Either way, nobody ran against him except one small timer who had no shot. If you had given me an alternative then id have taken it. The people who voted against him didn’t vote for another candidate. It was signaling displeasure/disagreement/anger over Israel-Palestine, and the discussion around that was far more nuanced than you are implying. Plenty of people said “it’s the primary, this is the time to make your real opinion heard” when folks got upset. Unless you think CNN or whatever represents everyone?
There was never and there continues not to be a challenger. At some point you can’t ask people to vote for an alternative when there is no alternative being offered.
I was trying to lay out a process that would create an organized and very democratic and transparent process to choose a new nominee. It would basically compress the primary process into a month.
There are 400-plus members of the Democratic National Committee. It would convene, nominations would be open, and we would get a requirement that anyone who wanted to be nominated for president or run in this primary would have to have the signature of 40 sitting members of the Democratic National Committee, including at least four from each of the four regions of the party. Now, since there’s only 400-plus members, very few people could actually do that. It would be people that we know. It would be Governor Whitmer, it would be Cory Booker, it would be Kamala Harris and Governor Newsom and Governor Pritzker and maybe Governor Shapiro from Pennsylvania — people who already have a constituency and have states with members, enough members on the DNC that they would be able to get the required 40 in a week’s time.
Then they would begin to campaign. They’d be certified by the secretary as legitimate nominees. They would show they have a national base of support among elected Democratic Party officials. And then the party would organize a couple of town halls, televised town halls, where the candidates would appear. We’d go to the convention, and it would be like the convention of 1960, where it would be wall-to-wall campaigning for delegates, the elected delegates, most of whom are Biden delegates. He would release them.
And it would be pretty exciting. The networks, the media would cover it wall to wall, as opposed to the way they cover these scripted conventions now, which maybe give it an hour or two each night. We’d have nominations from the floor. We’d have the speeches given. We’d have the horse trading taking place between state delegations. And an eventual nominee would be elected, probably after more than one ballot. But people would leave the convention with the new nominee energized, with wind in that nominee’s sails.
We could find out who the challenger would be by having a democratic and involved party, instead of just waiting for a top-down demand to vote for Harris or whatever.
Yes it matters, as a protest about Israel-Palestine, which I explicitly addressed. Surely you can understand that that is not the same as voting for another candidate? It’s a protest vote, not a vote for or against a candidate. They used the primary as a way to signal their feelings on an issue.
Beyond that: Saying “I just want someone else” is meaningless. Everybody says that across both parties year after year. The moment you put a name forward, then the responses actually matter.
Biden is the most Zionist Democrat in the field. Voting another candidate, inherently, means voting for someone less supportive of Israel
And it doesn’t fucking matter what name I put forward, I’m not the one in charge of the party. Names can come forward naturally and democratically as part of a condensed nominating process.
I, personally, think Michelle Obama would do well and could be a good President. I don’t like Kamala Harris but she has a lot of advantages and I guess I could vote for her.
But what I want are candidates to present themselves and make their case, not for them to be hand picked. Democracy.
Not what I said. I said anyone who voted against Biden got screamed at. Did you forget?
Then I misread it, my mistake.
Either way, nobody ran against him except one small timer who had no shot. If you had given me an alternative then id have taken it. The people who voted against him didn’t vote for another candidate. It was signaling displeasure/disagreement/anger over Israel-Palestine, and the discussion around that was far more nuanced than you are implying. Plenty of people said “it’s the primary, this is the time to make your real opinion heard” when folks got upset. Unless you think CNN or whatever represents everyone?
There was never and there continues not to be a challenger. At some point you can’t ask people to vote for an alternative when there is no alternative being offered.
They voted for “anyone else” and that matters.
There isn’t a challenger because the Party doesn’t want there to be one. There’s no alternative being offered, that can be changed.
I’m going to keep posting this because it’s so interesting, I heard an interesting idea on DemocracyNow
We could find out who the challenger would be by having a democratic and involved party, instead of just waiting for a top-down demand to vote for Harris or whatever.
Yes it matters, as a protest about Israel-Palestine, which I explicitly addressed. Surely you can understand that that is not the same as voting for another candidate? It’s a protest vote, not a vote for or against a candidate. They used the primary as a way to signal their feelings on an issue.
Beyond that: Saying “I just want someone else” is meaningless. Everybody says that across both parties year after year. The moment you put a name forward, then the responses actually matter.
Biden is the most Zionist Democrat in the field. Voting another candidate, inherently, means voting for someone less supportive of Israel
And it doesn’t fucking matter what name I put forward, I’m not the one in charge of the party. Names can come forward naturally and democratically as part of a condensed nominating process.
I, personally, think Michelle Obama would do well and could be a good President. I don’t like Kamala Harris but she has a lot of advantages and I guess I could vote for her.
But what I want are candidates to present themselves and make their case, not for them to be hand picked. Democracy.
That’s not my fucking job.
That’s theirs and they should fucking do it.