It seems that every Democrat who wants to be president has already thrown their hat in the ring. There is even a non-Democrat trying to get on the ticket. :rolleyes: And many believe that the top three are too damn old, that the party needs another JFK, Clinton, or Obama, youthful and dynamic, to inspire voters and the better angels of our nature to negate Trump’s legacy and make America respectable once again.
Imagine you are head of the DNC. Who would you draft to save the country from Trump?
Jimmy Carter
Michelle Obama?
We can’t elect some charming president to fix America’s reputation. We tried that with Obama to fix America’s reputation after Bush.
It didn’t work, beause the 60 million people who voted for Bush also voted for Trump, and they’ll vote for the next dangerously incompetent white nationalist who runs with an R next to their name and the entire world knows it.
America is like Pakistan or several middle eastern nations at this point. We are undergoing a cultural civil war. On one side you have the reformers who believe in feminism, democracy, minority rights, secularism, modernity, etc. On the other side you have traditionalists who believe in strict social hierarchies (racial, religious, ethnic, sexual, national bigotries and hierarchies), reject democracy, believe in religious fundamentalism, etc. This cultural civil war is not going away anytime soon.
The world doesn’t trust us to lead, and they shouldn’t. Bush may have been an accident, but Trump is a pattern. The world is going to look to China and the EU while the US fights its cultural civil war.
But if you want some charming person who represents the next generation, I think buttigieg is the closest.
Could well be the case, but Pete Buttigieg is no ‘dark horse’ candidate.
Thats true. IMO Sanders is the dark horse. When he announced in 2015 barely any mediashowed up, and he ended up putting up a good run against Clinton and winning people under age 45 by huge majorities. Now in the 2020 election, most of the frontrunners have moved far to the left due to him (he and Warren have about 40-50% of the primary vote between them). None of that happened when people like Kucinich ran in 2004.
So we already have our dark horse in Sanders. He rose from anonymity and helped reform the party in his image, moving all the other frontrunners to the left to meet him. I doubt we get a 2nd dark horse this presidential round.
Also the ‘dark horse’ seems to represent unfulfilled wishes of voters. GOP voters wanted a militant white identity politics politician, democrats wanted a strong progressive. Both political parties tried to tamp down those urges until a candidate arose who represented those wishes.
Sanders is too fucking old, and he’s a carpetbagging bastard. I’d rather he not be mentioned again as he has his own thread. Mayor Pete is too gay to win at the top of the ticket. I’m looking for a proper Democrat, and Michelle Obama is the natural pick if it came to a floor fight. The girls are getting older, and we could try appealing to her hatred for Trump. But her loyalty to Biden will get in the way as long as he’s in, so we need a Plan B. Who? And can we please have an interesting convention instead of an anointing? 
Why would Michelle Obama even be considered? She has no interest and no qualifications.
We can worry about that later. For now she would wipe the floor with Trump.
Okay, Michelle’s out.
I’d volunteer others from close to home, but Dick Durbin is 75 and I hope we can promote him to Majority Whip next year. Sen Tammy and Rep Raja ain’t from around these parts. Gov Pritzker is where I want him, so I need to cast my net outside NE Illinois.
I’ll do it.
As you know, susan, merely wanting to be president is not enough for Democrats. It is for Republicans, but we’re better than [del]them[/del] that. Please provide a CV demonstrating your qualifications. And no, having been my Rep is not an automatic winner, else I’d be backing The Other Joe Walsh in his primary battle with Trump. Which I am because it’s fun.
We ignored Inslee who has good ideas for both climate rescue and employment (unions not a random $$15) and Bennett who wants to bring both decent education and health care access (not insurance but healthcare) to all of America. And they were both willing to say we all have to pay for it.
Someone who posts with the name Wesley Clark should at least put that name out there. We should get a military leader on our side-we will need it.
Bill Maier said the only person who we could all get behind is Oprah Winfrey cuz we are all tv whores. He was pretty pissed at what we think is important.
I will put Jon Huntsman out there. Maybe a Democrat Maybe a Republican but he quit his ambassadorship -I think to retain his personal honor.
Maybe Mitch Landrieu?
Or fuck it, Jon Stewart. He’s said the shit we’re all thinking, he’s got a nice solid base with Millenials and Gen-Xers. He’s a smart dude, quick on his feet, he could get the crowd laughing at Trump during a debate, and he ain’t doing anything else of note.
You want a thread about politics but you don’t want one of the frontrunners mentioned?
Sanders is the democratic dark horse. He came from nowhere, rose to prominence and moved the entire party in his direction. Same way Trump did. He may not be the 2020 dark horse (there won’t be a 2020 dark horse, 2020 is an extension of the political revolution Sanders started in 2016), but he shifted the entire party.
Michelle Obama has no qualifications to be president (she is a very accomplished individual, but not qualified to be president). I’m tired of voting for the wives of ex-presidents and reality TV stars. Its bad enough that for the last ~30 years, only 2-3 major candidates for president were self made (Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, probably Dole). The rest were just related to successful, self made people and rode that family members success to the top (Hillary, Trump, Romney, McCain, Bush, Gore, etc). Also I don’t like Michelle Obama’s ‘if they go low, we go high’ mantra. That doesn’t work in America. Be nice if it did, but it doesn’t. I don’t think she would know how to deal with politics in America
:eek:General, I gave my reasons for disliking Sanders, he being way too old and a Democrat only of convenience. I also don’t want the thread hijacked by Bernie Bros since there is already a thread for that. This is my thread and I set the ground rules, capricious and arbitrary as they are.
I dismissed Michelle Obama almost as soon as I supported her. Please try to keep up. 
Someone up thread mentioned your namesake. Great choice in 2000 or 2004, but at 74 he’s too bloody old. Too bad since his dad was a proper Chicago ward heeler (I’m told there is an entire world outside Chicagoland, but I doubt it ;)) and a kohen, so the ability to turn walking sticks into snakes would be a YouTube smash.
Duplicate
If Donald Trump can be president, Michelle Obama could certainly be. She has someone pretty close to her to advise her and she’s smart enough.
But I’d also love to see Jon Stewart elected. He’d be awesome.
I think the only people who I think could upend the race by getting in at this point are Oprah Winfrey* or Michelle Obama, neither of whom have expressed any interest in running or possess any of the traditional qualifications.
*I do not particularly want Oprah to be the president, but as was discussed when her name was floated a while back, I think she would be a formidable candidate.
Al Franken.