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this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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I've been very much thinking that Biden had the best chance to win, mostly due to name recognition, and that switching candidates would be a bad idea because there isn't a lot of time left for campaigning. I didn't think Joe was necessarily the best person to be president (given the options), but I did think he had the most exposure and was most likely to collect votes.
But I didn't really consider that switching candidates might seriously upset the Republican campaigning strategy. This could work. As long as the Democrats line up behind Kamala and don't fragment, this risk might pay off.
The democrats should've had a real primary with actual debates. That would've exposed the Biden situation way earlier and would've given the eventual candidate a democratic mandate. Biden dropping out now isn't ideal, but now is better than later, it was only going to get worse.
The ideal scenario would've been for Biden to keep his word about him being a transitional candidate that would step aside after one term.
He didn't really promise per se. He said in some interviews that he saw himself as a bridge candidate, but he never made a pledge. I assume he was trying to not make himself a lame duck president right out of the gate, which can make it difficult to pass policies.
And I didn't take that to mean one term. Did he say one term? I took it to mean he wanted to see younger people getting into politics and specifically the presidency after him. That he wanted to pave the way for younger candidates and didn't want to see old guys like himself in office anymore.
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/11/biden-single-term-082129
This is what he was 'privately signalling' before he was elected.
Sure, he didn't pledge it, but his campaign made it clear this was the plan and it's not like any of the age concerns were new if they were talking about them before he was even elected the first time.
But then again, they successfully gaslit everyone about this thing, same as the $2000 check if Warnock and Ossof got elected that turned into a $1400 check (or was it 1200?).