2024 Election - Biden vs Trump - The rematch

[swordfish]

Nikki Haley will not be down for breakfast......Now comes the head-to-head rematch

New thread time - where SF wonders how long Biden is going to last in this race before the DNC removes him.......Will he last until the convention?  Will he ever debate Trump?  Trump has already shifted his focus on Biden and time will tell how ugly it's going to get.

Border, Inflation, Age, Abortion, Climate, January 6, Russia/Ukraine, Middle East.  SF just got a new popcorn popper and am getting ready to use it!

https://www.wndu.com/2024/03/06/nikki-haley-campaign-pushed-brink-after-super-tuesday-trouncing/

NEW YORK (AP) — Nikki Haley suspended her presidential campaign on Wednesday after being soundly defeated across the country on Super Tuesday, leaving Donald Trump as the last remaining major candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination.

Haley didn’t endorse the former president in a speech in Charleston, South Carolina. Instead, she encouraged him to earn the support of the coalition of moderate Republicans and independent voters who supported her.

“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. And I hope he does that,” she said. “At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people.”

Haley, a former South Carolina governor and former U.N. ambassador, was Trump’s first significant rival when she jumped into the race in February 2023. She spent the final phase of her campaign aggressively warning the GOP against embracing Trump, whom she argued was too consumed by chaos and personal grievance to defeat President Joe Biden in the general election.

Her departure clears Trump to focus solely on his likely rematch in November with Biden. The former president is on track to reach the necessary 1,215 delegates to clinch the Republican nomination later this month.

Haley’s defeat marks a painful, if predictable, blow to those voters, donors and Republican Party officials who opposed Trump and his fiery brand of “Make America Great Again” politics. She was especially popular among moderates and college-educated voters, constituencies that will likely play a pivotal role in the general election. It’s unclear whether Trump, who recently declared that Haley donors would be permanently banned from his movement, can ultimately unify a deeply divided party.

Trump on Tuesday night declared that the GOP was united behind him, but in a statement shortly afterward, Haley spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said, “Unity is not achieved by simply claiming, ‘We’re united.’”

“Today, in state after state, there remains a large block of Republican primary voters who are expressing deep concerns about Donald Trump,” Perez-Cubas said. “That is not the unity our party needs for success. Addressing those voters’ concerns will make the Republican Party and America better.”

Haley has made clear she doesn’t want to serve as Trump’s vice president or run on a third-party ticket arranged by the group No Labels. She leaves the race with an elevated national profile that could help her in a future presidential run.

By staying in the campaign, Haley drew enough support from suburbanites and college-educated voters to highlight Trump’s apparent weaknesses with those groups.

In AP VoteCast surveys conducted among Republican primary and caucus voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, between 61% and 76% of Haley’s supporters said they would be so dissatisfied if Trump became the GOP nominee that they wouldn’t vote for him in the November general election. Voters in the early Republican head-to-head contests who said they wouldn’t vote for Trump in the fall represented a small but significant segment of the electorate: 2 in 10 Iowa voters, one-third of New Hampshire voters, and one-quarter of South Carolina voters.

Haley leaves the 2024 presidential contest having made history as the first woman to win a Republican primary contest. She beat Trump in the District of Columbia on Sunday and in Vermont on Tuesday.

She had insisted she would stay in the race through Super Tuesday and crossed the country campaigning in states holding Republican contests. Ultimately, she was unable to knock Trump off his glide path to a third straight nomination.

Haley’s allies note that she exceeded most of the political world’s expectations by making it as far as she did.

She had initially ruled out running against Trump in 2024. But she changed her mind and ended up launching her bid three months after he did, citing among other things the country’s economic troubles and the need for “generational change.” Haley, 52, later called for competency tests for politicians over the age of 75 — a knock on both Trump, who is 77, and Biden, who is 81.

Her candidacy was slow to attract donors and support, but she ultimately outlasted all of her other GOP rivals, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Tim Scott, her fellow South Carolinian whom she appointed to the Senate in 2012. And the money flowed in until the very end. Her campaign said it raised more than $12 million in February alone.

