Fussing over Biden saying he might consider a Republican running mate? His Democratic rivals include

[highplainsdem]

a former Republican who didn't switch to the Democratic Party until she was in her late 40s;

a socialist who usually runs as an independent, not a Democrat, and who's planning to run again as an independent for Senate if he loses his presidential bid;

and a formerly lifelong Democrat who switched to the Republican Party to run for mayor of New York, then switched back.


As a lifelong Democrat who never considered switching, I can kind of see people being uncomfortable at the thought that Biden would consider a Republican for even a second.

But he's made it clear there isn't one he's currently considering.

And given the people who are currently running for the Democratic nomination, I think we need to realize that labels don't always fit exactly. Nor do they mean everything.

What Biden is making clear is that he's a unifier who'll be willing to work with Republicans when he can, when they'll join with us.

And he's made it clear he'll fight them if they don't.

[Cha]

1. Thank you for this, hpd.. I think Jeff Fecke says it well..

Link to tweet

[highplainsdem]

2. Great tweet, Cha! Thanks!

[Cha]

4. you're Welcome!

[UniteFightBack]

6. Very few people fucking GET IT. nt

[Cha]

14. Or want to.

[Hortensis]

55. :) Everyone gets it?

What an era, encouraging people to be the worst, most dishonest political versions of themselves.

[OhNo-Really]

16. The Republicans have been consistent. They live to block & delay Democrats at every turn!

Unifier? Pffft. You can’t unify McConnell-like people who loathe the idea of unifying.

I’d prefer the moniker Demolisher quite frankly. Demolish irresponsible, heartless unfettered greed & corruption AKA Republicans

[Farmer-Rick]

72. So true.

[R B Garr]

3. Thank you! Correct on all of them. Bernie makes a point

of touting his party switching, and his staff largely voted third party, which is all to Trumps benefit.

So what if Biden answered that he couldn’t think of a decent Republican.

[sheshe2]

5. Good post. nt

[TexasTowelie]

7. K&R! nt

[Gore1FL]

8. It was a gaffe on Biden's part. nt

[Ferrets are Cool]

9. Work with repugs? That's a joke, right?

When the FUCK have they worked with the Democrats in the last 20 years?

[OhNo-Really]

17. ☝️ X a zillion

[Ferrets are Cool]

43. The more I think about this, the more upset I get.

[LiberalLovinLug]

19. X 3 zillion

[Kurt V.]

10. That's not fussing

[pnwmom]

11. Warren was a Republican almost 30 years ago, BEFORE she ever entered politics.

That is not equivalent to Biden considering a Republican for VP, which would give a Republican a boost in following a Biden Presidency.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

30. He's not actually considering a Republican running mate.

When he answered the hypothetical question he added that he couldn't think of any Republicans he'd choose. Nobody is going to pick a Republican.

[BlueMTexpat]

12. While I am not one who is

"fussing," I do take some umbrage at your referencing (because that was clearly your intention) my candidate as if she is ANYTHING like today's GOP.

Every other candidate you mention here - including Joe - was uniquely or primarily a politician for most of his life. My candidate was not; she was pretty much an ordinary person like most of us. When she did develop a political consciousness, she became a Democrat.

To my knowledge, she has done nothing but bring credit to the Democratic party since. I challenge you or anyone else to rebut this.

So please leave her out of the group you have slotted her into. It does you no credit, nor does it make me feel kindly towards your candidate. At all.

Thank you.

[floppyboo]

18. AMEN!!! That was so well written. thank you!

[highplainsdem]

21. I didn't say Warren was a politician. I said she was a Republican. I do not believe she somehow

failed to "develop a political consciousness" until she was in her 40s.

I'm close to Warren's age, and it was damn near impossible to grow up in that time, let alone spend a lot of time on college campuses, without developing a political consciousness.

And that would have been particularly true of anyone active in debating, as Warren was, since so many debates then were on politically sensitive topics (as I know, because I was on debate teams). She'd have learned to argue both sides of those topics, preparing for debates. But she woudn't have somehow been blissfully unaware of them, so it didn't matter which party she belonged to.

I might believe that a high school athlete or cheerleader might care so little about political issues they'd fail to develop a political consciousness, at least at that age, only to somehow discover it -- Eureka! -- in their 40s.

But not a debater.

She was a Republican.

