Joe Biden credibly accused of sexual misconduct

TRIGGER WARNING: This blog post contains a written description of an act of sexual misconduct. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

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In an article for The Cut, former Nevada Assemblywoman Lucy Flores, who served two terms in the lower house of the Nevada Legislature from 2011 to 2015, accused former Vice President Joe Biden, who is considering whether or not to run for president, of sexual misconduct in 2014, while Biden was Vice President and while Flores was a Nevada Assemblywoman running for Lieutenant Governor of Nevada:

I found my way to the holding room for the speakers, where everyone was chatting, taking photos, and getting ready to speak to the hundreds of voters in the audience. Just before the speeches, we were ushered to the side of the stage where we were lined up by order of introduction. As I was taking deep breaths and preparing myself to make my case to the crowd, I felt two hands on my shoulders. I froze. “Why is the vice-president of the United States touching me?”

I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified. I thought to myself, “I didn’t wash my hair today and the vice-president of the United States is smelling it. And also, what in the actual fuck? Why is the vice-president of the United States smelling my hair?” He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head. My brain couldn’t process what was happening. I was embarrassed. I was shocked. I was confused. There is a Spanish saying, “tragame tierra,” it means, “earth, swallow me whole.” I couldn’t move and I couldn’t say anything. I wanted nothing more than to get Biden away from me. My name was called and I was never happier to get on stage in front of an audience.

By then, as a young Latina in politics, I had gotten used to feeling like an outsider in rooms dominated by white men. But I had never experienced anything so blatantly inappropriate and unnerving before. Biden was the second-most powerful man in the country and, arguably, one of the most powerful men in the world. He was there to promote me as the right person for the lieutenant governor job. Instead, he made me feel uneasy, gross, and confused. The vice-president of the United States of America had just touched me in an intimate way reserved for close friends, family, or romantic partners — and I felt powerless to do anything about it.

Source

I believe Lucy Flores.

Here’s the one sentence version of what Flores has accused Biden of: Joe Biden kissed Lucy Flores without her consent. That is sexual misconduct, period.

I would not normally recommend one way or another as to whether someone should run for public office, but I strongly recommend that Joe Biden not seek the Democratic nomination for president, as, if the Democratic Party were to nominate someone credibly accused of sexual misconduct for president, that would all but guarantee Donald Trump a second term in the White House, and that is something that this country simply cannot afford.

Joe Biden/Stacey Abrams 2020? Biden Advisers are debating a Biden/Abrams ticket

Only twice in the post-1968 era of major-party presidential nomination races has a candidate seeking a major political party’s nomination for president picked a vice-presidential running mate before becoming either the nominee or presumptive nominee. Both instances involved Republican campaigns, and none of the presidential or vice-presidential candidates in question were nominated:

• In 1976, at that year’s Republican National Convention, Ronald Reagan picked Richard Schweiker as his running mate in an attempt to prevent Gerald Ford from winning the GOP presidential nomination. Ford won the GOP presidential nomination, and Republicans selected Bob Dole to be Ford’s running-mate.
• In 2016, in an attempt to keep a flailing presidential bid afloat late in the Republican presidential nomination race, Ted Cruz picked Carly Fiorina as his running mate. Donald Trump won the GOP presidential nomination and picked Mike Pence as his running-mate.

However, Axios’s Mike Allen is reporting that political advisers who are close to former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden are reportedly debating whether Biden should announce that Former Georgia House of Representatives Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, who narrowly lost last year’s Georgia gubernatorial election and delivered the English-language response to the State of the Union address earlier this year, will be his running mate at the same time Biden launches his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination:

Close advisers to former Vice President Joe Biden are debating the idea of packaging his presidential campaign announcement with a pledge to choose Stacey Abrams as his vice president.

Why it matters: The popular Georgia Democrat, who at age 45 is 31 years younger than Biden, would bring diversity and excitement to the ticket — showing voters, in the words of a close source, that Biden “isn’t just another old white guy.”

Source

If Abrams were to be nominated and elected vice president, she would become the first woman to hold one of the two highest executive branch offices in the country, the highest-ranking elected woman in U.S. history, the first woman of color to hold one of the two highest executive branch offices in the country, the highest-ranking elected woman of color in U.S. history, and the first person of color to hold the office of Vice President. Also, there is no prior precedent that I know of for a high-profile candidate for a major-party presidential nomination picking a running mate very early on in the primary/caucus campaign.

