Biden, re CBS poll showing some people think Harris is stronger, says he was "overly polite" to her

[highplainsdem]

when she attacked him.

He said this in response to an Atlantic staff writer, Edward Isaac-Dovere, who's tweeted about it today.

That reporter's Twitter thread starts here -- full text below, minus unrelated tweets about Booker and Trump.

Link to tweet

I asked Biden just now about CBS poll from weekend showing him in the lead, but Warren & Harris rating better in strength & readiness to fight. He said hadn’t seen the poll, but if people believe it, that’s maybe because he was “overly polite” responding to Harris at 1st debate


Asked whether he’d then be less polite at the 2nd debate back in Detroit next week, Biden said “I’m going to smile a lot.”


Biden's full quote, with sarcasm at the end, about why people thought @KamalaHarris came off stronger in the first debate: "I was probably overly polite in the way I didn't respond to an attack, 'You're not a racist'--which is a nice thing to say, really reassuring."

[jaysunb]

1. She will be his running mate, and

I like it.

[Princetonian]

3. Just say no to Harris. Biden needs someone who'll always watch his back not stab him in the back.

Biden's full quote, with sarcasm at the end, about why people thought @KamalaHarris came off stronger in the first debate: "I was probably overly polite in the way I didn't respond to an attack, 'You're not a racist'--which is a nice thing to say, really reassuring."

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287211441

WASHINGTON — Jill Biden says the American people ‘‘didn’t buy’’ any insinuation during the Democratic presidential debate that her husband, former Vice President Joe Biden, is racist.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2019/07/09/jill-biden-says-american-people-know-her-husband-isn-racist/iktWmlUeQiFfoAmraiyCwJ/story.html

[Skya Rhen]

4. I was going to post that Jill would have to approve of his VP selection. I know that his wife is a

wonderful person but she would have to be an absolute Saint to agree with that choice - not happening...

[Princetonian]

11. You know it.

Some keep selling them as a ticket.

Not happening.

[Kahuna7]

12. I'm very sour on her. Not just because of how she smeared Biden..

If I thought she was well prepared to be president or could win that wouldn't matter. I have never thought that she is ready to be president. I still don't believe she is.

[Princetonian]

13. I hear you.

Loud and clear.

[Mme. Defarge]

32. I thought her debate performance

was mostly sound bites and definitely lacking in substance compared to Warren’s performance the previous night.

[still_one]

26. I agree, though if he becomes the nominee, and thought that was the best choice to unify the party,

there is no doubt he would have no problem selective Harris I believe

[emmaverybo]

55. He can find a better qualified candidate. NT

[True Blue American]

29. Biden/ Warren?

One to clean up the Trump mess. Elizabeth to clean up Wall Street

I read that many on Wall street agree with Warren on her regulations. They think they are necessary.

Biden will remove the gloves this time Attack at their own peril! You have been warned.

[Mme. Defarge]

30. Exactement!

[LakeArenal]

41. There are so many more women possibilities than she.

Not necessarily primary candidates.

In no particular order except mine:
Katie Porter, Amy Klobuchar , Stacy Abrams, any other person that did not Railroad Al Franken

[Drunken Irishman]

9. I want Susan Rice.

[Kahuna7]

25. Me too. nt

[SouthernProgressive]

42. Like that a lot. NT

[emmaverybo]

56. Perfect. What a team. And just when we need foreign policy expertise like never before.

[Cha]

2. Brawaaa.. Biden says ".. probably over polite.."

Biden's full quote, with sarcasm at the end, about why people thought @KamalaHarris came off stronger in the first debate: "I was probably overly polite in the way I didn't respond to an attack, 'You're not a racist'--which is a nice thing to say, really reassuring."

He's said he was surprised.. what else could he do?

Mahalo, highplains

[Vegas Roller]

5. He will be prepared this time nt

[highplainsdem]

6. Yep.

[True Blue American]

31. Much like Mueller

Yesterday. He was nervous, but as the crude insults came he began to bite back. There was laughter in the crowd when he silenced Gohmert by saying,” I take your question.

I actually think those few ignorant Republicans actually hurt them, strengthened the well laid out Democratic Program.

[ecstatic]

7. If he attacks her or shuts her down, then what?

I think he can easily do it, but how would the public react? It'll be interesting to see how he handles things next time.

