I agree with that, but it’s kind of like a basketball team saying “All we need is Michael Jordan.”
Obama was a once-in-a-lifetime superstar. His “Obama-level talent” did not include talent as a politician. He was brilliant, charismatic, immensely attractive, but didn’t know how and didn’t bother to learn how to play the political game, i.e., building alliances in Congress and persistently reaching across the aisle. That’s what he had Biden for, but it wasn’t enough. And even his Democrats turned on Obama in his second term. They’re like the uncontrollable Deltas in Animal House and Republicans are like the regimented, punitive Omegas.
Exactly.
Yes, Obama was a political superstar. He would have demolished Trump. If Obama is A+, and Kamala and Hillary were C+ (in political campaigning ability), then maybe all we need is a B to win. Kamala and Hillary did come awfully close. I think we can find a B-level talent or better among the contenders, and I don’t accept that they necessarily need to be a white male. We need talent and communications ability. I think AOC has that, Ossof might have it, Newsom (who sucks) might have it, and maybe others. We’ll find out during the primary.
The next Inauguration is almost 2½ years away, but election season comes early in the USA.
Here are the nomination likelihoods per the Polymarket “Truth Machine”:
19% Gavin Newsom
13% Jon Ossoff
13% Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
8% Kamala Harris
5% Pete Buttigieg
5% Josh Shapiro
3% Mark Kelly
3% Andy Beshear
2% Rahm Emanuel
I’m not happy with any of the frontrunners. Newsom seems flippant. I love AOC but I don’t see her as ready for the job (and, I’m afraid, she’s too left-wing to be electable).
Kelly and Beshear are my favorites on this list.
I mentioned Tim Walz – he’s younger than Emanuel. I like Gretchen Whitmer – is she charismatic enough? Any other “dark horses” that should be promoted?
I liked Walz a lot when he was first named as Harris’s running mate.
However, his administration in Minnesota has been implicated in a series of fraud scandals, and he’s admitted that his administration was “a little too trusting,” and didn’t have sufficient oversight. That all seems to have diminished his political profile; at the start of this year, he withdrew from the race for re-election as governor, and announced that he does not plan to ever seek political office again after his current term ends.
Ya kinda skipped right over Ossoff in your summation, any particular reason why? I understand the “cons vs pros” of Newsom and AOC, but I’m not seeing a whole lot of cons with Ossoff as of yet.
a.) He says he doesn’t want it and isn’t running (but he IS a politician, so…)
b.) He is a blue senator in a barely purplish-red state and is currently leading in his 2026 re-election campaign. If he wins, that is a blue seat that may well shift back to red.
Unfortunately we are living right now under pressure of intersectional all-or-nothing-ism by which if you favor those you’ll be spending too much of your time explaining that it does NOT mean you must support all the more far out parts of the prog-left agenda as people to your right will claim; then have to spend as much time explaining to the people on your left but why not?
But I would argue that is a positive, not a negative. It is much more important to win the presidency than a single Senate seat, and a politician who has shown he can win in a red-leaning state and, even better, likely bring that state with him if he is the nominee is a great sign for that candidate.
That’s the exact opposite of the problem Obama had. He kept on trying to reach across the aisle, even though every time he did it, the Republicans bit his hand.
That is a reasonable argument, but is probably for him more applicable to the 2032 election than 2028. At that point if all goes well for his re-election he will have finished two full terms in the senate rather than bailing two years into his second. I strongly suspect that is why he is resisting attempts to draft him for 2028. He’s young(ish) at not yet 40 and like AOC his political ambitions are probably better served by being patient.
He is absolutely, 100% running. I am being deluged with texts and emails from him, not only asking for money but going into great detail about his personal story and policy positions. I actually think that, assuming he wins re-election by a relatively impressive margin, he might well be our strongest candidate.
But in 2032, there will certainly be an incumbent who isn’t him, and God willing will be a Democrat. In 2036, the Democrats will hopefully be trying to win their third election in a row, which historically is a very tough ask.
If he (or AOC) thinks he can win this cycle, there’s no reason to wait for an even better opening that may never come. Take it from Obama.
(Personally, I think the case for Ossoff running now is stronger than AOC’s)
For Senate, not for President. Do any of those messages mention the White House? I mean I found several cites where Ossoff says he is NOT running for President.
Ossoff is impressive but not only is he young but he looks very young and I am not sure he will easily clear the “gravitas” bar in an election in which geopolitical tensions with China and Iran will be fairly important.
As for AOC she absolutely doesn’t clear the gravitas bar and will be a weak candidate. Do you the average swing voter would look at her as a strong CinC while sitting across the table with Xi Jinping ?
I think any Democrat will be accused of this. But it doesn’t matter what I think – primaries across the country are showing that Democratic voters want someone who centers their campaign on “FIGHT!”. I expect the nominee will as well.
This is very obviously meaningless when we look at history. No future prez candidate ever says “I’m going to run for president!” during an election campaign for a lower office.
Just my opinion (and I don’t hate the guy at all personally) but when you mentioned this, it put together who Newsom reminds me of. He’s America’s Justin Trudeau. It’s not a 1:1 comparison but he’s got a similar sort of vibe to him where he’s a very love him or hate him type of guy. As with Trudeau, some people really hate his guts in a manner that doesn’t seem entirely rational to an outside observer.
Maybe at least read the post above yours. You want to attract voters, listen to what they want and stop obsessing over the gender/race/religion etc of candidates.
There are several competitive Senate races this cycle, and AFAICT none of the others is doing an aggressive national fundraising outreach. Looks pretty clear to me that he is using this race to establish a national profile.
See also Pete Buttigieg, who is not actually running for anything and has to resort to sending multiple emails weekly with subject lines like “THIS IS HUGE! Pete Buttigieg DESTROYS Trump in new podcast interview!!”