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The most active thread by a very considerable margin yesterday was titled, "Official debate thread get in here and bring your smile" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Needless to say, this thread is about last night's presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former president, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. The interest in this thread was amazing and while it was only created just before 9 p.m. last night, it has already reached 85 pages and over 1,100 posts. Obviously, it is not possible for me to read a thread of that length. As for the debate, what can be said? The bar for Biden had been set so low that I didn't believe there would be any way that he would not exceed expectations. Clearly I was wrong. Biden, whose voice was raspy apparently as a result of a cold, was difficult to understand, he repeatedly lost his train of thought, he constantly appeared confused and lost, and, perhaps due to camera angles, almost always seemed to be looking out into space. It's not so much that that Biden didn't reach the low bar that had been set, but rather that he precisely met the expectations that Republicans had set for him. The Republicans claimed that Biden is a feeble, tired, old man who lacks the mental capacity for the job. That is likely exactly how most viewers perceived Biden last night. Republicans are obviously overjoyed and practically dancing in the streets. Democrats, who panic even when things are going well, are completely beside themselves. The airwaves, as well as this thread and at least one additional thread, focused on how Biden might be replaced as the Democratic candidate. As I said in a recent post, replacing Biden is not straight forward and I have generally held the position that it is not going to happen. One hurdle that I don't hear mentioned very often is Ohio's deadline to be on the ballot that is earlier than the Democratic National Convention. The current Democratic plan is to formally nominate Biden through a virtual vote held before Ohio's deadline, in which case the convention would be purely ceremonial. It would take a true act of back room politics to convince Biden to bow out and then agree on an alternative candidate before Ohio's August 7th deadline. This would be an amazing feat and I am not sure that there is anyone in a position to make it happen. Of course Democrats could sacrifice the Ohio ballot position and choose a candidate at the convention, but there is an important Senate race in Ohio and Democratic turnout might suffer if there were not a meaningful Democratic presidential candidate on the ballot. Democrats might even be forced to run a write-in campaign for their candidate. Objectively, Biden had his moments during the debate. But by the time those came along, I think most people had already come to their conclusions about his performance. Moreover, the negative impressions will snowball as they are repeated incessantly over the next few days. While Biden clearly lost the debate, there is still a question of the debate's impact on the election. Plenty of posters in this thread were adamant that Biden could even do worse than he did and they would still vote for him. If polls over the next few days don't show a decline in support for Biden, the interest in replacing him will likely decrease. But, any significant drop-off will create additional impetus to find a new candidate.