His most effective debating technique is a joke and/or sarcasm. There was a hint of that in his response to her last time (regarding public defender vs prosecutor).

[highplainsdem]

8. Considering what I'm seeing on Twitter tonight, there'd probably be a lot of idiots on social media

howling that it was misogynist of Biden to respond to a woman, or racist of him to respond to a POC.

I don't recall seeing very much of this type of idiocy during the 2008 primary when HRC and Obama were debating, and campaigning against, each other.

Editing my post. I was thinking that Twitter hadn't existed yet then, but it did, though it was much smaller and less influential.

[True Blue American]

33. That is why

I seldom do Twitter and Facebook. Along with the Lame-stream Cable Nrews.

[Kahuna7]

10. What can they say now? They celebrated and high fived when they believed she savaged him...

She can't cry poor little old me this time.

[still_one]

27. That was the issue that came when he debated Palin. He was advised at the time to be :very careful"

and polite, or he would be characterized as sexist.

We see some making similar innuendos here. Just the other day there was a thread critical about Sanders, and an insulation of "anti-Semitism" was thrown out. It didn't matter that the person making the critical herself was Jewish.

Would Biden be characterized as "sexist" or "racist", if he responded "stronger"?

I don't think so, as long as he goes after their record, and does not get down to a "personal" level that Senator Harris did

As an aside, it appears any suppossed bounce that Harris received from that encounter, seems to have been pretty short lived

[bigtree]

14. it's far too late for a comeback line

...which Biden desperately wishes he could've/would've delivered in the last debate.

Whatever he does this time will look awkward, strained, and boringly predictable. I'll bet he's so eager he lashes out at the wrong moment.

[SidDithers]

15. Yup...

George Costanza comes to mind.

Sid

[ucrdem]

16. It didn't deserve to be dignified with a response.

He gave the right answer to her accusation, which was simply to point out that she misrepresented her own history and his legislation. Other than that, it was on her. She could have risen to the occasion but she didn't. And now Gabbard is getting ready to give her grief using the same formula. Well all's fair eh?

[Skya Rhen]

17. +1,000,000

[bigtree]

19. Gabbard?

...

[SouthernProgressive]

43. I believe Gabbard is polling closer Harris than Harris was to Biden in the last debate.

That is just one of the reasons you won't be posting rolling emoticons when she attacks.

[still_one]

28. You are right. He was effectly being called a racist. The irony is, Harris short term bounce from

that is all be gone

[Kahuna7]

18. Apparently one isn't needed since Biden is still out polling everyone else.

And the bounce Kamala got from her whatever you want to call it, is mostly evaporated. Let's face it. She revealed herself.

[bigtree]

20. if the horse race is your main concern

...some folks actually care about the ISSUES raised.

Kamala is doing fine, She raised her profile in that debate from a mostly unknown Senator, to a major contender in this race.


Yeah, screw explaining his opposition to busing; often using the very same arguments of the segregationists he bragged about being able to work across the aisle with; often using their very same bigoted language to describe his opposition to busing...

He wrote columns for local newspapers and pushed legislation requiring courts to consider solutions besides busing, often siding with conservatives such as Sen. Jesse Helms (N.C.), who welcomed Biden “to the ranks of the enlightened.”

“I do not buy the concept, popular in the ’60s, which said, ‘We have suppressed the black man for 300 years and the white man is now far ahead in the race for everything our society offers. In order to even the score, we must now give the black man a head start, or even hold the white man back, to even the race,’ ” Biden told a Delaware-based weekly newspaper in 1975. “I don’t buy that.”

...he added, “I don’t feel responsible for the sins of my father and grandfather. I feel responsible for what the situation is today, for the sins of my own generation. And I’ll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago.”

“The new integration plans being offered are really just quota systems to assure a certain number of blacks, Chicanos, or whatever in each school. That, to me, is the most racist concept you can come up with,” Biden said. “What it says is, ‘In order for your child with curly black hair, brown eyes, and dark skin to be able to learn anything, he needs to sit next to my blond-haired, blue-eyed son.’ That’s racist! Who the hell do we think we are, that the only way a black man or woman can learn is if they rub shoulders with my white child?”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bidens-tough-talk-on-1970s-school-desegregation-plan-could-get-new-scrutiny-in-todays-democratic-party/2019/03/07/9115583e-3eb2-11e9-a0d3-1210e58a94cf_story.html?utm_term=.6beb77ab8067

[Kahuna7]

22. My issue is getting trump out of the White House. PERIOD!

You do you. I'll do me. .

