Joe Biden is rolling the dice and striking out on his own on the campaign trail, keeping his distance from the other Democratic presidential candidates.
Biden appeared at the Human Rights Campaign’s Columbus Dinner Saturday, Cleveland.com said. The gala was at Ohio State University’s Archie Griffin Ballroom.
The HRC is the nation’s largest LGBTQ rights organization.
In visiting Ohio Saturday, the former vice president, who is the front-runner in his party’s primary race, showed he is not afraid of missing out by not attending the same events as his plethora of competitors, WGME said. Instead, he is focusing on a November 2020 competition against President Donald Trump, as if his primary challengers are not an issue.
Also, Biden plans to avoid an Iowa state party dinner that will draw rivals next weekend, although he will visit Iowa two days later, WGME said. And, he will miss a South Carolina economic forum on the black community, although he will attend the state party convention the next weekend.
Fourteen of the 23 other Democratic presidential hopefuls attended the California Democratic Convention in San Francisco that Biden skipped. The stakes are big as California has 400 delegates for the national convention up for grabs, or around a fifth of the number needed to clinch the nomination.
Candidate U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) used the California appearance to take a jab at the absent Biden and to call for impeachment proceedings against Trump, The Columbus Dispatch said.
“Some say if we all just calm down, the Republicans will come to their senses,” Warren said in a thinly veiled shot at former Vice President Joe Biden, who has expressed hope the GOP will have “an epiphany” after President Donald Trump is gone. “But our country is in a crisis. The time for small ideas is over.”
Other candidates at the California event included: Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA); former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX); New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ); Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY); Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI); South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA-15); Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN); former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper; Washington Gov. Jay Inslee; former Obama housing chief Julian Castro; and former Rep. John Delaney (D-MD).
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Jason M. Reynolds has more than 20 years’ experience as a journalist at outlets of all sizes.
Photo “Joe Biden” by Joe Biden.
Any of the vote-splitting democratic candidates can win the nomination by proposing a single simple solution to bring in democracy with proposals that keep repulsive name-recognition candidates with high negatives from winning nomination with their 15% of the vote (minimum needed to get a single delegate) when the crowded field splits the 85% of the vote opposed to the front-runner’s agenda. It’s the same “ranked preferential voting” as proposed in Canada, U.K.’, and used in many American local governments, and Australia with with one election and runoff but voters’ ballots rank their choices from 1st choice to last. This would eliminate Biden via simulated runoffs where his 15% ceiling would lose to the “anyone but Biden” votes as they consolidate. People vote for policy, like war vs. peace. But we get wars because peace candidates split their vote 8 ways and the 15% pro-genocide plurality wins with 15% of the vote. That’s how Der Fuhrer won in 1931 despite most Germans having regarded him as a clown, and it’s just like our “democracy” is structured that got us Trump and HRC with their highest negatives. Instead of Tom Steyer spending billions on his campaign to impeach the President to shorten Trump’s term by a few months, all any billionaire needs is to start a campaign to change the party primary system to choose government policies over name-recognition candidates who repel most voters. How can you say our current nomination structure is “democracy” when flipping a coin would yield an outcome reflecting greater voter control over government than our current nominating process? Any billionaires out there? Instead of blaming Demo party “bosses” of “rigging”, why not change the system to make it transparent and impossible to “rig”? Many local preferential voting processes could be a model for state primary delegate allocation to eliminate the chance that a candidate with 15% of the vote and 855 negatives could get 100% of the delegates. Impeaching The Donald seems like a temporary solution without solving the underlying problem. I hope some billionaire might start thinking about this. You could start by supporting a candidate with a P.A.C. who’s the first to propose such a process.