High military brass is political history. And they will also have bad past decisions that could come back to haunt them.
Anyone who’s held flag rank between 2017 and now, for instance.
People with no political experience do not perform well historically. The reason the Democrats have a shot at the senate is in part the GOP nominated people like Dr. Oz and Hershel Walker in winnable races. Now it might be mainly these were just terrible unvetted candidates, but I think the public generally values experience a little bit. But they also want outsiders and youth so it can be contradictory. For me I think it is more like a bell curve. Somewhere between say 4-10 years experience is good (with some experience better than others) but none or too much is a negative. I do think most of the people we have discussed to fall nicely in the sweet spot.
I can make that shorter- He never served . Mayor of a mid sized town and a second tier cabinet position.
No, it is NOT. The four years of the Biden administration were great.
Fetterman is not that bad. We spend more time bad mouthing him than we do Vance or Johnson. No matter how bad people think Fetterman is, he almost always votes with the Dems, and is no where near as bad as those two. But yeah you could see all that-
Mayor of Braddock, Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania
As it turns out being an obnoxious dude who makes Dems look bad and doesn’t want to do his job is still a bad senator. Like ideally you’d want a junior senator to be someone trying to get reelected not tanking own approval by sucking up to Trump on Fox News.
I will give Fetterman credit that he’s not as bad as Jared Polis or Tulsi Gabbard. But even Sinema went and got some deals made across the aisle. Fetterman is just in it for the hate of the game.
Did he ever explain why such a broad swath of ex-staffers would be disgruntled, if not for the reasons they advanced?
Recommend taking Fetterman conversation to the Fetterman thread.
Presidents usually end their term(s) in office with net disapproval, Biden included.
Right now, a candidate who is more or less out of nowhere, like Carter in 1974 or or Bill Clinton in 1990, would poll poorly, in a general election matchup, due to low name recognition. But being nominated creates name recognition, and then the freshest face candidate has an advantage, IMHO. I say IMHO because evidence for this is weak.
I think this is a good observation, in general.
Hijack. Please ignore.
It does feel like there’s a lot of people who want Biden being an old guy who got sick to be more of a scandal than it was, which considering the world we presently live in, is just laughable. To me it would be like people assuming Biden couldn’t win the presidency because of Obama’s deportation numbers or Benghazi.
It has a flavor of Republicans still obsessed about Chappaquiddick or Robert Bork. It’s not a scandal, it’s an axe to grind. I think there will be a lot of people on the 2028 debate stage who will have the opportunity to bag on the Biden admin, I think they’ll regret taking the bait.
Hijack. Please ignore.
FWIW the problem wasn’t only that he declined cognitively but that his ego failed to accept it, his team hid it, and that he failed to raise his VP up throughout the term.
Relevant to this cycle -as good of a president as I think he was in reality, being part of his administration is not going evoke huge outpourings of “YES! We want those good ole days!” Nor kiss of death.
My guess is that whoever wins has to be perceived as “fresh” though. Buttigieg would pass that test; Harris wouldn’t. Not sure about Newsom but I don’t think so.
Mostly agreeing with @PhillyGuy on this: polling well now means already well known and paradoxically a ding against winning because less likely to be perceived as something different, new.
Hijack. Please ignore.
True, things have not magically improved. Oddly, a president can NOT fix inflation with the stroke of a pen. 
Yeah, he had jet lag and a cold, but he went ahead with the debate anyway. True, his prostate cancer would have been a big issue for a second term, but that was not known at the time.
This is not true. Basing that on one debate is foolish. He gave many other speeches, etc where he had nothing but his usual issues.
Hijack. Please ignore.
You’ve stated this dozens of times in various threads here. I disagree.
I do not have a cite (though I looked extensively for one, back in '24). In April or May of '24, months before that debate, I was home on a weekday afternoon, and watching live coverage of Biden giving a short speech at some event that was not at the White House. Jill was at his side as he delivered what I am guessing was a short prepared speech, and he sounded awful.
It was much more than his “usual” issues of occasionally hesitating or stumbling on a word for a moment, due to his stuttering. He stumbled over words repeatedly, and had numerous pauses as he seemed to be fishing around for the word. And I say this as someone who is a lifelong Democratic voter, who felt that Biden was a good president.
Maybe he had “jet lag and a cold” on that date, too. Maybe it’s not a meaningful or valid data point for you, because I cannot produce a cite. But, my recollection of 2024 was that the debate was not the only time when Biden was, to my eyes and ears, not what he had been in years prior.
Was he the “doddering senile napper” that Trump and his toadies tried to paint him as? No, he wasn’t. Was he free of any developing issues related to age? No, I don’t believe that he was.
Hijack. Please ignore.
Note your first line. Perceptions widely differ. But Medical experts stated Biden had no significant mental issues.
Moderating:
Drop it, all of you. Yet again, you are relitigating old issues about politicians who are not frontrunners for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028. No more.
Mea culpa. I should know better.
It wasn’t me!!
Okay, back on track: this poll here shows Harris well ahead of Newsom and AOC, 37% to 14% to 9%. Now, that said, it’s nearly a month old. Any significant shift out there?
Here’s the real question: do you think it more likely that Newsom supporters will back Harris if she gets the nom, or Harris supporters backing Newsom? Or are either also-ran’s backers going to “Bernie Bro” the nominee and stay home?
If I had to guess, I’d suspect that Harris backers are a little more likely to rally around Newsom than vice versa. That’s mainly because Harris is more polarizing as a “failed” candidate. Newsom and Harris are old allies of a sort and both favor a sort of pragmatic liberal-moderate shading to lightly progressive brand of politics. They look pretty left outside of progressive hot-beds and while certainly not centrists they look like somewhat cynical moderate-liberal triangulators in them.
I think their natural constituencies mostly overlap pretty well. But Newsom is a much less stiff politician and a better campaigner IMO. I wouldn’t bet on him winning the nomination, but I think he’d have a better shot than Harris in the general if he did, despite the skeletons in his closet. But then I doubt Harris can win the nomination either. She just has maximum name recognition at this point.
I’d say with some certainty that Harris can win the nomination. Really the question is if someone will be able stop her. 2028 will either be 2008 with Harris playing the part of Hillary or 2020 with Harris playing the part of Biden. Unless someone grabs the brass ring, it will default to her.
I think the vast majority of both would back the nominee. Both are mainstream Democrats and their supporters probably are as well