Are Bernie and Hillary not doing it for you? Well, a new poll shows that if Joe Biden chooses to enter the presidential race, he’ll start out as a favorite.
According to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 40 percent of Americans have a positive impression of Biden. …That’s compared to fellow Democrats Bernie Sanders (+10) and Hillary Clinton (-8), and to top-tier GOP candidates Ben Carson (+8), Carly Fiorina (+7) and Donald Trump (-33). Part of Biden’s current popularity is almost certainly attributable to the fact that he’s not officially in the 2016 race. Most of the media coverage of the vice president’s potential run has centered around his decision-making about a campaign and the outpouring of sympathy for his family after the tragic death of his son, Beau.
Not exactly surprising news, but couldn’t we use a little new campaign blood?
Team Blackness also discussed Yelp for people, Pornhub’s new findings, and a guy who tries to stop a carjacking with a gun with horrible results.
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Hawes
Hillary’s numbers were through the roof when she declared. And then they waned. Same would happen for Diamond Joe, and he knows it. He’s been chewed up in two previous Presidential Campaigns. He knows what it takes and he has said he doesn’t have the stomach for it right now. Is that likely to change with cooler weather? Maybe.
Political popularity lasts only as long as you aren’t running for office.
japa21
Favorability numbers have nothing to do with votes. People like Joe. Doesn’t mean they will vote for him. All actual polls including him have him far behind. That would change some when and if he announces, but this particular item is pretty much irrelevant.
Betty Cracker
I like Joe, but I hope he stays out. There’s a reason he flamed out in two prior attempts, and I’m afraid all his entry would do now is fuel even more “Dems in disarray!” media stories and make it more likely that some Republican choad will take the White House. It’s not like Biden offers anything policy-wise that isn’t already represented among our current crop.
Tom W.
You know what, screw Biden.
Yeah, I admire the man’s career somewhat and feel sorry for his loss – that’s brutal. But ….
– I feel nothing but loathing for his “friends and allies” pushing poor broken older man into this. They’re the lowest.
– Bernie isn’t good enough, so Biden has to save the day. Progressive will love that.
– Hillary isn’t good enough, so Biden has to save the day. Women and liberals will love that.
– Biden has a more conservative record than either of the two major candidates.
– No one seems to be holding back too many endorsements for Joe Biden.
– He’s not exactly a brilliant campaigner.
– Sanders and Clinton just raised $53M this quarter and each has between $25 and $32M cash in hand (plus HRC’s super PAC dough). Who really believes it’ll be easy to crack that donor wall? I don’t.
– Sanders and Clinton have taken the hits, done their policy positions, and battled both the media and Republicans for six solid months. Now they need a savior? Noooo. All wrong on so many levels.
Yatsuno
@Betty Cracker: I absolutely respect the job Joe Biden has done as Vice President. Hell I’d make him a permanent one if I could. But it’s gonna take a lot more to get ahead in this day and age and jumping in now will just fuel the Hillary can’t win stories over and over beyond what we’re hearing now. I think he sits out.
SatanicPanic
Joe came in what, 5th place in 2008? Or was it 6th?
JohnnyHitNRunPraline
Agree with Hawes. With apologies for the sports analogy, Biden is the backup quarterback — if the starter isn’t a Hall of Famer, there’s always a certain segment of fans who want to see the backup in the game.
bystander
@Betty Cracker: I want to tell him to stay home and enjoy his family. Or start a foundation for something he cares about and run their golf tournaments. Or become a fatcat professional corporate director of 8 megacorporations and fund his great grandchildren’s education trusts. But please do not make us listen to umpteen reiterations of the time you plagiarized 25 years ago or about how superannuated you are, because believe me, they’ll make Hillary’s filekeeping SCANDAHL and Howard Dean’s shriek outrage look reasonable.
