Too Soon To Start Thinking About 2020? No, it's 2020!

[El Guapo]

New Reporting Increases Doubts on Tara Reade’s Allegation Against Joe Biden.

[malchior]

New Reporting Increases Doubts on Tara Reade’s Allegation Against Joe Biden.

At this point more stories only keep it alive. There is never going to be closure on this unless one of them confesses. IMO the damage has been done. Hopefully it'll have little impact.

[Zarathud]

The benefit about Biden being a well known political figure as VP is that people already saw his character. It would be much easier for these stories to have damaged a different Democrat.

[Holman]

New Reporting Increases Doubts on Tara Reade’s Allegation Against Joe Biden.

The Politico reporting referenced in the linked article paints a picture of Tara Reade as having lifelong money troubles: taking financial advantage of friends, unpaid rent, and other debts. Lying seems to be a lifelong pattern.

For almost 30 years, though, she praised Biden in numerous contexts, often as a way of reminding followers that she had once been successful enough to serve in his office.

Then suddenly, just a few months ago (after a weird detour into highly public Putinophilia and an equally public turn as a Berniephile) she announced a complaint about the harassment culture of Senator Biden's office that only later morphed into naming Biden as a harasser and then (again only later) as an actual rapist.

If there's something shady going on with her claims, it's going to suck to see that revealed only after the election.

[Holman]

Justin Amash calls it off.

[Kraken]

Glad to see that. In an election that's a referendum on trump, we don't need multiple not-trumps.

[Unagi]

that's my feeling too.
although, I suspect Team Trump is also happy - so I'm torn. ? no? are they pissed by this news?

[El Guapo]

New Reporting Increases Doubts on Tara Reade’s Allegation Against Joe Biden.

At this point more stories only keep it alive. There is never going to be closure on this unless one of them confesses. IMO the damage has been done. Hopefully it'll have little impact.

Yeah, I know. But it gives me comfort that it's probably not true. Both about Biden as a person and possible president, and also makes it less likely that the story is going to get materially worse. But yeah, never going to go away entirely.

[Daehawk]

Im seeing where Trump Jr is accusing Biden of being a pedophile on Twitter. Hope he goes to court for slander. More bearing false witness ...the sign of a true Trump. I would have never thought a Inquirer mag target like Trump and his kin would be in the White House. Place needs a good washing.

[YellowKing]

Seeing as how much the Trump family likes to project, I'd start investigating which kids Don's been diddling lately.

[malchior]

A good framing piece about how the Presidential strategies are lining up at Wapo.

As documented in this analysis, Biden's camp doesn't have a real answer to Trump yet. Their strategy is to not get drawn into a fight with Trump which is sound. And then go after him on key issues like Healthcare to continue on the 2018 momentum. That seems straightforward and reasonable. However, they still haven't described how they'll cut through the noise Trump is inevitably going to generate. They still apparently don't understand modern media and have a strategy that seems to be stuck in the 90s. Ceding that ground to Trump without a counter is dangerous. And as the article describes Trump's team is carpet bombing the ground in battleground states (targeting ads at 2 to 1) with their superior war chest. The polls might be in Biden's favor right now but they absolutely need to get a game plan together quickly. This could get away from them.

The sheer volume of attacks is part of the strategy, an effort to overwhelm a Biden campaign that is still finding its footing after a near standing start at the end of the Democratic primaries.

“They don’t have a choice but to just take it on some of these things. They don’t have the war chest or the structural organization to fight a multi-front battle,” said Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s communications director. “If they say their strategy is to take gut punch after gut punch and that’s their plan, I’m not sure who’s buying that.”

Talking points distributed Tuesday by the Trump campaign to surrogates asked them to hammer Biden on his support for China gaining entry to the World Trade Organization, opposing “strong trade actions” against China and the evidence-free charge that Biden’s son, Hunter, took $1.5 billion from China. (The younger Biden was involved in a Chinese investment effort during his father’s time as vice president, but there is no public evidence the fund ever attracted that much investment or that the younger Biden profited to that extent.)

Similar scripts were given to Trump’s army of grass-roots volunteers, who have been blitzing key states with phone calls and text messages, according to a campaign official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss strategy.

Trump and his advisers see scorched-earth as the way to win. Campaign adviser Bill Stepien has recounted to others being in Trump Tower on Election Day 2016 and telling the president his approval rating was 38 percent — and Trump still believed he would win.

[malchior]

Get ready for the Senate investigations!

[YellowKing]

Re:McConnell, I don't think I've ever seen someone whose face so accurately represents their personality.

[El Guapo]

Good sign.

[Skinypupy]

Re:McConnell, I don't think I've ever seen someone whose face so accurately represents their personality.

Punchable?

[El Guapo]

Re:McConnell, I don't think I've ever seen someone whose face so accurately represents their personality.

Punchable?

He has a Backpfeifengesicht.

[YellowKing]

Good sign, but who the fuck are these Clinton voters who are switching to Trump? Jesus.

