Joe Biden accused of sexual assault

What? Where does that come from? The press has decided not to cover it. The Times says they’ve talked to everyone. Where does your weird assertion come from?

There’s literally an article above that I commented on where the journalist literally said he told Tara Raede to not talk to Salon.

2 Likes

Its about winning, not some fantasy.

If the DNC plugs in Amy or Pete, or somebody out of left field - guess what they still will lose. All the others trailed significantly behind Sanders.

Sanders is #2. He is clearly the one to step in. Any other solution wreaks of political maneuvering which again provides leverage to the trump campaign.

The DNC has to come to terms - sometimes it does not go your way, and you have to do the right thing.

If Biden actually committed the assault, or if Biden didn’t commit the assault but believes that the allegations are going to tank his campaign and that someone else would be a more effective flagbearer for the party, then he should step down.

Either way, Sanders is not going to be the nominee. Even with most of the delegates from the remaining states, he would not have a majority. The DNC would have to use their best judgment over what the election results say about what the will of the voters is.

There was a time when people were upset that Sanders and Warren might split the progressive vote and make Biden the obvious choice in a brokered election. It was a reasonable complaint. Now that it is the moderates, not the progressives, who have split the vote, it would be equally wrong to say that the person with the plurality should automatically get the nod.

1 Like

The DNC should unite the party as best they can and not allow of a chaotic convention again. It’s up to them to figure out the best oath forward for the general, and had other candidates not taken the step to bow out of the race to promote Biden then there would be more options for who the best #2 nominee could be.

3 Likes

What? Sanders has 918 or something. He needs 1000 or so more to be the decisive candidate. If the DNC is going to contest it, sure, you could easily spoil this. But its a losing play. I’m not saying that they can’t fuck this up if they want to. But the only winning play is to get wholly behind Sanders, just as they wanted Sander’s voters to do for Biden. If anything it would be the DNC reversing strategy to now say they will contest it later and undermine building unity until after the convention. Losing play.

I have to say some of your points come across as the DNC talking points. Sanders did not “tank”. While he’s lost states he hoped to win, he’s gotten more votes and more delegates in 2020 than 2016. For christs sake, he just got 45% of Alaska to Biden’s 55 – that’s after he has so called “dropped out”. Thats hardly tanking, and hardly a weak position.

I call bullshit on that. DNC has not exhibited good judgment. First place steps out, Seond Place steps up. Amy or Pete don’t get to reclaim the support they pledged to Biden, those votes are already cast. DNC does not get to hocus pocus decide what we really meant when we voted.

1 Like

I’ll even add that while it’s not the letter of the Democrat bylaws, it is what the general public will accept and it’s how they expect it to work given the unique circumstances.

Either way, Biden needs to drop out right now and prove that there is a standard for presidential candidates.

3 Likes

I don’t know what you mean by “the DNC” contesting it. All it needs is for one candidate, say, Klobuchar, to unsuspend her run. If you look at the remaining states, it would be pretty much impossible for Sanders to get a majority with an opponent.

The argument that Sanders represents the will of the people ignores the votes that went to Biden, most of which would not have gone to Sanders. What about their will?

Sanders knew his path to the nomination was pretty much closed, this was in part by considering the remaining states. That’s why he dropped out.

I have to say some of your points come across as the DNC talking points.

I’ve been a Democrat for several decades, and I believe the Party should follow process, because when it doesn’t it gets hammered. We’re talking about the Democratic Party nomination here, if you want to talk about a different party that’s fine but I’m not interested.

I was a strong Sanders supporter in the last election, and started this election as one as well, though less enthusiastic; he dropped before I was in a position to vote for him. However, I believe in process more than I believe in any one individual.

DNC does not get to hocus pocus decide what we really meant when we voted.

If you want them to immediately name Sanders as the nominee despite not having a majority then that’s exactly what you’re asking them to do.

1 Like

Is it worth wondering aloud where Lindsey Graham is in all this? After his meltdown at the end of the Kavanaugh hearings, and given how he’s not the quiet type in the first place, I’d have expected him to be very loud and very public about these allegations. Has he not done that, or is the press sitting on that, as well?

(What I would not expect him to do, is say “it was wrong when they did it to Kavanaugh and it’s wrong now when they do it to Joe Biden.” But every day is a new surprise.)

2 Likes

Don’t play naive. Klobuchar and the others did not come out in strong support for Biden because they were eager to vote for him. They did it at the urging of the DNC to consolidate support. Just as they need to do now to win. That means the DNC tells Klobuchar that No, you don’t unsuspend your campaign, and you don’t reenter the race.