Jade
Really? Has everyone forgotten that Joe Biden could have kept Clarence Thomas off the bench by voting not to let him out of the Judiciary committee. I will not vote for Biden under any circumstances.
I don’t think he is running. The press is using him as a diversion so they won’t have to talk about Bernie Sanders.
Capri
The only reason Joe is flirting with running is so the Dems do some newsworthy stuff that gets a little air time. He’s there to remind the media that there is a Democratic primary too. IMHO, no way on earth he actually runs.
cmorenc
“Pornhub’s new findings”? It should hardly be surprising that porn sites are engaging in data-mining and scientific market research, but it’s rather interesting what conclusions they’ve extracted from their data and research, such as which fetishes catch the most clicks.
srv
To most people, Biden is like that Monty Python member whose name you can never remember.
IDK what Dems are going to do as Hillary flames out. The bench is so shallow.
Patricia Kayden
Any of the three (Biden, Clinton, Sanders) are infinitely better than any of the Clown Car so shrugs. Our side just needs to come out and vote next November and make sure we put another Democratic President into the White House. I wish Biden would just make a decision so the media can stop with all this useless speculation.
Bodacious
I’m sorry, but I can’t stomach the thought of 24/7 media blitz the repubs throw out of creepy-old-uncle-Joe goosing all the females on Congress swearing in ceremonies. It can be endearing to a level, but mostly cringe worthy in a Presidential candidate. Think of Bush giving Merkel a shoulder rub. Yuck!
Cervantes
@SatanicPanic:
In Iowa? He came in fifth, said it was his last presidential campaign, and also said he would not consider being vice president because he’d have more influence staying on as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
benw
SANDERS/BIDEN 2016 – the greatest Veep of all time!
Bobby Thomson
Seventeen percent ain’t a favorite.
Cervantes
@srv:
It’s a quandary. Maybe they’ll nominate Bush. It’s not as if the Republicans are going to.
ruemara
@Patricia Kayden: nailed it in one. Of course, we’re terrible at doing it.
eemom
I think he’s in if Hilz tanks. I’d go so far as to say we NEED him to be in if Hilz tanks….but I guess it then becomes a question of timing. At what point is she so damaged that him coming in saves the day?
My $.02, anyway.
Snarkworth
I’d love some new campaign blood (yum!), but Biden’s not new. I could get behind someone like O’Malley, if he were a real person and not some sort of disembodied phantom.
JimV
Minor complaint: I didn’t understand “40 percent of Americans have a positive impression of Biden. …That’s compared to fellow Democrats Bernie Sanders (+10)” until I went to the poll link. Had it read “Biden (+12) compared to Sanders (+10)” I wouldn’t have needed to figure it out for myself, thus reserving about 50 seconds of my life for something more interesting.
I like Uncle Joe myself, but would rather vote for Sanders or Clinton (especially Sanders, although that might not be productive). As usual, a non-specific poll doesn’t convey much useful information.
Patricia Kayden
@Cervantes: Boom! I felt that slam.
Frankensteinbeck
Dear goat, the national media is desperate for Democrats to also be in disarray.
Bobby Thomson
@srv: as compared to a shallow frontrunner?
Hal
But Hillary isn’t flaming out. She’s is by far the most well known quantity in this presidential race, and I mean that as someone who ran before, and almost made, not to mention someone who has been known to the American public for decades. I would expect the Hillary is not going to run away with the race and someone like Sanders or even Biden can make leeway in this race right up to the start of the primaries. My expectation at that point is Hillary will probably dominate even if she loses a contest or two and end up the nomination.
Elizabelle
This is all about taking Hillary out, and not “Biden love.” Agree with Betty Cracker — it’s news media owners and other plutocrats/kleptocrats angling for a weaker Democratic candidate.
It’s coarse.
I like Joe personally, but he is not the one to take on big banks or big anything. Bernie’s message is resonating, it’s about time someone with a megaphone points the blame where it belongs. Krugman does his best, as do many others.