I don't doubt that she's a Democrat now and has been since the 1990s.

But she was a Republican earlier, and it's silly to pretend she somehow was Republican only because she somehow wasn't very aware of politics.

Not in that era. And not after years of debating issues.

[stopdiggin]

24. thanks. well said.

that doesn't say that Warren isn't completely committed to the values she expresses now. Or that she's not a completely valid candidate. But to pretend that she somehow DIDN'T have opinions and convictions prior to her switch ... Baloney!

[BlueMTexpat]

66. You have not

once rebutted the fact that she has done nothing but be a credit to the Democratic party since she became a Dem.

She has never been a "Democrat of convenience" and she has never been very involved in drafting legislation that adversely affected vulnerable members of our society.

Just as some other candidates have, lifelong Democrats or not.

[highplainsdem]

70. I don't consider Warren superior to our other candidates. Not all of them, anyway.

I also think she's very likely to lose to Trump.

I will not jump through rhetorical hoops for you, especially arguing her very short legislative record versus other candidates' longer legislative records.

My point is that she was a Republican during the early part of her adult life. As far as I've been able to determine from what I've read about her, she switched after her research into bankruptcies led her to question her previous belief that people who filed for bankruptcy were usually cheats and deadbeats. But that was apparently a narrow, gradual path toward the Democratic Party, since she didn't register as a Democrat until about a decade later, and she's said she made the switch after discovering Democrats were more likely to agree with what she said about bankruptcy. I don't know of anyone else who switched parties based on which party agreed more with the conclusions of their academic research, but she is an academic, so that would have been a major motivation for her.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/12/elizabeth-warren-profile-young-republican-2020-president-226613

Her conversion was ideological before it turned partisan. The first shift came in the mid-’80s, as she traveled to bankruptcy courts across the country to review thousands of individual cases—a departure from the more theoretical academic approach—and saw that Americans filing for bankruptcy more closely resembled her own family, who struggled financially, rather than the irresponsible deadbeats she had expected.

It wasn’t until Warren was recruited onto a federal commission to help reform the bankruptcy code in the mid-1990s—and then fought for those reforms and lost that battle in 2005—that she became the unapologetic partisan brawler she was in creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, serving in the Senate and, now, stumping on the 2020 campaign trail. “I realize nonpartisan just isn’t working,” she recalls of that second conversion moment. “By then it’s clear: The only allies I have are in the Democratic Party, and it’s not even the majority of Democrats.”

From that quote, it appears she doesn't feel the majority of Democrats are her allies.

[BlueMTexpat]

74. It's probably a good call for you not

to argue about other candidates' longer legislative records.

And frankly, I am pretty busy with family gatherings, visitors and life in general - not just now, but all of the time.

So in the spirit of the season, I will not continue this discussion now.

Please do have a very Happy New Year! May 2020 bring us ALL the things we most need and desire. These include: the impeachment and removal of the most corrupt thug ever to hold the highest office in this country; the removal of ALL the toadies and enablers who have helped him to destroy our once-proud and enviable institutions; his replacement in November 2020 by someone much more in keeping with the Founders' ideas and ideals; and at least the beginning of the end of his infernal saga forevermore!

Perhaps then we can begin the extremely difficult work of rebuilding - literally everything - in time to combat climate change among the MANY challenges that lie ahead.

[gristy]

13. You make some very good points here

I can think of no counterargument

[emmaverybo]

15. Lots of voters don't do partisan. They don't like what they view as partisan politics. Now they

might lack sophistication, but Biden doesn’t. Sharp, politic answer. Would consider, but can’t think of any. Well, if Biden, who knows every one, can’t think of one, for Biden there isn’t one.

[MasonDreams]

20. At some point, reality will become clear.

66 million votes won't cut the mustard and neither will ignoring the 40 percent of people who won't vote at all, but could.

Change is coming whether or not you are coming with us.

We may squeek by this year in the center but it's high time to follow the people to the left, back to the future.

[highplainsdem]

22. Reality is that Sanders couldn't get the nomination last time, and won't this time. Democrats who

describe themselves as "somewhat liberal" or "moderate" or "conservative" outnumber those who identify themselves as "very liberal."

Which is why Biden has been the front-runner all year.

