I’m a left leaning Republican (Green Republican/Bull Moose Party).
Not that I would vote in the primary but I would take Hillary over Feingold. I believe she would continue the Bill Clinton agenda with the side bonus of pushing UHC again. She is actually an okay moderate with some terrible baggage. I respect Feingold but I am not far enough to the left to like him as a candidate.
Now if it ends up Feingold vs Jeb Bush or Tom Delay I will vote for Feingold in a heartbeat.
If it is Feingold/Biden vs McCain/Giuliani I will be out stomping for the republican ticket. If you give me Rudy and Powell I will be truly energized by an election for the first time. Can two NYC guys be on the same ticket? Powell was born in the Bronx but no one associates him with NYC, I think Rudy G is the embodiment of NYC to most of the country. (Born in Brooklyn BTW)
I’m a Yellow-Dog Democrat. I’d certainly vote for Feingold, and I’d vote for Clinton too, although I don’t think she’ll run, and I don’t think she’d win the primary if she did run. Biden I like better in the Senate; I think he’s pretty inconsistent, but when he’s on he’s a real attack dog. The Senate is a better place for both of those traits. I’d also vote for Mark Warner, although I’m not entirely convinced he’s got the chops. I voted for him for Senate many years ago; I’d like to vote for him in a winner someday. (I’d moved to Maryland before his gubenatorial race.)
Does Powell live in New York now? Two men who reside in the same state can’t be on the same ticket, but it’s a rule that’s not strictly enforced and is easily circumvented. (Bush and Cheney both lived in Texas prior to 2000; Cheney just changed his residence to Wyoming.) That said, I don’t think either party would nominate two New Yorkers.
That was really my question, would the country think of Powell as a New Yorker? I can see either party nominating two New Yorkers. Unlike Rudy, Colin has kept his Yankee fandom pretty quiet. He did mention that Jeter is his favorite player today.
Although I continue to dream of a woman in the White House some day, I’m sorry, Hillary probably is not the one. I would set aside my rather insistent feminism and vote for the liberal. Russ is a real liberal. Hillary is more and more an apostate. She used to be liberal. If I didn’t know about her in the '90s and just saw her as she is now, I would take her for one of those conservative Democrats. Now it looks like she wants to bomb Iran. Hillary, I’m outta here. I want a liberal, not a Lieberman wannabe.
Personally, I like Hillary. The main reason I wouldn’t mind her running is so everyone would stop speculating on how awful she’d do. The way I see it, the holy roller republicans who hate her the most wouldn’t vote for a democrat no matter who was running. The main thing about her viability as a candidate rests with the democrats and middle of the road republicans and independants, if they hate her… then she doesn’t stand a chance. If the dems hate her, then she’ll get tossed out in the primaries.
I don’t know enough about Feingold to have an opinion, whoever the dems run will need more charisma than the last two however.
Clearly this was Kerry’s perceived problem, and maybe we have had such a shift in politics that it holds true. However, this has not historically been the case. I think that the real problem was that Kerry allowed himself to be defined by the opposition. They said “he’s a flip-flopper” - then they raided his voting record to validate their contention. This is certainly a real danger for any senator who wants to run for president. And a real lesson: define yourself before the other guy does. You can see a couple of guys trying to do this right now in McCain and Feingold. You can also see the Republicans trying to define Hillary right now (angry/liberal/etc).
If a senator can define himself to the voters, a record would be a plus. If Al Gore had defined himself on HIS issues - i.e. as an environmentalist, he could have mined his voting record for support and credibility. As it was, he was driven by the pollsters (which did work for Clinton) away from his core issues and I think it ultimately cost him the presidency. (And I am definitely ignoring Bush v. Gore - I think that if Al Gore had run on his passions, then he would seem much more like the strong speaker and leader he could be, and not like the robot who ran in 2000, and that he would have won the presidency outright).
As to the OP - I’d vote for Feingold in a heartbeat, although I fear he’s too liberal to be elected - and that he won’t be supported internally by the Democrats. I’d probably vote for Biden, but I don’t like him. He brings all the problems of Kerry combined with a liking for braggadoccio and grandstanding that makes him intolerable in my book. I can’t see him carrying any Southern State, and having a tough time in the Midwest.
Biden got busted for plagarism a few years ago, so he’s a no-go. Feingold, much as I admire him, is too liberal to win. I wish Hillary would stay the hell out, because she would win the nomination, but lose the election. Plus, we really need not have have 24-28 years of either a Bush or a Clinton as president.
What we need is a charismatic, ass-kicking, gun totin’ moderate Democrat who is beyond reproach. In a nation of some 300 million, I don’t know why we can’t find at least one of those.
I don’t disagree, but it seems to me the more likely explanation of the known facts is that she really is the liberal she appearaed to be durin ght eNational Healthcare era and is just pretending to be the moderate in order to position herself. Which is no bad thing; anything that gets a real liberal elected to the White House is no bad thing.
How would you feel about someone who said “Governor X is just pretending to be the moderate in order to position himself. Which is no bad thing; anything that gets a real conservative elected to the White House is no bad thing.”
The only people who think Hillary Clinton is a wild-eyed liberal are the folks who think Fox News delivers the unvarnished truth.
That said, I think a Feingold/Clinton ticket might be interesting. I’m a bit on the fence with Hillary myself (she only pisses me off half the time), but I think she would be a decent veep.