Democrats appear in disarray for 2024 already

 Niall Stanage:

Speculation has begun about the 2024 Democratic presidential ticket, almost three years before the election.

Some of the suggestions are blasted as risible. But the early chatter itself reveals the nervousness that permeates the party.

In the past week alone, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman held out the possibility of anti-Trump Republican Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) being added as President Biden’s 2024 running mate.

A Wall Street Journal column by Douglas Schoen and Andrew Stein posited the possibility of a third Hillary Clinton presidential candidacy. And a thinly source suggestion that Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) might make her own quixotic run lit up social media Friday.

All those ideas were met with ridicule from many quarters.

But more serious discussions are simmering in Democratic circles, especially if Biden does not seek a second term.

Would Vice President Harris be too flawed a candidate? Would a more left-wing figure such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) be a better standard-bearer? Would other contenders more in line with Biden’s centrist politics such as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg or Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) be viable?

Straddling the line between reality and fantasy is a long-cherished notion for many Democrats: a Michelle Obama candidacy. The former first lady would be a formidable contender. But she has been crystal clear in statements stretching back years that she has no interest in elected office.

Harris, in an interview with NBC’s “Today” show earlier this week, dismissively discounted Beltway “high-class gossip” about the 2024 ticket.

Yet the gossip will pick up steam unless Biden’s troubles ease.

Inflation is at its highest point in 40 years. The pandemic is resurgent. The White House's quests for voting rights legislation and the Build Back Better bill have fallen short so far.

In a Quinnipiac University poll this week, Biden’s approval rating was a miserable 33 percent. Even though that survey was an outlier, the president’s standing in the polls is poor. Data site FiveThirtyEight put his average approval rating at 42.2 percent on Friday.

Then there are the constant mutterings about the most sensitive topic of all: Biden’s age and vigor. If Biden sought reelection and won, he would be 82 by the time of his second inauguration.
...

Out of a large field in 2020 the Democrats had no strong candidates.  Biden won by default and Harris was selected not because of merit, but because of gender and ethnicity.  

There are no obvious choices emerging for Democrats at this point.  The legislative leaders have been as disgraceful as Biden and the blue state governors are also a mess.  

Biden won in 2020 mainly because he wasn't Trump.  People are now regretting that choice and Biden is making Trump look like a "stable genius" at this point.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more