What happens if Hillary is indicted after the DNC?

[Senator-elect Spark]

[Santander]

We celebrate.

And the Dems parachute in Uncle Joe.

[Senator-elect Spark]

We celebrate.

And the Dems parachute in Uncle Joe.

Would be a dream come true lol

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Said it before, will say it again. Biden/Warren 2016 "what you REALLY wanted"


Also let's be honest. If she's indicted, Establishment Dems will circle the wagons and call it a "right wing conspiracy" (lel since Lynch is a Dem appointee, but logic doesn't apply to people that Dems irrationally like) and pretend it doesn't change anything.

[Minnesota Mike]

She beats Trump by 5 instead of 10.

[Senator-elect Spark]

She beats Trump by 5 instead of 10.

Lol. She still beats him from jail.

[IceSpear]

Said it before, will say it again. Biden/Warren 2016 "what you REALLY wanted"


Also let's be honest. If she's indicted, Establishment Dems will circle the wagons and call it a "right wing conspiracy" (lel since Lynch is a Dem appointee, but logic doesn't apply to people that Dems irrationally like) and pretend it doesn't change anything.

Nah, we really wanted Hillary. Proof: She won. Easily.

Biden didn't run because he knew he'd lose, and Warren didn't run because she didn't want to be president (and possibly because she knew she'd lose.)

[Minnesota Mike]

BTW there is a better chance the Obama "whitey tape" drops than Hillary gets indicted. 

Some followers of losing candidates will always be looking for the magic bullet, the scandal they are sure is out there that will bring down their despised foe.  It almost never happens.

[IceSpear]

And there's really no point in asking this. The FBI will not recommend indictment, and in the off chance they do, Lynch will stonewall it. Then if the FBI leaks they'll lose any moral authority, and it'll just become a "Republican Comey vs. Democrat Lynch" partisan squabble. All the damage that can be done based on this has already been done.

[Xing]

The Trumpsters will wake up from their wet dream.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Said it before, will say it again. Biden/Warren 2016 "what you REALLY wanted"


Also let's be honest. If she's indicted, Establishment Dems will circle the wagons and call it a "right wing conspiracy" (lel since Lynch is a Dem appointee, but logic doesn't apply to people that Dems irrationally like) and pretend it doesn't change anything.

Nah, we really wanted Hillary. Proof: She won. Easily.

Biden didn't run because he knew he'd lose, and Warren didn't run because she didn't want to be president (and possibly because she knew she'd lose.)

She won decently against a garbage fire of a campaign. Don't get too cocky.

[Santander]

Said it before, will say it again. Biden/Warren 2016 "what you REALLY wanted"


Also let's be honest. If she's indicted, Establishment Dems will circle the wagons and call it a "right wing conspiracy" (lel since Lynch is a Dem appointee, but logic doesn't apply to people that Dems irrationally like) and pretend it doesn't change anything.

Nah, we really wanted Hillary. Proof: She won. Easily.

Biden didn't run because he knew he'd lose, and Warren didn't run because she didn't want to be president (and possibly because she knew she'd lose.)

She won decently against a garbage fire of a campaign. Don't get too cocky.

A garbage fire of a campaign that dragged her to the left on virtually every issue and forced her to crawl back to her donors while she could have been campaigning.

[IceSpear]

Said it before, will say it again. Biden/Warren 2016 "what you REALLY wanted"


Also let's be honest. If she's indicted, Establishment Dems will circle the wagons and call it a "right wing conspiracy" (lel since Lynch is a Dem appointee, but logic doesn't apply to people that Dems irrationally like) and pretend it doesn't change anything.

Nah, we really wanted Hillary. Proof: She won. Easily.

Biden didn't run because he knew he'd lose, and Warren didn't run because she didn't want to be president (and possibly because she knew she'd lose.)

She won decently against a garbage fire of a campaign. Don't get too cocky.

I've been saying Hillary was the inevitable nominee since late 2014 and never strayed from that position despite the endless hype over Sanders and multiple candidates who didn't even run over the past year and a half. I've never been not cocky about this.

[DS0816]

They labor hard to make sure the nomination doesn’t go to Bernie Sanders.

It has been the corrupt Democratic Party elites’ only use thus far in 2016.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Said it before, will say it again. Biden/Warren 2016 "what you REALLY wanted"


Also let's be honest. If she's indicted, Establishment Dems will circle the wagons and call it a "right wing conspiracy" (lel since Lynch is a Dem appointee, but logic doesn't apply to people that Dems irrationally like) and pretend it doesn't change anything.

Nah, we really wanted Hillary. Proof: She won. Easily.

Biden didn't run because he knew he'd lose, and Warren didn't run because she didn't want to be president (and possibly because she knew she'd lose.)

