This is meant as an unofficial thread for the Daily Kos Elections crowd to discuss what is going on with Biden and efforts to get him to step down from the Presidential nomination. This is because very wisely talk over who should be the nominee aka primary talk is forbidden because it tends to drown out all other talk. All I ask for in this thread is that we keep it to electoral politics (how it will affect the election) rather than policy.
The shooting at the Trump Rally seems an excellent time to start anew with the thread. We know little about the gunman, his motives, or anything. It’s political impact is unknown. It presents an opportunity for Trump to present a "this shows violence is out of control under Joe Biden, we need a strong leader like myself to fix it" message but that could easily be squandered with over the top conspiratorialism. Given it is Donald Trump we are talking about the latter seems probable.
But as far as Joe Biden this week we will see two things.
First the events of the weekend and the Republican Convention will take the focus off of him. This will give him somewhat of a breather though of course Republicans will be showcasing all their attacks on him. But with Trump accepting the Republican nomination and anticipation of the VP pick Biden won't be the primary focus of attention. All eyes are on Donald Trump himself.
Second for all of the above reasons nobody on our side is going to like all that many polls taken this week until probably the Olympics. That will give those who wanted to dump Biden a bit more ammunition. But without the same media oxygen and Biden holding all the levers of power at the convention those concerns are likelier to fall on deaf ears.
Finally this chapter of the Biden saga is entering a new one as the Republican Convention as well as the shooting takes over the news cycle. This is a summation of what we have seen in this media coverage from two perspectives. That of the concerned Biden critic and that of his most loyal defenders.
For the first we will take Ezra Klein since he has been beating this drum for the longest time and did not merely react to the debate. His contention is that Biden has been in a bubble imposed by his top advisors for some time. One so tight that many we had assumed are closest to him do not necessarily know what is going on. Hence the Biden campaign agreeing to the debate. He contends that those who have been in direct contact with him for months have seen a stark and dire decline and have been afraid to say anything. With many saying far different things off the record than on the record. With a comparison being made to the John Edwards campaign in 2008 when top staff knew of an affair likely to break out in the open in the general and were too busy fighting the daily fires of the campaign to address the locomotive on the horizon. Klein concedes Biden has been and for the moment continues to be a good attentive President but that he has fallen over a dangerous cliff that has already compromised his ability to be a candidate in the general election.
The alternate view has been presented by Rick Wilson and Bakari Sellers among others. Biden has run an extremely competent and serious administration that has been mostly leak free. Hence this administration, unlike previous ones plagued with more internal issues, has fewer disgruntled high level sources for journalists to tap. Lower level and younger staff less in the know and more likely to be networking for their next jobs are now the sources. An example is given of an unnamed intern at an unnamed Senator’s office who was let go after being caught talking with the Washington Post about Biden. Resentment over lack of access, bad sources, and an awful debate combined to create a tempest in a teapot. With Democrats already nervous about weak polling freaking out at every word and inflection from the already gaffe prone President and driving an artificial self-destructive media cycle. They point to Biden consistently being in the margin of error in national polling and sometimes better showing the bottom has not dropped. They also point to Biden's continued effective leadership as evidence that he is the best candidate. They acknowledge he looks and sounds old but argue he still projects experience and competence and is best equipped to take on Trump.
Whether you hold one view, the other or somewhere in between have a good Sunday. I'll end on a lighter note on this dark day. SNL skewering the Joe Biden led all male Judiciary Committee that probed Anita Hill’s allegations against now Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.