Biden dropping out - good or bad?

It was the right thing to do.

Ever since Biden took a sh*t during a televised debate, he had to drop out. When your loss to intergalactic scum like Trump is assured, well....

They tried to hide Biden's decline, but apparently it's been quite a slide this past year.

 

Biden exceeded all of my expectations and legislatively was more successful than Obama. That being said Kamala better not be the nominee after the DNC is over.

At least Joe can take it easy and rest up enjoying time with his family after has term ends. I wish him nothing but the best.

Answer: Depends on who wins in Aug...

 

Good -- signaled the maturity and sincerity of Biden and the Democrats at large.

Good -- turns the tables on Trump and the RNC about age and fitness for office.

Good -- opponents have to pivot and build new lines of attack.

Mixed -- uncharted waters electorally but chaos presents opportunity.

Bad -- no obvious choice and direct successor has an up-hill climb.

Bad -- the Biden die-hards have to eat a massive amount of humble pie.

 

There are definite risk especially with Harris as the heir. I look at it as making the best of a bad situation. While Biden's support didn't completely collapse given how bad the last few weeks were the real challenge was what would happen the next time Biden had some major gaffe, froze, or looked otherwise lost. Given his history it was inevitable that was going to happen and with trends going against him something like that later in the race might be unrecoverable from.

 

Biden will likely ranked as the best POTUS since FDR while Trump will be ranked as the worst since Hoover or Harding.

Biden losing or have an ineffective second term would drastically impact his legacy. Stepping down as he just did, Biden's legacy will only be enhanced.

I for one thought that Biden would beat Trump with a stick in 2024. The 7% of the electorate that are pissed about Roe being overturned are solidly Never Trumpers, who would vote for the one candidate who could beat Trump, Joe Biden. **** the polls. 1 in 2 likely voters are waiting for both conventions to finish before they start to pay attention. Having said that, I thought that the most likely outcome of a Biden second term was Biden dying in office.

The D will be offering a younger, more energetic candidate, who would mark if elected the first women, the second black and the first Indian American. Kamala will make a fine POTUS.

 

good

Kamala Harris raked in 70 mil via small donor donations in just half a day, and another 18 mil and counting came in this morning

she went on a Zoom call expecting around 1000 black women to be on the call, but instead 40k showed up with total donations from that zoom meeting exceeding 1 million…people are energized and ready to mobilize

she, unlike Biden, can communicate effectively

she has excellent options for VP in Shapiro, Kelly, or Beshear

you can have the young ticket with good policies, or the old traitor and felon ticket with Trump and a nobody like JD Vance who was a never-Trumper just a few years ago before deciding to grift

 

I said a couple weeks ago I think Trump wins whichever way the Democrats decide to go.

Running Biden seemed like a sure loss given the polling and everything the political establishment was suggesting.

I think Harris loses as well. Democrats are on a high right now from getting rid of Joe but Harris as the 1% 2020 primary candidate she is will settle in soon enough. I do think it's good for the Democrats they have quickly coalesced around Harris. It looks like they will avoid chaos/messiness. Not sure how everyone in the electorate will feel with the anointing though.

So maybe Biden had a 10% chance and Harris has a 20% chance. That's a big improvement but still a long shot based on my following of events.

 

Mostly good - The age argument was the biggest most effective one against Biden and that's now gone for good.

The money is already starting to flow. People are energized. It gets a ton of free, mostly positive publicity for the Democrats. The publicity will only increase as Harris selects a VP. It will also even increase as people watch to see how this new process will work to select the nominee. All of that is free pub. Energy and momentum have shifted in the favor of the Democrats.

It's fresh. People were depressed and upset at the same old choices in this election. Now there is a new choice. Someone new can signal a different direction. Renewing interest and getting people on board who were going to ignore the whole mess and just sit it out is a win.

The attacks against Harris have a built-in backfire ability depending on how misogynistic they want to go. Of course they will trot out women to make some of the attacks and that won't work either.

Because Biden took the difficult, patriotic, and selfless act of stepping aside, it paints his and Harris term in a more positive light. People will be more willing to beleive the administration put country first and aren't totally selfish in their reasons for running for office.

