Election 2024 Part III: Out with the old!

[amadeus]

I'm not saying she can't win PA, I'm just skeptical that putting Shapiro on the ticket gives her a meaningfully higher chance of winning PA than any other pick.

The link I posted earlier about this says that VP candidates don’t tend to impact whether a state is carried for that ticket.

 

[Voidwalkin]

I'm not saying she can't win PA, I'm just skeptical that putting Shapiro on the ticket gives her a meaningfully higher chance of winning PA than any other pick.

I think he has established bridges of trust with the independent voters she looks to capture in PA specifically. I doubt any other pick can step in and generate equivalent sympathy absent that trust.

Of course, she may lose PA anyway. I think he adds 1.5, 2 points, which would only put her even with Trump, based on the Emerson College poll released earlier on PA.

For her to really turn it around, I think she has to go cost of living, inflation. Moral condemnation of Trump is a temptation that I'm unsure is winning. It's a crowd pleaser. But I think if it were gonna make Trump untenable, it would've long before now.

 

[warpus]

I hope this doesn't happen but imagine if both sides now strategically start replacing their POTUS and VPOTUS nominees during the years leading up to elections.

The Republicans must have noticed that Biden's stepping down put the Democrats in a potentially strategically improved position. From what I've been hearing from the local guy at the corner, it is not yet really apparent if this will help the Democrats or hurt them.. but.. it seems that it at least screwed up Republican plans a bit. Now they have to re-focus their campaign and their VP pick doesn't seem as good anymore. So if this also helps the new Democrat nominee in some way, or multiple ways, it seems that the Republicans might try to use this as a strategy in the future.

2028: The Republican nominee is some random extremist who doesn't appeal to the undecided voters who decide elections in swing states. The Democrats are looking good and have taken their foot off the pedal, seemingly coasting to an easy victory. They spend their campaign war chests on run of the mill tactics targeted at a far right candidate. SUDDENLY the Republican candidate rips off his mask and/or shirt, just 2 months before the election. It's a moderate Mormon! It's been a ruse all along. And the Republicans haven't spent 90% of their campaigning money yet! Now finally they unleash everything at the distracted Democrats in months-in-the-works plans that strategically chip away at the Democrat candidates.

But wait! The Democrats have been anticipating this. Their candidate pulls out a years-in-the-making speech co-written by the world's smartest AI & Jon Favreau. The new candidate steps out of the shadows - Batman. Or.. well.. you are Americans, you figure it out. Something that makes sense in this scenario.

 

[Birdjaguar]

She needs a swing state "golden boy".

 

[amadeus]

She needs a best boy since she’s no longer on the ticket with a gaffer.

 

[SemiLazyGamer]

The Obama have thrown their support behind Harris.

 

[Kyriakos]

It will be funny if she wins due to the Gop not being able to attack her on her actual bad record of sending people to jail for very minor offenses. But we do need reliable polling, which goes past the chaos and fog of a sudden change in nomination - the election is months from now, and by then it won't be sudden/novel.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Which is a bigger event: an assassination attempt on a former president (and current nominee of one party), or a candidate pulling out of a presidential only four months before an election?

I was just musing over the dramatic twists and turns we've had in the last month (or two, throw "former president being convicted of a felony" into the running, if you like), and it occurred to me to wonder which of those was the most dramatic.

By "bigger" I probably mean "historically significant," but answer however you like.

 

[Birdjaguar]

And there would have been more if SCOTUS and Judge Cannon had not played politics.

 

[Lexicus]

Joe leaving the race will be remembered as the most significant event if Kamala wins. If Trump wins then it will probably be the assassination/legal cases against him.

 

[Lexicus]

And there would have been more if SCOTUS and Judge Cannon had not played politics.

I just earlier read that the dismissal is likely to be overturned on appeal

 

[Gori the Grey]

Your lips to God's ears.

Him getting off from that one might be more frustrating than if he beats any of the other raps.

As is true in the GA case, we have a tape recording, but in the FL case we have a recording of him saying "Look I know this is illegal, but let me show you this document anyway."

!

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, after a whole lifetime of being taught that liking people because they look like me is evil and the source of our national problems, I'm sure to be inspired by the first person for whom the nature of the gonad juice was explicitly the point and marketed as such.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Never change, Farm Boy.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, not the first.

But still gross.

