2:35pm Friday Warren has dropped out, leaving a two-candidate race between Sanders and Biden. The delegate count at The Green Papers currently gives Biden a 671-599 lead over Sanders, from popular votes of 35.1% Biden, 28.7% Sanders. In California, Sanders has an 8.4% lead over Biden with over 3 million votes remaining, but some of these will be Republican primary votes. Late counting in California skews more left the longer it goes.
2:19pm Thursday Last night, Bloomberg withdrew from the contest and endorsed Biden. No decision has yet been made by Warren. In California, Sanders leads by 8.7% with all election day precincts reporting. We should know approximately how many outstanding votes are left tomorrow.
9:53pm Conversation article up. Biden is likely to win ten states to four for Sanders, and has a 102-delegate lead in The Green Papers count. In 2016, Clinton had little appeal to lower-educated whites, and that’s likely why Sanders was competitive. But Biden has more appeal to the lower-educated than Clinton. Once moderate rivals withdrew, he consolidated the moderate vote.
8:37pm With 79% of election day precincts counted in California, Sanders leads Biden by 31.8% to 22.8%. California takes FOUR weeks to count all its votes, so there’s lots of late counting to look forward to!
7:32pm With almost all votes counted in the Israeli election, the right bloc lost a seat, so Netanyahu will be three seats short of a majority. It’s right 58 out of 120, left 55, Yisrael Beiteinu seven.
7:27pm The California Secretary of State now has 64% of precincts reporting, and Sanders is almost 10% ahead of Biden.
6:00pm Texas CALLED for Biden.
4:15pm Biden up to a 1.8% lead in Texas, and the Needle now gives him a 70% chance to win.
4:06pm Biden overtakes Sanders in Texas. He’s 0.4% ahead with 60% of election day precincts in. The Needle gives Biden a 56% chance to win Texas.
4:05pm The NY Times shows 23% of California’s Election Day precincts have already reported, but the California Secretary of State (the official results service) says only 4%.
3:47pm With 54% of election day votes reporting in Texas, Sanders leads by 1.2%. The Needle still sees this as 50-50 between Sanders and Biden.
3:21pm Dave Wasserman has called Texas for Biden, but the NY Times Needle says it’s 50-50 with 34% reporting. Sanders has a 3.6% lead.
3:18pm Massachusetts officially CALLED for Biden. With 65% reporting, he has 33.4%, Sanders 26.7% and Warren 22.1%.
3:10pm With 93% of election day votes in in North Carolina, Biden’s lead is now almost 19 points, up from seven before election day votes.
3:03pm California not called for Sanders, but it looks good for hime in exit polls. Biden likely the only other candidate who breaks the 15% delegate threshold statewide.
2:47pm Minnesota CALLED for Biden. He leads by eight points with 57% reporting. Sanders was supposed to win here.
2:45pm With 43% reporting in Alabama, Sanders is at 16.2%, close to the 15% delegate threshold. Falling below 15% would be a disaster for Sanders.
2:34pm Sanders has won Utah, a stronghold for Republicans where the small Democratic electorate is progressive.
2:30pm In Texas, Sanders leads Biden by 5.6% with 23% of election day precincts in. The NY Times needle has Biden very slightly ahead.
2:25pm Dave Wasserman projects Elizabeth Warren will finish third in her home state of Massachusetts, behind Biden (first) and Sanders (second).
2:15pm While I was out for lunch, Biden was CALLED the winner in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee, giving him six state wins. Sanders won Colorado, mainly due a split early vote. Early voting dominates in that state. Biden currently leads in Minnesota and Massachusetts, which Sanders was supposed to win.
1:01pm The NY Times needle gives Biden a 68% chance of winning Texas although Sanders currently leads by 6.6%.
12:58pm As the Election Day vote comes through in North Carolina, Biden increases his lead. He’s now leading in NC by 11% with 29% in.
12:45pm In Virginia, where the election day vote was virtually all voters, Biden leads Sanders by 54-23 with 96% reporting.
12:34pm Maybe early voting will stop Biden from routing Sanders. Biden is only up by seven points over Sanders in North Carolina with 12% of Election Day precincts reporting. Biden not doing so well in votes cast before South Carolina and the withdrawals.
12:18pm With 66% reporting in Virginia, Biden is crushing Sanders by 30 points.
12:15pm Polls in Arkansas close at 12:30pm, then it’s Colorado and Minnesota at 1pm, Utah at 2pm and finally California at 3pm.
12:10pm As regards Texas, a small part of the state is in the Mountain Time zone and doesn’t close til 1pm AEDT. Exit polls will be released then.
12:06pm Alabama CALLED for Biden, while the other 12pm states are uncalled. In Massachusetts, it’s a close three-way race between Biden, Sanders and Warren (it’s Warren’s home state).
11:57am Biden is over 20% in the first Vermont results. If he stays above 15% there, he gets delegates, which Hillary Clinton was unable to do in 2016.
11:49am Biden has a 55-23 lead over Sanders in Virginia with 32% in.
11:40am Count in Virginia is already up to 22%, and it’s Biden by a crushing 54-24 over Sanders with nobody else close to clearing 15%.
11:34am CNN CALLS North Carolina for Biden based on a large exit poll lead. This is looking better and better for Biden.
11:27am With 1% reporting in Virginia, Biden leads Sanders by 51-25. Everyone else is well below the 15% delegate threshold.
11:24am The next polls to close are North Carolina at 11:30am AEDT, then Alabama, Maine, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas at 12pm.
