Professor Philip Klinkner: Until 1968, presidential candidates were picked by party conventions...

Until 1968, presidential candidates were picked by party conventions – a process revived by Biden’s withdrawal from race

Now that Joe Biden has dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be the nominee, it will ultimately be up to Democratic National Convention delegates to formally select a new nominee for their party. This will mark the first time in over 50 years that a major party nominee was selected outside of the democratic process of primaries and caucuses.

Richard Hargy: Donald Trump and the gathering darkness threatening US politics

In America, we resolve our differences at the ballot box … not with bullets. The power to change America should always rest in the hands of the people, not in the hands of a would-be assassin.

So said the US president, Joe Biden, in an Oval Office address to the nation the day after the attempted assassination of his rival in November’s presidential election.
US president, Joe Biden, calls on America to ‘lower the temperature’ in US politics.

Ron Smith:Little hope and no prospect of change

Just after the US election last November I wrote a blog speculating about how Congress and the newly re-elected President would face the looming fiscal crisis.  I hoped that the Republicans would see the need to accept tax increases on the ‘rich’ as part of a broader deal to address ballooning deficits, notwithstanding widely-held convictions that raising taxes in a time of economic stagnation was not a good idea.  With many misgivings, they did.  On the other side, I hoped that President Obama would accept the need to seriously address the ‘entitlements’ problem.   I even used his own infamous aside to (then) President Medvedev to argue that since he (Obama) would personally require no further electoral support, he could defy his own left to achieve, in the national interest, a grand bargain with the Republicans.  Boy, was I wrong!