[Blackhawk]

Good sign, but who the fuck are these Clinton voters who are switching to Trump? Jesus.

That was my first thought. They disliked Trump enough to vote against him in 2016, but his performance over the past few years has shown them... What, exactly?

[YellowKing]

My guess is they somehow went down the Fox News rabbit hole and now they've been converted.

[El Guapo]

Good sign, but who the fuck are these Clinton voters who are switching to Trump? Jesus.

Well, arguably there is no clearer indication of just how thoroughly the media botched the 2016 election than the fact that surveys show that 2016 voters viewed Trump as relatively moderate. Indeed, more moderate than Clinton.

So, you can see how there would be a pool of conservatives who voted for Clinton because they thought of her as less liberal / moderate than Trump. Now with polls showing that substantially everyone views him as very conservative / not moderate, I can see how there would be a small pool of Clinton --> Trump voters.

[Paingod]

Good sign, but who the fuck are these Clinton voters who are switching to Trump? Jesus.

Probably single-issue voters, with that issue being gender. Horrible people do horrible things, news at 11.

[El Guapo]

Also, voters are dumb.

[Kraken]

Good sign, but who the fuck are these Clinton voters who are switching to Trump? Jesus.

Probably single-issue voters, with that issue being gender. Horrible people do horrible things, news at 11.

Or possibly racists. This election is Trump v. Obama, with Biden as his surrogate.

[malchior]

Senate panel just issued a subpoena in the investigation into Burisma to dirty up Hunter Biden as expected.

[Grifman]

A good framing piece about how the Presidential strategies are lining up at Wapo.

As documented in this analysis, Biden's camp doesn't have a real answer to Trump yet. Their strategy is to not get drawn into a fight with Trump which is sound. And then go after him on key issues like Healthcare to continue on the 2018 momentum. That seems straightforward and reasonable. However, they still haven't described how they'll cut through the noise Trump is inevitably going to generate. They still apparently don't understand modern media and have a strategy that seems to be stuck in the 90s. Ceding that ground to Trump without a counter is dangerous. And as the article describes Trump's team is carpet bombing the ground in battleground states (targeting ads at 2 to 1) with their superior war chest. The polls might be in Biden's favor right now but they absolutely need to get a game plan together quickly. This could get away from them.

The sheer volume of attacks is part of the strategy, an effort to overwhelm a Biden campaign that is still finding its footing after a near standing start at the end of the Democratic primaries.

“They don’t have a choice but to just take it on some of these things. They don’t have the war chest or the structural organization to fight a multi-front battle,” said Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s communications director. “If they say their strategy is to take gut punch after gut punch and that’s their plan, I’m not sure who’s buying that.”

Talking points distributed Tuesday by the Trump campaign to surrogates asked them to hammer Biden on his support for China gaining entry to the World Trade Organization, opposing “strong trade actions” against China and the evidence-free charge that Biden’s son, Hunter, took $1.5 billion from China. (The younger Biden was involved in a Chinese investment effort during his father’s time as vice president, but there is no public evidence the fund ever attracted that much investment or that the younger Biden profited to that extent.)

Similar scripts were given to Trump’s army of grass-roots volunteers, who have been blitzing key states with phone calls and text messages, according to a campaign official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss strategy.

Trump and his advisers see scorched-earth as the way to win. Campaign adviser Bill Stepien has recounted to others being in Trump Tower on Election Day 2016 and telling the president his approval rating was 38 percent — and Trump still believed he would win.

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that none of this matters - not one bit. Biden can stay in his basement the rest of the campaign and almost do nothing and still win. He's pretty much a known quantity and very there is very little Trump can do to change people's perception of him. Just look at the Tara Reade affair - it's gotten a lot of play in the media and Biden hasn't' moved down in the polls and maybe even has increased. Charges by the Trump campaign of pedophilia, being in China's pocket, participation in Obamagate, etc. just aren't going to move the needle. That's red meat to his base but the narrow group of people Trump needs to appeal to are not going to be moved by allegations like this. Why?

Because this is a referendum on Trump. For every allegation he makes about Biden, you have Trump doing something stupid, like threatening states over their voting procedures, or firing IG's, or taking a bogus covid-19 drug, or another 10,000 deaths every ten days, another company going bankrupt due to the virus. They may not know if Biden is a pedophile, or if he is in China's pocket, etc, but they definitely see and know all the Trump does because it's in the news every day. If it comes down to "what if's" about Biden vs. what they actually see Trump do every single day, well, Biden is going to win that battle every time. Biden can just run a steady campaign, not make any mistakes and just sit back and watch Trump continue to self destruct.

Trump has always been his worse enemy, and this time it's going to catch up with him. That's my totally unprofessional gut level unsubstantiated opinion.

PS, feel free to tell me I'm wrong or I'm full of it - like anyone here needs encouragement - I may indeed be. I've just got a feeling about this . . .

