stevenkesslar

The question on the table now is, "Can Joe Biden win?" And it seems to still be unsettled. If he can't win, everything about what he could do in a second term is wishful thinking. My Lichtman-centric mind is settled on two options that make sense: One, Biden stays. Two, Biden resigns so Harris can run as the incumbent with a unified party behind her. Anything else, including Biden completing his term but stepping aside as nominee, just seems like too big a risk, based on Lichtman's Keys. And polls that show Biden and Harris as running about the same against Trump. I hope Biden and leaders like Pelosi and Jeffries and Schumer are also looking at it from the perspective of, "Why should he stay, anyway?" In my mind, that would be the single best reason for Biden to resign, for the good of both his country and his party. What if Joe Biden stays? The US president’s team must face the reality of what a second term would look like now That is an almost impeccable argument. If we look at LBJ, Reagan, W., and Obama, their second terms ranged from disappointments to disasters. Lichtman argues that Obama's inability to get anything big done in his second term (thanks to Mitch McConnell blocking him) was a decisive factor in Clinton's 2016 defeat as heir apparent. The same could happen to Kamala in 2028. Even if Biden scores a hat trick and keeps the Senate and retakes the House, the chances of getting a mandate to do what he couldn't do in his first term seems unlikely. He'll continue to decline. With the constantly lingering question being when, not if, Kamala will need to take over. To put it harshly, many people will hope he either dies, or has some kind of decisive health event, that finally forces a resolution. And that's based on the more optimistic scenario that he will win. Probably the best thing about Biden winning is that it simply keeps Trump from doing bad things. Including cutting taxes for his billionaire donors and packing the court even more with MAGA right wing extremists. If Harris runs and wins, she will not be a lame duck. And she will likely bring new energy to an unmet agenda. If she could win the thinnest of Senate and House majorities, she would probably be able to win some incremental victories on Democratic priorities. Biden could of course do the same in 2025. But unlike with Harris the feeling would be stasis and decline, not building toward something bigger. Young people who feel disinterested and de-energized today won't somehow feel better about him when Biden is two years older. The one issue I'd take issue with the author on is Bill Clinton. He's right that the second term brought Monicagate. But it also brought a booming economy and a lot of incremental bipartisan success. Including a budget surplus. My argument for a successful Biden second term would be that he essentially becomes an avatar for what Ruy Teixeira is calling "the new centrism." Teixeira and his lefty partner in crime John Judis got it surprisingly right two decades ago when they predicted an Obamaesque "Emerging Democratic Majority." He may be getting it right again. Whether you buy that or not, I think it is true that people are sick of the divisiveness that is a hallmark of Trump's non-governing pathology. One can always hope that if they lose in 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023, and 2024, enough Republicans in the House and Senate will want to focus on the kinds of practical things that made Clinton's second term successful. Biden actually is temperamentally better than Harris at seeking the middle ground. Even if what that means in practice in a few years is his staff, and Kamala, do much of the work for him. That would be my blueprint for what could work about a second Biden term.

One or the other, but not both. I'd argue Scalia's seat was stolen thanks to McConnell. RGB stole the seat from herself, I think. Granted, by the time Republicans took control of the Senate in 2014 it was too late. McConnell would have probably come up with some excuse for leaving the seat vacant for two years. But it's the same lesson we will all learn if Biden stays on the ticket and loses because of his age, as many fear he will. Shoulda retired when you could. Had RGB retired in 2013 she would have served a deeply respected 20 years, and the SCOTUS right wing majority would be 5-4 today. It still probably would have meant the end of Roe v. Wade once Trump packed the court with his right wing MAGA extremists. But we don't know what Roberts might have done had he been the swing vote. Roberts seems to be the conservative who is most aware that when a felon and lying POTUS who is unpopular packs the court with MAGA radicals who made deeply unpopular decisions, it does not work well for them. There's a brand new poll out by The Economist saying that SCOTUS's disapproval rating is now -16 points, 36/52. That is unprecedented. Wonder why? Putin must be having a blast watching Trump systematically fuck up everything that worked pretty well about democracy before Trump.