11:08am Sanders CALLED the winner in his home state of Vermont, but the exit polls suggest Biden will beat the 15% threshold there, restricting Sanders’ delegate advantage.
11:01am Biden CALLED the winner in Virginia by CNN based on exit polls. He has a 63-18 lead over Sanders with black voters (27% of the electorate) and a 43-26 lead with whites (63% of electorate).
10:20am Wednesday With 94% counted in the Israeli election, right-wing parties have 59 seats (up four since the September 2019 election) and left-wing parties 54 (down three). Likud is the biggest party with a 36-32 lead over Blue & White, reversing the 33-32 deficit last September. It appears that Netanyahu’s coalition will be two seats short of a majority.
Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is an honorary associate at the University of Melbourne. His work on electoral matters for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.
Fourteen states vote in the Super Tuesday Democratic primaries tomorrow, in which 1,357 of the 3,979 total pledged delegates are awarded (34% of all delegates). Delegates are awarded proportionally to vote share, but with a high 15% threshold that applies to both statewide delegates and Congressional District (CD) delegates. The more Democratic-leaning a CD is, the more delegates it receives. Polls close between 11am and 3pm AEDT.
A few days ago, it appeared likely that Bernie Sanders would come out of Super Tuesday with a large delegate lead over his nearest rival. Even if Sanders did not win a majority of Super Tuesday pledged delegates, such an outcome would have put him on course for a large plurality of all pledged delegates at the July Democratic convention. In those circumstances, Sanders would probably be the nominee.
However, Joe Biden had a crushing 28-point win over Sanders at Saturday’s South Carolina primary. In the next two days, moderate rivals Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar withdrew from the contest and endorsed Biden. There has not been enough time for polls to catch up with these developments, but they are very likely to assist Biden.
The FiveThirtyEight forecast has the chance nobody wins a pledged delegate majority surging to 63%. This does not necessarily mean a contested convention, as it includes cases where one candidate wins a strong plurality, and a deal is worked out before the convention. No delegate majority chances have surged because Mike Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren are still in, and will be assisted in getting to 15% by the withdrawals.
Sanders now has just a 52% chance of winning more delegates than any other candidate, down from over 70% at his peak, while Biden’s chances have rocketed to 48%. The Democratic contest is now effectively a race between two men in their late 70s, and the winner will confront Donald Trump, who is a mere 73.
I recommend The Green Papers for delegate and popular vote counts. The next contests are next Tuesday, when six states vote that account for 9% of pledged delegates.
Netanyahu could win Israeli election outright
With 81% counted in Monday’s Israeli election, right-wing PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc of parties had 60 of the 120 seats, to 53 for the opposition left bloc. If the right bloc wins one more seat, Netanyahu would have outright victory after April and September 2019 elections resulted in no government being formed. Yisrael Beiteinu, with seven seats, was unable to cooperate with either the Arab Joint List or the religious right parties before. This result comes despite Netanyahu’s November indictment on bribery and fraud charges.
Bernie has said he won’t contest the convention if Joe has a plurality of delegates going into it. He has principles. I feel like several here jumped the shark when declaring it would be a good thing for superdelegates to flip the outcome if it were Bernie with the plurality.
if biden wins wall street wins, the 1 percent wins, transnational plutocracy wins. the nation state loses, the corporate state wins. same with trump.
biden is a political insider who advances the interests of wall street & transnational plutocracy, boosting the corporate state at the expense of the nation state.
trump is gangster outsider who advances the interests of wall street & transnational plutocracy, boosting the corporate state at the expense of the nation state.
the only candidate who would strive to change this fundamentally is sanders, so he’s not going to oblige the bourgeoisie, be a good chap now & stand aside for wall street’s biden. -a.v.
Ha, ha Briefly invoking Stalinist language now, ie Bernie is an “enemy of the people.” No wonder you changed your handle. Love that the right wing stooges on here are supporting the senile candidate. They really are a hoot!
alfred venison @ #1052 Saturday, March 7th, 2020 – 1:00 pm
Do you want fries with that blah?
Wow, the unhinging of the Bernie brigade on here is on in earnest – lots of slurs against Biden, lots of tweets from Sanders himself (several of which run very close being Trumpian), and lots of projection on other PBers who aren’t on the Bernie train. It all comes over as a bit desperate, which, given the state of play, and most likely scenarios going forward, I guess it is.
Forget it people. It’s over.
“It all comes over as a bit desperate”
Well you’re not wrong there. The current trajectory will lead to the Dems putting up a candidate who likely has dementia (not to mention a target-rich policy record) against Trump. Desperate times indeed.
class war is not going away, politics is its epiphenomenon.
-a.v.
alfred venison @ #1057 Saturday, March 7th, 2020 – 1:35 pm
Neither is your cliche ridden drivel.
There is clearly nothing else to discuss on this topic until next Wednesday or some good post-Super Tuesday opinion polling drops, barring anything significant and extraordinary occurring (and no, new desperate and coordinated smears from David Sirota’s office don’t count.)
And Australian politics is dull and tedious right now and I have nothing to say on it, so I will catch you all next week, probably. When there is something fresh to discuss and not the same boring bs.
the only radical populists in this contest – populists who want to change the system – are sanders & trump. compared to these two, biden’s just another wall street backed swamp dweller.
in the present day post-gutenberg media ecology, what’s needed to beat trump is a left wing populism, a left wing populism as starkly contrasted to trump populism, as is possible. a left wing “change” candidate, not a “return to normal programming” candidate. that “change” candidate would be sanders, the democratic socialist candidate, not biden, the bankers’ candidate. -a.v.
p.s. sanders is allowed to run his campaign right up until the convention.
he’s allowed to take the fight to biden for the right to take the fight to trump.
he’s allowed to accumulate as many delegates as he possibly can.
he’s allowed to use these delegates at the convention to influence the party policy platform.
he’s allowed to advance his cause to the democratic limit. -a.v.
