But that’s the thing: what slippage? He’s still polling ahead of the pack in national polling, swing states, H2H and favorability. Plus, he just had his best debate performance. He’s undoubtedly getting quite the fight from Bernie, in particular, as well as Pete and Warren, but he’s a win in Iowa or New Hampshire away from potentially running away with this thing. If he wins in either state, he’s going to ride a wave of positive press into South Carolina and Nevada. Both of which he’s expected to win, which will set him up nicely for Super Tuesday. And I’m not even a Biden guy. I share some of the same concerns about his age, mindless rambling, family baggage and lukewarm support/energy as the rest of you. I’m just calling a spade a spade: despite his warts, he’s still somewhat formidable and seems to be capable of withstanding the scrutiny coming from both sides. This race, for better (paragraph #1) or worse (paragraph #3), is his to lose.
My belief is that the primaries are a whole different beast than the general election. Right now there are too many candidates for people to pay enough attention to them. Most people aren't even trying to pay attention other than the 3 minutes they might hear on the news. Once the nominee is chosen and it is that person vs. Trump, it will be a whole different ballgame. When I talked about Biden's slippage, I didn't mean in the polls. I meant his slippage in his faculties. He isn't a zombie or anything, but it's my opinion that he's past his prime. It is also my belief that the type of support Biden has is not the kind that turns out a ton of voters. That will get even worse after Trump muddies him in the general campaign. I don't hear people getting excited about Biden's policy ideas at least not the way he's put them forward so far. There's no big burst of enthusiasm for a Biden agenda. For the Dems to get out the vote they need, they will need a candidate who can generate some type of real enthusiasm.
It has nothing to do with him being formadable. It has everything to do with name recognition from being the vice president of the first black president who is very popular amongst the Democrat party today. His support is very soft. Casual low information voters who aren't political junkies will prefer Biden because it's a name they are familiar with. It's the only reason why he is a front runner. No one supports Biden because they love him for his charisma and nuanced policy discussion. And for those who are political junkies and view Biden as the best choice, it isn't from a place of admiration and belief in the man. It's just the "safe choice" just like Hillary. No one is a "fan" of Hillary or Biden. They just think they were the "safe choice". Those type of candidates usually depress turnout.
I don't agree. He is very different from Hillary. I can't say to this day I wouldn't throw my vote to Hillary even if it was the deciding factor between her and Trump. All of Trumps nonsense aside, America is doing fairly well at the moment, and that is all voters care about. Biden is not a threat to the current environment, basically Trump w/out all the nonsense.
I think this is where we fundamentally dIsagree with the health of the country especially the economy. I've posted my take on the "health" of the economy before so I'm not going to type it again. I'm no economist so I might have some fundamental concepts incorrect but this is my take from my personal understanding. I'll just copy pasta it here: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u...d-during-the-2008-financial-crisis-2019-06-19 Consumer debt has exceeded levels that existed right before the 2008 crash. It's so amazing how people can easily be deceived by GDP and stock market growth as genuine health indicators of how the economy is working for average Americans. We live in what I call a "forced supply side" economic system. This happens every GOP cycle. Pump up the market for temporary gain by throwing money at the wealthy with massive tax cuts which increases the deficit. Lower fed interest rates. The "job creators" then proceed to invest not based on consumer demand based in added disposable income for the consumer class but rather laxed regulations in terms of borrowing money. An average of 1-3 percentage increase in average income when accounting for inflation doesn't change spending habits of the consumer hence this economic boom is being driven by consumers financing phones, tvs, furniture etc. And since the average disposable income of the average American family isn't increasing in any discernable amount, eventually all these bad loans and financing practices are going to result in massive levels of defaulting or consumers paying off bills rather than spending money on new products or services and boom, you have a recession. That's what the GOP presidency does time and time again. They only care about the next election cycle, so as long as you can pump up the markets at the detriment of the long term health of the economy, so be it. It's a horrible system especially because all the massive publicly traded companies also have zero incentive for long term sustainability and would rather maximize profits for the next few quarters at the expense of long term sustainability. The average shareholder doesn't keep the same shares for years at a time and resuffles their investments constantly so their is no loyalty to a specific company for long term sustainability and the average executive at these publicly traded companies have an average term of 1-3 years so they couldn't give two ***** about what happens to the company 10-15 years down the line. So we have two irresponsible forces that doesn't care about long term sustainability. What's even more frightening under Trump is usually during decent GDP growth, which we are experiencing now, the deficit is supposed to shrink as tax revenue is supposed to increase. But that is opposite of the case. The deficit is surging past 1 trillion dollars and that is frightening because when the next recession hits, that deficit is going to explode even more. The economy isn't healthy. It isn't sustainable. Consumers have a limit of how much debt they can hold before the bubble bursts and the GOP only cares about pumping up numbers for temporary gain just for the next election. They are fine with these massive cycles of boom and recessions as long as the recessions that are created by their irresponsible polices occur under another adminstration. What's unfortunate is for th common American, these booms have little discernable effect on their lives as an increase of a couple of percentage points in average wage growth when accounting for inflation isn't life changing but recessions actually hit the consumer class hard. The average American doesn't feel the booms. They just feel the recessions. And the next recession given the massive amount of consumer debt and how our federal deficits are rapidly increasing is going to hit hard.
