MAINSTREAM COOLER - For those who believe mainstream contemporary facts.

[Matt Allison]

[Bill Fite]

2 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

That's fine. He's 81.

He's 81, and as long as he is judged cognitively fine by a doctor via an examination, I'm fine with him.

I wish everyone would cut to the chase and make that happen.

I couldn't care less how old he is. As long as he continues to do a good job.

Matt - isn't the issue here President Biden's appeal to

* independent voters

* young voters

* the 10% or so that are polling for RFKjr

* etc...

and  

* not whether the Biden administration is doing a good job?  

If younger voters are one of the keys and it's their future that is at stake - wouldn't it behoove the Democratic Party to nominate a candidate that would better appeal to them?  Somebody younger than 82, energetic, charismatic with some new ideas?

I don't think the vote for who we tell you to vote for or Else!!!  is guaranteed to work - no matter how awful the or Else!!! is.

Same for the other segments of the voters needed to win in swing states.

I don't believe a Dr's examination will undo the damage that was done at the debate.

[Paul Bacon]

The debate shocked all of us.  We were hoping to put the 'Biden's too old' mantra to rest.  That didn't happen.  And it probably won't ever be put to rest...

But the facts remain.  Between the Supreme Court's rulings in the last week and the moves to continue to remove abortion rights, and even contraception, Project 2025, all which are huge news in the U.S., swing voters and the younger among us are realizing that there is no choice.

The election will be a referendum on Trump and I daresay it almost doesn't matter who is the Democrates nominee, the vote will be about saving our democracy and eliminating crazy.

Leave Joe Biden where he is.  Too much chaos and confusion otherwise.

[Bill Fite]

I'm not a big fan of 538, but I am a fan of data visualisations.

Anyway - here's a set of interesting plots comparing Biden's approval, disapproval and net approval ratings to those of presidents from Truman to Trump at this stage of their term -- scroll to bottom of page to view.

Approval ratings comparisons

In all 3 categories Biden's ratings are closest to:

* Trump

* Bush the elder

* Carter

* Ford (weird because of his short term)

* Truman (but Harry has a huge step up at the end)

4 of 5 lost and the other was Give 'em Hell Harry Truman

This does not bode well..

[W. Niederhut]

From Kevin Drum yesterday-- a fellow liberal, Biden supporter...

(Drum used to post a daily column at Mother Jones.)

It sounds like something serious happened to Joe Biden's cabeza this year.

The press and Joe Biden – Kevin Drum (jabberwocking.com)

The press and Joe Biden

Kevin Drum

 

July 4, 2024 – 2:58 pm

Has the press been covering for Joe Biden over the past few months? Until now I've considered this to be little more than typical Fox News nonsense, but I'm beginning to wonder. Here is Olivia Nuzzi:

This April, at a reception before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, I joined a sea of people waiting for a photo with the president and First Lady in the basement of the Washington Hilton.... The first person I saw upon entering the subterranean space was the First Lady.... I smiled and said hello. She looked back at me with a confused, panicked expression. It was as if she had just received horrible news and was about to run out of the room and into some kind of a family emergency. “Uh, hi,” she said. Then she glanced over to her right. Oh …

I followed the First Lady’s gaze and found the president. Now I understood her panicked expression.... My heart stopped as I extended my hand to greet the president. I tried to make eye contact, but it was like his eyes, though open, were not on. His face had a waxy quality. He smiled. It was a sweet smile.... He spoke very slowly and in a very soft voice. “And what’s your name?” he asked.

Exiting the room after the photo, the group of reporters — not instigated by me, I should note — made guesses about how dead he appeared to be, percentage wise. “Forty percent?” one of them asked.