Well, I'll give you this. That is factually correct. Sometimes you can get the facts right, even if you have zero ability to analyze what they might possibly mean. What's clear from a series of polls is that lots of people have no idea who Whitmer or Shapiro are. In a country where the MAGA faithful believe that unemployment is at a 50 year high and the S & P 500 is down for the year, what are we to expect? It's not reality. It's a cult. A lying, cop beating, crime loving, democracy hating cult. Murder and violent crime were down over 10 % in 2023 under Biden, who reversed Trump's 30 % murder spike in 2020. But these facts don't matter. Beating the shit out of cops to stop an election doesn't matter. It's just a cult. You'll believe whatever you want. The main difference between how Biden does against Trump and the other lesser knows in that way more voters are undecided about people they don't know, as the survey you posted but can't intellectually grasp demonstrates. Biden v. Trump is 46/43, with 11 % undecided. Biden v Shapiro is 46/38, with 16 % undecided. The difference is not that Trump does better against Shapiro. It's that many people have no clue who the Guv Of Pennsylvania is. Since you have a very troubled relationship with facts, @EmmetK, surely you can empathize. Here's another fact that matters. When Emerson pressed undecided voters to say who they are leaning to, the Biden-Trump race is tied 50/50. So much for Dementia Joe being demented, or politically dead. Even after a massive Biden fuck up, voters just don't want the stench of Trump. These latest polls have probably helped slow momentum to Kamala. In the Emerson poll you cited, Biden does 46/43, but Kamala does 49/43. A Redfield and Wilton poll shows Biden/Trump 42/43, versus Harris/Trump 37/44.  Meanwhile, Bendix and Amandi  shows Biden v. Trump 42/43, and Harris v. Trump 42/41. So Harris does either about the same or a little bit worse in horse races against Trump, compared to Biden. No reason - at least based on polls - to think that switching from Biden to Harris will make some dramatic difference for Democrats, either way. Although what's not clear is whether Harris has the same recognition as Biden or Trump. My guess is there's some voters who have no idea who Kamala Harris is.

Poor thing! You don't seem to know whether Biden is dead, or will be dead, or will be alive in mid-2025. Which is it? Or does the cult not know the right line yet? Let me help. Just read the words on the teleprompter, @EmmetK. "I AM A MAGA CULT MEMBER. I BELIEVE EVERY LIE DONLD TRUMP SAYS." There. That wasn't so hard, was it?

Oops! See? We're all a little demented now and then. I meant FDR died a few months into his final term.

Not true. If the historians have it correct, even during the 1944 campaign FDR could only work four hours a day due to severe hypertension. He died a few months into his second term. Why FDR Decided to Run for a Fourth Term Despite Ill Health When he sought a fourth term at age 62, FDR's doctor had issued a dire prognosis. Compared to FDR, Biden last week was a young colt, running around the country to rallies. And Kamala Harris is much better prepared to take power than Truman was. Plus, hopefully, Biden won't die in the middle of a World War. See if you can talk Genocide Man into calling off his Ukrainian slaughter, okay? It would help reduce that risk. If there were a way to do it, one solution is to have Biden and Harris structure a de facto co-Presidency in his second term. Since even if he lives until 2028 he will continue to grow weaker, for sure. At the very least, this is going to force Biden to continue to raise Kamala's stature more.

I posted already in a different thread about a new poll that shows Kamala or Hillary slightly outperforming Biden in a race against Trump. But here is some other relatively good news for Biden in the same poll. I take that to mean that about 48 % of America is a hard NO on Biden, and about 53 % of America is a hard NO on Trump. That's actually consistent with past election results. In 2016 and 2020 election results and in current RCP poll averages, Trump is stuck at a ceiling of 47 %. Whereas Biden got just over 51 % pf the actual vote in a record turnout election. It's not clear that a whole lot has changed. A majority of Americans still don't want Trump. And Jan. 6th gave them a very firm reason to want him even less. Meanwhile, a slight majority of Americans are still open to the idea of voting for Biden, even he is diminished and obviously will become more so. I think it is easier for Biden to prove he is undemented than for Trump to prove he is not undemocratic. You can't unsee Jan. 6th. Or the idea that it's patriotic to go beat the living shit out of cops to stop a peaceful transfer of power. Lest we forget his past antics, Trump's inference that he'd like to blow Liz Cheney's brains out for being a traitor before a televised military tribunal does jog the memory. And, sorry to be morbid, but I have to ask. Will he grab Liz by the pussy before he blows her brains out? 🤢 You can't unsee Biden's crappy debate performance, either. But he is basically undementing himself every day he talks coherently about a real campaign message. You can't stop Father Time, as Axelrod is arguing, but you actually can slow him down. Or at least create the appearance of slowing him down, which is what spin masters like Axelrod do for a living. The longer this goes on, the more I feel like it's a net positive that Biden has been stripped of the protective layers of The White House and has to prove he can still fight for himself - and us. Trump's argument is that since I am very greedy and want it all for myself, I am the right guy to be greedy for America. Biden's equivalent argument is that I am still able to fight like hell for myself, so I am the right guy to fight like hell for you. I think the latter message is better, if Biden can consistently make it. A slight majority of America seems to agree.

