoming (many have completed the journey already) an impediment to democratic accountability, not a help.

They are counting on controlling the message and suppressing anything that counters that. They can get a large portion of apathetic voters this way. Not sure it will be enough this time.

 

[Remius]

This leaked audio by Vance seems to confirm that the Trump campaign was taken by surprise with Biden stepping down.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4799927-jd-vance-harris-biden-switch-political-sucker-punch/