For 2028, I actually have my eye on that bright young fellow, Raymond Luxury Yacht…
And his running mate, Count da Money…
It’s de Monet!
For me - Ray Throat Warbler Mangrove.
Totally.
Sound policies.
I’m not sure how much more experience is needed. Was Obama all that much more experienced? Sure, he was elected to the Senate, but didn’t serve out the term. I’m very much in favor of moving youthward. And if he is the best available at a critical time, I’m not sure it is worth putting it off to burnish his resume.
Surrounding oneself with the right people - and LISTENING to them - can be an awfully good substitute for personal experience.
Voters have also shown they don’t care much about experience. Sometimes it is a net negative as it labels someone as an insider or career politician.
I think the Democrats just need someone who talks like a real person. Stop trying to focus group this or trying to find the person with the exact right experience/positions/demographics etc. Voters hate having candidates hand picked for them. Just have a bunch of people give their vision of how they understand and will help people and let them pick someone. The rest of this stuff doesn’t matter as much as we think it does.
My guess is that the caring/not caring is highly selective. In 2016, proto-MAGAs didn’t care that Trump had had no government experience (he’s a billionaire businessman!), but I can see the same people crucifying AOC for her “lack of experience.” Same thing for “independents.” I don’t trust these people to have any kind of consistency in their judgments.
Also, in addition to providing experience, winning an election to an important office and then serving in that office also provides a token of legitimacy and a kind of mental filter. I.e., let’s look at the senators and governors and vice presidents when we’re looking for a presidential candidate, since those are the people who have proven themselves thus far. I’m not saying that it should work that way in all cases, but I think it’s reasonable enough in most. Obama had at least won a major election.
Personally, I’d prefer our candidate to have executive experience, having served as a governor or VP. The reason for this is that, not only does it look good, but such experience will help the candidate actually do a good job as president.
I’m not sure how much that matters. Or that a very capable person couldn’t pick it up quickly enough.
Not to beat the Obama horse, but he was a state senator for 7 years and a US Sen for 3. Was that enough experience of the correct type? Was he qualified to be President?
I’m not sure ANY job really qualifies one to be President. And Buttigieg has executive experience as a mayor and Agency head. Arguably mayor might provide more “executive” experience than either state or US Sen.
I’m not sure there is ANY substitute for intelligence, competence, and people skills. Surrounding oneself with the right people will IMO more than offset any learning curve.
Not really analogous, but at one point in my job I was promoted to run a 60 person office. I had never been a manager before, but I simply applied what I considered to be common sense. The measurable results were clear and several staff said I did the best job of anyone else who had held that position. (Perversely, perhaps my LACK of experience contributed to that, as I simply applied common sense, delegated, shared as much info as I could, and treated people the way I would wish to be treated, rather than always seeking out some bureaucratic guidance in every instance…)
The fact that it is highly selective means it is a symptom and not cause. People don’t dislikes AOC due to lack of experience. They dislike AOC for other reasons and thus use lack of experience as an attack lane. A more experienced AOC is unlikely to be more popular, she just would be attacked for something else. Thus it isn’t a thing you should worry about if trying to find a candidate.
I think there is maybe a yes/no button people care about. Guys with no relevant experience due seem to do worse. I just don’t think voters care that much once whether you were in the house for 2 years vs the senate for 12.
I don’t disagree that the experience does in net help make for a successful president, but I find the degree to which democrats differ to be way less than any democrat and any republican
Using this kind of situation as an example, the managers will likely pick a different supervisor than the workers will. The managers are looking at candidates from a more objective standpoint as to who they think will be the best person for the business. The workers look at the candidates as to who they like best. Consider two candidates: Pat and Eli. Pat has little experience but lots of charisma and is popular with the workers. Eli has years of experience, but is not well known and doesn’t have a very outgoing personality. The managers will probably pick Eli, but the workers will probably pick Pat.
Relating that to elections, if party leaders picked the candidates, the candidates would likely be people with experience. But since we have elections which are decided by regular people, things like popularity and charisma matter a lot more than they would to party leaders.
It would have to be a very capable person to pick up one of the most complicated jobs in the world.
Well, folk like Reagan and W have essentially phoned it in.
I guess I disagree with you. Again - what exactly qualified Obama - other than his being “a very capable person”? In a perfect world, I assume one would want an extremely intelligent and charismatic person, with at least some measure of executive and foreign policy experience. So Dems can keep searching for that unicorn, while they get their asses handed to them by the likes of Trump and Vance.
Oh, I feel that Obama wasn’t nearly ready to be President yet (not that any amount of experience would have been enough for some of the attacks, of course.). He did tick off the “intelligent and charismatic” bits though.
Come to think of it, I do think he missed a lot of opportunities by trying to be too reasonable WRT the Repubs early on. Maybe if he were more “experienced,” he woulda realized that was foolish.
MAGA voters.
He was mayor of a medium city and had a non-critical cabinet post.
There is also the fact he is openly gay, which means he will lose the General election in 2028. Maybe in 2032?
Obama was also a State senator for 6 years or so.
Yep.
Mayor of NYC, LA or Chicago- sure, Not South Bend.
.
This is the first time I’m hearing that Pete Buttigieg is gay, and therefore cannot possibly win the presidency. If only I had known before! 
That’s nothing. Did you know he’s also a millennial?
It is a net negative because:
a. The experience will include doing or saying something the voter does not like.
b. Related to a, the politician will be open to charges of flip-flopping due to having more time to change their mind on issues due to changing circumstances.
c. Also related to a, voters from the other party will be more likely to turn out to vote against the candidate.
I don’t know how that could work. I voted for Dean Phillips in the primary last year. The great majority of Democrats voted in the primaries for Joe Biden. No one forced that decision. The only reason Biden did not have more primary opponents is that Democratic primary voters liked Joe a lot and/or believed in being loyal to the incumbent leader of their party.
You understand that you need to get some Trump voters to vote for your candidate to win right? And of course Democrats are always complaining that their political leaders are too young and lack experience.
Not as the top of the ticket, but a prospect for VP: US House Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts. I’ve been seeing him pop up fairly often as a talking head on various issues.