Joe Biden 2020 campaign megathread v3 (pg 45 - mass-dropout aftermath)

[Adam Griffin]

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/11/biden-single-term-082129

Biden signals to aides that he would serve only a single term

This would be a completely unforced error and tactically stupid move. Americans can yak about how much they want term limits, but in reality, they don't. It might be harmless with a younger candidate, but the implication here is clear: you might as well slap a "use by 2025" label on his forehead. Given how familiar the bulk of American voters is with aging, it comes with the underlying message that "I'm already deteriorating, but I'll make it through this term, I promise!". Trump will use this over and over again (if merely indirectly) to effectively crucify him.

[Adam Griffin]

1. https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-bidens-modest-tax-proposal-11576715051

3.4 Trillion divided by 330 million is 10,303 (over 10 years)

You're being deliberately obtuse and misleading, which is the norm for whenever GOP operatives discuss tax increases. Saying "so and so wants to raise taxes by $10k per person" implies $10k per person per year, which obviously isn't what's happening here.

In reality, it's around $1,000 per person per year, but when factoring in inflation-adjusted totals, it's actually less than that at the onset. Oh - and you're of course leaving out that the vast majority of people wouldn't be subject to these taxes at all.

[Adam Griffin]

1 more month and the Y2K people are gonna take back Democracy and Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg are gonna be the last ones standing for the Democratic nomination for Prez and Veep. When Pete wins IA and Bernie wins NH.

This isnt drifting off topic, Biden isnt the choice of new aged generation, he is only the elders and Establishment choice, and Biden didnt want to run, and he is corrupted

The problem with your logic is that arguably a majority of Democratic primary voters either think everything has always been/is just fine or are perfectly willing to settle for breadcrumbs.

[Adam Griffin]

Stop. Y’all know that man is not putting a Republican on the ticket.

I do think it’s hella annoying how Democrats are always asked these stupid ass questions though.

You're right, but Biden's also the one who chose to give that particular answer, further proving he's unfit for office.

That’s a reach. I could easily see Warren and Sanders saying something similar and the people on Twitter would have been just fine with it. Yes, Biden is naive as hell when it comes to the GOP but he would not put them on the ticket. He was just saying something to get them out of his face. Democrats aren’t allowed to come across as craven and hyper-partisan like the media allows the GOP to be.

I'll give you that, which is why I wish we'd get somebody who would rip control of the narrative out of Republican hands for once rather than playing by their rules. And really this goes for the party as a whole, not just Biden in particular.

This of course will never happen as long as the olds maintain their geriatric clutches on the party and its narrative, which invariably influences unwitting voters. Literally every mainstay of Democratic ideology and messaging ("we can't run too far to the left!", "people won't vote for somebody who supports [xx]!", etc) is built on the fact that olds remember Democrats losing two presidential elections in a landslide 40-50 years ago.

They've thus spent their entire lives being terrified of that occurring again, when the only variable still remaining from that bygone era is their decrepit selves. They'll force this on the masses until they're gone, and in the process, Democrats will continue to be shackled to outdated and completely irrelevant strategy.

[Adam Griffin]

Non-Clinton fan here. There is no debate about her electability with the public. Look who is wining the Southern Black vote to see for themselves.

https://twitter.com/Bakari_Sellers/status/1213154186520678402

That's about the dumbest tweet I've seen this week. Doug Jones is going to lose. Joe Cunningham is not going to be saved or defeated based on a presidential campaign. Debbie Stabenow won re-election two years ago (unless we're counting Biden uplifting MI GOP congressmen with his praise in advance of the 2018 election as assistance for MI Democrats?). What's next: pumping resources into NOLA to pad our PV wins?

The fact that 10% of the Democratic primary coalition is clustered within one region and bloc votes doesn't make them all-seeing oracles of electability - by definition, quite the contrary! Just for amusement, here are a few of the many 2020 Democratic primary constituencies that will comprise 1 in 10 voters or more:

• Men
• Women
• Non-Southerners
• White Men
• White Women
• Latinos
• Union Members
• Christians
• Non-Religious
• College Graduates
• Non-College Graduates
• White College Graduates
• White Non-College Graduates
• Liberals
• Moderates
• Rural voters
• Californians
• Gun Owners (!)
• Trump Voters (!!)*
• 18-30 Year Olds
• 30-44 Year-Olds
• 45-64 Year-Olds
• 65+ Year-Olds
• People who think the Russia investigation was politically motivated (!!)

So how about we just chill out on the "muh electability" argument for a constituency that could be predicted to be in Biden's corner from Day 1 by anybody with even a basic understanding of psephology (among other horribly silly hot takes)?

* It might not match the figure, but it'll be close (>7%)

[Adam Griffin]

"This isn't normal!"
"Donald Trump is dangerous!"
"Donald Trump is incompetent!"
"America is already great"

Honestly...if the GOP wants to get rid of Social Security and Medicare, the single-biggest argument they should be making - especially to the young - is "look how olds think politics in the 21st century work!". Nothing will change as long as the Boomers still draw breath.

