[1]: https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/11/biden-single-term-0...
It’s definitely one of those thing that make people like me, who want good faith honesty in politics angry, because “he didn’t actually say it” politics is why gotcha politics exists.
Everyone expected him to drop out earlier, but I think the reason he stayed in as long as he did was to take all the bullets for Kamala until he felt confident all the other potential challengers would get behind her.
What he didn't want to do was drop out early, let Kamala get battered and bloodied by her own party nomination process, win the nomination, then lose to Trump just because she'd been dragged through the mud in the media for months.
The more simple explanation, in my opinion, is that Biden is exactly what some had thought for over a year now - a person getting older and starting to run into cognitive and physical decline. I've watched multiple family members go through this, and the picture of a person in the middle of decline lying to themselves about their new reality and stubbornly refusing to accept it fits perfectly well.
"Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else," Biden said. "There's an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country."
(To clarify my political position, i'm pro-Democrat and think Biden wasn't a bad president, though i think he completely dropped the ball on the foreign policy - while Ukraine and Israel are more prominent, they cause multipage flamewars, so instead i'd point to Houthis where i think majority can agree with me that what Houtis do in Red Sea is just plain war crimes (intentional attacks on civilian shipping) and that should have been immediately nipped in the bud by the overwhelming US and allies' force in the region - if anything, protection of civilian shipping is one of the most legitimate major uses of the Navy, and i'd say it is a direct duty of the president to put it to such a use when the need arises)
As I understand it this was the position of the US Founders as well (and it is also mine).
There was a whole primary with like 12 other candidates and Biden won though. Bernie, Warren, Andrew Yang all had their shot, some did pretty well, but ultimately the democratic base voted for Biden
Does no one remember what actually happened?
All the other candidates except Warren made back room deals and dropped out around Iowa, suddenly and for no reason. Leaving Biden as the obvious selection, and Warren there to siphon off Bernie support to make sure he wouldn’t be a problem.
The base voted for Biden after they had no choice.
Biden keeps saying democracy is at stake but the DNC seems to keep avoid any democratic process to find their candidate.
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilding_v._DNC_Services_Corp.
People like to imagine that the Parties are these kind of quasi-public entities that exist to serve the American people. They’re not. They’re private entities that are vehicles for the acquisition of power across local, State and Federal offices that are in a perpetual term-based competition with each other. We tolerate their campaigns because their battlefield is the ballot box instead of actual fields, but nominee selection still happens at conventions run by the parties themselves.
The Primary system you are familiar with is one that the Republicans and Democrats chose for themselves to inform their overall decisions on who to put forward as the candidate flying under their banner and has only been around since 1972.
https://www.newsweek.com/msnbc-host-chris-matthews-ties-bern...
The associated press wouldn't even call a winner for the Iowa caucus due to how poorly it was run https://apnews.com/article/fc6777e93b8c50b2fd20e0d31fcc43b3
There were definitely some interesting things going on in the 2020 Democratic primaries.
They quit because they got their faces ripped off in a fair fight, not because of some backroom party shenanigans.
Harris being immediately endorsed by basically all of the alternative candidates (Newsom, Whitmer, etc.) shows that her campaign has its shit together, and moving through the nomination process without conflict leaves fewer weaknesses for the opposition to take advantage of.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/09/politics/joe-biden-bridge...
He did not really do this.