You called that one right. Poll finds Biden damaged by debate; with Harris and Clinton best positioned to win Mostly what these polls mean to me is that people tend to turn to fantasy candidates like Michelle Obama or Hillary Clinton because they don't know the alternatives - other than Kamala - very well. So even if Harris/Shapiro wins 42/40 in one poll versus Biden/Harris losing 42/43 to Trump in the same poll, it's all very close. If this was supposed to be a fatal blow to Biden, the polls don't show it. And if Harris were to be the nominee I doubt either Whitmer or Shapiro would make a big difference outside their home states. My read of this is that the only two options in play are Biden remains and we stick a cattle prod up his ass for the next four months, or he resigns and Harris becomes POTUS, which would cement her lead in being the replacement nominee. Either way, Democrats can unify around an incumbent who was chosen in the 2024 primary. We'll never know what would have happened had Biden announced he would not run last year. But in his Conversations series last year, Bill Kristol and A.B. Stoddard speculated that both Nancy Pelosi's resignation as House leader and Biden's decision not to seek re-election would lead to divisive food fights between progressives and moderates. Never happened. So the glass half full view of this is that Democrats avoided the kind of ugly fights that could have split the party. However this gets settled, there is plenty of time tounify around either Biden or Harris. Meanwhile, it's not clear that all those primary voters who preferred Haley will in fact fall in line behind Trump. So Republicans have unity problems of their own. As far as the polls go, it is now clear that Biden is no worse off than Reagan or Obama were after blowing their first debates. They all lost a few points, and then gained them back. For Obama and Reagan, whose flub was also tinged with chatter about dementia, the episode served as a wake up call to a lazy incumbent who was used to not being challenged very much. Biden is definitely awake now. There was also lots of chatter last Summer that when Biden should have been flying all over the country rallying the troops and spreading his message, he was hanging out at the beach with Jill wasting time. It does seem like he kind of wants to have his Presidency and enjoy his retirement, too. Bad idea. Arguably, if he does survive this mess, it is better that he get a wake up call during Summer so that he knows he has to work his ass off every day moving forward. We'll see.

Those numbers are not particularly bad for Biden. If anything, they lean a bit toward supporting Biden's argument: grow a spine and just ride out the storm of a really bad debate. Since last November there has been a pretty stable pattern in the RCP polling average. Trump gets up to 47 % and change when he is doing best. Biden gets down to about 44 % when he is doing worst. That's about where they both are right now. But sometimes (mid-April, early June) they are almost tied in the RCP national average. So while being down 3 % is not good news for Biden, it is no worse news than at any other point since November. Biden's low point was in January, when he hit 43 % in the poll average. That's lower than the 44 % he is at now. So if this debate was supposed to be the fatal blow, it didn't work. At least not yet. All through 2016 people said Hillary was way ahead of Trump in the polls. That was mostly true. But there were a few points when Trump actually led Hillary be a fraction of one point. You didn't have to be an Einstein to figure out that if that happened on exactly the wrong day, Trump could be POTUS. Surprisingly, given what happened in 2000, no one (other than Ron Brownstein perhaps) was focused on the idea that Hillary could actually win the popular vote by a few points and still lose. So in 2024 Biden could win by simply being close to Trump on election day. And while it was true in 2016 that Hillary's 2 point national win did not translate to wins in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, it's not at all clear that's the case in 2024. In fact, Biden's been behind in those states pretty much the same or less as he's been behind nationally. Right now RCP says Biden is behind 3.4 % nationally. But he is behind 0.6 % in Michigan, 1 % in Wisconsin, and 3 % in Pennsylvania, in the RCP averages. So the idea that Biden has to beat Trump by 2 % or more nationally just to barely win in the three Rust Belt swing states does not appear to be true. More than anything, these polls seem to disprove the idea that Biden is just demented, and dead meat. Pretty much everyone agrees that the debate was an utter disaster for Biden. Pretty much everyone agrees that the very worst thing that could happen to Biden is he came off looking like a demented old fool. The whole world is now focused on the very thing the campaign tried desperately to avoid focusing on: Biden's age. The post-debate polls in these swing states simply don't match the prognosis that Biden is demented, or politically dead.