[Thekaspervote]

33. Absolutely!! And here's some numbers that back that up from NYT/Sienna poll

Voters are fairly clear about what they would like from a Democrat. They prefer, by 82% to 11%, one who promises to find common ground over one who promises to fight for a progressive agenda; and they prefer a moderate over a liberal, 75% to 19%.


They support Biden over the president, 38% to 27%, but prefer the president to Warren, 37% to 20%. This group voted for Trump by a smaller margin in 2016, 37% to 30%, with the rest casting ballots for minor candidates.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287336368#post2

[MasonDreams]

73. Only 25% of people who could vote identify as Democrats.

1# People who did not vote but were eligible registered and not registered.
2# People who voted for Clinton
3# People who voted for Rump

I am saying we could make the big tent ALOT bigger by adopting (and fighting for) the overwhelmingly popular policies that lie a little to the left.
Please Please no more of this Strom Thurmond and Henry Kissinger are OK. Let's build a bridge to the 21st century. Racists and war criminals have their own party.

[JonLP24]

23. Comparing Bernie Sanders to Joe picking a Republican

Isn't the same thing.

Bernie Sanders is among the most liberal members of the Senate and has been for a long time. He voted against Kavanaugh while a red state Democrat voted for the confirmation. Sanders caucuses with Democrats (unlike Republicans) and he runs in the Democratic primary instead of splitting the vote in a general election.

I could go on but I am a Democrat because of policies and he has the best policies. Biden is already a moderate picking a Republican is just a really bad idea and don't complain about third party liberal votes if a Biden-GOP ticket chases after Republican votes.

[burrowowl]

25. And the VP can cast tie breaking vote in the senate

Biden is bending over too far backwards to show 'bi-partisan', even if it was just a joke.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

32. Biden isn't going to pick a Republican.

He was asked a hypothetical question, which he answered with the caveat that he couldn't think of any Republicans he'd pick. Nobody is actually going to choose a Republican. It just isn't going to happen.

[JonLP24]

34. I'm just addressing the hypothetical

Anyways I won't take that chance. I'll vote for Sanders or Warren.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

36. Do you want to take the chance that Bernie would choose

someone who isn't a Democrat or who voted for Jill Stein? I don't. Not that I think he'll be in the position to be looking for a running mate anyhow.

[JonLP24]

41. I wouldn't think along those lines

I think Sanders would pick someone younger and to pick a woman or someone with a different race.

As far Jill Stein voters you can blame triangulation. People get upset about conservative policies vote green. Vote shame doesn't work on everybody.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

44. Jill Stein/Nader voters are people whose arrogant notions of their own political purity

take precedence over the reality that a candidate who doesn't meet their standards of progressive wokeness is still better by orders of magnitude than a George Bush or a Donald Trump. They aren't upset about conservative policies; they're upset that the Democratic Party isn't comprised entirely of people who hate the "establishment," whatever that is (people who have been in Congress for 30 years, for example?) - so they vote for useless Putinite knuckleheads like Stein just to teach those sell-out Democrats a lesson, with predictable results. Nader helped give us Bush and Stein helped give us Trump.

[JonLP24]

46. I voted for a Democrat in every general election every primary possible

Unlike Republicans whose votes triangulators are chasing.

I'm a purist which is why I don't ever vote for a Republicans. I wouldn't tell people that they aren't upset over conservative policies because I recognize the reality. I surfed here the entire 8 years of Obama and seen it happen. My first problem in the last administration was perfect right until after he released the torture memos but blocked the torture photos using Bush era arguments. The party split into 2 after that with more and more conservative policies. It is why people voted for Sanders over Clinton & vice versa.

[druidity33]

54. I blame white women for Trump...

not Jill Stein. And I blame Democrats for Bush, not Nader. In both elections WAY more registered Democrats voted for the Republican candidate than the Green voters did. Greens vote Green... sometimes they sway voters that don't like either major party candidate. The idea that "if all those Greens just voted Dem, we would've won!" is an excellent way of placing blame where it doesn't belong. Here's a thought, maybe if we had IRV none of the 3rd party candidate bullshit will matter? I'm helping work on that in MA... you know, doing my part.

[boomer_wv]

45. Given Sanders.....

track record of campaign hires and endorsements, I could see him make a pick in that Sarah Palin range of bad. The kind of pick that sinks your campaign kind of bad.

[JonLP24]

47. Actually don't think his campaign picks are as bad as people make them out to be

He is running a great campaign unlike all of them pretty much.