The people will deal with both Sanders and Trump in the usual way – by exercising their votes.
and the people will also deal with biden in the usual way. -a.v.
alfred venison @ #1062 Saturday, March 7th, 2020 – 3:28 pm
By electing him ,according to current opinion polls.
President Sanders might try to change the system but he’d be powerless without a majority of supporters in Congress. Highly unlikely.
All we can hope is that the Dems hold the Reps, scrape a Senate majority, and stop the stacking of the justice system from the Supreme Court down.
Let’s hope that will be done, if not by Sanders then by a figurehead Biden presiding a la Reagan.
Good luck to whichever one gets the nod.
TheUS election is one of wild swings.
The voters are volatile. More and more are joining the largest voting block. The non voter.
Whoever the Democratic nominee is will need to turn out the vote.
Attacking the Nazis unfurling the Swastika at a campaign rally held by a Jewish candidate is something all the Democrats should get behind.
The Netanyahu attack on these Nazis is going to be very powerful.
I expect Trump will do another both sides are the same.
Slurs against Biden…what? Are you saying that you don’t think the guy is senile.? Seriously?
The comments on here from the right say everything you need to know about them. “Well take this, Biden is gunna win, so there!” Apart from being exceedingly childish, it exposes them for what they are. You don’t fight for a cause, you don’t fight for a principal, all that that counts is winning, even if it means putting a geriatric, dementia suffering, neo liberal simp in the white house, to replace another geriatric, dementia suffering, neo liberal simp. These people stand for nothing, just like the candidates they support, they truly are hollow men.
The Democratic-leaning voters in the US are in the driving seat here. The Primaries have nothing whatsoever to do with any bludgers, no matter their stripes. These voters number in the millions. Without a doubt, they will settle this as they see fit.
Joe Biden uniting the US.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1236324479233449984
Unbelievable a White Woman telling a Black Woman that she cannot talk about Dr Martin Luther King.
Why?
Radical Dr King had harsh words for White Moderates.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/nina-turner-cnn-hilary-rosen-bernie-sanders-joe-biden-mlk_n_5e63b624c5b605572805b6e0?ri18n=true
This one moment may see many black voters change their minds about Biden’s campaign. Black voters are being reminded Dr King was leading a radical political movement. His warning was about White Moderate Politicians.
That’s a very very dangerous reminder for black voters even if Biden does apologise for his surrogate.
“By electing him ,according to current opinion polls.”
***
The polls were also telling us that they were going to elect Clinton four years ago.
I also would have thought the Labor Right would be as skeptical of polls as the rest of us considering what happened to their party last year. Polls are often wrong.
“Slurs against Biden…what? Are you saying that you don’t think the guy is senile.? Seriously?”
***
It is clear that he isn’t the same person he used to be. Watch videos of him speaking from just four years ago at the end of his time as VP and then compare them to how he talks now. I’m no fan of his but even I find it distressing that he is being put through this. The establishment should have picked someone else to go up against Bernie instead of pinning all their hopes on someone who is suffering from a very serious condition. There’s a clip of him and his wife at the Super Tuesday rally where he trails off, loses focus, and begins rambling. The camera captured his wife’s reaction and it said it all. She knows something isn’t right and is clearly deeply concerned about the man she loves. This should not be happening.
Stop Calling It A “Stutter” : Here Are Dozens Of Examples Of Biden’s Dementia Symptoms
It’s very bizarre and dissonant how there are currently two separate and non-overlapping lines of criticism going on against the campaign of establishment-anointed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. There are the perfectly accurate criticisms regarding the right-wing, militaristic policy positions of the politician Joe Biden used to be, and then there are the equally accurate criticisms of Biden’s handlers and Democratic Party leadership for wheeling out the dementia-addled husk of a man he currently is to run for the world’s most powerful elected office.
These two debates do not interweave, because they are not relevant to one another. It doesn’t matter what political positions a dementia victim once had; what matters is taking care of him and keeping him away from hazards, like sharp objects and nuclear launch codes. It’s impossible to know what actual political convictions still remain held within a mind that can no longer lucidly string thoughts together anyway.
I hate doing this. I hate repeatedly writing about the obvious and undeniable fact that an old man is exhibiting obvious and undeniable symptoms of incipient dementia. It isn’t fun, and it doesn’t feel good. But the alternative is laying down and allowing the Democratic party and its allied media to gaslight people into believing it’s not a thing, as they are doing currently.
If you do a live Twitter search for the word “stutter”, you will as of this writing see that word being tweeted multiple times per minute on the social media platform as Democrats scramble to defend Biden from people who are accurately highlighting the indisputable fact that the former vice president is showing signs of cognitive decline. In my interactions with Biden supporters over the last 24 hours I’ve had this irrelevant word suddenly start getting thrown at me, because narrative managers in the mainstream media and the Biden campaign have been aggressively promoting the talking point that Biden’s increasingly frequent neurological misfirings on the campaign trail are actually the result of a longstanding speech impediment.
