Hasn't Even Taken Office and Already Broke Campaign Promise: #BidensALiar
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What did the phrase "independently certified" mean when Joe Biden answered that debate question? If he were you, @reformed, he wouldn't tell us, in the same way you refuse to tell us specifically what you meant when you said candidates aren't presidents- and vice-presidents elect until they are "certified as so." My guess is Biden meant until someone, some group(s), some concerns, not affiliated with his campaign declared him to be the winner -- the same way it happens EVERY PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. Candidates never wait to claim victory until December's electoral college votes or January's presentation of those votes to the Senate. It NEVER happens that way, and Biden clearly didn't pledge that it would occur that way this time.
So did Biden violate a campaign promise? Of course not.
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Who independently certified him then?
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@reformed posted:
Who independently certified him then?
On whose "certification" has every general election winner in the modern era initially relied? Not the 50 states' secretaries of state, who "certify" final election results in their jurisdictions; that would delay the winner's claim of victory into the middle of December. And for the same reason it can't be the results of the electoral college, which meets in December. And it's not the Senate, which receives the College's vote in January.
The certifying agent for every general election winner in the modern era has been the multiple media- and other outlet decision desks, the collections of people who pore over data and decide when one candidate's lead in a given state is insurmountable given where remaining votes are likely to come in from, and when one candidate's accumulation of insurmountable state leads will produce 270 or more electoral votes.
You've argued that other candidates' concessions have played a role in winners' claiming victory. But on what did those candidates base their decisions to concede? Did Hillary Clinton concede to Donald Trump in 2016 based on her own instincts or the instincts of her campaign's leaders? No. She conceded because media decision desks told her she could not win, and she believed them - as have basically all previous general election losers... until Donald Trump.
The initial independent certifier of Joe Biden's electoral college victory in this year's election was the same body of media decision desks that convinced Hillary Clinton, and before her, Mitt Romney, and before him, John McCain, and before him, John Kerry, and before him, Al Gore to concede.
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The decision desks are hardly independent.
