MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 5:10 pm
njbill wrote: ↑Wed Jul 24, 2024 1:46 pm
You betcha Joe is pissed. And rightly so. His supposed partners in the Democratic Party stabbed him in the back and threw him under the bus.
The main villain is Pelosi, though Obama is not far behind. She persuaded the donors to cut off the money. When the books are written about this saga down the road, Pelosi and Obama are gonna come off really badly especially if Harris loses.
The Dems had the high moral ground over Trump and could claim they were working to save democracy. They totally blew it. What they just did is as anti-democratic as could be.
You're right about Clooney as irrelevant, (other than perhaps as another canary in the coal mine).
But I think you're wrong about the professional politicians. They're pros. They looked at data, they looked at money flow, they looked at trend lines, they looked at down ballot impacts, and they made a consistent judgment across the board. Fully understanding the downside risks. A whole lot of them who know this business way, way better than any of us Fanlax posters.
Could Joe have won? We'll never know, but a heck of a lot of people looked at that debate, just like I did, as an epic disaster which turned an uphill chance of winning (when by all my measures should have been a runaway given the horribleness of the alternative) to a potential landslide defeat. Didn't mean I wasn't going to vote for Joe given the alternative, but man, it was depressing. And he did nothing in the ensuing weeks to prove the debate was a one-off or that there was any way he could meet the demand for fresh new face and ideas, a generational shift. Just nothing left in the quiver.
I disagree about "anti-democratic" as the representatives of 14 million die hard primary voters get the final say. Another 65 million+ will likely show up and vote for her...hopefully on the + side of that.
Joe weighed in hard on behalf of Harris but the delegates weren't bound to do what he advised...they made their own calculations on behalf of those who voted for them and their own beliefs as to what had the best chance of success. Super swiftly, because, IMO, it was super obvious. That no one wanted to challenge Harris isn't "anti-democratic" it's that they understand the strength of her pole position and the benefits of rallying to her side.
Just importantly, the massive outpouring of small donor support, 60% brand new donors, speaks volumes about what folks think about this call. Same for the massive sign-up of new volunteers.
The Dems very much still have the moral high ground over Trump...it ain't close and grinding about it does zero good.
As I wrote earlier, the Brits tossed aside Churchill shortly after the end of the war, a war they very likely would not have survived absent his leadership. History looks super favorably on Churchill and for much the same reasons I think history will do the same for Biden.
But, yes, Harris needs to win...let's get behind that full force.