Well then, I'll bring it back to Morning Joe. Handsome in his own way. But I'd never make a move on him. No one fucks with Mika. President Biden Calls MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Monday: "I'm Testing Myself," "It Drives Me Nuts People Talking About This!" That's the most on message and on fire I have heard Biden in a long time. I keep going back to 1948 - inflation, unpopular incumbent - as one of for models of this year. Biden in this interview fully embraces the "Give Em Hell Joe" he needs to be. I see this as a potential win-win rather than the lose-lose a lot of pundits see. The age issue has been simmering and then boiling for a few years. So now it is out in the open. And everything that can be said is being said. Biden doesn't look or sound weak and fragile right now. While it would have been better if this Joe Biden showed up for the debate, it's now on him to prove he can stay this way. If he can't, we have Kick Ass Kamala as our back up. The polls do say something like 2 in 3 Democrats want Biden to stay in. So he knows he is not wrong in basing his message on the base. It remains to be seen how Independents view this. But Biden may be able to do what Trump did in 2023: take all the incoming, prove he is tough, secure his base, and then try to build out from there.

In terms of reporters, you can have Ezra. I'd happily take Josh Barro. But he's already taken. As I said, cognitive decline. I changed it. I'm so old that I still have a crush on Dean Cain. Not in his present incarnation as a right wing Fox News guy, but in his early days as mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent. In my imagination there are other things CK did not do quite so mildly. But that would be TMI again.

I agree. I like Newsom. He's my Guv. But a Harris/Newsom ticket makes no sense, for a whole bunch of reasons. I've assumed for years Newsom's actions have been anchored to positioning himself for 2028 [or 2024, had Biden not run]. It's the weird thing about politics. For him to win in 2028, it probably means Biden or Harris have to lose in 2024. And if that happens, he'd be a very viable candidate in 2028 I think. But if Harris is the nominee, and she wins, I can't see Newsom challenging her in 2028 if she sought a second term. But that is a whole bunch of hypotheticals. Harris/Shapiro would be a good pick, too. And if I go by today's polls, PA is a slightly harder win than MI. That said, I think two women on the ticket would be exciting. Particularly with old gross grabby hands on the top of the MAGA ballot. Speaking of cognitive decline, I am schizo on this topic. The rational part of me thinks Lichtman is right, and running Harris without letting her be the incumbent (meaning Biden does not resign) is just one more possible nail in the Democrats' coffin. The emotional part of me feels that Biden/Whitmer would completely change the dynamics of the race, in a positive way, and give Democrats the energy and actual excitement they're lacking. For sure, she would be better able than Biden to articulate a vision of change and what we need to fight for. TMI. 😉

And I wasn't saying you were, of course. We don't disagree. My point was that Lichtman argues, right or wrong, that governance and competence are what people will actually vote on. That said, Biden's lack of charisma is implicitly baked in to the cake of Lichtman's keys, but as only one of 13 factors. I'd argue more like 16 years. Obama was the one who talked about the fever breaking after the 2012 election. Instead, it got worse. I think it's just objectively true that Biden did the best job of any POTUS since 2008 in actually getting substantive bipartisan deals passed. Were he the Joe Biden of 2008 or 2012 or even 2020, that would be enough. Even if I assume Kamala will become the nominee and win, her prospects of making legislative deals look pretty grim - for exactly the reasons you state. There's no reason to believe the MAGA faithful will let up and tolerate centrist deal making, even if Trump adds 2024 to the long list of MAGA losses in 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2023. The odds of her winning AND having a Democratic majority in both the House and Senate are slim. That said, the party seems to be quickly moving to the idea that her odds are better than Biden's at this point.