Meanwhile, any Republican with a pulse gets the “this could be a good candidate, and here’s why” approach.
Bobby Thomson
@Patricia Kayden: a little misdirected, though.
catclub
@benw:
160 years of experience.
HRA
I guess that VP Biden is waiting to see how HRC deals with the 10/22 date of testifying before Congress.
Elizabelle
@HRA: And we know how well Congress handles its interrogations of women in its crosshairs.
See Cecile Richards.
I hope a lot of that footage shows up in campaign ads in 2016. It was astonishing.
Gin & Tonic
@cmorenc: Last week’s Economist has a pair of lengthy articles on the pr0n business. Turns out that most people want fairly vanilla material. Also turns out that “free” is a price point that’s hard to compete with and remain profitable.
Oatler.
I have no use for Drug Warrior scum like Biden. BTW one drug is legal as of today in my state of OR…sort of, as long as you don’t live in a red county, which is most of them.
Dmbeaster
@srv: Unlike the GOP bench which is allegedly so deep, but has no starters.
Roger Moore
@JohnnyHitNRunPraline:
Even if the starter is a HOFer, there’s a segment who want to see the backup. People have a bit more patience with a HOFer, but after one or two bad games, there will still be pressure to bring in the other guy.
scav
@Dmbeaster: GOP bench is deep because they sure keep digging.
Applejinx
Pretty sure I’d rather vote for Hillary than Biden, though I’d much rather vote for Sanders. I realize I come off very anti-Hillary, but Bernie first got involved with the fixed intention of spinning Hil to the left by presenting evidence of a new zeitgeist to be ‘triangulated’ toward.
Mission fucking accomplished, if she has half a brain.
Now the idea is, why settle for someone you have to steer when you can go for someone who isn’t lying and who means every bit of it? That’s an even more powerful message and the time’s right for it.
Feels to me like running Biden even MORE than Hil is saying ‘I don’t care what happens so long as I can stick a Democrat stamp on the White House’. At least Hillary is hungry for accomplishment, you only have to redefine what accomplishment means to her. I’m not sure how you get Biden not to be a police state hawk, and I’m not sure what else he even cares about.
Hillary by definition has SOME purposes and goals, and Bernie’s whole deal is about purposes and goals. I don’t want Biden if this late in the game I don’t know anything about his lefty agenda.
MomSense
I hope Biden does run for a lot of reasons.
Will vote for the Democratic nominee even if I have to run over hot coals while being chased by a bear who is being chased by a trigger happy hunter.
Republican candidates are terrifyingly stupid and awful.
shell
Hillary at -8? I find that a tad hard to believe.
Jeffro
@HRA: I think her campaign’s lookin’ a whole lot better today, and so does that upcoming Congressional testimony…the Benghazi committee has been exposed for what it is, and by soon-to-be Speaker McCarthy, no less.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/erick-erickson-kevin-mccarthy-benghazi
LOVE
IT
the Conster
OT: another mass shooting in Oregon – twitter says 15 dead. FUCK THE NRA!!!
C.V. Danes
@cmorenc: Ah ha! So that’s why leather products have been showing up in my google searches!
Jeffro
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/amash-benghazi-mccarthy-house-speaker
Shorter House GOP member: “McCarthy, you dingus, we had a good thing going here!!! Jerk!”
zmulls
I’m starting to look forward to HRC testifying before the BENGHAZI! committee on 10/22. The timing is pretty perfect for her to show up and lay into them.
Also, I wish everyone would track down a copy of WHAT IT TAKES by Richard Ben Cramer and read the Joe Biden chapters — at *least* the chapter that talks about his alleged plagiarism of the Neil Kinnock speech. What was a minor slip of the tongue has become perceived a career-defining gaffe, like Gore’s “inventing the internet.” Richard Ben Cramer commits some serious journalism and does an almost hour by hour readback of that incident.