Hillary Clinton had Neera Tanden who turns people away from her cause. Very toxic.

[boomer_wv]

50. You might think so.

But they are pretty terrible.

[Hortensis]

56. JonL, Sanders has said he is not a liberal, and

he's proud of it. Now, Biden is a liberal, moderate type. Not "a moderate," which is a dishonest term used by enemies of Democrats to claim we're really just Republicans with conceits of being better. (Now, who would push a lie like that?)

[SCantiGOP]

26. There are some Republicans I could support

Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Ike, Jacob Javits.
Are they eligible?

[wnylib]

48. Don't know how old you are

but I remember the Ike years from my childhood and I would not even think of supporting him. He was a good military general and that's what got him elected in those post war years. What I remember are the commie scares, air raid drills under our desks in grade school, a serious recession when my father worked only 2 days a week and took on odd jobs while negotiating to pay only the interest on loans in order to keep the car and a roof over our heads. Meantime, my mother and her aunt canned vegetables from our garden and saved on milk costs by diluting ftesh milk with powdered milk in equal portions.

In later years I read about his corporate/military cabinet members who were hand in glove involved in Latin American coups to support American corporate interests like United Fruit. Ike was part of the military industrial complex that he spoke of in his farewell address.

He supported the Cuban dictator, Batista which led to the Castro revolution. He overthrew a democratically elected president in Iran in order to install a dictatorship favorable to US and UK oil interests. This led to the Iranian Revolution in 1979 in which US embassy workers were taken hostage.

Ike also sent the first military advisors to Vietnam.

No Ike for me.

[stopdiggin]

27. Don't insult my intelligence

anyone that is taking this seriously needs to get back on their meds. pronto.

[thesquanderer]

28. re: "I think we need to realize that labels don't always fit exactly. Nor do they mean everything."

Agreed. Which is why I had no problem supporting Sanders last time, despite the same cries here then as now about his not being a real Dem. He was Dem enough for the party to let them run in the primary, that's Dem enough for me.

[colsohlibgal]

29. No Republicans!

The Republicans have largely sold their soul to our version of Mussolini/Hitler so perish the thought. We need to move left not right or risk losing too many millennials.

[Thekaspervote]

31. Fussing is right!! We all know he isn't going to choose a repub

He’s talked openly about
Stacey A
Susan Rice
Kamala Harris

[Hoyt]

35. He will consider GOPers, and likely reject them. Maybe ask for some help. OK with that.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

37. He won't even consider them.

Likely picks are Democrats Harris, Abrams or Klobuchar.

[Hoyt]

38. Agree. But I'm OK with him saying he'll consider GOPers.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

40. People are getting their panties in a wad unnecessarily

about a hypothetical question. I'm 100% confident that none of the candidates would choose a GOP running mate and it's just dumb to be even arguing about it.

[Hekate]

39. Thanks, hpd

[calimary]

42. I'd worry that doing so could be an automatic death sentence

for the Democratic President who has a GOP VP. Just look at the wackos who love trump, and the same bunch that likely loves guns too and an overblown sense that aggrieved entitlement. What’s to stop some nutcase from deciding that he (probably male and almost certainly white) could easily have another GOPer in the Oval Office again?

Nope! There’s reaching across the aisle, and there’s wearing a big sandwich board that says “I’m an idiot. Kick me!”

[wnylib]

49. My prediction is that if Biden becomes the

nominee, he will choose Klobuchar for his running mate.

[sprinkleeninow]

52. That's my forecast also.

[vsrazdem]

51. I don't care how dam nicy nice you want to play. If Republicans were trying to trash my kid in

front of the whole word, I would not have a F'ing thing nice to say about them.

[Hortensis]

60. But I bet you say hello and smile at Republicans all day long

anyway. And even say something nice about them when the situation calls for it. Unless..., has refusal to lead to chronic unemployment?

It's one thing to spout off anonymously like this here, but it'd be really foolish to forget this isn't the real world and expect politicians to behave as we can in secret. In the real world people are required to play nicely with each other. And in the real world half the citizens we meet and work with every day are conservatives.

[vsrazdem]

62. I don't see the Republicans playing nice, real world or not.

[Hortensis]

65. Sorry to hear it. Perhaps your neighbors are

responding in kind to your behaviors? Frankly, my smiles at conservatives can be pretty fake these days also, but I know they're not going anywhere. They'll always be with us. Even more certain is that this will pass and we will live in whatever comes next, much better or dreadful.