Opinion: Kamala Harris and Gretchen Whitmer could make a winning ticket for Democrats Great piece arguing for a Harris/Whitmer ticket. The author ticks off all my reasons for thinking it makes sense. In one word: "Michigan." In a sentence: I've been reading lots of articles, mostly by fact-free cultists but also from some Democrats, saying Harris is a shitty debater. They must not have watched Harris on debate night deftly explaining away Biden's own incoherence. Granted, in 2020 Mike Pence got the sympathy vote since a fly landed on his head. 😉 Nevertheless three polls says Harris won that debate. A Morning Consult poll said she won 51/40. A CNN poll said she won 59/38. 538 asked a bunch of questions, and found that Kamala's approval rating among viewers of the debate in 2020 increased from 45 % before the debate to 51 % after. Her disapproval rating went from 40 % before to 41 % after. Asked whose performance was "very good or somewhat good", 69 % said Harris's performance met that standard and 60 % said Pence's performance did. Asked how well they did outlining their policies, 62 % said Kamala did "very good or somewhat good" and 44 % said Pence did the same. More relevant to 2024, only 33 % said Trump's performance was "very good or somewhat good" in the first 2020 Presidential debate. So much for Kamala being an easy debate target for Trump. Presidential Historian: Dropping Biden Won't Help Democrats That's Lichtman yet again in a brand new WSJ piece. Obviously lots of serious journalists recognize his track record and are asking his opinion. That headline gets it right. If you buy his Keys, dropping Biden can not do anything to help Democrats. But they can do it in a way that also won't hurt Democrats. Lichtman says again that Biden resigning so that Harris can run as incumbent and be selected without a divisive intraparty brawl keeps the same incumbency key and party contest key safe for Democrats. Ezra Klein had a piece in the New York Times today praising Jim Clyburn's idea of a so-called "mini-primary" if Biden drops out. I found that interesting, and clever on Clyburn's part. In my view of the world, Clyburn single-handedly choreographed the election of Biden in 2020 by bringing him back from the dead in South Carolina. He also pushed Biden to choose Kamala as his Veep. He is now making it clear that if Biden is not the nominee, he's with Kamala. I think Pelosi and Clyburn are the wise ones in the room. If Biden is pushed out, they will likely be among the top Democrats delivering the message in private. And they will choreograph something that looks competitive to chose his replacement, but is mainly designed to keep the party unified behind Harris and against Trump.

Why do you hate facts, @EmmetK? What did facts do to you? Did they rape you, like your raping cult leader? Did they lie to you, like your lying cult leader? Oh, wait. Facts don't lie. But you don't know the difference between facts and lies. Is it possible YOU have a cognitive disorder, @EmmetK? VERY URGENT: A Parkinson's disease specialist has visited the White House residence medical clinic at least nine times since July 2023 An earlier version of this story referred to one visit to The White House by Dr. Cannard earlier this year. Which implied maybe they checked Biden for Parkinson's and found nothing worth tracking. Nine visits ending in late March with no logs available afterward suggests something different. No doubt this will fuel a whole new cycle of questions. Since @EmmetK may be suffering from cognitive decline, or just likes outrageous lies told by cult leaders, let's spell out a few facts. 1. Parkinson's involves cognitive decline, but is not dementia. 2. Biden has no known diagnosis of either dementia or Parkinson's. So he does not have "obvious" dementia. And most people without cognitive decline would realize that "obvious" things can not be hidden. Poor @EmmetK. What did facts do to him? 3. While Parkinson's is not fatal, the internet says it can reduce life span by 1-2 years. The average life span of someone with Parkinson's is 81. Biden is 81. 4. While we do not know, for a fact, the average political life span of a sitting POTUS who blew a debate and is now perhaps suspected of suffering from early stage Parkinson's, my guess is the average political life span will be something like one week to one month. If these dots connect, good luck Joe.