She won decently against a garbage fire of a campaign. Don't get too cocky.

A garbage fire of a campaign that dragged her to the left on virtually every issue and forced her to crawl back to her donors while she could have been campaigning.

Yep. Imagine what would have happened if you didn't have a clown like Weaver at the helm.

Also Ice... Whatever. Suffice it to say it was much closer than you think it was.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Also, can we all just be decent human beings and take Biden at his word when he says that he didn't run because his son died?

[IceSpear]

Also Ice... Whatever. Suffice it to say it was much closer than you think it was.

These are close.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2008

This is not close.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016

A 12 point popular vote win is a landslide. It's more than Reagan won by in 1980.

Now, you can say it was much closer than it was expected to be for much of the primary cycle, which would be true. But that's a lot different from close in an absolute sense.

[IceSpear]

Also, can we all just be decent human beings and take Biden at his word when he says that he didn't run because his son died?

I am taking him at his word. I guess you missed this one.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/joe-biden-couldnt-win-2016-race/story?id=34724133

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Take a look at Presidential primaries in the modern system and find me a closer one other than '08.

Turns out Bernie had the money and energy and support to compete to the last round of voting, even after Clinton was inevitable.

That's pretty close as Presidential primaries go.

Also, can we all just be decent human beings and take Biden at his word when he says that he didn't run because his son died?

I am taking him at his word. I guess you missed this one.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/joe-biden-couldnt-win-2016-race/story?id=34724133

You're eliding that he said "if we could put the campaign together in the time after I became emotionally capable of running. But that time has passed."

[IceSpear]

Take a look at Presidential primaries in the modern system and find me a closer one other than '08.

Turns out Bernie had the money and energy and support to compete to the last round of voting, even after Clinton was inevitable.

That's pretty close as Presidential primaries go.

Also, can we all just be decent human beings and take Biden at his word when he says that he didn't run because his son died?

I am taking him at his word. I guess you missed this one.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/joe-biden-couldnt-win-2016-race/story?id=34724133

You're eliding that he said "if we could put the campaign together in the time after I became emotionally capable of running. But that time has passed."

Indeed. He did do a lot better than expected. All those predictions about him only winning Vermont or winning <5 states look very silly now. So do all the predictions about how he'd possibly win or make it a barnburner. At the end of the day, there was never a point where she was in serious danger of losing. 12 points in the popular vote is still a massive victory no matter how you slice it.

Biden is a smart guy, which was why I always knew he'd never run despite the endless hype. His previous two presidential runs were disasters, falling to scandal in 1988 and barely registering 1% in 2008 (by the way...one of his opponents then was a certain lady named Hillary Clinton.) Even after months of media lovefests toward his candidacy, giving him 100x more positive coverage than any other candidate, he was still a distant third in the polls. Once he actually declared, it would be all downhill from there.

And yeah, it was a combination of both political factors (didn't want his final act on the political stage to be getting curbstomped by Hillary) and personal factors (his son's death.) That would be obvious even if he didn't admit it was both, since he's a politician, but it was nice he confirmed it.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Said it before, will say it again. Biden/Warren 2016 "what you REALLY wanted"


Also let's be honest. If she's indicted, Establishment Dems will circle the wagons and call it a "right wing conspiracy" (lel since Lynch is a Dem appointee, but logic doesn't apply to people that Dems irrationally like) and pretend it doesn't change anything.

Nah, we really wanted Hillary. Proof: She won. Easily.

Biden didn't run because he knew he'd lose, and Warren didn't run because she didn't want to be president (and possibly because she knew she'd lose.)

Question: What would have even been the argument for Hillary over Biden to undecided democratic voters, besides "I'm a woman!". With Sanders, the argument to undecided voters was "Hillary is going to preserve Obama's legacy and be just like him. Sanders is a radical lunatic who wants to pay for rich kids college tuition, destroy corporations, take away Obamacare, etc." Obviously it would be pretty similar with Warren, but with Hillary and Biden, I feel like they'd both be running for "Obama's third term". They both have lots of experience. What are the differences between them on the issues? Yeah Biden is more willing to compromise and is "personally pro-life politically pro-choice", but I'm not really sure how their core positions on most issues differ all that much.

[IceSpear]

Said it before, will say it again. Biden/Warren 2016 "what you REALLY wanted"


Also let's be honest. If she's indicted, Establishment Dems will circle the wagons and call it a "right wing conspiracy" (lel since Lynch is a Dem appointee, but logic doesn't apply to people that Dems irrationally like) and pretend it doesn't change anything.

Nah, we really wanted Hillary. Proof: She won. Easily.

Biden didn't run because he knew he'd lose, and Warren didn't run because she didn't want to be president (and possibly because she knew she'd lose.)