 

[Miniskirt]

What is the correct pronunciation of her name? I've heard at least a couple of different ways

Early on, likely 2015? sometime, a lady on TV who purported herself to be a lifelong friend of Kamala's said that the way to pronounce her name is like Pamela but with a K. Pamela, Kamela. So that's how I have said it since.

 

[GenMarshall]

That's all I'm asking. What are the issues that genuinely do move you?

I'll give it a shot. Apologies for responding so late on this.

The issues that move me are the following. I like to see a strong US military, specifically the US Navy. Since the navy is the lifeblood of the community I live in. The other is having affordable housing. At this point of my life, I'm just rebuilding my life after it was upturned by the Great Recession. Education wise, I'd want to see not just affordable college tuition, I want to see trade schools and skilled labor education to be equally valid instead of being dismissed and looked down upon as "dirty work". Another point is that I work in a union shop and I don't want to see unionization get chipped away and diminished.

 

[choxorn]

Lack of merit in the sense that Kamala Harris did in fact run for president in 2020 yet dropped out before any primary votes were cast (late 2019 iirc), meaning no one substantial wanted her, except when Joe Biden finally did on [admittedly] a whim.
And nor do I consider her being next in line for the president as a qualifier for her having thus "earned" it, or "this is what Joe Biden would've wanted", or your own self-serving "she wouldn't be Vice President if she wasn't skilled", or blah blah.
That is what I'm talking about when I mean merit; not qualifications.
Of course, that is the way the system works, but I don't have to like it...

Right, because Vice Presidents are usually people who got people voting for them in the primaries.

Like Joe Biden, who dropped out of the 2008 Primaries after getting less than 1% of the vote in the Iowa Caucus.

Or Mike Pence, Dick Cheney, or Al Gore, who weren't running in the first place.

 

[Farm Boy]

I think at his age, Trump's VP needs to be relevant.

Kamela is competing for the best medical care on the planet, at her age she's running for herself. Even if she's there because of, well. Our basest instincts. As was promised before the relevance from the most basic political qualifications possible.

Actually, I don't know why I ever expect better. As people fix things, they become eligible for all the old vices and bigotries.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I'll give it a shot. Apologies for responding so late on this.

The issues that move me are the following. I like to see a strong US military, specifically the US Navy. Since the navy is the lifeblood of the community I live in. The other is having affordable housing. At this point of my life, I'm just rebuilding my life after it was upturned by the Great Recession. Education wise, I'd want to see not just affordable college tuition, I want to see trade schools and skilled labor education to be equally valid instead of being dismissed and looked down upon as "dirty work". Another point is that I work in a union shop and I don't want to see unionization get chipped away and diminished.

No need for apologies. We'll take this at your pace. We've got 100 days.

You don't need me to tell you that, broadly speaking, Democrats are way more pro-union than Republicans. Even if Democrats have stopped doing nearly enough on this front, Republicans are positively hostile to unions. Both sides are waking up to the importance of trade schools; I think it gets featured in both of their platforms. I suspect Dems will be more committed to affordable housing, as a principle; I don't know how much they'll in fact get done on that front. But Trump himself (not surprisingly) skews very heavily toward policies that favor landlords (and that of course means less affordable housing). For years, both parties have been pro-military, so that one's probably a wash. In my youth, Ds would talk about cutting from the defense budget as a way of helping afford social programs, but then that went away years ago. Everybody on both sides thinks we need by far the biggest military on the face of the planet.

By the way, I think I've picked up that Trump is not an option for you. But if I nevertheless mention what Rs will do, it is because, as our system exists, it's going to be one or the other. So for things that presently exist, and that you care about and don't want to see damaged (unions), it matters what would happen should Trump win. For things on which neither is likely to deliver (affordable housing, I think), then it's a wash, and Harris shouldn't get your vote if she's not committed to your causes. But on issues where damage can be done, no-vote or a third-party vote increases the likelihood of a Trump victory (by comparison with a vote for Harris), and thus opens the possibility of that damage.

But while we're on that, have you found a third party candidate whose positions align with your own on these issues? Lex, e.g., couldn't vote Biden, so he found a socialist candidate who, while not likely to win, at least represented, for him, a vote for the things that he thinks would make our nation better. Is there any third-party candidate like that for you this cycle? Who has spoken persuasively about housing and unions, etc.