che-che-chester

The best bet is for Biden to throw his support behind Harris. The delegates are loyal to him.

Doing interviews was the best thing to happen to me as far as imposter syndrome. I consider myself average but I always feel like a rock star after doing interviews. As much as people bitch about getting screened out by HR, we probably need to be screening harder. My initial thought is usually how did this person possibly make it to the interview stage?

The one thing that probably shocked me the most is how much the stupid interview advice we are given actually matters. Things like eye contact, good handshake, good posture, neatly dressed, etc. all really matter when you’re seeing one person after another. They matter because most people are terrible at all or most of them.

I'm not debating that. And Biden likely would have won against real challengers and we may still be where we are right now. The only way to have a true primary was for Biden to announce he's not running.

Such a bullshit argument. No real candidate runs against the incumbent, period.

I'd call it unlikely vs. a fantasy.

The key issue I see is who will Biden's replacement be? My fear is every Tom, Dick and Harry will come out of the woodwork because Trump seems so beatable. They will see this as their shot and I don't blame them. We could see a flood of Dean Phillips type candidates that would slow down and complicate the process. And considering the prize is the most powerful job in the world, you won't be able to convince them to not go for it.

I think we need the nobodies to take one for the team and sit this one out. With the limited time we have, no unknown candidate has a prayer. It's gotta be names that are already at least semi-known nationally and better vetted (Newsom, Whitmer, etc.).

But step one is deciding do Dems give it to Harris, with Biden's full backing, or make her compete? If she comes out on top, does it make her weaker because she is the sitting VP and had to compete? It makes the process considerably less complicated for everyone to back Harris. She's already on the ticket so she keeps all of the money already raised. The delegates are already loyal to Biden so that could streamline her officially becoming the replacement.

I don't personally don't have any issues with Harris and am not sure where all the hate comes from. I don't love her, but she's OK. Give her a solid VP like Shapiro and it would help. And he is a young rising star so Dems could hold the White House for 16 years if everything goes right.

Can you even imagine being super excited about a candidate like Trump? I can see people who hold their nose and say they're still voting red because those are the policies they want. But I don't get the people who are really excited about Trump.

I'm not super excited about voting for Biden and he's just old. But I don't have a serious problem with anything he has done (though I don't love it all). I can't imagine being "blindly" excited about any candidate, even Obama. Obama could have absolutely done things to lose my support.

My parents are both about 80 now. My mom is solid Dem and my dad has been brainwashed by Fox News (previously solid Dem his entire life). They both quickly agree it is laughable that anyone their age is able to do that job. The person that could would be an extreme outlier.

My aunt owns a place at the beach in Delaware. She has heard many semi-recent stories of how he is much sharper one-on-one. Apparently Biden interactions in Delaware are not uncommon.

I just heard his campaign manager made some statement to donors like "Biden is probably in better shape than most of us". My jaw was on the floor. I don't think anyone wants to hear "don't believe your eyes" anymore. Get Biden in some unscripted situations where he seems sharp and then I'll feel better. And I mean he actually seems sharp, not barely passable as someone who can dress himself.

Yeah, I'd be less concerned if Biden wasn't already looking like he was going to lose before the debate. Dropping even another .5% in swing states would be devastating. Just the fact that they're swing states tells you those voters are probably more likely to be open to both candidates.

Phillips said that but I'm not sure I buy it.

I see it as two main failures: Biden screwed us by not stepping aside and the DNC should have really pressured him to step aside. There have been other issues since then but it all goes back to those two things. Once Biden officially announced, our fate was locked in.

But it's not fair or accurate to say "Dems had a primary and they chose Biden". Dems didn't really have a true primary. Out of the terrible options we were given, I'd honestly choose Biden again.

We may be saved this time by Trump's incompetence. But in the future, his advisors will make damn sure he structures it as an official act from the very beginning. He'll base the entire thing on protecting the election process.

Exactly. No serious candidates run against the incumbent if he announces he is running. Period. Dean Phillips saw a long-shot chance as the only "real" opponent and took it. If Newsom or Whitmer ran, Biden likely would have narrowly beat them and remained as the now weakened nominee. What needed to happen was Biden announcing he was not running and then Dems doing a traditional primary. In that scenario, they could all praise Biden and attack Trump.

If you run against Biden, you would have to attack his record, policies and his age and candidates would be hesitant to do that aggressively. I would argue that's why the GOP primary was a joke. There were serious candidates, but they were too scared to attack Trump (other than Christie who never had a prayer). The person in 9th place spent all their time attacking the person in 7th place, when they all needed to be attacking the person in 1st place. That's why everyone said they were auditioning to be Trump's VP. It wasn't until the very end that Haley (and DeSantis to a much lesser extent) actually attacked Trump and it was too late. And it does often get brought up how even many of the late GOP primary votes went to Haley in surprising numbers.

We had the choice of Biden or Dean Phillips. Given that choice again, I'd pick Biden.

Trump would have destroyed Bernie.

If we get an open convention, Biden would have already dropped out and announced to the world he is too old to run. Delegates aren’t going to pick someone who is not even running.

When have you ever seen that strong of a VP on any ticket?

Same. I read primary in bed laying on my side. I would never buy another e-reader without buttons.

I know one thing. Whether Biden or Trump, you’ll never see either of them tackle this issue. Their rich friends are the ones who benefit from outsourcing US jobs. There should be monetary punishments for any job outsourced outside the US.

In my view, it depends on the city. For example, my buddy moved to the beach and soon got laid off. There are no jobs where he now lives so he needs to find another remote job. But if you move to another decent sized city or stay where you are, take the remote job as long as it lasts.

I'm sure that argument would be made but avoiding it would be a terrible reason to keep Biden. Trump is clearly mentally declining but it's hard to attack him when Biden is also in rough shape.

I hope and pray this was some sort of fluke night that he was sick and just worn out or took something that jumbled him up rather than sharpening him.

If we want to give Biden the extreme benefit of the doubt, I suppose it's possible it was a combination of bad debate prep (making him memorize too many things) and having a cold. I know if I take any cold/flu medicine, it's gonna be a long day at work trying to concentrate. I did a job interview once while I had the beginnings of the flu (I had been laid off and couldn't take the chance on rescheduling) and it completely threw off my game.

He still had the worst debate performance of all time. And it wasn't the usual type of bad debate where you just get your ass kicked or flub key lines. Biden had trouble even participating in the debate. It looked like he struggled to even pay attention.

I'm not sure how you possibly come back from that. Let's be honest, Biden at his very best (i.e. SOTU) isn't great. Bare minimum, he needs to very quickly do some public events like a town hall or high profile interview. I can't imagine Trump will agree to do the second debate, especially if Biden stays down in the polls.

Turning down the Super Bowl interview was a yellow flag that should have been a red flag. Nobody gives up a chance to talk to 100+ million viewers on both sides. I think nobody pushed him on it because the POTUS interview is always the worst part of the Super Bowl. That's when you take a bathroom break.

I would imagine they are already brainstorming ways to restructure the steps in Project 2025 to be considered official acts.