My thought is that we should create and embark on a new liberal era of advancement of national wellbeing. Now. When that does happens (preferably now, not 40 years from now while climbing out from some dreadful national holocaust), fear and hate will be replaced by the security and confidence we knew during the last liberal era that ended in 1978.

With better times, people will get nicer again and more generous. People will also reject extremism and the calls of destructive leaders. Conservatives will reject calls for hate and elect better conservative leaders. We know this because these things always happen when fear is replaced with feelings of security. And, back to what we were discussing, most RWers will choose to forget and deny they were part of what their party became, and political divisions will once again narrow to merely generating the contempt and irritation that remind people not to talk politics.

My top reason for supporting VP Biden for president is that he's the one candidate who calls for rescuing and strengthening our democracy and restoring confidence and national wellbeing as our top priority. The giant, critical, existential goal all other goals are dependent on.

That's why he talks to all Americans, and because our presidents must represent their nation, not one party. But there's not a chance he'd choose a Republican running mate, he'd be more likely to stick a butter knife in his eye to see how that worked.

[vsrazdem]

67. Well, it clear you're the better person, or at least your feelings are clear.

[Hortensis]

71. Sensible. Which future do you want? nt

[Kahuna7]

64. +2,000,000

[Tarheel_Dem]

53. K&R

[Hortensis]

57. Here's a graph indicating BIDEN'S IDEOLOGY while in the senate.

This graph shows the wide ideological gap between Democrats and Republicans that political scientists are always discussing. No overlap. And senate Democrats average more conservative than house Democrats because they have to appeal to whole states.

Sanders constantly claims elected Democrats are practically the same as Republicans, and some hostile media describe various Democrats as "moderate" (not just moderate within that blue cloud). But people who look at the data know that's far from true and also can identify just which public figures are trying to deceive them.



This graph is from Voteview.com, https://voteview.com/about , where the ideological voting behaviors of whole sessions of congress over the years and of individual members can be displayed. The gap between liberals and conservatives has widened over the past decade.

Sanders' peculiar, extreme-denial view of Democrats has never been reality, though. Sanders wants to be a blue cloud of 1 on the left, why is anyone's guess. Even in the 1990s when many Dems moved somewhat right following right-moving Democratic voters, those blue and red clouds were ideologically overall very separate.

[betsuni]

58. THANK YOU!

[RandiFan1290]

59. whataboutwhataboutwhataboutwhatabout

[Skidmore]

61. Kicking for the sanity.

Thank you for the thread. This holiday season needs to end. Way to long.

[Kahuna7]

63. Psst. Guess who got those republican votes during the 2016 primaries....

His initials are, B.S. Very smart move by Biden.

[hughee99]

68. For all the people who don't think this is an issue at all,

Would YOU consider voting for a republican?

[Gothmog]

69. I thnk that Joe gave a great answer to this question

Link to tweet

[Cha]

75. Yes, and Jeff Fecke Gets IT.. Guess who

doesn't Get IT?

that's right.. those who smell blood! too bad.. it's been tried too many times and still Not working

Gracias, Goth!

[David__77]

76. Biden's comments were fine.

I also think it's fine that we have former Republicans and a socialist among the Democratic presidential candidates. For that matter, I'm glad that there are former Republicans!

[sellitman]

78. He has never been my choice

He is even less so now.

He needs to appeal his base, not theirs.

If this is another example of Biden's foot in mouth disease I am not amused.

There is no such thing as an electable Republican. They are all traitors spewing the same old lies.

I hope to hell I don't have to pull a lever for this guy.

Give us a better choice please.

[TruthTeller0505]

79. People are being dishonest about what Biden said

Bernie is my first choice but Biden is my second choice.


Here's the footage

Link to tweet

?fbclid=IwAR3h3BFmM89ejV72PkrzmAb40j0jBGOeJoPTPjoDq_HCjRNgwZ_C6QYrNkI

[David__77]

80. I don't have a problem with his statement.

I do take note of his reference to decency and qualifications and not to policy. It would be good if elected Republicans "stepped up" by repudiating their right-wing philosophy and politics. While I would argue that policy position is extremely important, I still get Biden's perspective and don't have a problem with it.