This is false. While it is true that Biden has periodically exhibited signs of a stutter, the inability to hold on to his own train of thought, forgetting where he is and who he’s with, grossly incorrect use of language, and inappropriate behavior are not symptoms of a stutter.
Here is the Mayo Clinic’s list of symptoms for a stutter, also known as a stammer:
Difficulty starting a word, phrase or sentence
Prolonging a word or sounds within a word
Repetition of a sound, syllable or word
Brief silence for certain syllables or words, or pauses within a word (broken word)
Addition of extra words such as “um” if difficulty moving to the next word is anticipated
Excess tension, tightness, or movement of the face or upper body to produce a word
Anxiety about talking
Limited ability to effectively communicate
Here is the Mayo Clinic’s list of dementia symptoms:
Memory loss, which is usually noticed by a spouse or someone else
Difficulty communicating or finding words
Difficulty with visual and spatial abilities, such as getting lost while driving
Difficulty reasoning or problem-solving
Difficulty handling complex tasks
Difficulty with planning and organizing
Difficulty with coordination and motor functions
Confusion and disorientation
Clearly, the symptoms of the speech impediment are very distinct from the symptoms of a degenerative neurological disorder. What follows are dozens of examples suggesting the latter, most of which were compiled by the Twitter user @KoenSwinkels. You may be absolutely certain that Trump will not hesitate to highlight this growing mountain of evidence should Democratic Party leadership successfully install Biden as the nominee; in fact both Trump and his Fox News cheerleaders are doing so already.
Joe Biden is Jeb Bush plus dementia. Trump will be far less charitable with his symptoms than I am here, and if he’s nominated the president will make certain this story dominates news headlines from the convention until November. Anyone who wants Trump out of office should fiercely oppose Biden’s nomination.
1. “Make sure you have the record player on at night… make sure the kids hear words.”
Everyone talked about Biden’s bizarre call for families to make use of an archaic audio technology in response to a debate question about slavery, and some criticized his paternalistic suggestion that black Americans need to be taught how to raise their children correctly, but hardly anyone made a fuss about the fact that his entire answer was also a rambling, incoherent word salad.
It’s easy to overlook linguistic peculiarities when they’re spoken, so I made a verbatim transcript of Biden’s complete answer, exactly as he spoke it. There are no typos. Read it carefully, resisting the urge to mentally re-word it in order to make it make sense:
“Well they have to deal with the — Look, there is institutional segregation in this country. And from the time I got involved I started dealing with that. Redlining. Banks. Making sure that we’re in a position where — Look, talk about education. I propose that what we take is those very poor schools, the Title 1 schools, triple the amount of money we spend from 15 to 45 billion a year. Give every single teacher a raise that equal raise to getting out — the sixty-thousand dollar level.
“Number two: make sure that we bring into the help the — the student, the, the teachers deal with the problems that come from home. The problems that come from home. We need — We have one school psychologist for every fifteen hundred kids in America today. It’s crazy. The teachers are reca — Now, I’m married to a teacher. My deceased wife is a teacher. They have every problem coming to them. We have make sure that every single child does in fact have three, four, and five year-olds go to school — school, not daycare. School. We bring social workers into homes of parents to help them deal with how to raise their children. It’s not that they don’t wanna help, they don’t want — they don’t know quite what to do. Play the radio, make sure the television, the — ‘scuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night, the-the-the-the phone, make sure the kids hear words. A kid coming from a very poor school, a very poor background, will hear four million words fewer spoken by the time they get there.”
Compare this muddle-headed mess, and all the following subsequent examples, to the crisp, forceful way Biden used to speak: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYLNCcLfIkM | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DteDRD6cbbM
2. “We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created by the, go, you know the, you know the thing.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpMAd7uXMSY
3. “Super Thursday” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5y3XHIyLRM
4. “I’m a Democratic candidate for the United States Senate. Look me over, if you like what you see help out, if not vote for the other Bi- gimme a look though okay?” https://twitter.com/shaunking/status/1232161051816235009
Fact check: Biden has not been a candidate for the United States Senate in a great many years, and is in fact running for the presidency.
5. “Alright Chuck!” https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1234143927852322817
Fact check: Chris. Chris Wallace.
6. “Right here in the state of North South Carolina.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccvm8tZ_A6M
7. Randomly biting his wife’s finger. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2-RbCKHiMM
8. Worked with Deng Xiaoping, who died 23 years ago, on the Paris Climate Accord during the Obama administration. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMGI18VaVOQ
9. “Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BujyWqv_dRU
10. Whatever the hell this is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIjYuIeEbAo
11. We’ll increase healthcare premiums and make sure care is not quality, only affordable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UY_8fXdvIY
12. “Look, fat, look, here’s the deal.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbEJpr4A9mQ
13. “My deceased son was the Attorney General of the United States.”
https://twitter.com/Becca4Bernie/status/1234166302354354176?s=20
Beau Biden was only the Attorney General of Delaware.
14. Being aggressive and inappropriate with Iraq war veterans, wrongly insinuating that his son died in the war. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD7e8Cld5ao
US veterans recently confronted Biden over his support for the Iraq invasion, one saying “My friends are dead because of your policies.”
“So’s my son,” Biden replied. “He was in Iraq, okay? For a year. Not that it matters, right?”
“I’m not going after your son,” the veteran said.
“You better not,” Biden replied.
Biden’s son was in Iraq from 2008 to 2009. He died in 2015, of cancer.