[Adam Griffin]

How Joe Biden Will Float to Victory

There are two theories of what Democratic voters want right now. We’ve been living through a political moment characterized not just by anger but by an endless scream of reaction and response. Trump’s performance is largely legible as a furious reaction to President Barack Obama; he’s tried, with obsessive zeal, to undo everything his predecessor achieved, from the Iran deal to the Affordable Care Act. Trump’s more original initiatives have been reactive too, driven not by vision but resentment: family separations and the “Muslim ban” reflected the wishes of an embattled white conservative base happy to sacrifice things like human rights, an independent judiciary, and a free press if it could punish and dehumanize immigrants. Whether this rage against minorities is motivated by racism, “economic anxiety,” or some mix of the two is a matter of some debate; what it clarifies—on both sides of the aisle—is that most Americans aren’t content. Quality of life has gone down. One theory of how to respond to all this isn’t reactive but proactive: As the left has observed, income inequality is at an all-time high, corporations pay virtually nothing in taxes, and climate change will only accentuate the crises that currently exist. According to candidates like Warren and Sanders, part of the electorate wants change. Tired of the technocratic centrism that has enriched the 1 percent and slowly eroded the hopes of the rest of the country, voters want a system that actually responds to their needs. Achieving such a system will require enormous energy. Warren’s and Sanders’ agendas require work and engagement. (They also have the potential to transform society.)

The other theory is that people are tired. They’re tired of reacting; they’re tired of change; they’re absolutely sick of engaging, emotionally and practically. They don’t want to be glued to the news anymore. They want to be able to safely tune out. This is the group for which the inert gas candidate has some appeal. Trump’s presidency has, for many Democrats, been an unending emergency that has required voters horrified at his actions to throw everything they can—and it’s not much—against an out-of-control executive. The airport protests after the Muslim ban, the uproar over family separations, the Women’s March all reflected an enormous popular will to stop Trump’s government from doing what it threatened to do. With a government unable or unwilling to check or balance itself, the public has had to go into overdrive and react nonstop: People have had to plug so many leaks in this sinking boat that many simply feel depleted. That the plugging of the leaks isn’t really working only exacerbates the exhaustion.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/01/joe-biden-democratic-primary-nomination-american-exhaustion.html

Terrible descriptors. All of the mentions about floating, exhaustion, water and gas make it sound like Biden is some sort of fish with a swim bladder problem.

[Adam Griffin]

This last page contains multiple examples of a man who thinks he's losing.

[Adam Griffin]

Issues regarding state/national polls have already been addressed, but: I wonder if by the same metric, Donald Trump was perceived as more "ideologically extreme" than Hillary Clinton in 2016?

If not, then we know that the campaign can shift this narrative any which way.

If so, then it obviously doesn't matter.

[Adam Griffin]

Joe Biden, just now, on Pete Buttigieg: "I know Barack Obama. He's no Barack Obama."

[Adam Griffin]

Biden's new attack ad against Pete....

https://twitter.com/NumbersMuncher/status/1226200604218994689

LOL, this is the best Biden ad yet!

[Adam Griffin]

Biden doesn’t understand the sign of the times.

He doesn’t understand that he was only there where he was because Obama won, not he himself. Biden didn’t win.

Biden needs to be in the retirement home. That’s his crowd.

3% is too low.

He wins probably by a 10% margin.

[Adam Griffin]

INSHALLMAO

https://twitter.com/jonward11/status/1226569873666564096

[Adam Griffin]

Biden was always going to do poorly in Iowa, but his collapse in NH is a bit alarming. I would not be surprised if some polls coming out of SC would show an erosion of his support to someone like Steyer, who has made inroad with the AA community.

To be fair, Biden never really tried in NH infrastructure-wise. They believed Bernie would do quite well there from the get-go and dialed back their campaign presence there since well before IA. The Biden camp has essentially had this strategy from the get-go of "Southern blacks are our life-raft, so we can phone it in!" - which isn't a bad strategy per se, assuming you don't come in 4th or 5th in the first two contests and scare away all of your white moderate support, all the while letting a billionaire run months of uncontested ads in SC to boost his name recognition among black voters...

[Adam Griffin]

This whole debacle is so hilarious because Biden probably would've been a serious contender in Iowa/New Hampshire/Nevada (etc.) if he made even 0.001% of the effort a viable presidential candidate is supposed to make on the campaign trail. Imagine if he appeared in public more than once a month or didn't call voters ugly/tell them to vote for his opponents? Even for someone as totally decrepit as Biden the sheer laziness he's displayed on this campaign is surreal.

HEY FAT

[Adam Griffin]

I miss the days (like 2 weeks ago?) when my #2 pick was still my #1 pick's main foe.

[Adam Griffin]

So here is what I don't fully understand:
Bernie barely won on his home turf of NH and it helped him significantly.
So if Biden barely wins in SC why does that hurt him?
Could someone clarify this for me? Thanks in advance!

1) It's not Biden's home turf
2) Expectations until his big collapse were that he'd win by 20-30 points, and even now, polls are pointing somewhat back in that direction
3) He needs to positively run up the score in the South to have a shot; a delegate advantage of 3-to-1 at minimum if he wants to win the most delegates nationally

[Adam Griffin]

My god

https://twitter.com/dick_nixon/status/1234574563150880768