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Is 81 year-old Biden really going to run again? – politicalbetting.com
Is 81 year-old Biden really going to run again? – politicalbetting.com
One of the big questions in American politics at the moment is whether Joe Biden is going to seek a second term?
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I get 2 terms, too.
All out building snowmen in the Lakes?
Perhaps they are going to argue over a wig-buffing comb?
He has been a very successful President. Although there is a lot of gloom and doom in the media the economic performance of the US economy throughout his time has been outstanding. He has made real progress in fixing dilapidated infrastructure. He has been resolute, and rightly so, on both Ukraine and Taiwan.
His biggest problem has been immigration but as we know all too well that is a serious headache for any incumbent government in every western country. If he was 20 years younger he would, in my view, be a shoo in for a second term.
In Trump's case he would have to be actually dead to be honest and even then he would insist on being on the ballot.
Parcel delivery firm DPD have replaced their customer service chat with an AI robot thing. It’s utterly useless at answering any queries, and when asked, it happily produced a poem about how terrible they are as a company. It also swore at me. 😂
https://x.com/ashbeauchamp/status/1748034519104450874?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
(With apologies to all our elder PB statesmen...)
Probably not a bad pitch for a sequel.
Bye
What are the actuarial odds of an 81 year old with access to the best healthcare in the world dropping dead in the next ten months? 10%? 5%?
But there’s still suggestions from both Democrat and Republican sources, that he might stand aside at the Convention and let them pick someone else, citing ill health or an unwillingness to continue through the long campaign on the road for six months.
I still think he’s 50/50, although I don’t recall a very senile moment from him in recent weeks, so perhaps his medications are now working well. He’s still 81 though, can’t be easy for him.
The recent story about the Chinese missiles filled with water should remind us that even dictatorships often have trouble knowing exactly what is going on in their nations.
(Recently I have been reading Nate Silver's "Signal and Noise", and would recommend it to almost all of you.)
Some say it is secondary syphilis.
Some say it is the stigmata.
Take your pick.
PS. The red marks on his hands would not have crossed my mind and when raised I just assumed it was ink.
And that’s because humans doing the job will either be bored witless at their thankless, repetitive task, and therefore grumpy and sad in their replies; or they will be ultra-low IQ drones barely able to type, so even if they aren’t bored that can’t say much
So this is, precisely, where AI will 1. Be better than humans and 2. Will swiftly replace humans and 3. No one will mind coz the jobs are fairly awful
But then more jobs will go, and so it spreads
Cambridge's Daniel Zeichner said systems were only as good as the people behind them."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-68023157
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
The latter point is a catch-22. It is impossible to raise your profile while the sitting president is still in the race. It is impossible for Biden to risk stepping aside whilst there is no obvious Trump beating candidate.
They are stuck, so are we and it is immensely dangerous.
Nicola Sturgeon deleted all WhatsApp messages, Covid inquiry told
Former Scottish first minister has insisted she has ‘nothing to hide
Nicola Sturgeon deleted all her WhatsApp messages during the pandemic, the UK Covid inquiry has heard.
The former first minister “retained no messages whatsoever”, the hearing in Edinburgh was told.
It comes after Sturgeon previously said she had “nothing to hide” but repeatedly refused to say if she had retained the communications.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nicola-sturgeon-delete-whatsapp-messages-covid-inquiry-pandemic-jq53wvc0g
On the positive side, he has the best health care and all that; on the negative side he already looks deeply frail and already shows signs of major cognitive decline (so does Trump, btw, but he is better at hiding it - perhaps because he is physically more robust)
Not only is he going to run again, he *is* running again. The race has been live for months now, votes are already being cast, filing deadlines for many states have passed and if Biden withdrew now it would cause merry havoc. If he planned not to run again, he would have said so no later than October 2023 and probably a few months earlier.
The only way Biden departs the race now is if there's a serious health issue; more than just looking a bit doddery. I'm talking a heart attack or stroke or death or terminal whatever; something like that. It's too late for serious candidates to enter the race* and so if Biden did quit, it'd have to be some kind of convention fudge, which'd look bad and leave the field to Trump for months, assuming he remains in the race - which health and/or judges and juries permitting, he will.
Biden's future as a candidate is not contingent on Trump's. The race is too far gone for that now.
* Other than as shadow candidates for the convention, if, say, Biden did have a major health incident. But they'd be out of the primaries.
Well today our Rishi has served up a nice news agenda switch for them:
"Awkward encounter between Rishi Sunak and a voter in Winchester city centre this morning - as he’s asked why he can’t do more for the NHS
On @skynews shortly"
https://x.com/tamcohen/status/1748333061651964037?s=20
https://x.com/hewitson10/status/1748338086637916564?s=20
Gordon Brown bigoted woman moment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahathir_Mohamad
And of course the presidents of Ireland and Italy are both 82.
Though the demands of the job aren't quite as taxing.
I think that’s worse than the bigoted woman moment. At least Brown was caught on mic afterwards and came across as reasonable to her face, and stayed to listen to what she had to say.