15. This incoherent word salad. https://twitter.com/OrganizingPower/status/1233911327967629313
Here’s a transcript of an answer Biden gave to a question at a town hall. Read through it, resisting the urge to mentally revise it into something more coherent:
“And so I was saying that, and what they turned around and said, Joe Biden said, in effect, they said, that Joe Biden said that what he was told, that what, that what the white supremacists argue, that we have no problem, that our, our, our basic English jurisprudential system is not the problem. The problem is those countries like Africa and Asia and those places, they’re the reason why we have all these problems. So they turn it around to make it sound like that, and by the way, the title of the article is, was, is the Washington Post ‘The Deceptively (indecipherable) of Joe Biden Singles, Signals What Is Coming’ and that is that’s a whole bunch of lies. The generic point I’m making here is that, what has happened is that, I know we’re going to get in to, whomever the nominee is of the Democratic Party, is going to have a plethora of lies told about him or her, and misrepresentations and this went on the internet, this edited article, it got retweeted by some press people and then they realized it was edited to make it look like something not… white supremacists, see, Biden’s acknowledging that the problem here is that that all those folks, all those minority folks are the problem. And so, in essence. And so they corrected, they corrected. You’re going to see a lot more of it. You’re going to see a lot more of not only my statements being taken out of context, and lied about, or altered, you’re going to see whomever the Democratic nominee is because that’s how this guy operates. Now. Whether or not I can win?”
16. “We choose truth over facts.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15RjcRJ3Z70
17. “150 million people have been killed since 2007 when Bernie voted to exempt the gun manufacturers from liability.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrlGPJ1cSxI
This would be about half the population of the United States. Pretty sure that would’ve made bigger headlines.
18. Confusing Theresa May with Margaret Thatcher.
https://twitter.com/DavidWohl/status/1124878887018684416
19. Confusing Angela Merkel with Margaret Thatcher. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt4Ds7jspdQ
20. “You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwVrg6UtxXQ
21. Rambling confused gibberish, including saying Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr were assassinated in the late 70s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkWkuBNvdjo
Both men were assassinated in 1968.
22. Fix the problem of violence against women by “punching at it and punching at it and punching at it.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OYYNWBt1Sw
23. Implementing a childcare tax credit would “put 720 million women back in the workforce.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GYyt3ChLDI
This would be more than double the entire US population.
24. Thought he was in Vermont when he was in New Hampshire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1jqVXAbq2Y
25. Confused New Hampshire and Nevada. https://twitter.com/CaseStudyQB/status/1227704869114519553
26. Said he was vice president during the Parkland shooting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5X3pIPehq4
Biden left the office of the vice presidency in January 2017. The Parkland shooting was February 2018.
27. Said 1976 when he meant 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEvcYOkT-jE
28. Said he’s looking forward to “appointing the first African American woman to the United States Senate.” https://twitter.com/AndrewPollackFL/status/1233494337931137025
Nobody “appoints” senators; they’re elected. The first African American woman in the US Senate took office in 1993.
29. “Go to Joe 30330 and help me in this fight.” https://twitter.com/axios/status/1156759665285435403
Biden apparently received instructions from his team to tell debate viewers to text “Joe” to 30330, but these directions were too complicated for him. He wound up sending viewers to a random empty URL which was subsequently bought up by a Buttigieg supporter.
30. Made, then dropped, claim that he was arrested in South Africa while trying to visit Nelson Mandela in prison. https://twitter.com/tomscocca/status/1232879522523029504
31. “Clipping coupons at the stock market.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQW8EtNm3-c
That’s not a thing, Joe.
32. Confused his wife and his sister. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wacY29iMuUs
33. Jill Biden’s face revealing a flash freakout when he starts forgetting what he’s saying. https://twitter.com/sluggahjells/status/1235046631902339072
34. Claimed he had the support of the “only” African American woman that had ever been elected to the senate, while the other one was standing on the stage with him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USZmCBOQnsE
35. “Why why why why why why why!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYpWwxuj128
36. Referred to Bernie Sanders as “the president”, then, still unable to remember his name, called him “my friend Vermont”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J-iQORreRY
37. Also called Cory Booker “the president”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL3AYay7Rdw
38. Repeatedly forgot Obama’s name, called him “President… My Boss”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us4reKZxAZQ
39. “My longfriend timefriend and she’s a friend she’s been my friend in and out of public life.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vA2Fdb3o30
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/03/05/stop-calling-it-a-stutter%E2%80%8A-%E2%80%8Ahere-are-dozens-of-examples-of-bidens-dementia-symptoms/
Some of them can be excused as just slips of the tongue – we all make mistakes. But some of these cases are far worse than that. I find the look on Jill Biden’s face in number 33 to be deeply distressing. She knows and she’s really worried about her husband.
This is a Psephy site. We like polls and examine them all the time. Sure, they are an estimate of what the public is thinking at any particular time and not always accurate.
At the moment, the polls I’m reading on the Democrat primary show Biden with a clear ascendancy and pulling away. This seems to have come about because of the withdrawal of other moderate candidates and a subsequent endorsement of Biden as the chosen Moderate Champion by the previous candidates.
I’m not sure if Sanders can flip the momentum. I don’t think he has the broad support needed to win the delegate count, Biden has the funding armoury of Bloomberg at his disposal and Biden, as a previous VP has a high trust status amongst all voters and may be the link to Republicans who want to be rid of Trump as well as having broad support in the traditional Democrat circles. I notice also that Warren has not endorsed Sanders yet.
So, I doubt that The US voters are looking for a revolution. But, they would like people to get on with each other rather than be constantly at each others throats.