I don't think this has been posted. John Oliver did a great piece on Project 2025. Spoiler alert: If you like MILFs, there are three bonus sexy clips included. If you get off watching hot older conservatives get angry, nothing makes me cum more than watching Larry Kudlow flail his arms around while ranting, "Impound! Impound! Impound!"

I know I am broken record about Allan Lichtman. But this is where he gets really interesting. I'm very pragmatic. So what sells Lichtman to me is simply that he's been right, in advance, either 9 or 10 times out of 10 in predicting who would win POTUS, based on his Keys system. (He predicted Gore in 2000, which was razor tight.) So he'd say charisma, or any personal quality of the candidate, is one of 13 keys. But legislative wins counts as a key, and the economy counts as two keys. More generally, his argument is that Administrations win because of how well they governed, not how they campaign. And in 2024, he says, Biden is poised to win unless lots of other things go wrong (like mass social unrest, a big military failure, as well as other keys). It's an oddly radical concept. In a democracy, you'd think it's all about how we try to elect good leaders who govern well. Not about how good a stump speaker, or even how good a debater, you are. And certainly not how good their stupid 30 second commercials or slogans or red hats are. But it is true that we've been trained by pollsters and pundits with their own short term interests to think it's really the day to day horse race that matters most. Biden is arguing pay attention to what I did in 3.5 years, not how I spoke for 90 minutes while I was sick. And Lichtman basically is saying Biden is right. Forget the polls and the whims of voters in June. In November they will give a thumbs up or thumbs down. And based on his Keys - good economy, significant achievements, incumbent with a mostly united party and no personal scandal like Trump - Biden will likely win. If Biden does survive the current crisis and remains the Democratic nominee, it will certainly be a good test of concept. The big disconnect between voters and Biden right now is that Biden wants us to focus on the past - what he did. But voters are worried about the future - what he will be capable of doing in 2026 or 2027. It's very difficult to say voters are wrong, and Biden will somehow be stronger and more articulate in 2027. But Lichtman's quantitative approach basically says it is the past that matters most. It's really going to be a thumbs up or thumbs down on what happened in Biden's (or Harris's) first term. As a Democrat who wants Biden and Harris to win, I sure hope he is right. If I assume Biden wins and in 2025 he is diagnosed with Parkinson's or dementia or just looks very old and frail, it's not a comforting concept. But this is where Stu Stevens, the 2012 Romney strategist who is now a Lincoln Project Never Trumper, would say just grow a God damn spine. If that happens, which is an unknown, that is why we have a Veep like Harris. Worry about it later, not now. Again, Lichtman would say Stevens is right. If we assume Harris takes over in 2025, she will then be judged on what her Administration does. We just don't have to worry about that now. All that said, after that horrific debate the idea of Biden being the nominee just scares the shit out of me. It's almost certain next week things will start by getting worse for Biden, with more calls for his resignation from House members and Senators. The people I have the most faith in now are Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, and Jeffries. The only way Biden is going to go is if the party's top leaders basically force him out. And these leaders have the wits and will to make sure this is not chaos, and a party bloodbath. Neither Biden nor Harris want that either, or course. So it's going to be a small group of wise leaders I trust making one big decision, I think.

