President Joe Biden, speaking to the nation from the Oval Office Wednesday evening, framed his decision to step aside from the 2024 presidential race as a matter of saving democracy and passing “the torch to a new generation.”
Absolutely nothing was stopping him from remaining in the race until the convention and becoming the official nominee. That was a viable path forward, if he had wanted to choose it. That he did not, deserves acknowledgement and respect.
However, a sitting president is not entitled to the nomination. It’s happened before where a sitting president is denied a nomination for a second term, and it’s been given to someone else in the party instead.
If it had gone that way with Biden though, I think the optics would have been so bad that there would be no hopes of salvaging the election though, so it’s still praiseworthy that he dropped.
He was not going to be the nominee due to being the sitting president. He was going to be the nominee due to defeating his main rival “uncommitted” in the primaries, along with Rep. Dean Philips and Marianne Williamson.
Delegates are bound to support in all good conscience the person for whom their primaries results reflect.
This bizzare turn of phrase has been largely been untested in the courts… But if, in good conscience, the delegates believe that the results of the primary were for the candidate who was best poised to defeat Trump (as in, they’re not supporting Biden specifically as much as they are against Trump, for example) then they could argue that based on events that have occured since the primaries that they are in good conscience representing those wishes.
So, I dunno. I’m very glad Biden took the high road here, but I am unconvinced that this was truely set in stone. This is the exact justification for having delegates choose the nominee in the first place; that in certain critical conditions they can act in good faith.
I think that would be an extremely minority opinion far outside of the moderate dem mainstream. Since the electors get specifically chosen by the winning campaign, expecting some kind of broad revolt out of them is very wishful thinking.
Additionally, Biden was polling very close to Trump during a time when dems have been outperforming polls in our recent elections. Someone would have to be fairly ignorant of the actual voting results of recent races to actually think Biden genuinely had no chance. I do not think very many chosen delegates are ignorant of these election results, unlike more casually-engaged citizens online.
while technically true, had uncommited gotten more than 2 weeks to campaign and made it onto every ballot, the dems might not have had to modify the ticket this late.
Yeah, I think there’s not nearly enough single-issue Palestine voters to make that happen. Also, it was a write-in campaign, it was never “on” a ballot anywhere.
“uncommitted” / “no preference” were explicitly on some state ballots and palestine is a bigger culminating issue than people give credit for. “none of the above” running a distant, but meaningful, second is not encouraging.
regardless of your thoughts on biden in 2020, a diminished biden was a disaster for the Democrats and (potentially) the country in 2024.
No, not really. Single issue voters are fairly unusual in the dem party. There are always some, no question, but the very small size of the peace protests compared to those during, say, the Vietnam War era demonstrates a fairly niche issue imo. While most dems believe in peace for Palestine, relatively few would rank it among their top issues.
Regarding Biden’s diminishment, delegation is the most important skill a leader can possess. It is not a leaders responsibility to make all the decisions, but to organize and provide vision for a group of people that can accomplish far more than any individual. Many people past their youth understand this, due to direct life experience in the broader world. Biden’s diminishment would have had minimal impact on his actual presidency. At the polls, however, yes it definitely was a concern, eventually leading to him dropping out after all. The idea he actually could not win was very, very overblown though. He was still in the running. I think the broader concern was his impact on down-ballot races.
Regarding uncommitted actually being on some ballots, it seems you’re right. Thank you for the correction, that’s actually sort of funny. lol
No, not to a more traditionally-minded dem. You could say that’s a mistaken thought, that’s my opinion personally. But it reminds me of a democratic leader reportedly saying he was resigning himself to a Trump presidency. It’s common among dems to play with “honor” so much they lose, the much-debated “they go low, we go high” philosophy.
Absolutely nothing was stopping him from remaining in the race until the convention and becoming the official nominee. That was a viable path forward, if he had wanted to choose it. That he did not, deserves acknowledgement and respect.
I agree in principle with what you’re saying.
However, a sitting president is not entitled to the nomination. It’s happened before where a sitting president is denied a nomination for a second term, and it’s been given to someone else in the party instead.
If it had gone that way with Biden though, I think the optics would have been so bad that there would be no hopes of salvaging the election though, so it’s still praiseworthy that he dropped.
He was not going to be the nominee due to being the sitting president. He was going to be the nominee due to defeating his main rival “uncommitted” in the primaries, along with Rep. Dean Philips and Marianne Williamson.
Delegates are bound to support in all good conscience the person for whom their primaries results reflect.
This bizzare turn of phrase has been largely been untested in the courts… But if, in good conscience, the delegates believe that the results of the primary were for the candidate who was best poised to defeat Trump (as in, they’re not supporting Biden specifically as much as they are against Trump, for example) then they could argue that based on events that have occured since the primaries that they are in good conscience representing those wishes.
So, I dunno. I’m very glad Biden took the high road here, but I am unconvinced that this was truely set in stone. This is the exact justification for having delegates choose the nominee in the first place; that in certain critical conditions they can act in good faith.
I think that would be an extremely minority opinion far outside of the moderate dem mainstream. Since the electors get specifically chosen by the winning campaign, expecting some kind of broad revolt out of them is very wishful thinking.
Additionally, Biden was polling very close to Trump during a time when dems have been outperforming polls in our recent elections. Someone would have to be fairly ignorant of the actual voting results of recent races to actually think Biden genuinely had no chance. I do not think very many chosen delegates are ignorant of these election results, unlike more casually-engaged citizens online.
while technically true, had uncommited gotten more than 2 weeks to campaign and made it onto every ballot, the dems might not have had to modify the ticket this late.
Yeah, I think there’s not nearly enough single-issue Palestine voters to make that happen. Also, it was a write-in campaign, it was never “on” a ballot anywhere.
“uncommitted” / “no preference” were explicitly on some state ballots and palestine is a bigger culminating issue than people give credit for. “none of the above” running a distant, but meaningful, second is not encouraging.
regardless of your thoughts on biden in 2020, a diminished biden was a disaster for the Democrats and (potentially) the country in 2024.
No, not really. Single issue voters are fairly unusual in the dem party. There are always some, no question, but the very small size of the peace protests compared to those during, say, the Vietnam War era demonstrates a fairly niche issue imo. While most dems believe in peace for Palestine, relatively few would rank it among their top issues.
Regarding Biden’s diminishment, delegation is the most important skill a leader can possess. It is not a leaders responsibility to make all the decisions, but to organize and provide vision for a group of people that can accomplish far more than any individual. Many people past their youth understand this, due to direct life experience in the broader world. Biden’s diminishment would have had minimal impact on his actual presidency. At the polls, however, yes it definitely was a concern, eventually leading to him dropping out after all. The idea he actually could not win was very, very overblown though. He was still in the running. I think the broader concern was his impact on down-ballot races.
Regarding uncommitted actually being on some ballots, it seems you’re right. Thank you for the correction, that’s actually sort of funny. lol
thanks for the good convo. ignoring any other problems (including palestine being much more than just “single issue”)
given the importance of controlling as many branches as possible to make the vitally important needed changes… isnt that innately disqualifying?
No, not to a more traditionally-minded dem. You could say that’s a mistaken thought, that’s my opinion personally. But it reminds me of a democratic leader reportedly saying he was resigning himself to a Trump presidency. It’s common among dems to play with “honor” so much they lose, the much-debated “they go low, we go high” philosophy.