Biden and Steyer get it. We MUST nominate a candidate that will bring out a huge black and Latino turnout.
That candidate is Joe Biden.
All other candidates, however terrific, have alienated one group or another to an extent that it is simply perilous to nominate them, resulting in a Gordian knot.
Tonight fightin’ Joe is back.
Please share widely!
terrymcginty says
Luckily, although the press has never cottoned to Joe Biden, voters have.
They pretended that he has faltered with age. But they pretend. Because I am old, and I have a long memory.
They said the very same things back then.
History is riddled with great debaters who did not win in the end. This not a debating society. He did what he had to do. He was not putting in a performance. He was authentic.
fredrichlariccia says
Joe Biden fights for all the forgotten, marginalized people of America — black, brown, the sick, the homeless, our workers, our children, our soldiers/veterans, LGBTQ and so many more.
He is the original ‘real deal. –not a phony bone in his body — and we need his leadership now more than ever.
SomervilleTom says
I wish that Joe Biden had fought harder for me in 2005 when he pushed the legislation through the Senate that made it essentially impossible for struggling families to declare bankruptcy after being plundered by predatory lenders. I was in tough financial straits then, and wasn’t sure how I would survive. When Joe Biden took bankruptcy off the table, I noticed that he did NOT do anything AT ALL to rein in the predatory lenders were savaging me. He had NOTHING to say about the outrageous behavior of Bank of America and their ilk — things like hidden “overdraft protection” with monstrous fees that, at first, weren’t even disclosed ahead of time and could not be turned off.
I was able to somehow slog through it, no thanks to Mr. Biden.
As you observe, I notice very little physical difference between the Joe Biden of 2005 and the Joe Biden of 2020. It helped me a lot when he and his campaign began sharing the story of his fight to overcome his speech deficit.
Nevertheless, the Joe Biden I knew in 2005 was “Joe Biden, SEN-MBNA”. It is very hard for me to reconcile the claims of his affinity with working class people and those on the bottom with the policies and votes he has made during his long public career.
So far as I can tell, ALL of the candidates on tonight’s debate stage are authentic. ALL do what they have to do when they have to do it. When you talk about fighting for the forgotten, marginalized people of America — black brown, the sick, the homeless, our workers, our children, our soldiers/veterans, LGBTQ and so many more — Joe Biden is NOT the first name that comes to my mind.
There were no phony candidates on tonight’s debate stage.
Meanwhile, this week I saw the entire GOP (with the exception of Mitt Romney) kneeling in front of the acquitted emperor to beg his favor. I haven’t heard any other candidate talk about reaching out to them. I haven’t heard any other candidate describe them as honorable people.
I’ll cast my primary vote for Elizabeth Warren. I’ll work hard to get just about any other of the current candidates elected if they win the nomination. That’s the best I can do.
fredrichlariccia says
“The first duty of every statesman is to get elected.” Joe gets that in a way some others don’t and that’s why I’m “Riden with Biden.”
jconway says
Does he? After three tries, the last as the clear front runner with a substantial financial and name recognition advantage, he again failed to place in the top third in Iowa. The problem with Joe Biden has been the same problems he’s carried with him from his first campaign. He values loyalty and longevity over competence, he has a tendency to be long winded and exaggerate his record, and he can’t quite seal the deal. Everybody likes him, nobody loves him.
I have deep reservations about Buttigieg and Sanders in a general election campaign, but you cannot argue against their passionate base of supporters and grassroots field operations. Biden will never have that. His whole candidacy has been predicated on national polling and an air of inevitability, both have been shattered by this 4th place finish. I wanted him to do better, but he didn’t.
jconway says
What voters? He almost got 5th place, which is just two places better from what he got in 2008 when he had far fewer resources and was not the front running incumbent Democratic Vice President.
jconway says
Bernie outperformed with IA Latinos and Pete did better converting white Obama-Trump voters. Warren did better than Biden across the state, while Biden barely achieved viability in enough precincts to continue onto NH.
An argument can be made that IA and NH marginalize black voters, and I agree with that. Maybe if SC came first we would be looking at a different campaign. Otherwise I see Biden limping into South Carolina like Jeb! Bush.
bob-gardner says
Only Biden, of all the candidates, has a giant scandal hanging around his neck.
jconway says
I don’t buy that. Sanders has the stuff with his wife’s college imploding, Warren has the Native American thing, Buttigieg has McKinsey and Klobuchar has some bad arrests from her tenure as DA. They all got something wrong Trump and the idiotic media drunk on false equivalency can point too. I cannot fathom how any of these molehills equate to his mountain of corruption, but I’m not the media or a swing voter. Anyone who thinks there’s some blameless Democrat who cannot be tarred and feathered by the right wing spin machine hasn’t been awake the past four decades.