She gained popularity with many Republican donors, independent voters and the so-called “Never Trump” crowd, even though she criticized the criminal cases against him as politically motivated and pledged that, if president, she would pardon him if he were convicted in federal court

 

[temptation]

I can only answer one question…

NO, he will not debate Trump.  It’d be a bloodbath.

[swordfish]

On 3/6/2024 at 11:16 AM, temptation said:

I can only answer one question…

NO, he will not debate Trump.  It’d be a bloodbath.

Let the bloodbath commence......It's all part of a scheme (IMHO) that will be the downfall of the Biden Presidency.....

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13423051/biden-trump-debate-scott-jennings.html

What's REALLY behind Biden's utterly pathetic debate gambit: SCOTT JENNINGS reveals how Joe's cynical scheme could backfire... and finally convince Democrats to kick HIM off the ticket

 

[Muda69]

1 hour ago, swordfish said:

Let the bloodbath commence......It's all part of a scheme (IMHO) that will be the downfall of the Biden Presidency.....

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13423051/biden-trump-debate-scott-jennings.html

What's REALLY behind Biden's utterly pathetic debate gambit: SCOTT JENNINGS reveals how Joe's cynical scheme could backfire... and finally convince Democrats to kick HIM off the ticket

 

Mr. Biden's handlers will really have to juice him up if he is to stand any chance.   But if Mr. Trump gets convicted will Mr. Biden still want to debate him?  Will some coalition in the RNC have the cojones to kick Mr. Trump off the ticket if he is convicted?    Can a candidate who is a convicted felon win the presidency?

[temptation]

1 hour ago, Muda69 said:

Mr. Biden's handlers will really have to juice him up if he is to stand any chance.   But if Mr. Trump gets convicted will Mr. Biden still want to debate him?  Will some coalition in the RNC have the cojones to kick Mr. Trump off the ticket if he is convicted?    Can a candidate who is a convicted felon win the presidency?

This.  Biden's team had some very specific demands prior to agreeing to the June 27th debate.  Me thinks its a trap.

"Convicted felon" lol.

Alvin Bragg has made a career out of downgrading felonies to misdemeanors but has elevated these "charges" against Trump in the opposite direction.

Its a Hail Mary/witch hunt that should end in a mistrial or hung jury.

Edited May 16, 2024 by temptation

[swordfish]

2 hours ago, Muda69 said:

Mr. Biden's handlers will really have to juice him up if he is to stand any chance.  Fact - may even be the dose that kills the guy.  But if Mr. Trump gets convicted will Mr. Biden still want to debate him?  The fix is in for this "felony" that at it's worst is barely a misdemeanor and really isn't even able to be proven that the defendant was responsible - a conviction is totally expected. Will some coalition in the RNC have the cojones to kick Mr. Trump off the ticket if he is convicted?  Absolutely not.   Can a candidate who is a convicted felon win the presidency?  Yes.

This case has done nothing except help the Trump campaign.  I personally think the whole combative effort of the past 3 years to keep Trump off the ballot is actually helping him and hurting Biden.

[Muda69]

Well I won't be voting for either uni-part candidate, so it's just entertainment for me.

 

[Muda69]

Biden and Trump Want a Presidential Debate Safe Space: https://reason.com/2024/05/16/biden-and-trump-want-a-presidential-debate-safe-space/

Quote

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have agreed to participate in two presidential debates—one in June and one in September—after both candidates bucked the Commission on Presidential Debates, the nonprofit organization that has managed such affairs since 1988.

Biden had a list of demands regarding the terms of this debate, such as the elimination of the traditional live audience and inclusion of mics that immediately cut off when the candidate's time has elapsed and the other person is speaking. Apparently these terms were amenable to Trump, who nevertheless complained that Biden is afraid of crowds.

This means the candidates have officially killed the proposal put forth by the commission, which wanted three debates somewhat closer to Election Day, in September and October. There is nothing sacred about the commission, and these new debates may well be an improvement over last cycle's. Preventing the candidates from interrupting each other would be a significant win for the viewing public and everyone involved.