The whole story has much, much more. Nuzzi says she's been hearing questions about Biden's mental state since January, always sort of whispered and always anonymous:

They were scared and horrified. But they were also burdened. They needed to talk about it (though not on the record).... Their disclosures often followed innocent questions: Have you seen the president lately? How does he seem? Often, they would answer with only silence, their eyes widening cartoonishly, their heads shaking back and forth. Or with disapproving sounds. “Phhhhwwwaahhh.” “Uggghhhhhhhhh.” “Bbbwwhhheeuuw.” Or with a simple, “Not good! Not good!” Or with an accusatory question of their own: “Have you seen him?!”

....Longtime friends of the Biden family, who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity, were shocked to find that the president did not remember their names.... Saying hello to one Democratic megadonor and family friend at the White House recently, the president stared blankly and nodded his head. The First Lady intervened to whisper in her husband’s ear, telling him to say “hello” to the donor by name and to thank them for their recent generosity. The president repeated the words his wife had fed him. “It hasn’t been good for a long time but it’s gotten so, so much worse,” a witness to the exchange told me. “So much worse!”

As Nuzzi acknowledges, she's been skeptical of Biden's stamina for years, and is hardly a Biden family favorite. Still, there's no reason to believe she's making this up.

I've known older relatives who have shown some slippage over the years and it's genuinely hard to know if it's really gotten bad enough that something needs to be done. A misstep here or there might mean they're declining or it might just be a misstep here or there. How bad do they have to get before you have The Conversation? How often do the missteps have to occur? Anyone who's dealt with this—and that's a lot of us—knows this is hard.

But it sure sounds as though Biden's debate performance has finally given everyone permission to say what they've been thinking for the past half year or so: Yeah, it's bad. Someone needs to have The Conversation.

But no one has.

[Steve Thomas]

I think the thing that offends me most about Donald Trump is that, in the end, he is just crude.

He's like the guy at the party who sits around and all he does is tell dirty jokes. After a while, you begin to realize that that's all he's got. You can't sit around and talk to him about history or geography or philosophy.

You don't have to be "refined" or "hoity toity", bu there's gotta be more than just dirty jokes. It's adolescent and crude.

Steve Thomas

[Matt Allison]

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

From Kevin Drum yesterday-- a fellow liberal, Biden supporter...

(Drum used to post a daily column at Mother Jones.)

It sounds like something serious happened to Joe Biden's cabeza this year.

Then he needs to be examined and the results shared with the country!

It's a simple solution, IMO!

Let's do this already, so we can move onto the critical task at hand: Stopping Trump and saving America.

[Bill Fite]

Given Trump's cognitive problems - has it reached the point where some sort of game-show-like televised special consisting of the playing - maybe a political version of Jeopardy - would be better than a 'debate'?

[W. Niederhut]

35 minutes ago, Bill Fite said:

Given Trump's cognitive problems - has it reached the point where some sort of game-show-like televised special consisting of the playing - maybe a political version of Jeopardy - would be better than a 'debate'?

Can't picture Trump competing on Jeopardy.   He'd end up losing money, if they allowed contestants to go into debt.

Trump has the fund of knowledge of a conduct-disordered third grader who keeps getting sent to the principal's office for shooting spitballs at the teacher.

As for Biden, at least he's proud to be a black woman.  😲

Biden calls himself a 'black woman' in latest gaffe as donors put money on hold (msn.com)

During an interview with WURD radio in Philadelphia, Mr Biden expressed his pride at working with Vice President Kamala Harris but stumbled over his words to provide an unfortunate gaffe.

He said on Thursday: “By the way, I’m proud to be, as I said, the first vice president, first black woman… to serve with a black president.

Edited 2 hours ago by W. Niederhut

[Sandy Larsen]

5 hours ago, Paul Bacon said:

The election will be a referendum on Trump and I daresay it almost doesn't matter who is the Democrates nominee, the vote will be about saving our democracy and eliminating crazy.

Leave Joe Biden where he is.  Too much chaos and confusion otherwise.

 

I agree 100%.

I like Joe Biden. But I would go along with ANY change if it guaranteed a win against Trump. Problem is, there is no guarantee.

I believe that sticking with Biden is the safest choice at this late date.

 

[Douglas Caddy]