Question: What would have even been the argument for Hillary over Biden to undecided democratic voters, besides "I'm a woman!". With Sanders, the argument to undecided voters was "Hillary is going to preserve Obama's legacy and be just like him. Sanders is a radical lunatic who wants to pay for rich kids college tuition, destroy corporations, take away Obamacare, etc." Obviously it would be pretty similar with Warren, but with Hillary and Biden, I feel like they'd both be running for "Obama's third term". They both have lots of experience. What are the differences between them on the issues? Yeah Biden is more willing to compromise and is "personally pro-life politically pro-choice", but I'm not really sure how their core positions on most issues differ all that much.

The question goes both ways. What would have been the argument for Biden over Hillary to undecided voters besides "I'm a man!"?

You're correct that there's not much difference ideologically. They're both fundamentally establishment center-left to liberal politicians. However, by most objective measures, Biden is to the right of her. Just compare their Senate voting records. Hillary's ties to Wall Street? Biden has them too, as well as with the credit card companies. He pushed through the bankruptcy bill. He had no real niche or rationale for his candidacy, which was exactly why he was sitting in the cool single digits until the media started hailing him as the second coming of Jesus Christ all throughout late summer and early fall. He actually would've given Sanders a shot in the arm by disproportionately drawing support from Hillary, which was likely yet another reason he decided not to run.

So yeah, in a hypothetical Clinton vs. Biden campaign, it mainly would've been stylistic, personality, and identity based differences rather than much about policy. Similar to 2008, where Hillary and Obama didn't really differ much on the issues aside from the Iraq War. In fact, I actually remember seeing multiple articles suggesting that Clinton vs. Biden would by necessity become a very toxic campaign, since they'd not have much to debate simply on policy issues and would have to resort to personal issues. It could be argued that's what happened in 08. It could also be why the Clinton v. Sanders race was relatively positive in the grand scheme of things, because they had vast disagreements on policy to debate about as opposed to personality.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

I don't think any 3 way race between Biden, Clinton, and Sanders would reasonably be described as a 'cut stomp.' Especially of Biden by Clinton. I suspect it would have given Sanders the nomination (much to the country's benefit , incidentally). But irrespective of outcome, Biden would have cut into Clinton's coalition pretty significantly if he mounted a serious campaign.

As for rationales for his not running: I guess you can say that if you want to avoid the messy topic of your candidate benefitting politically from a man's family tragedy, but he was essentially ready to run before Beau died, and then he wasn't. And I think we can all be sad about that.

[IceSpear]

I don't think any 3 way race between Biden, Clinton, and Sanders would reasonably be described as a 'cut stomp.' Especially of Biden by Clinton. I suspect it would have given Sanders the nomination (much to the country's benefit , incidentally). But irrespective of outcome, Biden would have cut into Clinton's coalition pretty significantly if he mounted a serious campaign.

As for rationales for his not running: I guess you can say that if you want to avoid the messy topic of your candidate benefitting politically from a man's family tragedy, but he was essentially ready to run before Beau died, and then he wasn't. And I think we can all be sad about that.

Meh, it's all speculation at this point, but I see him dropping out early, or perhaps after SC, once it becomes clear that Hillary's control over the "establishment" lane won't be relinquished. There clearly wasn't a huge appetite for him either among the elected officials or the voters, as the superdelegates and polls showed. I could see him throwing IA/NV to Bernie, but I don't see the race fundamentally changing if he's out before Super Tuesday.

But I take major exception with your second statement. I don't remember seeing ANYTHING serious about Biden potentially running all throughout 2015, until late summer, months after Beau died. He was doing nothing a candidate would do, and most people just implicitly assumed he wasn't running due to this. We used to have a tea leaves thread where people like Walker, O'Malley, Rubio, etc. were clearly making the rounds, hiring staff, competing in the invisible primary, etc. way before they formally entered. Biden, from what I can recall, was doing next to nothing. Where's your evidence he was laying any groundwork or showing any interest before Beau died?

His interest was likely renewed as Hillary began to falter under the endless negative media coverage and Sanders' uptick in the polls, so he saw an opening to swoop in as a savior. Keep in mind, he announced he wasn't running right after Hillary had one of her best stretches in the entire campaign. Dominating the first debate, schooling the Teabaggers for 11 hours in the Benghazi hearing, metaphorically beheading gadflies Chafee and Webb, and massively surging in the polls. I don't think that was a coincidence.

[skoods]

People always chastise Clinton supporters by saying that they're obsessed with Sanders and his supporters. But, when 90% of them keep saying that there's "no reason" besides superdelegates and a crooked system as to why Hillary was nominated, it's straight up OFFENSIVE to the millions of us that worked for her, donated to her, and voted for her.

Just because you don't like her, doesn't mean millions of us wouldn't do anything to get her elected.