Biden Officially Announces Run

[Seshmeister]

I don't think they did totally botch their predictions in 2016. I was pretty worried going into the election because they were saying Trump had a 28% chance of winning. That's a pretty decent chance, people got confused into thinking Clinton having a better than 70% chance of winning somehow meant she would definitely win - I blame poor math education among journalists.

Trump lost the popular vote and the good polls were only one or two percentage points out.

With all due respect you may find him biased now because he is saying things you don't want to hear...

[FORD]

538 isn't what it used to be either. They totally botched their predictions in 2016, and Nate & his crew are horribly biased towards the Turd Way/DLC candidates. He used to just go by the mathematical analysis, but he's let his bias get in the way in recent years.

[Seshmeister]

Not all polls are accurate by a long shot.

Best place to judge them at I think is 538 who rate them all for accuracy A to F

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/

Biden is significantly ahead in every recent poll but it's far too early to be worrying about polls, at this point the main selling point is just that people have heard of the candidate.

[FORD]

Notice certain polls show Biden way ahead of Bernie.

Those polls are blatantly bullshit. They literally didn't count the opinions of anybody under 55. Probably only called landlines.

This whole thing is starting to remind me of 2004 though, when Judas IsKerryot was in the bottom of the basement in the poll numbers, and suddenly the corporate media proclaims him the "front runner" , based on nothing (other than their hatred of Howard Dean... which is only exceeded by their hatred of Bernie Sanders.)

[Seshmeister]

Notice certain polls show Biden way ahead of Bernie. Biden looks like a corpse, he’s creepy and he slurs his speech like he has brain damage or nerve damage from a stroke. It’s pretty clear Biden is “the chosen one” of the big money and corporations. Joe can be bought and controlled. Of course Bernie still has to get passed the super delegates. They will throw Bernie under the bus and run another corpse and the corpse will lose to Trump.

You like to think of yourself as a logical cool headed voter (don't we all) but you aren't at all.

You apply a completely different bias when comparing Trump to Biden or whoever because you are not a free thinking voter you are a tribal Republican and always have and will be. That's as it is and maybe a cool thing about this forum in the current climate because it's one of the few places in the internet where people from different 'bubbles' and tribes still discuss stuff.

[Nitro Express]

Notice certain polls show Biden way ahead of Bernie. Biden looks like a corpse, he’s creepy and he slurs his speech like he has brain damage or nerve damage from a stroke. It’s pretty clear Biden is “the chosen one” of the big money and corporations. Joe can be bought and controlled. Of course Bernie still has to get passed the super delegates. They will throw Bernie under the bus and run another corpse and the corpse will lose to Trump.

[FORD]

[FORD]

[FORD]

[Seshmeister]

In terms of the various (often misguided - e.g. "which candidate would I prefer to have a beer with?" - ) rationales behind why people vote for one candidate over another,

Particularly crazy when it's guys voting for Sarah Palin because of her looks.

Would you choose your surgeon based on how well you think you would get on with them socially?

Also this imaginary beer with GW Bush I could understand but Trump???

Interesting to note both don't trust themselves enough to even be able to have a beer...

[Nickdfresh]

Well, for one thing the allegations weren't against Bernie himself. Nobody's accusing him of being grabby. As far as anybody expecting him to micro manage low level campaign staffers who might do something stupid when they're drinking after a primary or convention or whatever, that's not realistic. You can set "no tolerance" policies before hand or whatever, but people are ultimately responsible for their own behavior.

I know he wasn't personally accused, hell I'd be impressed if that pseudo-"socialist"was still such a randy old bastard. But it does seem a bit troubling, like a bunch of "liberal" young guys that can't get laid and join a campaign and expect chicks to be impressed with them...

[FORD]

Didn't Bernie's last campaign have a lot of allegations of sexual harassment? Or is he above all reapproach? Wasn't his fault?

Well, for one thing the allegations weren't against Bernie himself. Nobody's accusing him of being grabby. As far as anybody expecting him to micro manage low level campaign staffers who might do something stupid when they're drinking after a primary or convention or whatever, that's not realistic. You can set "no tolerance" policies before hand or whatever, but people are ultimately responsible for their own behavior.

[Terry]

Yeah, well, I won't disagree with that in theory.

In terms of the various (often misguided - e.g. "which candidate would I prefer to have a beer with?" - ) rationales behind why people vote for one candidate over another, as of this moment Trump has a better than even chance a year from now the way I see it.

I mean, I haven't even mentioned how Biden has never caught fire as a national candidate when he ran for the presidency in 1988...or 2008.

Trump voters look at their guy as a cause candidate, even if the cause for some Trump voters is nothing more than to give the middle finger to the established order. Biden will never engender the degree of loyalty from those willing to vote for him that Trump got from his supporters. Biden is basically playing the "I'm not Trump" card. It wasn't enough to put Hillary over the top 3 years ago.

[Seshmeister]

You could walk into any bar, mall or prison in the US pick someone at random and 99/100 they would be a better option than Trump.

Take out the prison option and the odds are way better.

[Terry]

If you define yourself as a liberal, there's precious little to be enthused about with Biden's candidacy.

He has been an unapologetic, straight-up corporate centrist his entire career.

He has a bit too much in common with Hillary for my liking. The same inability to give a rousing speech. A general lack of enthusiasm for him outside of the donor class, beltway and mainstream media...you know, with the folks who actually vote on election day. On a personal level, Biden projects a bit more warmth and likability than Hillary was ever able to, so that's something, I suppose. The underlying theme of Biden's campaign thus far appears to be not any grand social Moonshot plans, but a return to stability after Donald Trump. The problem with that is Hillary ran on the same basic theme 3 years ago and lost.

Biden will be able to raise the funds to be competitive on a financial level, but I remember how Hillary outspent Trump roughly 2:1 in 2016, and all that didn't matter in the end.

Clearly, Biden's campaign should in theory be able to avoid the mistakes Hillary's made, but I think 2020 will hinge less on Biden and more on how many less extreme Republican voters in certain states who cast their lot with Trump in 2016 have been disenchanted with Trump to the point where they are going to stay home on Election Day.