My perception is that Bernie, the Bernie Bros and the Bernie Little Bros here on PB are just a little to angry and divisive to win the day. And all the abuse and insults that the BLBs can muster is not enough for bernie to win the day.
“This is a Psephy site. We like polls and examine them all the time. Sure, they are an estimate of what the public is thinking at any particular time and not always accurate.”
***
Of course. I like examining polls too! Wouldn’t be here on PB if I didn’t lol. But that doesn’t change the reality that many polls have been wrong in a big way recently. Thus, saying that “Biden is going to win because the polls say so” is not a very good argument. The polls may be correct or they may be completely wrong.
538 Who Will Win The 2020 Democratic Primary?
Biden 88%
Sanders 2%
Day 3 of why hasn’t bernie quit yet
Firefox @ #738 Sunday, March 8th, 2020 – 7:40 am
Including those for last Tuesday.
“Including those for last Tuesday.”
***
Exactly!
Material for Republican party adds?
https://youtu.be/gXvwumYE7_s
“Day 3 of why hasn’t bernie quit yet”
***
Firefox @ #741 Sunday, March 8th, 2020 – 7:47 am
But it’s not just the polls against him. The maths is showing how difficult it will be to recover.
Actually I’d question that the polls were ‘wrong’ for Super Tuesday
The polls feed the 538 model – which was showing that the race had been turned on it’s head inside 3 days, before the Super Tuesday votes
TX – forecasting Biden +1 vs. Biden +4 actual .. pretty good
CA – forecasting Sanders +5 vs. Sanders +7.3 (and closing) .. pretty good
Of the 14 states Nate’s poll-driven model picked 11 correctly – just missing only Minnesota and Massachusetts which it forecast Sanders had just over a 50% chance of winning
The only serious miss was Maine
“But it’s not just the polls against him. The maths is showing how difficult it will be to recover.”
***
Difficult, yes, but it always was going to be difficult for Bernie to win considering how much the DNC establishment and the mainstream media hate him. I mean, after Bernie won Nevada you had nutters in the MSM likening it to the Nazi’s invasion of France. No shit.
Outcry after MSNBC host compares Sanders’ Nevada win to Nazi invasion
MSNBC host Chris Matthews compared Bernie Sanders’ victory in the Nevada caucuses on Saturday to the Nazi invasion of France, spurring calls for his firing.
“I was reading last night about the fall of France in the summer of 1940 and the general, Reynaud, calls up Churchill and says, ‘It’s over,’” Matthews said on air on Saturday night.
“And Churchill says, ‘How can that be? You’ve got the greatest army in Europe. How can it be over?’ He said, ‘It’s over.’”
“So I had that suppressed feeling,” Matthews also said.
Sanders, a senator from Vermont and self-proclaimed democratic socialist, is Jewish.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/23/msnbc-chris-matthews-sanders-nevada-win-nazi-invasion
Then you’ve got the absurd situation where Sanders is asked about Cuba, says that literacy programs are good but that he didn’t support Castro’s dictatorship, then the mainstream media try and make it out as if he was Castro’s biggest fan.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden calls far-right extremists like Mike Pence and Dick Chaney “decent men” who he likes, presents the mass murdering war criminal George Bush with medals and says he “always respected” him during his time as president, and the establishment and mainstream media don’t even bat an eyelid. Nothing from the Labor Right either. They couldn’t resist jumping on Bernie because he dared to say literacy programs were a good thing but they won’t dare speak out about Biden’s open support of mass murdering war criminals.
It was always going to be difficult for Bernie to win because he is underwhelming in the vote accumulation department.
So, you can have all the arguments you like, the funky vids that traduce Biden’s reputation and even the screeching abuse you like to throw around at anyone that disagrees with you. But, Joe will take the votes every day of the week. He seems to have a lot more of those in the right places than Sanders will ever get.
So sad for you.
When compared to 2016 Sanders’ vote has crashed. It’s down by about half in most places. He’s most unlikely to revive his chances. But he will campaign against the only Democrat left in the Presidential race. His supporters will take out their disappointment on Biden and anyone even vaguely Democratic-leaning. They could direct their feelings against Trump. But no. They will find a way to blame Sanders’ rivals for their sense of loss. Politics is mostly about grief and blame these days. Sanders’ mob like blame. They serve it up in generous amounts. They can stick their blame and their shame in a proverbially relevant place.
This is the establishment. This is who the Labor Right support.
How do you sleep at night?
Firefox @ #1085 Sunday, March 8th, 2020 – 12:22 pm
It’s just the sort of image that would encourage swinging Republicans to transfer their allegiances to the Biden and the Democrats. It shows that Joe can work professionally and respectfully with all sides of politics.
RI @ #1084 Sunday, March 8th, 2020 – 12:07 pm
We have Party like that in Australia too. They are called The Greens.
Firefox….try as you might to sell it, most of us are not buying your truculence.
You could open an Op Shop. It could do specials in Pre-loved Indignation, Recycled Condemnation and False Moral Outrage. Self-Serving Sneering could feature. There’s plenty around so supply should be easy to get. Contempt & Contumely….good name for your outlet.
Better still….
Brand your stall as Resentments. It has a nice ring to it. You could bottle some and put it out in a cute box.
‘Resentments….for everyday…forever…for all.’
“It’s just the sort of image that would encourage swinging Republicans to transfer their allegiances to the Biden and the Democrats. It shows that Joe can work professionally and respectfully with all sides of politics.”
