Oh, my apologies, Kick ... I see you are only at comment #18. Heh.

Yes, I did keep reading and discovered that y'all were basically just looking for a better worded answer. :)

I would just like to see him make the persuasive arguments on this question to all voters.

Are y'all nuts!? Just kidding.

Biden and his campaign are doing the right thing. They've already answered that the people voting should decide who will serve on the Supreme Court for a lifetime appointment. When Biden says you'll know his opinion after the election, he's obviously saying that his position is dependent on whether or not the Senate confirms Barrett before the election or -- if he wins the election -- while Trump's busy doing whatever he does to cheat or busy "packing" during the lame duck -- pun definitely intended.

Biden is right that it's the GOP (and that of the press) attempting to shift the focus off their own decades of court packing and the GOP's Supreme Court packing. Biden can't answer what he'll do, and he doesn't have to answer in order to take the focus of their shenanigans trying to shove another justice on the Supreme Court at the last minute while they denied Barack Obama a pick for months and months because it was an election year.

If it's indeed the GOP's de facto position that only the Party who controls the Senate and the White House may decide the makeup of the Supreme Court, then I'm sure Biden will be happy to follow their lead if given the chance... BUT... he can't answer what he'll do until he sees what they do. This is one of those situations where decisions will be made in back rooms based on what hasn't occurred yet. There is no answer beyond "nothing is off the table." Honestly.

Biden's position won't be known until he sees the outcome of the current Supreme Court shenanigans and whether or not he wins the election and the subsequent shenanigans Trump will try after the election if Biden is the obvious winner on election day. There are too many known unknowns for a private citizen of the United States to be making any declarations about what he'll do. Full stop.

That was pretty good!

I would just add that he should emphasize how important down ballot elections are and how critically important it will be for Democrats to be in control of the Senate. Long gone are the days when voters should be thinking that divided government is a hedge or a good thing at all!

It will be hard enough for a Biden administration to make progress on healthcare and the environment with a heavily leaning conservative SCOTUS, let alone a Republican-controlled senate.

Elizabeth, any good professional campaign manager worth his salt is going to advise any candidate: "Don't answer hypothetical questions asked by your opponent or the press!"

But, Biden isn't just any candidate for president. He's forgotten more about all of this stuff than his campaign managers have ever known, combined!

And, once again, Biden should know how to answer and pivot away from these questions in a way that makes him look like the strong candidate for president that he is and not look weak like his campaign manager made him look the other day on the court packing question.

Dodging questions, especially ones that are pertinent to current events, is never a good strategy.

However, that doesn't mean you have to fall down a rabbit hole or give your opponent talking points. Not if you're good at what you do, anyways.

Biden has never been a great fan of talking points. The good news is that he says what he means and he means what he says. The bad news is that he says what he means and he means what he says. Heh.

Biden is picking his campaign battles carefully. Amy Coney Barrett is going to be on the Supreme Court. Why give Trump a talking point to engage/enrage his followers and increase their turnout? Don't write your opponent's talking points for him! What to do about Justice Amy can wait until Biden is in the Oval Office.

I mentioned a few months ago, prior to RGB's untimely demise, that should Biden win, he should expand the court. It's long overdue and SCOTUS was originally designed to expand with population growth. However, for now he's better off keeping it to himself, why kick the Bear when they think McConnell has put a cherry on Trump's term with three Justices named. The timing couldn't be better for the religious right to become complacent and less concerned about Trump's immediate future, this latest pick is everything and more than the right could have hoped for, a card-carrying zealot who's predisposed to quashing individual reproductive rights, and a woman to boot... It's all their Christmasses come at once, why would they suffer another four years of Trump now he's delivered SCOTUS into their hands?

Were I Biden, I would appoint Obama to head up the de-Trumpification department in January... He could preside over the Treason Trials and subsequent executions. He could be in charge of the repeal and replacement of all things odiously Trump, and the spaying and neutering of the deplorables. Who would be more deserving of such task?

lol, all the trumpery will have to go. The last four years of Trumpism will need extirpating and all oleaginous occurrences of the name Trump, removed entirely from history.

LL&P

I agree with just about everything everyone's said.

LizM, you're right, Biden is blowing this. How hard is it to come up with a brushoff answer, for god's sake? "By January, the situation will be different than it is now, and I will react to it accordingly."

Or: "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

Or: "FDR tried to pack the court against the will of the Senate. If the Senate decides to pack the court, I will have to think long and hard about how I would react."

There are just SO many ways this could be turned into a non-question, and Biden has not come up with one yet. I, too, am disappointed, I have to admit.

Packing the court would require (at the least): Dems winning the Senate, Dems jettisoning the filibuster, and Dems deciding to make the case to the country that multiple SCOTUS nominations had been STOLEN from them. They could do so, but then again they may not. So why is it on Biden's shoulders to answer the hypothetical? I have no idea, personally, but he's just GOT to get a better brushoff answer, that much is for certain.

Hmmph.

-CW

That's what I'm talking about! Awesome. :)

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I walked my ballot down to the local drop box on Saturday. Since ballots are picked up every other day, according to the Registrar of Voters, I'm hopeful of seeing it has been received by the RoV tomorrow.

Even Funner Texas Fact: ~80% of those Travis County voters will generally vote Democratic.

