Biden's charming personality and solid campaigning skills certainly give him a leg up versus Hillary. I hope it's enough.
It wasn't enough for John Kerry, who had both a charming personality and solid campaigning skills, and lost to a draft-dodging ex-cocaine-user idiot liar who lied the country into two disastrous wars.
Biden looks a hell of a lot like Kerry to me in this campaign. He would be about the most disastrous nomination choice we could make, IMO. We need to pick someone principled -- it almost doesn't matter what the principle actually *is*, which is why most of the other candidates are fine. (Tulsi Gabbard would probably be worse.)
There are some parallels with Kerry, but there is also the fact that very often the reelection of a sitting president is an initiative on the incumbent. Nate Silver has pointed out that no sitting president with an approval rating below 48% has ever won reelection. Very frequently the popular vote mirrors the approval rating of the president on election day. In 2004 Bush's approval rating was almost exactly 50% and he got less than a percent over 50%.
Incumbent presidents rarely get more or less than a few percent from their approval ratings. In 2012 Obama got a bit more largely because Romney flamed out in the stretch. But he was still within the historic spread.
Trump is facing the fact that over 50% of the population despise him and more than 50% say in polls they will definitely
not vote for him for any reason. The only way he wins is by keeping those people from voting, or getting the opposition vote split between multiple candidates. Or lose big in some big states and pull off a lot of small margin squeakers in some smaller states like he did in 2016. Or a combination of all of the above.
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In general, throughout US history, governors (and generals) have the best chance of winning the Presidency. Senators are TERRIBLE at winning the Presidency, and we shouldn't nominate them.
I suspect this is because governors and generals are correctly perceived as having executive experience, whereas legislators don't have that experience. Also, Senators develop the wrong attitude for Presidential campaigns, I think. *Sitting* vice presidents are a close third after governors and generals, probably because they're "anointed" by their predecessor, but Biden's not a sitting VP. An Obama endorsement could make the difference there, if he got it, which I don't think he would.
So tactically, the best options are Steve Bullock, Jay Inslee, or John Hickenlooper -- the three governors running. They have wildly different platforms, but they're governors. If you want a "conservative", the best choices for the general election so far are Bullock or Hickenlooper (depending on which "conservative" issues you think are more salient).
Personally I think Bullock -- he's staked out "left-wing" positions on cases where a lot of right-wingers agree with the "left-wing" position, like opposing Citizens United.
More governors might enter the race, though.
But anyway, tactical rule: to win the general election, nominate a governor. NOT a Senator.
This is true, though recent trends have bucked that. Of the major party nominees over the last 20 years, there have been only two governors (Bush and Romney). 4 senators have been major party nominees (Kerry, McCain, Obama, and HRC), though Hillary had a stint as Secretary of State in between.
I do agree having executive experience is a plus for the job. Bullock isn't a bad choice, though I think he has a better chance of winning the Senate in Montana. I wish some of these candidates who are long shots for the Democratic nomination would aim for Senate seats. The Democrats need to flip some red state senate seats in 2020 if they are going to get anywhere.
There are very few Democrats running for president who I don't think would be a reasonable choice, though I agree with you about Gabbard, she's sort of the Democrat's answer to Michelle Bachman.
Agreed in spades. If Trump were smart, and Putin is, so it is hard to tell if the Orange is pushing Biden because he wants to run against him. Nixon not only selected McGovern, but his VP too through leak to the press.
Putin wants the west so badly disrupted that he has free reign to do what he wants. He wants both Europe and the US in chaos.
Rick Wilson still has a lot of friends within the GOP ranks and even gets inside dirt from within the White House. According to Wilson of all the Democrats running, Trump is most scared of Biden. Trump is not the strategic thinking Nixon was. He can't really plan anything, so he's not trying to manipulate the field to get the opponent he wants to run against. He's trying to destroy his worst enemy before that enemy is in a position to take him on directly. Trump is a 2 dimensional thinker that way.
At some point big business has got to pull the strings and remove Trump through the 25th amendment. There should be a helluva backlash against the blanket Mexico tariff. Putin's goal is now to destroy the economy. (I now draw no distinction between Trump and Putin. What a great anti-christ.)
It will be interesting to see what big business interests do with the constant attacks on the economy.
Mexico can't stop the flow of immigrants coming here because you can't stop thousands of individuals from doing something. It didn't work with alcohol, doesn't work for recreational drugs, doesn't work for prostitution, and it doesn't work for immigration. If enough people want to do something that is illegal, there is no way to really stop them, no matter how good your police are. More heavy handed policing just drives the activity further underground.
If Trump carries through on his threats with Mexican tariffs (you can never be sure of anything with him, he could be running around the White House lawn with his pants around his ankles tomorrow morning), it will have an even bigger impact on the US economy. Because of NAFTA, a lot of parts to things made in the US are made in Mexico. Elon said that production of the Model S was once stopped because a gang war at the border prevented a truck load of trunk carpet from getting to Fremont.
Trump is also so stupid and so stubborn he still believes that China and Mexico pay the tariffs. Despite being told many times.
The Evangelicals might also bolt the GOP over abortion rights. If these crazy bans win in the Supreme Court, they will have gotten their big victory and when they look at all the other things the GOP is doing, they might just abandon them. On the other hand Wilson has an interesting thought that Roberts might vote with the liberals to end the abortion madness once and for all by strengthening Rode v Wade from an implicit right to an absolute right. That might cause Evangelicals to abandon the GOP too as they will see all their effort for nearly 40 years go down the tubes. They might wake up to the fact that the current president ticks off all their boxes for the anti-christ and may determine they lost because they backed the anti-christ?