***
Just the sort of thing that disgusts the progressive left and makes us despise Biden, more like it. Mass murdering war criminals do not deserve to be treated with respect or to be given medals, they deserve to be in prison. Biden is a warmonger who enabled and supported Bush’s invasion of Iraq. He shares responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. Biden should also be in prison sharing a cell with the rest of them.
Joe Biden championed the Iraq war. Will that come back to haunt him now?
Joe Biden has an issue that hasn’t played out yet in this election: his role in the launch of the Iraq war.
The Iraq war has been a prominent, even decisive issue, in some recent US presidential elections. It played a significant role in the surprise presidential primary victory won by a freshman senator from Illinois named Barack Obama in 2008. His heavily favored Democratic primary opponent, Hillary Clinton, had voted in the US Senate to authorize the war, and Obama didn’t let her forget it during that contest.
In 2016, Donald Trump invoked the Iraq war against opponents in his own surprise victory in the Republican primary. And then he used it against Clinton, most likely with significant effect, in the general election that followed.
Biden did vastly more than just vote for the war. Yet his role in bringing about that war remains mostly unknown or misunderstood by the public. When the war was debated and then authorized by the US Congress in 2002, Democrats controlled the Senate and Biden was chair of the Senate committee on foreign relations. Biden himself had enormous influence as chair and argued strongly in favor of the 2002 resolution granting President Bush the authority to invade Iraq.
“I do not believe this is a rush to war,” Biden said a few days before the vote. “I believe it is a march to peace and security. I believe that failure to overwhelmingly support this resolution is likely to enhance the prospects that war will occur …”
But he had a power much greater than his own words. He was able to choose all 18 witnesses in the main Senate hearings on Iraq. And he mainly chose people who supported a pro-war position. They argued in favor of “regime change as the stated US policy” and warned of “a nuclear-armed Saddam sometime in this decade”. That Iraqis would “welcome the United States as liberators” And that Iraq “permits known al-Qaida members to live and move freely about in Iraq” and that “they are being supported”.
The lies about al-Qaida were perhaps the most transparently obvious of the falsehoods created to justify the Iraq war. As anyone familiar with the subject matter could testify, Saddam Hussein ran a secular government and had a hatred, which was mutual, for religious extremists like al-Qaida. But Biden did not choose from among the many expert witnesses who would have explained that to the Senate, and to the media.
Biden’s selling points as a candidate often lead with his reputation for foreign policy experience and knowledge. But Iraq in 2002 was devastated by economic sanctions, had no weapons of mass destruction, and was known by even the most pro-war experts to have no missiles that could come close to the United States. The idea that this country on the other side of the world posed a security threat to America was more than far-fetched. The idea that the US could simply invade, topple the government, and take over the country without provoking enormous violence was also implausible. It’s not clear how anyone with foreign policy experience and expertise could have believed these ideas.
Senator Dick Durbin, who sat on the Senate intelligence committee at the time, was astounded by the difference between what he was hearing there and what was being fed to the public. “The American people were deceived into this war,” he said.
Regardless of Biden’s intentions – which I make no claim to know or understand – the resolution granting President Bush the authority to start that war, which Biden pushed through the Senate, was a major part of that deception. So, too, was the restricted testimony that Biden allowed. The resolution itself contained deceptive language about a number of pretexts for the war, including al-Qaida and weapons of mass destruction that Iraq did not have.
The Iraq war has generally been seen as one of the worst US foreign policy blunders in decades. It fueled the spread of terrorism and destabilized the Middle East and parts of north Africa. “Isil is a direct outgrowth of al-Qaida in Iraq, that grew out of our invasion,” noted President Obama.
More than 4,500 US soldiers, and nearly as many US military contractors, lost their lives; tens of thousands were wounded, with hundreds of thousands more suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Estimates of Iraqi deaths run as high as 1 million.
At the very least, Biden should explain why he played such a major role in winning the authorization from Congress for President Bush to wage this disastrous war.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/17/joe-biden-role-iraq-war
imagine if biden attended aipac 2020. and imagine if biden contracted life threatening coronvirus through attending, or maybe through a staff member who attended. and imagine if all the other democratic candidates had already withdrawn from the campaign trail before the conference. what a scenario. i think sanders should stay in the race as long as he wants and continue to challenge biden & biden’s backers for the right to take the fight to trump as the democratic party candidate for president. -a.v.
p.s. medicare for all is a national security issue. -a.v.
Progressives spend so much time being spiteful, hateful and arrogant that they forgot how to accumulate delegates. So sad!
Biden Surge Wipes Out Sanders’s Dream Of Big Delegate Haul In CA
Bernie Sanders was dreaming up picking up a net 300 delegates over Joe Biden in CA, but Biden’s surge has limited him to a 56 net delegate gain.
Nate Silver tweeted his California delegate projection:
We have Sanders netting out 56 delegates over Biden in California based on currently-reported results. If late-reported ballots further cut his lead in CA (which seems likely) Biden could wind up ahead by 100 or so delegates nationally.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 7, 2020
https://www.politicususa.com/2020/03/07/biden-surge-wipes-out-sanderss-dream-of-big-delegate-haul-in-ca.html
Most people on here seem to be justifying their support of Biden on the basis that he beats Trump by unifying moderate Democrats and Republicans. I have yet to see anyone address the possible effect of having a candidate who has in all probility some sort of decline in his mental capacity as outlined in 34 instances by Firefox.
If Biden becomes the nominee how are these types of gaffes going to be papered over to the extent that Trump cannot exploit them. “Sleepy Joe” might be the kindest thing he says about Biden in this regard.