Well its telling that your refer to Sanders as “Dropping Out” but Klobuchar as “Suspending her Campaign”. If you actually listened to Sanders you would know that he also Suspended his Campaign, and he never said “Dropping Out”.

Those voters exerted their will. Nobody took that away from them but Biden. Its a tradgedy that their vote may have been spent on a candidate that ended up unviable, but that does not mean that they get to transfer the value of their vote to another candidate. That is what you are suggesting, and frankly I find it an outrageous concept. You say we should follow process. The is no process where by somebody’s vote is fluid and lands wherever they want it to land, even on a different candidate weeks and months down the line. The hard reality is they voted for Biden, who now needs to go. Second place is Sanders. Sanders is up – there is no other way it gets to happen.

Unless the DNC elects to have a messy contested convention which will yield a fractured party and a loss in the general election.

No - there is only one way forward. Biden - Out. Sanders IN.

But supposedly this has been alledged for years now. These allegations supposedly aren’t new. They’re old. Which means people knew of it and ignored them. Heck, Barack Obama probably found this stuff out, if true, while vetting Joe for the VP.

IIRC they fudged w super delegates in '16. Why can’t they do that now?

We’ll probably lose if Joe is the nominee, so it seems logical to try to put in Warren.

Then again, that assumes the party people truly think of themselves as benevolent dictators who really do care about the republic, and are not simply opportunists better at hiding their contempt for the people than the Republicans.

Propaganda exists not just from Russian bots. Most people trust entities like CNN and MSNBC, who gave less coverage to Sanders and were more harsh when they did. I remember in '16 being told after IIRC Iowa (or was it NH) Bernie should drop out because he lost a major state. Then when Bernie was doing well the goalposts kept moving.

So?

I would be ok with a milquetoast liberal who’s not a rapist at this point.

People don’t just do one type of crime. It is valid to strongly oppose a rapist president even if the rapist is a democrat.

1 Like

I don’t know who you think “the DNC” is, or why they have this kind of influence.

Those voters exerted their will. Nobody took that away from them but Biden. Its a tradgedy that their vote may have been spent on a candidate that ended up unviable, but that does not mean that they get to transfer the value of their vote to another candidate.

Really, that’s what you think? You should look up rules for how delegates get reallocated.

In any event, it is all academic. Biden is not going to drop out. The information we have at this point is enough to suggest that the allegations probably need further exploration, but also to let people who want to vote for him be comfortable voting for him.

Right now the more productive path forward is to get a Democratic victory followed by an investigation. As I said above, we should view Biden as a placeholder, and think hard about his VP pick.

The full extent of the accusation was not revealed until after Sanders suspended his campaign.

3 Likes

No functioning adult should be thinking “let’s set aside the rape stuff until after the election victory, then they can step aside.”

Most productive path is tearing the bandaid off now and moving forward while it’s still only April. A contested convention is a better general election than letting this go for 7 months and hoping things don’t get worse for Joe.

5 Likes

And that doesn’t really raise any suspicion whatsoever?

1 Like

you can’t be serious

Yes - that’s absolutely what I think. You are the one who framed the question as to “votes”, not delegates. I know there are rules for delegates - we’ve been talking about brokered conventions.

But that’s not the same as votes. The votes that are cast are cast. They are not ignored by the candidate failing in some other way to remain in the race.

Tolerating this from the DNC and the candidates is simply a moral failing that will lead to a loss. If you are content with that, and most democrats are, then we will in fact lose.

1 Like

Well, I do consider myself both functioning and serious, and I try to refrain from accusing people of moral failure just because they disagree with me. In any event, I’ve said my peace about what I think will happen, and what I think will be the best road to justice for everyone involved: Reade, Biden and the American public. I promise that if Biden drops out and the nomination magically passes to Sanders I will come back to this thread and eat crow.

1 Like

Well it certainly rules out that anyone from the Sanders campaign was involved. If the timing itself was a gotcha, why not wait until the day after the Dem convention? Right now, there’s a smooth path to picking a replacement for Biden. After the convention, it becomes a scramble.

You mean suspended, not dropped out. Nobody’s “dropped out.”

But yeah, of course, there’s a smooth path and an obvious solution and that solution is Bernie Sanders. And if they don’t, then the party’s corrupt and deserves to be punished by another Trump term, right?