PlayerUp wrote:Ccwatercraft wrote:Bloomberg looks better now than ever if there was a vote today.
Well I wanted Yang but the democratic party didn't want him. Bloomberg started too late. I agree Bloomberg is a far better candidate but also not what we need. Ironically both Bernie and Bloomberg are older than Biden but aren't showing signs of mental decline.
i'm sure that yang would make a fine president. he's just too much of a wildcard as someone new to the game. and his primary policy proposal (which i love) had no shot of being implemented. his campaign was a gimmick presumably designed to build his name recognition
obama was a relatively exciting candidate, but that didn't get him very far once he was in office. the only reason he got anything significant accomplished was his pragmatism. if anything he was TOO willing to compromise. but his steady hand got us through the great recession and his personal experience with his mother's health issues inspired him to make a huge political sacrifice in order to secure major health care reform. most democratic presidents would have gotten nothing done. and no republican since nixon has even tried
clinton was also a comparatively exciting candidate. but his somewhat ambitious health care plan, spearheaded by his wife, didn't get very far. and he became the ultimate triangulator. but he, like obama, at least didn't do anything to screw up the economy
competence is a baseline requirement for a president. and each of the last two birther party presidents have failed spectacularly on that end. we don't need trust fund kids/failed businessmen with virtually zero governing experience pretending to be populist outsiders (trump, bush). we don't need sociopathic, race-baiting, attention craving twitter troll game show hosts (trump). we don't need a president who takes a daily afternoon nap (bush) or doesn't emerge from his residence until mid-day (trump). we don't need executives who don't surround themselves with competence and fire everyone with a different perspective (trump). we don't need puppets who take their marching orders from destructive ideologues (bush). most of all, we don't need a president who doesn't like to read and is severely lacking in intellectual curiosity (bush, trump). one who ****s the bed when confronted with extraordinary adversity (bush 9/11 and katrina, trump COVID-19) or miserably fails to show leadership in the face of social unrest (trump)
it's quite ironic that bush's failures came in large part from listening to john bolton while trump's have come in part from not listening to john bolton
biden ain't exciting. but he's competent. and that makes him a ginormous step up from the status quo. i think this idea that it would have been a "slam dunk" had the democrats put up anyone else is off-the-mark. primary voters chose biden over everyone else in the most diverse field of candidates ever. and it wasn't particularly close. and electability was surely part of that. the enthusiasm to get rid of trump from the base would have been there regardless. and someone like sanders or warren may well have turned off swing voters. a stuffed shirt may well be the ideal candidate to take down trump by allowing him to hang himself. and that's exactly what has happened so far - biden has stayed largely in the shadows and trump's incompetence has thus been magnified