[malchior]

That presumes a fair election with no shenanigans. It is very likely Joe will have to poke his head out and at least defend himself. He had to do it on Reade at least. There will be more attacks. Also, you still need grassroots action like GOTV which takes on a painful dimension this year. Democrats typically rely on it more. Messaging to address that may be critical. There are tons of little factors like that.

The real crux is that the war chest is a major factor but Trump's chief advantage is that he is President. The media reports whatever dumb thing falls out of his mouth or his surrogates. You see that as an advantage for Joe based on the above but Trump's lifetime batting average don't bear that out. He is a whirling dervish of misinformation that the media chases like a moth to flame. This election is going to be a mess. Bunker Joe will lose is he doesn't fight for it.

[Grifman]

Biden in a landslide:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/business ... index.html

I don't see Trump getting just 35% of the vote, but I think a strong electoral college victory is possible if the chips fall right.

[YellowKing]

I've probably been one of the most optimistic posters on this board about Trump losing in November, but I'm losing faith quickly due to the coronavirus impact and Trump's interference. I just feel like he's going to pull out all the stops on suppressing mail-in voting which could be an absolute necessity this fall if states start getting hit hard by a second wave of outbreaks.

And even if Biden wins, he'll have to win decisively or we're going to have a protracted legal battle over the results (with a conservative Supreme Court, I might add) that will make Bush/Gore look like a neighborly misunderstanding among friends.

If I had to bet, I'm still putting my money on Biden. But there's a lot of assumptions around that. I'm really counting on voter anger over the economy/pandemic response to offset turnout suppression. I feel like there are probably more disgruntled voters out there that are tired of Trump than are accurately being represented in polling. That's just a gut feeling though, and I can't point to any hard data on it.

Edit: Thanks Grifman for throwing me a lifeline of hope...

[El Guapo]

I'm optimistic but not overwhelmingly so (maybe ~ 70% chance) that Biden would win a fully fair election in November. I'm deeply worried about electoral shenanigans, and don't really know how to fully weight that, though I don't think that it's going to be easy for Trump to rig the election in his favor.

[El Guapo]

Biden in a landslide:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/business ... index.html

I don't see Trump getting just 35% of the vote, but I think a strong electoral college victory is possible if the chips fall right.

35% seems unlikely (but not *completely* out of the question), but this does illustrate just how fucking bad the economy is. Even if it doesn't drop Trump to 35%, it's hard to see how the economy doesn't cost Trump at least a point or two that he really can't afford in an election that he's already (probably) behind in.

[Paingod]

Remember when they predicted Trump had a 10% chance of winning and everyone got complacent?

I'd rather people think this is neck and neck until all the votes are tallied.

[LordMortis]

Remember when they predicted Trump had a 10% chance of winning and everyone got complacent?

I'd rather people think this is neck and neck until all the votes are tallied.

I think Biden wins the popular vote in a landslide. I also think the electoral college is giving the edge to the threatening the end of the Republic as we used to know it at this time "in a fully fair" election. I have no idea of the consequences. The best I can see is we've cashed in our last chips on the world stage and become Russia part II. I just don't know how organized crime running government literally Trumps Corporate America. Neither of them give a shit about us but I don't see one taking out the other.

[El Guapo]

Remember when they predicted Trump had a 10% chance of winning and everyone got complacent?

I'd rather people think this is neck and neck until all the votes are tallied.

If it helps, I think the conventional wisdom right now is overrating Trump's chances rather than underrating them. I see a lot more "Trump's probably going to win" takes than either "Biden's going to win" or "this will be a nailbiter".

[Kraken]

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that none of this matters - not one bit. Biden can stay in his basement the rest of the campaign and almost do nothing and still win. ... Because this is a referendum on Trump.

I've been saying the same. Biden is irrelevant. Trump is running against Obama. For his part, Obama needs to campaign hard to drive turnout for his surrogate, who just needs to stay on script. Yes, the GOP will methodically frame and smear Biden on every front, but trump's focus will remain on Obama, where it's been from the start.

However, I don't believe Biden can win no matter how many people try to vote for him. The GOP will not give up power just because of an election. They'll suppress the vote and cook the results and SCOTUS will rubber stamp their gambit.

(This assumes that trump's faithful won't desert him, nor will the GOP and Fox turn on him, no matter how many more Americans die or how badly the economy craters. Trump can still go down if the suffering gets a lot more intense.)

[Unagi]

This is a referendum on America. seriously.

[Defiant]

Sanders Campaign Asks Delegates To Sign Pledge They Won’t Openly Attack Biden

[El Guapo]

Sanders Campaign Asks Delegates To Sign Pledge They Won’t Openly Attack Biden

Good for him. I'm curious if this will work.

[malchior]

Posting here because his Ford speech today was essentially a tax payer funded election rally.

[Holman]

Posting here because his Ford speech today was essentially a tax payer funded election rally.

WTF? Ford was probably America's most famous antisemite and most successful racist, pouring huge resources into racist propaganda in the 1920s and 1930s.

100% likely that Stephen Miller wrote the notes for this speech.

[Unagi]

bloodlines