SomervilleTom says
In fairness, there really is no comparison between Hunter Biden’s lifelong practice of cashing in on his father’s various positions and the other candidates.
The issue with Jane Sanders and Burlington College is not remotely comparable. It was a one-time event, and like pretty much all GOP-driven “scandals” there is absolutely zero evidence of any misdeeds on anybody’s part — with the possible exception of the board of directors of Burlington College, who sold off the land acquired by Ms. Sanders in deals that directly benefited some of the directors. That was long after her departure.
The “Native American thing” has even less substance. There is just nothing there. Never was, never will be.
Hunter Biden got a plum job with MBNA — his father’s largest campaign donor at the time — immediately upon his graduation from law school. Hunter Biden proceeded to make a career of accepting positions like the lucrative no-show role he accepted on the board of Burisma. He founded a “consulting” firm in 2008 where he explicitly traded on his family connections. This is aside from his dismissal from military because of his cocaine habit. He has been in the news recently because of his lengthy refusal to meet the court-ordered child support payments he was ordered to pay to Lunden Alexis Roberts, an Arkansas woman who bore his child in August of 2018.
This is the same Hunter Biden who divorced his wife and the mother of his three daughters in order to take up with Hallie Biden, his brother’s widow. That relationship ended sometime before he secretly married Melissa Cohen, a much younger South African model.
So between 2017 and 2020, he divorced Kathleen Biden, took up with his brother’s widow, fathered a child of Lunden Alexis Roberts, and married Melissa Cohen. Whew! That’s a guy with an active sex life. Hunter Biden makes Newt Gingrich look like a piker in the philandering department — that’s no small task.
There is just no way to avoid the reality that Hunter Biden is a train-wreck and always has been. While of course that should have nothing to do with his father’s political aspirations, it’s a naive fantasy to believe it won’t. We’re not talking about a few Billy Carter style screw-ups, we’re talking about decades of living a lifestyle that many voters find abhorrent.
I agree that Hunter Biden has nothing to do with Ukraine. Nevertheless, I think Bob is right on to remind us that Hunter Biden is a major millstone around the neck of Joe Biden.
jconway says
Is he any different from the Trump kids and all their conflicts of interest? I agree that in a reality based political culture it would be a wash, but also concede that the Biden scandals are in some ways are even worse than the emails Hillary messed up with. The fact that she was dragged before a Select Benghazi Committee and there’s been next to no publicity for similar oversight on Trump
properties or endangerment of troops is proof of some political incompetence on the part of Democrats.
Trump is literally charging the Secret Service to use his hotel rooms and lied about the extent American troops in Iraq were injured from an attack he did nothing to protect them from. An attack I literally predicted a week before in front of my students. They think I’m a genius, but all you needed was a map that showed the bases in the range of Iranian missiles. Trump did nothing to protect our troops and even lied about it and this has also received no coverage. Alongside the hundreds of ways he’s actively cashing out while he’s in office.
SomervilleTom says
The huge and immediate difference I see between Hunter Biden and the Trump children is that the Democratic Party did not nominate the Trump children’s father.
I agree with everything you write here. The Trump family is FAR worse in pretty much every aspect.
I don’t view the disparities in how these relative abuses are publicized as a reflection on the Democratic Party. I view it instead as a reflection on our media.
Our media created Donald Trump. While some outlets might superficially criticize him, MSNBC and CNN benefit from his notoriety just as much as Fox benefits from its closeness to him.
fredrichlariccia says
You’re such a tool.
You mean the Trump/Putin — manufactured — ‘FAKE Biden scandal’, don’t you?
Haven’t you heard, Bob? That Trump/Russian lie has been de-bunked. You really must keep up. After all, this is reality-based commentary.
jack says
People get very confused about the difference between primary voters and general election turnout. Hilary Clinton won the democratic nomination on the strength of African American primary voters. Still, she was unable to inspire large turnouts among African Americans in the general election. There is every reason to think the same thing would happen with Biden. Unfortunately, Biden will not drive turnout among any demographic voting block – be they black. Latino, youth, women, etc. I expect New Hampshire voters will affirm this tomorrow.
fredrichlariccia says
Nevada’s lone black Congressman Steven Horsford endorsed Joe Biden today : “I am very proud to support Joe Biden for President. Joe knows Nevada, he helped pass the Affordable Care Act, and he prevented Yucca from being the dumping ground of America. Joe has worked side-by-side with our labor leaders and is the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump.”
fredrichlariccia says
Congresswoman Dina Titus (D-Las Vegas) endorsed Joe Biden in November.
Christopher says
I attended a couple of NH events for Biden where she was the featured surrogate.