Clinton was the any thing blue is better than trump last election and got embarrassed. I still think Biden has much better appeal in the Midwest than the others trying to guilt shame him with retroactive purity test.
Blame the voters for that one. Clinton was better than Trump and it's a shame a good chunk of the voters didn't realize that. I don't particularly care about purity testing Biden on issues from the 70s. The reason Kamala Harris took such a big bite out of his poll numbers isn't because the base suddenly thought he was a racist, but because she cracked that "electability" aura that is Biden's biggest (and perhaps only) appeal. He looked his age on that debate stage, and like someone that would get manhandled by Trump's relentless attacking, whereas Harris looked like a pitbull who would put up a fight. The main reason I don't like Biden is because he has failed to keep up with the times. His climate policies are weak as shit, he thinks Republicans will come to their senses and work with him, and he doesn't understand the reality of growing up as a Millennial or a member of Gen Z in terms of the specific issues they face that older generations didn't. He's better than Trump, but that's really his only virtue at this point. If he's the nominee I will vote for him, but I won't vote for him in the primary.
This is a good example of what I'm talking about. Can you imagine Biden just coming right out and calling Trump a predator? And if he did, can you imagine any response other than "Creepy Joe Biden smells women's hair?" Harris can attack, and more importantly she will attack, and that's why she's coming up in the polls while Biden is sinking.
She was a prosecutor right? Certainly gives her a big advantage in the debates. Of course I fully hope he just answers every question with, “did you know she fucked Willie Brown to climb the political ladder?” He’s crass enough to drop it. The Twitter outrage would be epic.
I'm waiting for the "I put rapists like Donald Trump in jail every day" card to be played. Either way, we can all agree that a Harris/Trump debate would be far more entertaining than a Biden/Trump debate. I also want Mayor Pete in the VP slot so we can finally have the Gay White Indiana Politician showdown we've all been craving.
Biden is GOOD at debates. I seem to recall him eating Eddie Munster’s lunch during his last VP debate. He also mopped the floor with Palin but that was a gimmie.
Whether you’re right or left leaning, the way Trump treats the press is abhorrent. There has never been a president as hostile to the press as Trump, by far. Whether you think it’s “fake news” or not is irrelevant. Also, you wonder why it’s only fake news when it’s negative towards Trump? Surely he’d call it on both sides for full transparency.
The question will be if he is good at debates or was good at debates. A lot of his fans were shocked at how poorly he did in the first debate. Maybe that was just a weak opening and he'll recover and get back a lot of his support, or maybe he'll continue to decline. We'll just have to see.
Biden is shooting the easiest shot in politics right now. No one wants him, but if he gets the nomination he literally cannot lose. Even Trump's own election team leaked the polls that showed him beating Trump: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/16/us/politics/trump-polls.html The difficulty is...so could just about anyone on that stage. Biden just has the best name recognition right now, with the exception of MAYBE Sanders. Personally, I think Joe is too old, too establishment, and too ridiculous (remember all those fucking memes from the Obama years?), not to mention....he doesn't really seem to have a platform that moves the needle for most folks. So, he's in the same boat Hillary was back in 2014/2015...essentially coronated the nominee without the actual popular support they thought she had, only he has a tremendous number of potential spoilers (she just had Bernie). This could very easily be step by step instructions on how to step on your dick, and get an idiot elected Part 2: Blue Boogaloo. Same shit as 2015/2016: over-crowded field, the other side already has their pick, no clear front-runner so the one that makes the biggest splash online gets the most media attention, and that momentum carries all the way to the White House. One of the biggest things that put Trump in office was unending, free media coverage of the stupid shit he said...he was the one candidate who could stay in the media cycle 24/7, and NO ONE COULD NOT RECEIVE THE MESSAGE. You simply couldn't avoid the news about him, one side propagandizing him the other scandalizing every utterance. No other candidate came close to generating that head of steam. I think Kamala Harris just learned exactly this play and we'll see it used over and over again.
Trump is like a Kardashian, love him or hate him he has more circulation than anyone else by far. You can just ignore Armenian whores. It’s a lot harder to avoid the president.
Don't forget that the messaging at this point is for the primaries. And the very early primaries at that. The demographics of who actually shows up to vote aren't the same. Your Michigan primary voter and general election voter are different animals. I think for now all the candidates are playing it super safe. That's why it's all feel good promises with no substance, and absolutely no admittance of the trade offs their promises would actually come with.
I actually gave credit to Klubacher who came out with a reasonable compromise college education platform. It was met with a resounding, fuuuuuck that, we'd rather hear promises for total debt forgiveness and free college for all.
Her idea was just to reduce or eliminate the interest on the debt so that it’s easier to pay off without being a profit center for the government. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.
Yeah, it doesn't get to the core issue of how tuition costs have become outrageously overpriced, but it is one of the very few ideas any of the candidates have had that is both helpful AND sustainable. Sadly, that's the exception rather than the rule thus far.
Being able to discharge it in bankruptcy is another proposal I know someone made but I can't remember who.
Or we could fuck off with some of the seven wars we're involved in right now. That would cover quite a bit.
I don’t know if that’s such a hot idea. They’re very difficult to discharge, but not impossible. In the terms of money though, they’re large, unsecured loans given to people without credit history, income or collateral assets. No one would ever pay back their loans if you could just wipe them out once you graduate, and no bank would ever issue student loans again. It also doesn’t incentive schools to reduce their costs. It’s same fundamental issue with offering free education. The problem is the schools are charging a shit load more than they should. If it’s on the backs of the tax payers, that needs to be fixed.
I think it would have the unintended effect of only further catering to the middle-upper and upper classes. The readjustment wouldn’t come soon enough, it would take nearly a market cycle for that to happen if loans are not issued.