I grew up in the 60s and 70s and see things in the context of that time, not the present time. I don't need a lecture from someone who wasn't present at that time.

The person helped the most was Warren and I'm sure she's very grateful.

[bigtree]

23. I don't think making clear where these politicians stand puts any of that at risk

...I'm a citizen first, and I come to this political arena with real concerns and interests.

I don't know who you're referring to, but I'm 58 and experienced these issues raised in this discussion first hand, both the effects of the policies at the time and the consequences, many of which are still being experienced today.

Making hay out of polls of 500 or so folks well over a year out from the election where some 150 million will cast their votes is a curious exercise that I see quite a few folks reveling in. Ask President Lieberman how his early polling lead worked out for him.

[Skya Rhen]

24. Yes, I hope that Warren sent her several bouquets of flowers for a job well done.

[still_one]

34. Is she really doing "just fine"

California polls show her only 2-3 points higher than Biden, with the rest of the poll numbers split between Warren and Sanders.

For a state that is her home state, that is NOT impressive.

I can tell you as someone who voted for Harris for Senator in California, at the start of this race there were four candidates that were my top choices in the primary:

Biden, Buttigieg, Harris, and Warren in no particular order

After essentially calling Biden a racist in the last debate, there are now only three candidates who are my top choices

[bigtree]

35. yep, she's fine

...thanks for your concern.

Bandying around polls of 500 or so voters over a year out from the election where as many as 150m will cast their votes is fun, but President Lieberman would warn you against putting a lot of stock in them.

Kamala Harris specifically said Biden isn't a racist in that debate.

“I do not believe you are a racist,” Harris said to Biden.

[still_one]

36. concern? It is an opinion. Isn't this sn OPINION Board?

The old lawyer trick, I know you are not a racist, and then proceeds to imply he is one because of his position on bussing

Right

Most people saw right through that one

We will also see how her record as prosecutor and criminal justice record resonates soon enough

[bigtree]

40. how quaint

...I'm not surprised to see the issues she raised about his opposition to busing and the manner in which he opposed the remedy get brushed off. Black issues are always given short shrift in presidential elections.

Pretending like she called him a racist, though, is basically a dodge. Not surprising either, to find that this particular politician is more important to some than the issues she raised.

[still_one]

44. Quaint? I am through with your patronizing comments. You really have no desire to hold a two way

conversation.

I get it, you're candidate is Harris, and your defensiveness

Have a nice day

[bigtree]

49. you didn't want 'conversation' You told a falsehood about Kamala Harris in your reply

Last edited Fri Jul 26, 2019, 10:02 PM - Edit history (1)

...you claimed she called him a racist, when she clearly said exactly the opposite.

Then you proceeded to tell me it was a veiled attempt to call him one. ...it's sophistry.

That's not the basis for a fair discussion. It's not non-partisan, it's a hyper-partisan attempt to smear Harris which got the responses from me that it deserved.

[still_one]

52. I didn't personally make innuendos about YOU, that's the difference

You desire to engage in that way, feel free to do it with those who enjoy that form of discussion

[bigtree]

53. it's a bizarre claim you made, that she called him a racist, esp. since she said directly he wasn't

...the explanation you gave was like gaslighting. I don't know how else to describe it.

It definitely didn't feel like a conversation. It was so bizarre and frustrating to read the reasoning you gave it was hard to take you seriously.

Bizarre, because she directly said, 'I don't believe you're a racist.'

Frustrating, because this isn't the first time in my life that I've seen a person's complaint which happens to involve race, turned against them to insinuate that they have a problem with race. It's so dirt-dumb a tactic, that it doesn't tend to bring out the best in me when I see it employed, for whatever reason you chose to bring it up.

[emmaverybo]

57. She used a well known rhetorical device to do so. She made a statement she meant listeners to

discount as she went about proving its opposite. She gave just the message she intended.

She tied Biden to segregationists and since they were racists, she implied that Joe is. You do know that language does not work at only a literal level.

[bigtree]

59. Biden, himself, raised the history of working side by side with the two VIRULENT racists

...it might have been an okay object lesson, but the two he cited were well-known racists, not just pols in favor of segregation, or just opposed to busing.