That said, Biden and Trump have utterly failed—unsurprisingly—to agree to the most desirable change, which would have been to include more candidates. The commission infamously restricted its debates to just candidates polling above a 15 percent threshold. In 2016, this meant that Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson was excluded despite polling as high as 13 percent in some surveys. By mutual decree, Biden and Trump are sticking with this arbitrary limitation.

In a statement, the Biden campaign said the purpose of the debate was "to compare the only two candidates with any statistical chance of prevailing in the Electoral College" and not to waste time "on candidates with no prospect of becoming president." That's a rather direct rebuke of independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is currently polling at about 10 percent in battleground states.

RFK Jr. is not currently in a position to win the presidential election. But he could have a major impact. Polls show that he is currently pulling votes from Biden and Trump in somewhat equal measure. He has also attracted a following among anti-establishment, populist, and even some libertarian voters. If either Biden or Trump were to make an appeal to previous supporters who have decamped for RFK Jr., and win them back, it could be the difference on Election Day.

Of course, both major party candidates are probably more worried about the opposite thing happening: RFK Jr. winning an even greater number of their voters. Their present actions betray them; the Biden campaign is doing everything in its power to undermine RFK Jr.'s ballot access drive, while Trump is desperate to remind his base of RFK Jr.'s decidedly nonconservative views on guns, environmental regulation, and abortion.

RFK Jr. holds an eclectic mix of views, some of which appeal to supporters of limited government: He opposed COVID-19 mandates, is worried about federal efforts to suppress dissent on social media, and does not want to continue sending billions in foreign aid to Ukraine. Yet he remains a progressive liberal on a range of social and economic issues. He recently expressed support for both student loan debt forgiveness and affirmative action.

He is keen to join the debate stage. He recently issued a challenge to Trump to debate him later this month at the Libertarian National Convention, where both candidates will be speaking. (Hopefully the party will make time for its own prospective candidates as well.) Trump does not seem likely to take him up on this offer; like Biden, Trump wants a presidential debate safe space, where the two presidents* only have to face each other.

Cowards, both of them.

 

[swordfish]

Post debate - The questions become (1) How do they replace Biden? Does he gracefully bow out or do they drag him out kicking and screaming? (2) Who would his replacement be? AND My biggest concern of the night - Who is actually running the Executive Branch right now? Because it sure ain't Biden.

[swordfish]

"Easy does it Joe"

[temptation]

3 hours ago, swordfish said:

Post debate - The questions become (1) How do they replace Biden? Does he gracefully bow out or do they drag him out kicking and screaming? (2) Who would his replacement be? AND My biggest concern of the night - Who is actually running the Executive Branch right now? Because it sure ain't Biden.

Last question demands an answer.

[Muda69]

On 6/28/2024 at 11:58 AM, temptation said:

Last question demands an answer.

Yes it does.

I have been camping the last several days, out of cell/data service, so I missed the debate.  Just have been reading headlines. Doesn't sound good for Mr. Biden, and Mr. Trump was his usual blowhard self.

I like the debate analysis from a newsletter I subscribe to.  Some excerpts:

Quote

The crisis we all saw revealed undeniably last night goes beyond Biden’s haplessness. Even though anti-Biden partisans like your diarist were pleased by the result, it is very, very hard for anyone outside the MAGA faithful to take uncomplicated pleasure in what happened. At one point late in the debate, the two old men running to be President of the United States fell into arguing about their golf handicaps. This really happened. Both Trump and Biden were very far from the kind of men you want running America. Even as I cheered Biden’s self-immolation, I kept thinking, “We could have had Ron DeSantis.” But that’s not who Republican primary voters wanted.

...

Can anybody not all-in on the Trump personality cult really believe that the garrulous braggart who helped Biden demolish himself last night is the best we can do? I watched the debate with a conservative European friend, who said sadly at one point, “I feel very sorry for you Americans.”

