US Politics

I think there was a legitimate argument to not have a primary in that time frame. It could have been messy with no time for the winner to shake off any damage done. If you don't have a primary then KH was the only realistic choice. In the game of shudda wudda then biden should have done one term. Even better, Obama should not have roasted Trump all those years ago. Or even just done a better job of turning hope into something tangible.

Biden fucked it, KH fucked it, Obama fucked it, the Dems fucked it all to the backdrop of Ukraine, Israel, COVID and the coming climate disaster. Not sure you can point to one thing.

Why then did they decide not to hold a primary this year when they had two challenging candidates demanding one?

It could be a lot of reasons but one is maybe to project party cohesion and avoid damaging the likely winner in the sitting president. They misjudged Biden as a candidate but when they were making these decisions we don't know what information they had so it could have been the best decision to re-elect the incumbent.

In 1980 there was a challenge to the incumbent. How did that work out?

It's not like this wasn't being discussed two years ago:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/07/democrats-primary-contest-biden-harris/670509/

An unpalatable candidate on the receiving end of a hatch job from within their own party? Wouldn't happen over here.

Hillary Clinton was hand in glove with the DNC in 2016

On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks released online tens of thousands of messages leaked from the e-mail accounts of seven key DNC staff.[140] Some e-mails showed two DNC staffers discussing the possibility that Sanders' possible atheism might harm him in a general election with religious voters. Others showed a few staffers had expressed personal preferences that Clinton should become the nominee, suggesting that the party's leadership had worked to undermine Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign.[140] Then-DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz called the accusations lies.[140]

The furor raised over this matter escalated to Wasserman Schultz's resignation ahead of the convention,[141] and that of Marshals, Dacey, and Communications Director Luis Miranda afterwards.[142] Following Wasserman Schultz's resignation, then-DNC Vice Chair Donna Brazile took over as interim DNC chairwoman for the convention and remained so until February 2017.[143] In November 2017, Brazile said in her book and related interviews that the Clinton campaign and the DNC had colluded 'unethically' by giving the Clinton campaign control over the DNC's personnel and press releases before the primary in return for funding to eliminate the DNC's remaining debt from 2012 campaign,[26] in addition to using the DNC and state committees to funnel campaign-limitation-exceeding donations to her campaign.[144] Internal memos later surfaced, claiming that these measures were not meant to affect the nominating process despite their timing.[145] At the end of June 2016, it was claimed that "more money [from the Hillary Victory Fund] will be moved to the state parties in the coming months."[146] Brazile later clarified that she claimed the process was 'unethical', but 'not a criminal act'.[16][147]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries

You are correct that there was a legitimate argument not to have one, as well as an argument to have one - these things are never completely black and white.

And the fact that they went for the controlling, top-down option illustrates that that is the type of people they are. In the same way they kept telling voters that the election was about the first woman president, preserving democracy (ironically!) and whatever else, when voters kept telling them it was about the economy and inflation.

They are just non-democratic people who think they know best and don't listen.

I deleted my references to UK parallels as I didn't want to derail the thread!
But certainly the right wing of the Labour party are the soulmates of the Democrats.

I'm not saying it was the right decision, just trying to answer the question and pushing back on the 1980 comparison.

The decisions at the time weren't as terrible as they seem now (even if they were terrible). Trying to remember back, I think I was surprised that biden was running again and I thought it a bad idea, but I wasn't saying it would usher in another trump term.

I think once the decision was made that biden was standing, something the party couldn't stop if biden wanted to (as I understand it) then the decision not to have a primary is understandable, esp if you think the process may harm the chances of the candidate winning the election.

In hindsight the opposite happened because biden had to drop out.

And the fact that they went for the controlling, top-down option illustrates that that is the type of people they are.

Does it or was it situational? I'm not sure of the answer. The situation was that a weak incumbent wanted to stand and the party was powerless to stop him entering a primary. As an incumbent who has already beaten the likely opponent it would be hard to see him losing the primary. His weaknesses would be really exposed in the primary, causing problems in the election therefore you avoid the problems and skip the primary.

It's a pretty unique position they found themselves in.

Soulmate but culturally miles apart. There is a wonderful essay to be written about how different the US "left" is from the UK "left"

Has anyone seen a projection on the least amount of votes that needed to go from trump to Harris to win the EC? Counting has not finished yet so I'm not even sure if it'd be possible yet.

I think in the order of 600k, but that is perfect redistribution in the swing states, which would never happen

hard to see him losing the primary

He would have been utterly shredded by Kennedy, and anyone else for that matter, in a primary debate. And they really did not want Kennedy as their candidate.

The reason they didn't have a primary is because Biden would have lost.

Back in 1992 when I was running numbers for Ross Perot we had quite a few disaffected Labour party volunteers come over to help. As the only 'limey' on the team it was up to me to take them under my wing. I soon realised that ideology was only part of the attraction. Some simply wanted to meet Jonny Cash or Kirstie Alley or Steve Martin or Merle Haggard or Willie Nelson or Kris Kristofferson who had all recently endorsed Perot. (I had to explain to Ross who some of these people were since his taste in music was heavily skewed to Death Metal). Some had him confused with Ross from Friends. The point is the differences between British and US politics run much deeper than some ex-Militant wannabe pronouncing your candidate's name to rhyme with parrot. We'd be driving the battle bus down a rural road in Ohio and the driver would be told by one of the UK aids to take the next left and Ross would insist we go right and then the bus would simply plow straight ahead through a corn field. As a metaphor it could hardly be bettered.

https://youtu.be/DfYV_iemp5Y?si=9jpIvL1JEXo-TwyD

Ross from Friends has had quite the journey.

I think he would have limped through greatly damaged. I see Kennedy as a fringe candidate who can do damage but not win a primary or an election. If you have evidence otherwise let me know.

Just saw this on twitter: 120k

https://x.com/MacaesBruno/status/1854848340233453586?t=CiNjckm3bvT4YX_XSWoPiQ&s=19

Nothing will ever beat the 3,000 contested votes in Florida that would’ve decided the 2000 election.

No-one can prove Kennedy would have developed enough momentum from shredding Biden in a debate to turn the primary, but the whole point of the primary system is to test candidates out so you select the best one.

If you need to shield your guy because you know he would be shown up badly in a contest, then you have basically abandoned democratic ideals and fixed the process.

I think Kennedy would have shredded trump too, if there has been a three way debate after he went as an independent. But the republicans and Democrats together made sure that was never going to happen.

closer than i thought

Fun story!

Even though it is sometimes tempting, I try to avoid making sweeping statements about US / UK parallels as, while I know a bit about the UK end from having been active in the labour party for a few years, I don't have any first hand knowledge of the US.
I welcome insights from people who do have first hand experience of both, though!

This confused me. And made me want to buy a rubix cube (my daughter has one but won't let anyone change its current state).

This could be right, but people said Trump could never win the candidacy in 2015, never win the election in 2016, and the same again this time round.

Having said all that, I personally would have no enthusiasm for RFK as president.

Really insightful first hand knowledge.

If that is the standard, I guess we can all stop posting. There is no way to answer the question of whether RFK would or would not have been successful in a Democratic primary. It is an opinion either way. I guess my point is that a lot of opinions turn out to be wrong.