Above all, Joe Biden’s allies wanted him to demonstrate strength and energy on the debate stage to help put to rest questions about the 81-year-old Democrat’s physical and mental acuity.
But on the biggest stage in U.S. politics on Thursday night, Biden did not meet their modest expectations.
And by the end of the 90-minute showdown, the Democratic president’s allies — party strategists and rank-and-file voters alike — descended into all-out panic following a debate performance punctuated by repeated stumbles, uncomfortable pauses, and a quiet speaking style that was often difficult to understand. Publicly and privately, Democrats questioned whether the party could or should replace him as the party’s presidential nominee against the 78-year-old Republican former President Donald Trump this fall.
"I’m not the only one whose heart is breaking right now. There’s a lot of people who watched this tonight and felt terribly for Joe Biden,” former Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill said on MSNBC. “I don’t know if things can be done to fix this.”
What we can do is run a better candidate before it’s too late.
The convention isn’t for over a month, and the DNC has been very open about how they can just nominate anyone they want.
We’re only stuck with Biden because Biden and the people he put in charge of the DNC would rather risk trump than Biden step aside.
Can you imagine what it would look like if they chose someone like Jon Stewart instead? How a debate like that would have gone? A guy can dream…
Just anyone with more charisma than a bowl of cold oatmeal.
If nothing matters except beating trump, why arent we coalescing around a candidate Dem voters want so that we’ll get as much votes against trump as possible
The problem is “a candidate dem voters want” doesn’t have any obvious choices.
Like Harris isn’t that popular, but the optics of skipping over a black woman when the VP would typically be the heir apparent? You think Gavin Newsom would be a good choice? Californians don’t have a lot of good things to say about him right now. I haven’t seen a lot of other names floated.
The problem is that the DNC would never go for him or anyone like him, because he’s not a blatant neoliberal.
If they swap, it’ll be someone like Newsom.
Did we even watch the same debate? Trump is a rambling moron. Biden is old, that is a very real concern, but he wasn’t incoherent even a little bit.
What?
When asked about abortion, Biden started ranting about illegal immigrants murdering women…
And for an example used an instance where we don’t know who the murderers are, but right wing media keeps claiming it was immigrants.
Like, this isn’t just you and me bub.
Feel free to provide a source from literally any major news organization claiming Biden did well and was coherent.
You’re currently commenting on one about the opposite, but I can find more if you want
Trump didn’t answer a single question with anything other than, “I’m rubber; you’re glue.” Biden was stumbly but he at least answered questions and you 90% knew what he was talking about.
When asked about abortion, Biden started ranting about illegal immigrants murdering women…
That is an outright lie. I’m not a fan of Biden for different reasons, but let’s stick to the truth.
I actually watched the debate. Its clear you didnt. Biden was coherent, even trump was for the most part coherent, he just made stuff up constantly.
You didn’t watch the debate. You were on 4chan apparently. This is the same exact thing those chuds are saying over there.
We’re only stuck with Biden because Biden and the people he put in charge of the DNC would rather risk trump than Biden step aside.
We’re stuck with Biden precisely because the DNC doesn’t want to risk Trump, and the incumbent advantage is significant.
and the incumbent advantage is significant.
An incumbent advantage helps but isn’t an automatic win.
Biden’s poll numbers are abysmal for Dem voters. The incumbent advantage likely won’t overcome his unpopularity.
And when the most common reason his supporters give us just “he’s not trump” then literally any Dem candidate has that too.
