Joe Biden

It's starting to look increasingly like Joe Biden will have to pull out of his re-election bid, with reports that Barack Obama, very much the most respected man in the Democratic Party, is privately expressing his doubts over Biden's ability to defeat Donald Trump.

Biden's age is starting to catch up with him. His memory looks like it is beginning to go and he's having problems even reading stuff from an autocue now. His debate performance was by all accounts disastrous; Trump was an open goal and he kicked the ball into the stands. He's been pretty sheltered from direct public scrutiny in terms of exposure to the press.

At the moment, Trump does not have an insurmountable polling lead; he is still inside the margin of error. But the Democrats need to gain in the polls and Biden staying on the ticket will no longer help that, due to the clear questions being raised about his ability to do another four years.

Personally, I have real concerns about his ability to even live another four years if he got re-elected. He's been much better than Trump, but it's clear that he now needs to gracefully retire.

Donald gets Trumped - thoughts on the results of the US Presidential Election 2020

It's all over bar the shouting; Trump's lawsuits are going nowhere due to the fact that he can't actually provide any evidence for his wild and crazy claims of voter forms.

So, some thoughts on how this has all turned out.

1. It's a fairly standard election in some regards - unpopular incumbent doesn't get re-elected.
2. Of course, it wasn't in others. Being conducted in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic fundamentally changed the way people campaigned. Biden was essentially confined to his home, not holding the kinds of big rallies that Trump did (and which left a trail of virus cases in their wake). This arguably helped him as it limited the risk of him making damaging gaffes.
3. Trump getting Covid-19 was very much the "October surprise"; the way he handled it was shocking even for those used to him being awful. It's very likely the bad handling of this pandemic and the huge numbers of American deaths that result will be his biggest legacy; far more than getting America into any disastrous overseas wars, he has brought the equivalent of five Vietnams to American soil.
4. The record levels of mail-in ballots also led to a record turnout - this is likely to become routine for many voters as it is a much easier process than long queues at a polling station. It also was something a lot harder to intimidate against.
5. The Georgia Senate run-offs will be pretty close and who can turn out their voters better will ultimately win there.
6. 538 were correct in that Biden could survive a 2016-size polling error, which is basically what we got. It's looking like Republicans were under sampled, with a real reluctance to engage with pollsters by hardcore Trump supporters and Democrats being very keen to make their feelings known.
7. There were a fair number of ticket-splitters; those who voted Biden for President and Republican down-ballot. Biden outran lower-ballot Democrats across the board, essentially meaning that he had no coattails. With a 50-50 Senate the best possible outcome for them, Democrats have some cause for concern.
8. Taking the "Latino vote" for granted - indeed assuming there is a monolithic Latino vote in the first place - was a big mistake for the Democrats and could have cost them a closer election. Texas is now a swing state, but it's unlikely to flip unless there is a seriously popular Democrat running.
9. "Law and order" remains a strong driver of Republican turnout; riots scare voters.
10. Biden is very likely a one-term President due to his age. Kamala Harris has four years to work on her overall public image as Vice President if she wants a chance at the top job come 2024.
11. Trump will probably try to run in 2024 if he is capable of doing so; even being imprisoned doesn't legally stop you as Eugene Debs demonstrated in 1920.
12. Biden is going to need a lot of political skill to get any major policies passed in a divided Congress; he arguably has it.

It's going to be somewhat of a return to normality. Only somewhat though.

That's President-elect Sleepy Joe to you

When the polls closed on Tuesday and we saw the initial swings in the suburbs of Florida, it looked good for Joe Biden. Then Miami-Dade went heavily for Trump and people started to get rather nervous. The 'red mirage' turned out to be real... and it slowly dissipated.

Very slowly. It has taken nearly four days for the winner to hit 270 electoral college votes, due to the sheer number of mail ballots and several states banning them being processed until the polls closed. This process needs to be very much reformed.

Donald Trump, demonstrating that just when you think he can't go any lower he does it anyway, is completely denying reality, making spurious allegations of fraud with no evidence, as is his campaign. This sort of stuff is dangerous and it is fortunate with all the weapons being carried around that no-one has yet been killed.

President-elect Biden will have several tough challenges on his plate... including dealing with the Trump cultists.

