Yep. That’s why I think it would take a serious stroke or other condition that was both impossible to hide and left the President without the mental or physical capacity to simply resign.
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Alternate read: voters like hearing the candidates actually discussing policy proposals, and Biden and Sanders didn’t get the same bump other candidates did because they didn’t articulate anything the voters hadn’t heard before.
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The Dems are responding to a Demented Grandpa President by running their own demented grandpa
“HOW CAN WE GIVE AWAY ALL OUR POTENTIAL ADVANTAGES AT ONCE?”
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With the exception of Beto and his gun proposal, and Yang’s bribery thing, I don’t think any of the candidates proposed anything especially new in the policy arena.
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It’s largely the candidates themselves (and which policies each espouse) that are new to the voters, or at least to many voters.
Anyone who would be likely to vote for Biden or Bernie has already heard what they have to say. Most of the other candidates are still comparatively fresh on the national stage so many voters are still learning their stories and policy positions for the first time.
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I think people are also honestly visual and respond to recognizable physical disability as disability but don’t tend to do so for people who can “look normal” to them. So we might see him removed from office if he had a stroke that left half of his body paralyzed, but not for cognitive decline. The saddest part of this to me is that some one who is physically disabled but not cognitively impaired might be perfectly fit to be a President actually yet this bias works against them totally.
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Conceivably, particular people of below-average intelligence might still make good decisions, or delegate authority responsibly. Maybe Biden is, or could be, such a person. Trump clearly is not.
Still, the logic that would elevate Biden against Trump is the same logic that gave us Kerry in 2004.
It’s more of the same, but allegedly not as bad as the other guy.
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Interesting graphic. Thanks for sharing it!
All of the pre-debate sub-50% favorables saw their favorable-ness grow by 7-8% except Castro. The whole field saw their unfovorable-ness also grow, except for Warren and Beto.
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True enough, but not by much (except Castro).
cf FDR
I don’t think that Biden is of below-average intelligence, or is impaired. He does seem to have that thing that starts to happen to some people when they get older, where they lose their words. This isn’t always accompanied by a change in the ability to make good decisions. (I’m not claiming that Joe ever had that ability.)
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I think the “Pelosi family” members mentioned are a nephew by marriage of Nancy, and his wife. Seems a little shady to word this so it sounds like the Speaker is somehow supporting Biden by proxy.
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Also, younger voters are probably getting tired of the “confrontation for confrontation’s sake” approach that’s been a hallmark of the Boomer-dominated era of American politics. There are serious and existential threats to the future of liberal democracy and the planet that need to be addressed now, and “zingers” and point-scoring and virtue-signalling aren’t going to contribute much to solutions.
They hid FDR’s physical disabilities from the public for more than a decade while he first ran for and then held office. It’s interesting to think about if or how they might be able to do something like that now.
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It would seem that TeamPelosi has decided that replicating the DNC establishment’s 2016 strategy of quietly rigging things for its preferred candidate in the background while (unconvincingly) claiming neutrality in public is the way to go. That’ll definitely foster party unity in the general election, Nance!
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Even at the time it was only possible because the press considered it a taboo topic to dwell upon.
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More than that, many of them were actively complicit in the cover-up, positioning cameras and starting them rolling in a way that would hide his need for physical assistance.
Years later there was, to a lesser degree, some active hiding of JFK’s near-debilitating back pain by members of the press.
Going back to @TornPaperNapkin’s point, the public really does seem more freaked out by physical disability than by cognitive disability, so I wonder what would happen in that case today.
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In March, Mr. Obama took the unusual step of summoning Mr. Biden’s top campaign advisers, including the former White House communications director Anita Dunn and Mr. Biden’s longtime spokeswoman, Kate Bedingfield, to his Washington office for a briefing on the campaign’s digital and communications strategy with members of his own staff, including his senior adviser, Eric Schultz.
When they were done, Mr. Obama offered a pointed reminder, according to two people with knowledge of his comments:
Win or lose, they needed to make sure Mr. Biden did not “embarrass himself” or “damage his legacy” during the campaign.
http://nytimes.com/2019/08/16/us/politics/biden-obama-history.html
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If this is true, there’s no evidence for it in that tweet.
Sure, you just keep believing that Nancy Pelosi has nothing to do with teampelosi, you sweet summer child.
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No, the tweet doesn’t support a connection between teampelosi and the fundraiser. The “Pelosis” at that fundraiser are apparently relatively distant relatives of Nancy. This is a misleading use of the term “the Pelosi family”.
You know what, I can sort of buy that Nancy Pelosi would be incompetent enough to let her name/personal brand/political hashtag be associated with such a clumsy attempt by establishment Dems (including her own supposedly “apparently relatively distant” relatives-- really her nephew by marriage and his wife, both highly connected in Bay Area Dem politics and Auntie Nance) to pretend neutrality. The Internet has never been a medium where she shines (which is odd considering the district she represents).
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