LOL. It's one poll. And it confirms what I said. Biden v. Harris appears to be a coin toss, at least if you go by polls. In this poll Trump is up 6 over Biden and 7 over Harris. If I read the Harris X account right, that's a 3 point net shift to Trump since 5/31. No surprise that in a debate where Trump's lies and stupidity were eclipsed by Biden's debate malpractice, Trump got a post-debate bump. When the debate bounces back to Trump executing Liz Cheney after his military tribunal determines she's a traitor, shift will happen. The more concerning numbers about Harris are a Daily Mail poll that shows Trump over Biden by 5 and over Harris by 11. That's a number that will slow momentum to Kamala. But I'm quite sure in the next few weeks this will be polled to death. Meanwhile, the first good piece of news for Biden in a while. Larry Sabato said "the race between Trump and Biden is no longer close." It's good news for Biden because Sabato is often spectacularly wrong. So when he calls a trend or an election, you can feel pretty confident it will be the opposite of what he says. Sabato single-handedly created the inaccurate idea that the 2016 polls were horribly wrong. In fact, the final 2016 RCP average showed Clinton winning the popular vote by 3.2 %, and she won by 2.1 %. Pretty close. If you look at the state polls that explain her electoral college defeat, those were pretty close to reality, too. Sabato is a prognosticator, not a pollster. He guessed very badly right before Election Day 2016 that Clinton would win, and Democrats would win the Senate. He turned out to be dead wrong, of course. instead of admitting he just had his head up his ass, he was all over TV blaming his shitty and unreliable guessing on bad polling. So now that Sabato has said the race is not close, we can expect to see the race tighten. Cue the drumroll, please. Biden Has Lost Little Swing-State Support Following First Debate Biden holds an advantage over Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin A new Bloomberg state poll shows Biden beating Trump by 5 points in Michigan and 3 points in Wisconsin. That brings the RCP average of state polls in those two states back to a statistical tie. Bloomberg still shows Biden losing Pennsylvania. But he is only 1 point down in Georgia and 3 points down in Nevada. Take that, Larry Sabato! Nitwit! I'll double down on the idea that it's lucky timing for Democrats that this happened now. Of course, the best thing would be Joe Biden circa 2008 or so (the Whack Sarah Palin version) showed up to the debate. But if it was going to be Dementia Joe, thank God it happened now. This could be the setup for Comeback Kid, 2024 Edition. One way to judge whether Biden has the wits about him to fight Putin or fight for America's middle class is watching him fight for his own survival. So these Bloomberg polls may be an indictor that the "Fight, Joe, Fight!" strategy is working. Either way, the debate about how Biden is maybe crazy and Trump is for sure a crazy lying narcissist that was being suppressed is now in the open. That's a good thing. I think it makes Democrats look like the grown ups, while Trump rants about military tribunals and executing cult traitor Liz Cheney on 5th Ave. or wherever.

Glad to know you are an expert at medical diagnosis. How are you at shooting bullets into brains? I assume if Trump wins all the mentally ill liberals will be called up to military tribunals as sick traitors, like Liz Cheney, and executed. Call me picky. But if I have have to go, I want to die next to Mike Pence the way I lived. Hung.

Trump amplifies posts calling for televised military tribunal for Liz Cheney If Trump wins in November and shoots Liz Cheney in the head after she is found guilty of treason in a televised military tribunal, will anyone care? Why should they? Blah blah blah. What the fuck is the problem with every past Republican Vice President, before Trump? Dick Cheney spawned a treasonous daughter who needs to be found guilty of treason in a televised military tribunal. She was disloyal to Trump. Traitor! Maybe it would be cool if Trump shot her, or hung her, on 5th Ave. But wait. We really need to reserve the noose for that traitor Mike Pence. What was the problem with all these Republicans before Trump? No Republican before Trump understood how democracy is supposed to work. Certainly not The Founding Fathers. And let's not even talk about Biden and Garland and all the Democrats who need to be brought before televised military tribunals. Seriously. Why would anyone care if Trump shoots the traitorous bitch in the head after she is found guilty by a military tribunal? It just makes sense. This is America! Poll reveals that “Trump trusted more than Biden on democracy among key swing-state voters” That's a sign of the times, and a sign of Biden's current problems making his case to voters. Ironic that the group that wants to control women's bodies and prohibit abortion is flaunting the supposedly accurate results of the "fake media" that lies to us all the time. Which one is it? Fake or truthful? Oh, right. You no longer can distinguish between lies and truth. That poll makes perfect sense to me. I think it is a well documented fact that maybe about one third of Americans would go for a lying criminal authoritarian like Trump - as long as he is THEIR lying criminal authoritarian. Anyone who doesn't get that can sit next to Liz at her military tribunal. Why not? This is America! The problem for Democrats is that 62 % of Americans don't trust Trump to handle threats to democracy, including Trump himself. But most of them don't trust Biden, either. Part of the reason why, obviously, is that we are NOT talking about how Trump wants to bring Liz Cheney before a military tribunal for treason. We are not talking about how Trump's hand-picked radical right SCOTUS members, who killed Roe v. Wade on Trump's orders, seem to be saying he has broad immunity if he happens to want to kill his political opponents. This is America! Or is it?