Better ways to spend six billion dollars: US Election Analysis

Change of plan - as it's going to take a few days for Florida to be decided for sure (although it will go Obama), here's my analysis.

Barack Obama got about eight million votes less than in 2008. Fortunately for him, Mitt Romney appears to be getting less votes than John McCain did.

(Edit: Final totals are not yet confirmed)

 There was a semi-open goal here and Romney-Ryan missed it by a country mile.

About six billion dollars were spent on this - and we merely got the status quo ante, pretty much.


Why Obama won

1.  He was successfully able to claim an improving, although still poor, economy and two big foreign policy achievements: withdrawing from Iraq without that country collapsing into civil war (it's not brilliant, but it's not Syria) and killing Osama bin Laden.
2. Excellent campaigning with strong leveraging of social media and micro-targeting of voters. The ground game was superb as well.
3. His performances in the second and third debate, along with Biden's VP one. He looked presidential and knew his stuff.
4. Strong support among minority voters, especially Latinos. The electorate was nearly exactly like 2008 - in fact there were more minority voters - when many pundits (understandably) thought it would look different, maybe (less understandably) like the GOP win in 2010.
5. The GM bailout, which saved a great many jobs in Ohio in particular. Regardless of the economic sense or lack thereof of that, people don't like becoming unemployed.

Why Romney lost

1. Flip-flopping on a scale greater than John Kerry between primary and general campaign - in an Internet age, it's easy to get called on.
2. The '47%' comment. I said at the time that was a massive gaffe and it showed an apparent contempt for Democratic voters (most of whom actually work) that many Republicans seem to show.
3. Reliance on a dwindling coalition of angry white people at the expense of nearly everyone else. Ignoring - no, actually offending with the "self-deportation" policy - 10% of the voting public is a bad idea.
4. Allowing Obama to define him early as an out-of-touch plutocrat - and acting in a manner that seemed to make it true (not releasing those tax returns, $10k bets, "I like firing people").
5. George W Bush, who he couldn't use on the campaign trail and whose legacy is positively toxic for the Republicans. There is no living Republican great statesman they can wheel out - Reagan is dead and wouldn't win the GOP nomination at present because he would not be conservative enough.

Ten takeaways from this election

1. The capacity of people to engage in self-delusion is quite amazing. Think the polls might be off is understandable, but don't be that sure of it.
2. Don't make stupid comments on rape - Mourdock and Akin learnt this to their cost.
3. Nate Silver will be listened to a great deal more in 2016, but even he can get things wrong (he miscalled two Senate races here)
4. We need to make sure that three hour polling lines don't happen next time - it probably put many people off.
5. The GOP needs to get rid of the poisonous influence of the Tea Party in a way that does not drive those voters out of the party, or it will continue to lose.
6. Scott Rasmussen's robo-polling is discredited, but the internet pollsters did very well indeed - YouGov were third closest overall.
7. Negative campaigning works, sadly.
8. Partisan gridlock is sadly likely to be the order of the day in the US for the next four years, unless Obama can do well enough to flip the House in 2014.
9. Precedents are not guarantees, although the one about incumbents and strong primary challenges held up.
10. A silly line can get around the Internet faster than you can print a newspaper.

So, that's it for this one. Now, let's hope Obama does better in the second term.

Biden vs. Ryan: The Vice-Presidential Debate

I've finally managed to watch the VP debate.

Martha Raddatz was a superb moderator, running an efficient format, promoting debate and asking the questions that many people wanted answering. She wasn't afraid to probe both candidates for further information.

Joe Biden was the clear winner. He looked Presidential, sounded Presidential and demolished Paul Ryan on a good deal of policy issues (although by no means all). If Biden were to run for President in 2016, I could see him winning - however, he'll be 74 shortly after that election and so I doubt he will do so.

As for Ryan, he looked more like a FOX News commentator than a potential President (in terms of the historical average, America is past due a death in office, although hopefully it won't happen). He needs to gain further experience and sort out his policies if he wants a chance at going for the big time in 2016 or 2020.

The polls are indicating that Biden has enthused the Democratic base and stopped the post-Debate 1 slide from Obama. Now it'll be Obama's turn to hold or boost his position - I think he will.