C.V. Danes
@the Conster: Sadly, does this even rate as newsworthy any more?
Peale
@Roger Moore: Problem is that none of the backup dems are replacement materials. Biden is the guy you turn to because he’s been on the bench so long that he knows the system, but he’s been given two chances to win the starting job and the coaches never selected him. Maybe you like him, but he’s the 36 year old backup. Chafee is the guy you remember used to play for your arch-rivals. Webb is the guy who missed training camp because of a contract dispute and hasn’t been heard from much since. He wanted to be traded and you wonder why he wasn’t. O’Malley is the 2nd round draft pick who could be the next Aaron Rogers or not but since he was 6-5 his senior year in college, we’re not quite certain what the scouts saw.
rikyrah
Please enter Joe.
You’re the only one to actually stand up for President Obama’s record.
rikyrah
UI Health validates cure for sickle cell in adults
Sharon Parmet
September 16, 2015
Physicians at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System have cured 12 adult patients of sickle cell disease using a unique procedure for stem cell transplantation from healthy, tissue-matched siblings.
The transplants were the first to be performed outside of the National Institutes of Health campus in Maryland, where the procedure was developed. Physicians there have treated 30 patients, with an 87 percent success rate. The results of the phase I/II clinical trial at UI Health, in which 92 percent of treated patients were cured, are published online in the journal Biology of Blood & Marrow Transplantation.
The new technique eliminates the need for chemotherapy to prepare the patient to receive the transplanted cells and offers the prospect of cure for tens of thousands of adults suffering from sickle cell disease.
– See more at: http://news.uic.edu/ui-health-validates-cure-for-sickle-cell-in-adults#sthash.Y81hpFDu.dpuf
Cervantes
@zmulls:
You’re right. Our valiant political press at work.
Matt McIrvin
I wouldn’t mind it if Biden got in, but I do wish he’d either get in or declare that he’s out (barring catastrophe).
And he’d be my third choice for the nomination, behind Clinton and Sanders in some order yet to be determined. Way ahead of all the other guys, though.
The Other Bob
If Joe were to get in, his biggest problem would be a three-way race between two males, including him, against a female candidate. If he could get past that issue (potentially by Sanders dropping out) , he could win the primary and he becomes the next President.
Frankly, I don’t see Hillary Clinton ever standing for…anything. In a general election, I cannot even see her properly standing up against the blatant racism of the Republicans. Joe on the other hand would verbally hand them their ass and really make the campaign a good discussion of morals, or the lack of morals in the Republican party.
shell
That sounds amazing.
Omnes Omnibus
@rikyrah: If you think that HRC isn’t running on a theme of continuing what Obama started, you aren’t paying attention. Will she talk about some differences with him? Yes, but any candidate would do that.
Matt McIrvin
At any rate, at least Clinton’s position vs. the Republican candidates in the head-to-head polls has stopped eroding and in fact bounced back a bit. Trump is no longer winning. Ben Carson is polling as beating her, oddly, but the polling on that question is sparse and weird things happen in those situations.
Keith G
@eemom: You are exactly right and this is what this whole little dance is all about. Biden and his people need to keep his name near the top of several lists in order for it to be an easier transition should Hillary Clinton not be able to take the next steps toward becoming the nominee of the Democratic Party.
I think Clinton will be ok, but she might not be and in that case it’s good to know that Joe Biden is an alternative choice.
Percysowner
@Jade:
I remember. I also remember that as a Senator he voted for the Hyde Amendment and against poor women having access to abortion and he voted to outlaw partial birth abortion. He sponsored the Bankruptcy Bill that was a pure give away to creditors and hurt debtors. If he were the Democratic nominee, I would vote for him because even with all that baggage, he’s miles better than any of the Republicans, but I won’t be happy about it. Hillary has her issues, but she has far less of them than Biden for me.
scav
failed test, scusi.
sharl
test on dead thread…
0x0430
tag/attribute ‘s’