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Candidate Biden's Aneurysm

OwenM

The patronising flippancy of youth
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After Gary Hart's withdrawal, Joe Biden was seen as one of the frontrunners for the Democratic nomination in 1988, but his campaign collapsed in 1987 after a controversy about plagiarism of Neil Kinnock.
The following year aneurysm that he required major surgery and a seven moth convalescence to recover from an aneurysm.
Let's say he wins the nomination, trying to ignore his steadily increasing pain - and then is killed by the aneurysm shortly after the convention before most people have even realised he's ill.
What happens next? Who's his running mate and how do they end up doing against Bush? Assuming they still lose, does having had to start so late mean it's not seen as their fault and they're vaulted to frontrunner status for 1992?
 
I don't think he'd make a serious campaign into the new year without this becoming apparent in one way or the other. He was literally physically collapsing at times even during his campaign period, which he shrugged off due to work/stress of the campaign and the Bork hearings. He wasn't asymptomatic.

He'd most likely either die, or jump out due to his health, while votes were still being cast in the primaries. He's not making it to the running mate-selection stage, anyway.

And I don't think he'd win the nomination, or even come close to doing so, though a lot of people at the time thought he had a relatively serious shot. But I don't see him winning in Iowa, which in any case didn't prove to be of much good to either Simon or Gephardt. Dukakis had New Hampshire pretty much on lockdown. There's not really anywhere for him to go.

His health claiming his campaign during the primaries would probably be a good way for a Cuomo-producing brokered convention clusterfuck, if it wasn't such a stretch to put him into the frontrunner position. As is, I don't think there's anywhere really to go with this.
 
I don't think he'd make a serious campaign into the new year without this becoming apparent in one way or the other. He was literally physically collapsing at times even during his campaign period, which he shrugged off due to work/stress of the campaign and the Bork hearings. He wasn't asymptomatic.

He'd most likely either die, or jump out due to his health, while votes were still being cast in the primaries. He's not making it to the running mate-selection stage, anyway.

And I don't think he'd win the nomination, or even come close to doing so, though a lot of people at the time thought he had a relatively serious shot. But I don't see him winning in Iowa, which in any case didn't prove to be of much good to either Simon or Gephardt. Dukakis had New Hampshire pretty much on lockdown. There's not really anywhere for him to go.

His health claiming his campaign during the primaries would probably be a good way for a Cuomo-producing brokered convention clusterfuck, if it wasn't such a stretch to put him into the frontrunner position. As is, I don't think there's anywhere really to go with this.
Valid points, this does seem on reflection to need not so much a thumb on the scales as a brick.
 
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