I’m still undecided on who to support for the Democratic nomination for president next year, although I can understand the pros and cons of a candidate for a major political party’s nomination picking a running-mate very early on in the race for the nomination. The biggest advantage of running as a joint ticket is that voters will know when they go to vote in a primary or participate in a caucus who will be the vice-presidential nominee if the presidential candidate is nominated, but there are many disadvantages to picking a running-mate early on or right out of the gate. First off, picking a vice-presidential running mate at the same time or not long after launching a presidential bid would possibly be seen as a sign of the presidential candidate’s political weakness. Secondly, picking a vice-presidential running mate at the same time or not long after launching a presidential bid could be seen as an attempt by the presidential candidate to win the nomination before any votes are cast. Third, such a move could lead to a potentially embarrassing debate moment, as a debate moderator could ask why none of the other candidates in a very large field of candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination would be an acceptable running mate.

If Biden intends to pick a running-mate as he launches his campaign for the Democratic nomination, that would be the ultimate all-or-nothing gamble, to put it mildly.

How replacing the Electoral College with national popular vote would empower rural America

A prevailing argument by political supporters of the Electoral College system that is currently used for electing the President and Vice President of the United States is that replacing the Electoral College with some form of a national popular vote system for electing the President and the Vice President would make states with relatively little population, like Wyoming and Idaho, politically irrelevant, as well as make rural areas of the United States politically irrelevant.

In reality, the Electoral College does rural America a disservice.

The first thing one has to remember is that, due to the strong two-party system in this country, a high degree of political polarization, and most areas of the country being considerably more favorable to one of the major political parties than the rest of the country, there are entire states that are typically written off by the political media and the major political parties themselves as strongly favoring either the Democratic Party (examples including Massachusetts, New York, and California) or the Republican Party (examples including Wyoming, West Virginia, and Idaho) in presidential general elections. A lot of rural states are considered Republican strongholds in presidential elections, so, as a result, neither major party’s presidential nominee tends to actively campaign in those states. The major-party presidential nominees will focus most of their attention on the state(s) that they believe could provide the 270th electoral vote that is needed to win the presidency, as a minimum of 270 electoral votes are currently needed to win the presidency outright (if no presidential candidate receives at least 270 electoral votes, state delegations of the U.S. House would elect the President, and, if no vice-presidential candidate receives at least 270 electoral votes, the U.S. Senate would elect the Vice President).

If there was a national popular vote election for President and Vice President, there would be a ton of incentive for presidential candidates to visit areas of the country that tend to not strongly favor either major political party and/or have a higher than average share voters who are not strongly partisan. For the most part, these are not large urban centers, but instead suburban areas, many small-to-medium-sized cities, and some rural areas of the Upper Midwest. A common argument that Electoral College defenders will use is that, if the national popular vote decided the presidency, presidential campaigns would ignore rural areas in favor of large urban centers. That would be a completely foolish strategy, since most of the large urban centers in the United States are considerably more Democratic than the country as a whole. There would be considerably more incentive for major-party presidential candidates to visit places like Decorah, Iowa, Terre Haute, Indiana, and Fargo, North Dakota than places like New York or Los Angeles if the national popular vote decided the presidency, since those places tend to be relatively close to the political center of the country from a partisan preference standpoint.

Because of how many electoral votes each state currently has, it is possible for a presidential candidate to win the 11 most populous states in the country and win the presidency with the electoral votes of those states alone, if need be. The states in question are California (55 electoral votes), Texas (38), Florida (29), New York (29), Illinois (20), Pennsylvania (20), Ohio (18), Georgia (16), Michigan (16), North Carolina (15), and New Jersey (14), with a combined 270 electoral votes, exactly the minimum needed to win the presidency. While a few of the states (California, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey) are all Democratic strongholds in presidential elections, none of the 11 most populous states are Republican strongholds. The most Republican states of those eleven are Texas, Ohio, and Georgia, and Donald Trump barely got a majority of the vote in each of those three states in 2016. It would not be unthinkable for the Democratic presidential nominee in 2020 to win all 11 of the most populous states in the country in 2020, possibly with less than a majority of the national popular vote, and that would make a major flaw of the Electoral College system, that it usually benefits more populous states that do not strongly favor either major political party over less populous states regardless of their typical partisan leanings, very obvious.

Because of partisan political trends in this country, if the President and the Vice President were elected by the national popular vote as opposed to the Electoral College system that currently elects the President and the Vice President, rural America would actually be more empowered by a national popular vote system than by the Electoral College.