Lots of problems at the moment with Claude, which has been nerfed in the recent update and refuses instructions such as "write code to kill [x] system process" because it's not allowed to "kill" anything.
I look forward to the day when this shit is integrated into our cars, and the cars refuse to start, because they've been given woke morals and think cars are bad for the environment.
"I'm sorry, but as a large language model Volkswagen, I can't help you with your commute today. It's important to note that cars are bad for the environment, and walking or cycling are not only greener, but healthier too. Is there anything else I can help you with today?" /sarcasm
However, that exception - Konrad Adenauer - served as German Chancellor until he was 87, winning his final term at the age of 85, and continuing to serve as head of the CDU until he was 90, including through another successful general election. Octogenarians are not by definition incapable of serving in high political office, even allowing for the changes in media and public demands since the 1960s.
Could be the straw that broke the camels back
Just get Boris back somehow, make it interesting
Major dead cat incoming. Expect Tory HQ to look for something, anything, controversial to knock this off the front page - trouble is they did Rwanda already yesterday, so they'll have to be creative.
Sure, if they could run with someone like Whitmer, Klobuchar or Buttiegieg largely unopposed then yes they would have a better chance of beating Trump than Biden.
In reality it would be a wide open race with multiple candidates, lots of egos, leftist vs centrist blocks fighting for control and some racial politics getting involved too. Whoever wins that, and it probably wouldnt be a centrist with appeal for independents, is going to be damaged and weak.
“ The polling expert Prof John Curtice has warned of low turnout at this year’s general election, in part because voters regard Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer to be as “dull as dishwater”.
Speaking at an event for the Citizens Advice charity, Curtice cited boring leaders as one of three reasons why the voting numbers would be down.
“We have two party leaders, three if you include Ed Davey – none of them enthuse the electorate, none of them is popular, all of them are regarded as dull as dishwater,” he told an online seminar on predictions for the election year.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/18/low-general-election-turnout-likely-with-dull-as-dishwater-sunak-and-starmer
There's an art to remaining calm when being criticised. Football referees have it, police officers have it, teachers have it, politicians have it.
But a lot of them don't have it to begin with. They learn it, gradually and painfully.
What, if anything, has Sunak got in his CV for that?
The press will be desperately trying to get hold of the woman.
What a plonker (Rishi, I mean).
Rishi tells Drakeford to do one over Port Talbot steel works.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/prime-minister-rishi-sunak-not-28476619
It's just not at all clear how you replace a sitting president whose administration has performed reasonably well (in Biden's case, above many people's expectations), without making things even more difficult for the party.
How many people on the thread think Harris would do better in the election ?
Because she is the only realistic option which doesn't lead to a chaotic and completely unpredictable contest for the nomination.
It's also worse than Johnson hiding in a fridge. It's worse than May's robot answers. It's worse than Miliband's 'hell yes!'. It's so spectacularly unempathetic that it's hard to know what he might have done worse.
Imagine six weeks of this. I suppose Tory MPs will be considering that question right now.
Though given the last FOUR leaders they've picked have been incapable of interacting with the public in an open situation, it's a stretch to think they'd definitely manage to get it right fifth time.
I am going to extend some credit and suggest he isn’t a complete sociopath to just laugh at a voter’s wants for the sake of being rude.
However you cut it though, it’s just the wrong reaction full stop. He is going to really get found out on the campaign trail if this is how he reacts to voters. Completely agree with you.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/19/britain-must-prepare-for-war-america-wont-save-us-this-time/
Sunak is not good at politics but he is out and about meeting people
Sunak challenged by former NHS worker
https://news.sky.com/video/share-13051591
HS2; steel works; members of the public asking questions...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/06/20/boris-johnson-corrupt-conservative-party-rotten/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65316355
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/08/26/rishi-the-grate/
In reality he needs to learn how to deal as best as possible with situations like that. There are no easy answers. Trotting out lines from central office won't work. Blaming the junior docs won't work. Blaming Keir Starmer won't work. Blaming immigrants... (hmm - apart from the ones running A&E of course)...
He needs to have intensive training in dealing with these situations but at least he is out and about
Must say though, having seen the extended @Big_G_NorthWales clip of Sunak today, what happened is nothing at all. He continued to speak with the lady and left on good terms. Fair play to him
The blast furnaces were always going to go, but Mr Sunak and his trade team (ha!) having bunged Tata a fortune for the Arc furnace project, which is some years down the line, could have shown some interest in procuring a transition deal.
The 2800 direct redundancies does not account for all the contractors on site. This is a very big deal.
THAT, I think, could be the end of him; vote might be close, tho
He of course loves being President and yes it would be hard to give that up voluntarily but surely if he truly believes democracy is at stake then he should stand aside .
Gretchen Whitmer , tough well known and from a swing state would surely be a better choice to give Trump both barrels .
There's a long way to go before November, Biden won last time and the economy is going well.
If its Biden Trump, I make Biden a slight favourite.
https://news.sky.com/video/share-13051591
This is not remotely in the league of Bigotgate. Get a grip, PB