It might have flown under the radar, but some reporters dug up his old anti-busing stances and statements, contradicting his assertion that he could maintain/had maintained Democratic values in those compromises with objectionable legislators.

It's pretty clear that he did not maintain Democratic values in his anti-busing efforts which went beyond, for instance, complaints a family might make subjected to a busing order. Biden made extensive arguments, offensive ones, imo.

Confronted with this, he didn't talk about his diversion from Democratic principles (at least as I've always understood my own), he adopted this 'I'm not a racist' defense, which is so familiar, so lame that it hurts to hear it.

Almost everyone accepts that Biden isn't a racist. What I'd really like him to acknowledge are the winners and losers in those compromises he made with republicans.

[emmaverybo]

60. Plenty of liberal democrats worked with segregationists. In fact, some befriended them. That

was life in the senate then. As to busing, we have wasted enough ink here on that controversial issue.
Biden’s support from the AA community, his numerous honors for his work on civil rights issues, and his long and productive tenure with Obama, whom he served so loyally, is enough for me
to not need to hold his feet to the fire.

Neither Harris nor Booker can touch his record of service. It is now time for them to account fo4 their own history and defend their missteps.

[Kahuna7]

46. She did call him a racist. It was a dog whistle and twitter KHive heard

it loud and clear and have been calling Biden a racist ever since.

[bigtree]

50. I suppose I can say the same about Biden, using that illogic

...ironic smear of Harris, considering how concerned you feel about how your candidate's statements are interpreted.

The defense/dodge you're using is a familiar one to me, especially in politics, especially concerning race. It's transparent and offensive, but you're obviously not focused on the substance of the issue. You obviously don't give a damn what Biden said about busing, integration, and the like in his past, or how hurtful those things can be to many folks who are very much alive and remember the times like it was yesterday.

It's especially prescient for folks like Kamala Harris (and myself) who experienced these issues, the effects and consequences of this policy, the reasons for its implementation, and bore the impact of it all; not as white parents reluctant to send their children to black schools, but as a class of people who were seeking some parity in public accommodations, like in education.

While you're spinning around in the politics of it all, I'm still trying to fathom the statements this man made which clearly did not have my best interests in heart or mind at the time he made them. I'm left completely cold by the attempts to deflect from those statements, especially deflections which involve making those who question the former VP's veracity and intentions in those very public remarks the scapegoats for his unwillingness to deal with these statements of his head-on.

[Kahuna7]

37. I predict that just like with other polling.. Her lead will fall back

over time. Even Californians will want someone they believe can beat trump.

[still_one]

38. I don't hold much weighting in National Polls because that isn't how primaries and GE are won. It.

is at the state level, and those polls I do pay attention to.

I think your last point should be a very big concern, who can beat trump. Not just by a small margin either, because we have to assume there will be political games being played, and close elections are more easily manipulated.

Since it is still early, after Super Tuesday, I would hope that concern becomes very paramount

[Kahuna7]

39. If I wasn't clear, I was referring to California polling because

that is the polling I was responding to.

[still_one]

45. You were clear, I was speaking generally. Sorry, I switched the context

[highplainsdem]

47. ??? Strange thing to say, since there's nothing in the OP about a comeback line. Biden wasn't

offering one. He was simply answering a reporter's question.

Whatever he does this time will look awkward, strained, and boringly predictable. I'll bet he's so eager he lashes out at the wrong moment.

LOL!!!

[Drunken Irishman]

48. I doubt Biden will go after Harris unprovoked...

But I also doubt Harris and Booker won't attack Biden again on race issues. Then he can come back and hit just fine.

[Cha]

21. Kick!

[elleng]

51. I don't know that there's such a thing as 'overly polite,' and glad he was civil;

hoping it remains, for him and all others.

[still_one]

54. I think you are on to something Ellen. There is no doubt in my mind that the media

is pushing this on, hoping for a punch out fight

[Buzz cook]

58. "Overly polite", what does that even mean?

To use this as an excuse is silly.

In an argument you recite the facts and use logic to frame your arguments. Politeness doesn't enter into it.

The implication here is that Biden should have used some expletives or personal attacks.

At the first debate Biden was ill prepared to defend his record. We can hope that is not the case now.

Biden has a record it will be attacked. That is not a personal attack, its not name calling; it is simply what happens in politics.