Now I conceded that Sanders has things that Trump will attempt to exploit but I think socialist/Democratic Socialst positions are more easily defended than attacks on someone’s mental state when they are so obvious to see and exploit.
If Sanders becomes the nominee I concede he will find it difficult to win. History of Presidents seeking a second term not the least. However, if the minimum to try to defeat Trump is a competitive candidate who is mentally acute and has a platform that is coherent and can be explained and defended coherently by the nominee then Sanders, not Biden, is the better bet.
With respect, the probability is all in your mind. I doubt you are a Doctor. So, your assertions are you just pandering to your prejudices.
It’s easy to find gaffes and imperfections in any public person who has been on the political stage for 30 or 40 years. Biden has been the front runner candidate for over a year now. So, he has been subject to relentless scrutiny and the Ukraine allegations of Trump. Despite all that he is still clearly the person to beat for the Democrat nomination. The fact that Trump has spent so much time and effort trying to undermine him is a tell that Biden is the candidate that he fears most.
My view is that Bernie also has well documented health issues which can be and will be used as a weapon against him if the the Bernie Bros continue their character assasination of Biden. Bernie seems also to have personality problems in getting on with others, is not really a Democrat and has plenty of ugly and aggressive supporters on social media. (The latter is only important if you appreciate abuse and traduce rarely encourages people to listen to your POV).
He seems to be propagting a massive social upheaval were he to be elected. I just don’t believe that is what the voters in the US are looking for this time round.
He also faces the same mortality reality as all the major candidates atm.
I’m sure the voters of the US will work out whom they want as their President in their own way. Biden seems to have the momentum atm. It’s not hard to work out the voters looking to change their vote from last time would be seeking the safest and least disruptive option.
David French
@DavidAFrench
·
4h
It’s amazing how many folks who are deeply offended by amateur online psychiatry about Trump are suddenly acting like they’re Joe Biden’s neurologist.
In real news (not the fake news being spewed here), there’s been a post-Super Tuesday poll in Washington (a state Sanders is expecting to do well in) and, well…
Of course, it is Data for Progress and they can be a bit over the place but even if they got the order wrong if it’s anything as close as this, the west coast isn’t the lock for Sanders it was looking like just a couple of weeks ago.
Biden has not been subject to relentless scrutiny. In the debates he has hardly had any focus upon him. The focus has been on the others particularly as Biden did poorly in the first three state
A gaffe is where one makes the odd mistake but Biden is doing this consistently. Even if it’s not early signs of dementia do you think this pattern of “gaffes” is some o w going to magically change.
Yes Bernie has had his health problems but he appears to have recovered. I think people are more tolerant of someone who has a heart attack and appears to have overcome it than someone who as he comes under more scrutiny will probably show further examples of a decline in mental capacity.
Falcon WA and others – I guess the difference is that most of us actually aren’t die-hard Biden supporters, in the way that the Bernie backers are with Sanders. I think it’s more a case that we can read the numbers and see that Biden is all-but-certain to be the Democratic nominee, and that, on balance, we recognise that Biden is a more viable candidate than Sanders in the general election. We are not blind to Sanders’ shortcomings, and it’s probably the case that most (all?) of us would have preferred one of the other candidates. But it appears that American voters have minds of their own, and the Democratic primary electorate looks to be falling behind Joe Biden. The increasingly hysterical responses by Sanders and his supporters perhaps betrays the truth that their guy has lost his last chance to be President.
Alfred Venison above commented on what might happen were Biden to contract coronavirus between now and November, and it’s actually a reasonable point to make about an election in which the last three contenders are 78 (Sanders), 77 (Biden) and 73 (Trump). My understanding is that, assuming Biden goes on to win enough delegates to win the nomination (or at least be ahead), but die before the Convention, then his delegates would need to decide on (or be directed to) an alternative candidate. Much as Sanders fans might get excited that they would automatically flow to the runner-up, in reality Biden’s delegates would likely go to another moderate (or maybe Jill Biden), or possibly someone like Elizabeth Warren. Given that the circumstances of the Convention would be that of sadness about the untimely death of nominee, the vibe would be very much about anointing someone who was similar. If Biden were to die after the Convention, but before the election, then it would be up to the leadership of the Party (in essence, the super delegates), and they’d most probably go with Biden’s running mate. Were Biden to die after the election (having won), then the Electoral College would need to decide, but the most likely outcome would be that a Biden’s VP would become President.
It appears, then, that Biden’s untimely death would not particularly benefit Sanders, despite the apparent hopes of some on here.
calls for sanders to concede before the convention are wrong headed. we don’t know if biden attended aipac, but we do know sanders didn’t, he caused “outcry” when he said he wouldn’t & dubbed it “racist”.
it would be worse than “no particular benefit to sanders” in the event coronvirus felled the front runner before the convention, but after the second runner had withdrawn. it would be a crisis for the democratic party & america.
either sanders or biden could be felled by coronavirus between now & the convention, but in this case only one of them definitely didn’t attend aipac, where persons attended who were affected & who toured congressional offices afterwards. its that easy to get it, and at c. 78 y.o., and vulnerable like everyone, both of sanders & biden should stay in the race until the convention. calls, by those opposed to his policies, for sanders to concede now are premature, dangerous & disrespect democracy. -a.v.
alfred venison @ #1099 Sunday, March 8th, 2020 – 9:33 pm
He can retire gracefully or have is arse presented to him. His choice!