The presidency is more than the president. It’s policy. With Trump back in the White House, we will not have radical loonies like Admiral Rachel Levine, gaming the system to do insane things like casting aside scientific standards to make it easier to chemically castrate children, in the name of achieving a trans utopia. That’s reason enough to vote for Trump, in my view. When Biden said twice last night that a big group of presidential historians voted Trump the worst president in American history, I laughed out loud. Oh? It was also the case that over 50 former top US intelligence officials signed off on the lie that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation. Who believes in these institutional authorities anymore?

Joe Biden is the walking embodiment of the exhausted American Establishment. More and more people have simply lost their faith in our Ruling Class. You could scarcely have a more potent symbol of its impotence. Biden represents one form of American decline.

Donald Trump represents a different, more vigorous, version of the same thing. He’s not a serious person. He is the barstool’s idea of a strong leader — all egotistical smack-talk. It’s impossible to believe he has convictions, a moral and intellectual foundation, and a plan to do what democracies need their chief executive to do. Again, if you vote for him, as I would if I were going to be in America, you do so out of the hope that he would appoint people who would be a lot better at policy than the other guy’s people.

But look, the United States now faces a world more complex and hostile to its interests than at any time in the postwar period. True, there is no opponent as ferocious as the Soviet Empire was during the Cold War, but then again, that world was far more manageable. The lines were clear. It’s like a Slovak priest said about the new soft totalitarianism: “Under Communism, the Gospel shined a light in the darkness. Now, that light strikes only fog.”

America needs a president, and a ruling class, that can manage, and even reverse, the country’s decline relative to other powers. Russia is once again a major challenge — not the challenge it was in the Soviet period, but also not the weak post-Soviet state it used to be. China is another thing entirely. And the rapidly changing threat from Islamic terrorism still exists. Besides which, the entire West, of which the United States is the leading state, faces immense internal problems, most of all from mass immigration, but also from internal strife and decadence.

It takes a lot more faith than I have to believe that Donald Trump is the answer to these massive challenges. At some point last night, you just had to check out from his incessant claims that when he was president “we had the best ___ in American history,” and so forth. Who believes this crap? Who believes that Trump will settle the Russia-Ukraine war before he’s even inaugurated? One can believe that things were better under Trump than under Biden, and would be again, without having to accept this inane used car salesman pitch. Too many Trump voters are eager to have him pee on their leg and tell them that it’s raining.

..

 

America is truly in decline if Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are the best we can come up with for POTUS.   I won't be voting for either, as should any serious and sane person.

 

Edited June 29, 2024 by Muda69

[temptation]

2 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Yes it does.

I have been camping the last several days, out of cell/data service, so I missed the debate.  Just have been reading headlines. Doesn't sound good for Mr. Biden, and Mr. Trump was his usual blowhard self.

I like the debate analysis from a newsletter I subscribe to.  Some excerpts:

America is truly in decline if Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are the best we can come up with for POTUS.   I won't be voting for either, as should any serious and sane person.

 

Trump was arrogant but actually pumped the brakes and let Biden sink himself.

The same people who told you to social distance, wear a mask, wanted to mandate the vaccine, tell you the border is secure, claim white supremacy is America’s top threat, think men can compete against women in athletics and that January 6th was the greatest attack on American soil since the Civil War also told you that Biden was as sharp as he’s ever been earlier this month and that any videos circulating online showing signs of the president slowing down were AI generated “deep fakes” thus your eyes were playing tricks on you.

My vote will be simple.  Not falling for it again.

[Muda69]

16 hours ago, temptation said:

My vote will be simple.  Not falling for it again.

You do you.  I refuse to vote for a convicted felon, regardless of their political party affiliation.  And the GOP has truly reached the lowest of the low if they allow as such during their upcoming sham of a convention.

 

[temptation]

15 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

You do you.  I refuse to vote for a convicted felon, regardless of their political party affiliation.  And the GOP has truly reached the lowest of the low if they allow as such during their upcoming sham of a convention.

 

Cool.

