He was not going to be the nominee due to being the sitting president. He was going to be the nominee due to defeating his main rival “uncommitted” in the primaries, along with Rep. Dean Philips and Marianne Williamson.
Delegates are bound to support in all good conscience the person for whom their primaries results reflect.
This bizzare turn of phrase has been largely been untested in the courts… But if, in good conscience, the delegates believe that the results of the primary were for the candidate who was best poised to defeat Trump (as in, they’re not supporting Biden specifically as much as they are against Trump, for example) then they could argue that based on events that have occured since the primaries that they are in good conscience representing those wishes.
So, I dunno. I’m very glad Biden took the high road here, but I am unconvinced that this was truely set in stone. This is the exact justification for having delegates choose the nominee in the first place; that in certain critical conditions they can act in good faith.
I think that would be an extremely minority opinion far outside of the moderate dem mainstream. Since the electors get specifically chosen by the winning campaign, expecting some kind of broad revolt out of them is very wishful thinking.
Additionally, Biden was polling very close to Trump during a time when dems have been outperforming polls in our recent elections. Someone would have to be fairly ignorant of the actual voting results of recent races to actually think Biden genuinely had no chance. I do not think very many chosen delegates are ignorant of these election results, unlike more casually-engaged citizens online.
while technically true, had uncommited gotten more than 2 weeks to campaign and made it onto every ballot, the dems might not have had to modify the ticket this late.
Yeah, I think there’s not nearly enough single-issue Palestine voters to make that happen. Also, it was a write-in campaign, it was never “on” a ballot anywhere.
“uncommitted” / “no preference” were explicitly on some state ballots and palestine is a bigger culminating issue than people give credit for. “none of the above” running a distant, but meaningful, second is not encouraging.
regardless of your thoughts on biden in 2020, a diminished biden was a disaster for the Democrats and (potentially) the country in 2024.
