Osodecentx so said:
whiterock said:
Is it your opinion that the RFK independent candidacy hurts Biden more than Trump. That feels right to me.
What about the addition of a No Names candidate, along with Cornell West? Do you have any opinion based on polling?
My first assumption to test would be that RFK hurts Biden more than Trump. Biden and JFK are from the same political tradition, have relationships in the same kinds of places. So it's presumptively divisive of the same coalition. RFK has that one special thing that neither of the two major candidates have - likeability - so he will get a good hard look in the middle. People (including me) will like his commitment to classical liberalism (free speech) but his policy positions are not just left of center but in some cases hard left. That will limit his appeal in the center. Finally, there is the "hard floor" I've mentioned. Trump has a very, very hard floor. Biden does not.
From there....every poll I've seen shows RFK hurting Biden more, some barely so, some by a lot (meaning outside the margin of error). I also
heard a news report last week that Trump was gearing up to attack RFK because internal Trump polling showed that RFK was stealing Trump voters. Now, those two statements are not necessarily at odds. Both could be true....RFK stealing Trump votes, but stealing MORE Biden votes. Either way, it's net-loss Biden. And that makes sense. Biden admin is presiding over an unmitigated disaster across the range of policy issues.
West seems destined to run. He will pull a point or three at best, but that could be a difference maker in a swing state (like it was in 2016). Others may run. Not likely to have any more impact than West. West may have as much harm on Trump as Biden...drawing off some of the growing number of black male voters disaffected with Democrats, but the numbers are so small it's not likely to matter as much as RFK.
Those here who insist Trump cannot win are mostly running with their gut. And they're smart, experienced people, so that's not worthless. What they're overlooking is the dynamic we're discussing. This is an unprecedented scenario shaping up before us. We have TWO highly unpopular men likely to be nominated by the two major parties. No chance of an aspirational campaign like 2008 Obama. We will also have two or more independent candidates, at least one of whom will likely draw double digit support. That fundamentally changes the dynamics. In such a scenario, the guy with the highest floor is in an inherent position of advantage. (That would be Trump.....)
And there's one more factor, too. Conservatives have always been a plurality of voters (low-40's). Yet, durable over time, the moderates tend to enter into coalition with liberals to deny conservative rule. There are exceptions. Reagan, primarily. But we see that dynamic at play right now in the Speaker race. We see that dynamic in the statehouse in Austin. The system tends to balance out the plurality opinion. That explains a lot of the unrest on the political right. It explains (partially) Trumpism. But at some point, the moderate/liberal coalition will fall. And the best template for that to happen is what we see shaping up.....the plurality opinion led by Trump (who not coincidentally seems to have a cast-iron floor of 42%), winning due to a fracturing of the liberal-moderate coalition.
There are, of course, a lot of layers to that onion. But in the main, like it or not, that's what appears to be shaping up to happen.