[Bobref]

10 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

You do you.  I refuse to vote for a convicted felon, regardless of their political party affiliation.  And the GOP has truly reached the lowest of the low if they allow as such during their upcoming sham of a convention.

Try as I might, I’m unable to generate any enthusiasm for a contest between a criminal who is a pathological liar, and a sock puppet whose only goal in public appearances is to avoid drooling on himself. The only ones benefitting from this election are the comedians and satirists who find themselves inundated with material. 

The government you elect is the government you deserve.”

― Thomas Jefferson

Doesn’t say much positive about the American electorate.

[temptation]

1 hour ago, Bobref said:

Try as I might, I’m unable to generate any enthusiasm for a contest between a criminal who is a pathological liar, and a sock puppet whose only goal in public appearances is to avoid drooling on himself. The only ones benefitting from this election are the comedians and satirists who find themselves inundated with material. 

The government you elect is the government you deserve.”

― Thomas Jefferson

Doesn’t say much positive about the American electorate.

Low voter turnout helps one candidate more so than the other.

Thanks.

[Bobref]

1 hour ago, temptation said:

Low voter turnout helps one candidate more so than the other.

Thanks.

No doubt. 

[Bobref]

1 hour ago, temptation said:

Low voter turnout helps one candidate more so than the other.

Thanks.

So, are you saying voters have a duty to vote for the lesser of two evils, just because not voting for either actually helps one candidate more than the other? Hmmm. The “non-vote vote.” Why, it’s brilliant! The ultimate passive aggressiveness at the polls.

[temptation]

1 hour ago, Bobref said:

So, are you saying voters have a duty to vote for the lesser of two evils, just because not voting for either actually helps one candidate more than the other? Hmmm. The “non-vote vote.” Why, it’s brilliant! The ultimate passive aggressiveness at the polls.

No duty at all but your pride is going to be helping in handing the win to the lesser of two evils.

I’ve done the third party thing the last two cycles.  Time to switch it up.

Edited June 30, 2024 by temptation

[Muda69]

19 hours ago, temptation said:

I’ve done the third party thing the last two cycles.  Time to switch it up.

Sure. If there is not a candidate from any party that best reflects your views then either write in a candidate or don't vote at all.

Voting for either member of the uni-party, even to just 'switch it up', helps to perpetuate the corruption of federal politics.

 

[temptation]

2 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Sure. If there is not a candidate from any party that best reflects your views then either write in a candidate or don't vote at all.

Voting for either member of the uni-party, even to just 'switch it up', helps to perpetuate the corruption of federal politics.

 

If you don’t vote, you can’t bitch.

Always been my philosophy…

[Bobref]

3 hours ago, temptation said:

If you don’t vote, you can’t bitch.

Always been my philosophy…

Me, too. That’s why I’ve voted for the Libertarian candidate recently.

[swordfish]

Given the Democrat Party's desperation over the current state of their presumptive candidate Joe Biden - So now that SCOTUS has returned the Presidential Immunity case back to the lower court putting the chances of any other conviction of former President Trump at nearly zero; SF wonders whether the sham "Hush Money/Accounting" trial (that on any other day would have been a misdemeanor or more likely ruled past the statute of limitations resulting in a slap on the wrist fine if that) that Trump was convicted of a felony will NOW result in jail time for the Former President........(Again - any other day, any other person - totally different outcome - but the Dems are very desperate this time)

We will find out next week...... 

[temptation]

23 minutes ago, swordfish said:

Given the Democrat Party's desperation over the current state of their presumptive candidate Joe Biden - So now that SCOTUS has returned the Presidential Immunity case back to the lower court putting the chances of any other conviction of former President Trump at nearly zero; SF wonders whether the sham "Hush Money/Accounting" trial (that on any other day would have been a misdemeanor or more likely ruled past the statute of limitations resulting in a slap on the wrist fine if that) that Trump was convicted of a felony will NOW result in jail time for the Former President........(Again - any other day, any other person - totally different outcome - but the Dems are very desperate this time)

We will find out next week...... 

Zero doubt.  It’s Hail Mary time…