The economy is 40% larger than it was in 2008. And interest rates are substantially lower. Which means the cost of the debt burden today is substantially lower than 2008. And even within that, the levels of consumer debt were not really what caused the 2008 meltdown in the first place - consumers were more than able to pay those debts at the time. It was a financial meltdown from paper accounting that caused the collapse. And then caused massive job losses which then caused people to not be able to pay their debts. Consumer debt isn't really a reliable indicator of an upcoming recession. The economy certainly has problems with underemployment and federal deficits and numerous other things, but consumer debt isn't one and isn't driving this economy right now. Articles like you posted are clickbait and try to scare gullible readers with ridiculous headlines. There's only one guy quoted in the entire article, and he even says the debt is not a big concern. For reference, the graph below shows debt relative to people's personal finances. You'll notice the previous recession (2001) also had nothing to do with consumer debt. The actual debt burden is actually even lower due to much lower interest rates. Mortgages rates over the last several years, for example, are 50-70% of the interest rates as 2007, so you could have substantially more debt and have the same interest burden.
2018 again tells us otherwise. Dems didn't have any central candidate and no particular policy agenda or message. And people came out in record numbers to vote against the other side. The economy is good and people are generally content. They aren't going to come out for Dems on massive policy shifts. They'll come out to vote against Trump - unless, of course, Dems give them a reason not to.
With respect, this is not a convincing argument for Warren over Biden, given that was the root of this discussion. You’re talking about name recognition; I’m talking about terrible campaigning instincts (Pocahontas, healthcare, wine cave). Biden, up until this point, has withstood the scrutiny and continues to be formidable. Quite the opposite of Warren, who had her moment but absolutely imploded on healthcare, and now she’s attempting to recover. Side note: probably not a good idea to make accusations you are guilty of also, but I digress. I canvassed in a first to vote state two weeks ago. Apart from general indecision about who to support (about 90%+ of the people I talked to), the second most common reaction was “It used to be Warren but....”. What does that tell you? Joe Biden isn’t the problem.
If the debt burden is low due to low interest rates, wouldn't that exemplify my point? Interest rates aren't always low. They go back up. And when disposable income only grows a marginal amount, that debt burden will increase and hence a recession. Our gdp growth isn't fueled by the middle class increasing their disposable income to levels high enough to change spending habits based on added disposable income. The growth is fueled by low interest rate financing and therefore isn't sustainable. To me, healthy growth is growth based on the consumer class increasing their disposable income at significant enough levels to actually change their spending habits based on the increased disposable income rather than just easier financing with lower interest or other means such as easing the burden of the middle class family with more affordable healthcare or freeing up costs of college tuition or early childhood care. To me, those are methods for long term growth sustainability. Making it cheaper to borrow money just bites us in the ass later.
Biden is still actually rising in the polls. When are you all going to stop with the public is not paying much attention now argument. If Warren can get more Democrats to turn out than Biden why is she not leading him in the polls?
When people start paying attention probably around September. There has not been near the media attention nor opposition attention on the candidates as will happen during the General Election.
So you think the democratic nominee will be known yet people will not be paying attention. How does that make any sense.
This I don't disagree with .... but I also question whether any of the current candidates will fare much better. As polarizing as Trump is , he's going to be a very difficult incumbent to take out and getting people from the middle to vote against him is going to be the key - He has his base and he has his haters , its the sweet in between that's going to decide this election.
Seems to me you are describing the acts of the Dems with Fannie and Freddy prior to the 2007 collapse which John McCain tried to stop with S.109 .... but couldn't get any support from a Dem majority Senate.
I think that 70 year old is. I'm not sure why the concept of different folks aging differently seems foreign to you.