It's getting busy in Texas! Record numbers of voters today.

no column today?

All of the points you mentioned would be a far cry better than the non-answers Biden and his team have been providing thus far. It's not like the make-up of SCOTUS isn't an issue worth discussing right now.

Biden used to love handling curve balls like this ...

"What important is how he handles them and, so far, his dodge makes him look weak, even in my adoring eyes, for God's sake! :)"

Put another way Elizabeth:

The bright shiny object is: Vice President Biden, if you are elected President, will you increase the number of justices beyond the current 9 on the Supreme Court?

What Biden should discuss instead is:

A) How the nomination of Justice Amy Coney Barrett is a threat to the continued existence of: Roe VS Wade, the Affordable Care Act, and Marriage Equality

B) The hypocrisy of Republicans of taking a position that is the exact opposite now of one they just took 4 years ago, when they denied Obama's pick of Justice Garland 8 months before the election, and swore up and down then that they would treat an appointment in the last year of Trump's term no differently.

c) Ramming through Justice Barrett just 3 weeks before the election, while ignoring health risks regarding the participation of Senator Mike Lee, who has an active Coronavirus infection from the White House super spreader event, because securing the nomination is more important to them than people's health and safety.

D) Making the Supreme Court nomination a priority over dealing with the Coronavirus and the economy, and over passing a stimulus bill that would deal with both, and over relieving and easing the American people's suffering.

if we don't like the answers joe has given thus far, let's consider what answer we think really would be good if he gave it.

i'll start:
"the reason this is a hard question to answer is that it comes at a very painful time, and in response to a very real concern. liberal legal scholars are rightly upset that the legitimacy of our country's court system is imperiled by the efforts of mitch mcconnell and lindsey graham to pack the current court with conservatives. at this very moment they are nakedly using their power to deny every liberal or moderate appointment and fast-track every conservative one, and they give completely hypocritical excuses for doing so.

as i've said many times in the past, i think adding additional justices to the supreme court is not a good option. it is not a good idea to respond to mitch and lindsey's court-packing with court-packing of my own. however, at the moment i'm not the one who's president and packing the courts with illegitimate appointments, donald trump is. if i do end up in the position of being president and having to remedy that situation, i'd rather not have made any commitments one way or another, because you don't take arrows out of your quiver before the shooting starts, even those arrows you have no immediate intention of using."

JL

"What important is how he handles them and, so far, his dodge makes him look weak, even in my adoring eyes, for God's sake! :)"

Elizabeth, any good professional campaign manager worth his salt is going to advise any candidate: "Don't answer hypothetical questions asked by your opponent or the press!" because A.) doing so only walks you into the trap that they have set for you, emphasizing your areas of weakness and B.) it is a total distraction from the more important points you yourself are trying to get across. It makes the voter you are trying to reach focus on the bright shiny object, ignoring the issues and messages that you are wanting to discuss that play to your strengths.

Avoiding this is how Jaime Harrison has handled Lindsay Graham in South Carolina so brilliantly and who now has a real shot at winning and defeating Graham.

I miss the 'old' Biden, before he began missing a few steps. That's life, we all do. But, still, even considering this, he is the absolute best man for this time and job, don't get me wrong.

It's not really a matter of Biden being right to dodge answering the questions.

What important is how he handles them and, so far, his dodge makes him look weak, even in my adoring eyes, for God's sake! :)

I guess there is no easy answer. But, the response coming out the campaign right now on this question is just very hard to listen to.

Biden needs to do what he has always done best - be honest about what is the best policy and why.

That is great advice for Biden and his campaign because, right now, they couldn't possibly sound weaker if they tried.

There was a time when Biden would have snatched an opportunity like this and run it for all it's worth.

the rightwing noise over court-packing is a rhetorical trap intended to weaken biden among left-wing voters. a few on the left have proposed it as a remedy to the GOP hypocritical power-grab, via stonewalling garland's nomination and fast-tracking barrett's. trump and the right think that convincing biden to speak against court-packing will weaken his liberal support. maybe rather than refusing to speak about it, the thing to do would be to speak directly to those on the left who support it, and those on the right who are afraid of it.

JL

You must also be able to effectively counter what the other side puts forward.

How have Republicans been able to put themselves in a position to achieve success in "packing" the Court and lower courts?

What have Democrats done to counter the Republican message on the preeminence of the courts, above all else?

I'm surprised that Biden and his campaign have found answering the "packing the court" question so damned difficult to answer. Don't they know how to win in a landslide?

"If you want to make the best available guess . ." based on historical fact, you flip the coin, or you roll the dice, and IGNORE the polls, right?

The national popular vote doesn't play any role in determining who becomes president. But we're not inaugurating a president. We're evaluating the state of the horse race.

There are fewer state-level polls than national ones, so a single poll distorts the average more. There are fewer pollsters who do state-level polls than national ones, so it's harder to compensate for pollster bias. State polls are done less often, so they are less likely to reflect recent changes in the state of the campaign. State-level polls have smaller sample sizes, and correspondingly larger margins of sampling error.

If you want to make the best available guess about the electoral vote, you look at national polls too, not just state ones.

Ditch Mitch / Dump Trump

Early voting starts Tuesday in KY.

Two Scaramuccis until the election:

21 DAYS * 00 HOURS * 55 MINUTES

Fixinta be 3 weeks. :)