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Bob Eno's avatar

Good analysis, but no one waves a bloody ear; they wiggle it.

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Paul Musgrave's avatar

Ewwwwwwwwww

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Greg Sasso's avatar

I was against Biden dropping out for quite awhile (even for a bit post debate), but the relief I felt when he actually it was enormous. It would have sucked up all the oxygen until the election. Almost for the alone, I think it was a necessary move.

(hi Paul)

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Paul Musgrave's avatar

Hi Greg! I think that this is basically where a whole lot of people have ended up. The uncertainty about replacement was HUGE.

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Greg Sasso's avatar

And it didn't allow Democrats to really make a positive case for election, let a lone go on the offensive. Everything was something like "well, even a senile Biden is better than Trump" (which, while I of course agree, is not the best message) or "it's the administration not a single person" (also true, but also not they type of message to turn out/persuade undecideds).

Might hang out here more often. I'd like to talk about stuff without reactivating my social media accounts.

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Paul Musgrave's avatar

It's a more focused and less ... strident crowd around here.

I think we've been seeing a huge differential non-response effect for weeks and something similar for months. Just having a young

sigh

candidate will have a major effect.

The "it's the administration" message just worked a lot better when the Decider was viewed differently! You can delegate a lot but ultimately it's NOT a coalition or cabinet government and I think people grok that.

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Greg Sanders's avatar

When you say *much more Rightist*, I'm guessing you may mean more of a Manchin figure and not just a Democratic red or purple state governor that runs ahead of Biden.

I've heard the opposite argument, that the various factions of the party would each hold out for firm promises on their issues rather than seek to maximize the odds of an overall win.

As you say, precedent isn't that helpful here, but I'm curious about your read of the convention field, even if it appears to be a moot point.

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Paul Musgrave's avatar

Yeah, much more like Manchin. The problem for the open convention people is that clearly they had a profile in mind but they also couldn't unify around any particular figure (and Manchin in particular...boy, I don't think that dog will/would have hunted).

I mention a little bit more about this (coincidentally!) in today's post https://musgrave.substack.com/p/teaching-in-these-unprecedented-times

but my general read is that the progressives found themselves trying to fend off a donor class attempt to use electability issues to replace the top of ticket with a more congenial approach. I think that some names (e.g. Wes M*ore) were stalking horses for that. That explains what looks like an awkward AOC-Biden-Bernie axis against Schiff-Pelosi-etc.

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Greg Sanders's avatar

Yeah, Manchin seems optimized for West Virginia, which is great for a Senator but doesn't seem like it would carry nationwide.

That seems right. Which is a contrast with Popularists depictions of donors having particular factional agendas (mixed with self-interest, Sinema seemed optimized for particular categories of donors). But yeah, that read sounds right.

That said, this seems like a proper fight for a party to have, so it's consistent with your larger thesis. Thanks for the elaboration.

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