Therein lies the rub, I think. I'm not a doctor, so I have no clue how making a diagnosis works. But it seems logical that there may not be a black and white, reliable diagnosis to be had. That's part of what clearly bothers people. They have seen this movie before. But it moves slowly, and does not have a name, until it unpredictably moves quickly. This is close to heart to me. I know there was a point when I invited my Mom to visit me in California for a week. It turned out to be her last trip in which she did a lot of weird things. In retrospect I learned they were symptoms of vascular dementia, which she had not been diagnosed with yet. Something like that seemingly did happen with Reagan in his second term, years before his Alzheimer's diagnosis. From Politico today, post Georgey Boy: Despite the conventional wisdom, I see some big pluses in this for Democrats - even if Biden remains the nominee. The quiet part that Biden loyalists tried to suppress is now being said out loud. I think that makes Democrats look like the adults in the room. At least compared to Republicans who are just circling the wagons and denying the deeply toxic things about Trump that repelled Independents even as they were aghast at Biden's performance. Now the question is whether leaders like Pelosi, Schumer, Jeffries, and Obama can steer this to an orderly solution, one way or the other. Biden is at least partly right. There were lots of pundits saying things looked dire in 2022. And Biden's wisdom and calm turned out to be right. If he does manage to survive what could already be called an intraparty bloodbath, it actually is a form of cognitive test. Lots of Democratic leaders, including Biden himself, have been "comeback kids" before. The difference is that losing a primary, being involved in a sex scandal, or losing a debate are not the same as, to put in bluntly, losing your mind. Since Trump has never had morals and is also losing his mind, it creates a very weird and concerning race to the bottom.

Call me woke, but I still like the idea of a woman running against the pussy grabbing Felon In Chief. If we can't have Kamala, can we at least have Miss Piggy?

Gupta himself said a version of what you are saying on CNN today. He was talking more generally about cognitive tests, as you are. But he said one value of anyone over 65 getting the tests annually is it develops a baseline to compare to future results. That's obviously not an option with Biden. There are also articles online about how Biden "maybe" has Parkinson's or "maybe" has some other condition based on some credentialed professional being willing to speculate on the internet. I think the most concerning thing, which won't help Biden deal with the political fallout, is that he said to Georgey Boy on TV tonight that he wouldn't take a cognitive test, and didn't need to, because his everyday performance as POTUS is itself a cognitive test. By that logic, of course, about 80 % of Americans (who are not doctors) believe he is failing the test. Whatever comes of Gupta's recommendations, these are the numbers that probably matter more: Would Kamala Harris Do Better Than Biden? That's one post-debate CNN poll that shows Biden 6 points behind versus Harris at 2 points behind Trump. A YouGov poll showed both Biden and Harris 2 points behind Trump. An Ipsos poll showed Biden tied with Trump, and Harris 1 point behind Trump. In other words, it is still a close race. And at least based on these three polls it is more or less a coin toss between Biden and Harris, if one is to go by polls. All the other likely suspects - the Democratic Governors like Newsom and Whitmer - poll worse than either Biden or Harris. The interesting thing about that chart above is that it appears that Harris might do better than Biden among the specific Democratic constituencies Biden badly needs, but has big problems with: non-White voters, young voters. And, probably most important, Independents. If more public or private polls show the same thing, that would help explain why there seems to be ongoing and maybe growing momentum from Biden to Harris publicly, or just underneath the surface, among Democratic leaders and donors. I think it's a pretty good guess that Biden would outperform Harris among rural White men in Iowa. But neither are going to win Iowa, anyway. What the chart above suggests is that if the Presidential race boils down to who can win Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, Harris might have some real advantages if this polling is reinforced by more polls. Meanwhile, I'll recite ad nauseum what the wisest guy in the room, Lichtman, is saying. What's less important is whether Democrats end up with Biden or Harris. What's more important is how Democrats do it. I think Lichtman is right that if Biden is not the nominee, he should resign and let Kamala run as POTUS. The logical reason for him to do that would be some kind of diagnosis. Other than lots of Democratic leaders and most voters wanting him to step aside.

You really don't understand democracy, do you? Only someone who lives under the rule of a murderous tyrant like Putin would argue that.