The selection of Harris isn't without risk. She comes off as inauthentic. It seems like she reads her own press and tries to make unnatural adjustments and it comes off as awkward and uncomfortable for people to watch. That is minor compared to all of the positives it brings.

Also Democrats are capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. They can screw anything up so nothing is a given.

 

It's a great thing if it serves as an inflection point for the Democratic Party, where they take some steps back and try to find the terrible decisions that got them to this point. Then they can find out why they made the bad decisions and can fix that going forward. (Maybe they should have had a real primary and debates, for example?)

It's a bad thing if the Democratic Party just sticks its head in the sand and insists that everything is totally fine, and actually Biden isn't even old or unhealthy, but he's just stepping down cuz of bullies and such. And that the real problem is people not going along with whatever the Party had decided to do and instead voicing some displeasure over it.

 

HOW it was done it more an issue
1. Should have happened earlier

Rocket River

 

I think it's a good thing, father time gets everyone, and the Biden of 2020 is not the same as Biden 2024, the past few months have aged him at quite the clip, just watching him walk upstairs is like watching my grandpa move around BUT I think his mind is fine just like my grandpa, they just cant function like they used to. As others have said this should have been done earlier and I can think of better candidates then Harris but it is what it is at this point, the Dems need to rally quick and be in one accord.

PS - We cant have 2 guys this old running for the Presidency, there MUST be an age limit................

 

Other than not having a contested primary, which has more to do with that no major Democrats wanted to run, I’m not sure what mistakes the Democrats were making?

Democratic polices have generally polled better than Republican policies. While Democrats get criticized for inflation there really isn’t anything they can do about it and the Republican Party isn’t offering any solutions either. On immigration there is a bill stalled in Congress that the Biden admin has implemented much of through EO’s.

 

Not having a primary may have been one of the best things for the Dems and might have helped in seeing the party coalesce around Harris. A primary would have meant a long season of nominees beating up on each other freely giving ammo to the Republican nominee. As is, there are no hard feelings, the nominee won't have been trashed and attacked for months on end (more than has already happened while Harris was VP) with a media spotlight on all of it. Biden endorsed her, and there has been very little outcry or chaos involved up until now. It's been surprisingly smooth and for Democrats, that's a real surprise. Harris, speech today was better than what many would have expected. She doesn't have the charisma of am Obama, Clinton, or even Trump. But neither did Biden and beat Trump.

 

Not so much a political statement but one of human nature.

I stated earlier I think she will win.

Americans love a shiny new toy.

It's nature and really has not a lot to do with politics.

I could be wrong.
And two of the three major news outlets will have her back. And, That's worth a lot

 

Ultimately, I think it's irrelevant in terms of the current election.

I kinda feel like Trump is likely to win no matter if it was Biden or Kamala .... She probably polls worse than he did.


The real question is how it affects the future - 2026 & 2028.

 

It is interesting if no mistakes were made and having an 81 year old with a melted brain as the candidate was actually the desired outcome from the process. If that's the case, then... wow. Wow. Wow.

I just wonder: why did no "major" Democrats want to run? There are easily 4-5 such people who want to be President, so why didn't any of them challenge in the Primary? All of them really oppose Trump, and all of them could read polls. They knew Biden wasn't the guy. So why just sit and wait for 2028? We're finding out now that many power players have known for a while that Biden is a shell of even his too-old 2020 self.

If there had been a real primary with debates, the voters almost certainly would have chosen a better candidate back then. Biden would have been exposed a long time ago and it wouldn't be an issue.

People have known of his issues for a while. They are not brand new. Why did the party refuse to acknowledge them? Why was anyone who pointed them out shouted down? It really, really shouldn't be hard to defeat Trump.

The Democrats and Republicans love to pitch themselves as the saviors of democracy. Maybe the Democrats should have actually used an open, transparent, democratic process? Maybe that would have been a good thing?

 

Good for Dems. Bad for Repugs

 

Good that he did it, but bad that he ran for re-election in the first place. Net negative situation overall.