From what I recall Carly Fiorina was the only person who moved up to the main debate from the undercard debate. Then Trump said she was ugly.
It’s not just that Clinton has said she won’t run. It is that she has done nothing to contradict that. FiveThirtyEight showed thisback in May, and doesn’t even have her on the lists by October.
The rubric they are using is primarily bad because it is overly inclusive. But I do think they are likely a good starting point for discussing who is running.
Right, she did seem to indicate she’d like to serve. I suspect that means she’d serve if drafted and she’d like State back. I think she was great in State, so that’s fine with me.
I can see sitreps where drafting Hillary would make sense.
I don’t know very much about her tenure at State, except that she was a “meme” to an unusual degree. But I thought it was during Kerry’s more low-profile time at Foggy Bottom that the Iran deal got finished.
Secretary of State was a stepping stone, or place holder. She’s not going back to State. No way, no how. It’s all or nothing.
I’d be willing to bet she’d be happy to be the first female VP. That serves two purposes for the party as well: 1) a ready on Day 1 Vice President if the nominee is a little older, like Biden, and something happens to him. I don’t like Hillary Clinton. At all. But I have 100% confidence in her ability to serve as President. 2) Since she’d be REALLY old in 8 years, the field would be wide open again in 2028, and I truly believe that all things being equal a wide open field is better than one where the party has a favorite.
Michael Avenatti’s talk of running for the Dem nomination was bullshit to begin with, but now it’s dead bullshit. Somehow I don’t see someone who’s just been arrested for beating up his estranged wife getting very far with Dem voters.
The problem is, you could have fifteen candidates right up to Iowa and New Hampshire, then the field abruptly collapses.
As I’ve been saying for over a decade now, given that the Presidential campaign season starts right after the midterms these days, we really need to start weeding out some of the vanity candidates during the odd-numbered year in between the midterms and the primaries. From 2008:
I’d take that bet in a heartbeat, but there won’t be any way to test it.
And the thing is, no one would want her on the ticket anyway.
Conventional wisdom suggests that but Trump got the GOP nomination with a plurality based in no small measure on that conventional wisdom failing. The GOP early primaries even produced less proportional results than is typical for the Democratic primaries thanks to higher thresholds to earn delegates and allowed allocation by Congressional districts. Democratic rules could make the lingering candidate problem worse if there aren’t 2-3 clear frontrunners in the Feb primaries.
California shifting to March 3rd might help prevent a Democratic short bus of candidates getting deep into a lingering race for the plurality. Throwing that on top of the normal winnowing of Super Tuesday might make that day look like The Purge: DNC 2020. That day already demanded a lot of money for paid staff and ads without the most populous state being in the mix. It The alternative is a higher chance of contested convention. That’s a lot of delegates being selected early. If there’s not a clear front-runner after that day proportional allocation can make it hard to ever reach a majority to secure a first ballot nomination. The chance of a contested convention might keep those mathematically eliminated in the race to try and prevent a first ballot majority and hope for winning at the convention. Both Cruz and Kasich continued in the 2016 GOP primary after being eliminated from first ballot contention so it’s not like we haven’t seen it before.
If that alternative comes to pass a lot of people might suddenly discover that the DNC rule change did not get rid of superdelegates.
The GOP method was effectively drawing straws for the last slot or two in the main debate. At the margin, there wasn’t a statistically significant difference in the polls between someone who just made the main debate and someone who didn’t. In that way, I would call it very fair. It might not be a useful way to help select the best candidate.
Well, it looks like it won’t be Michael Avenatti. (Reuters)
Arrested on suspicion of domestic violence.
Not that I wanted it to be.
But yikes! If true, does it get more ironic?
Just because he was arrested doesn’t mean it’s true.
Remember how Stormy Daniels was arrested under suspicious circumstances. Time to get out the ole bullshit detector.
I might regret this – I probably will – but I am becoming intrigued by the possibility of a Richard Ojeda campaign for president. This guy is what I have envisioned as being as the prototype presidential candidate: a social moderate but tough-as-nails fighter for the middle class, and an incontrovertible American patriot. Although he lost West Virginia, he went toe-to-toe against a conservative, which isn’t easy to do in Mountaineer country these days.
Contrary to what many assume, I think some people run for President, at least in part, out of a sense of duty. Sure it’s thrilling to sit in the big chair, but if Biden runs it won’t be for the thrill. It will be out of fear that no one else can beat Trump. Same goes for Hillary, though this cycle her sense of duty will tell her NOT to run.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Beginning with FDR, almost every single President elected has been either an incumbent Prez or Vice Prez or a national figure of great charisma long before the election. (Truman, LBJ, Nixon, and Bush-41 had served as V.P. so are omitted from the following list):
[ul][li] Franklin D. Roosevelt — Governor of the largest state; had acquired national recognition by running for Vice Pres. in 1920.[/li][li] Dwight D. Eisenhower — Among other positions, he had been Supreme Commander for the liberation of Western Europe. Truman had offered him the job of POTUS four years earlier.[/li][li] John F. Kennedy — a very charismatic Senator and war hero. In 1956 he finished 2nd in the balloting for Vice Pres. at the DNC.[/li][li] Jimmy Carter — Governor of a largish state, noted for his support of civil rights; projected unusually strong integrity.[/li][li] Ronald Reagan — big state Governor, very popular nationwide; had run for President as early as 1968.[/li][li] Bill Clinton — Governor with successful programs, had served as chairman of the National Governors Association, and chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council; gave the opening-night speech at 1988 DNC.[/li][li] George W. Bush, Donald J. Trump — both had strong name recognition nation-wide but are unworthy of further discussion: the 21st-century GOP is happy to run mediocrities.[/li][li] Barack Obama — very charismatic Senator (nominated by an unprecedented margin) who helped drive significant legislation; delivered an “electrifying” keynote address at the 2004 DNC. Here’s a newspaper article from 1990 quoting one colleague: “I thought, ‘This guy sounds like he’s president of the country already;’ I’ve never met anyone who could leave that impression after only five minutes.”[/li][/ul]
With few exceptions, everyone on this list was a superstar of great achievement and/or charisma.
But how about the present crop? Does Gillibrand belong on this list? In the debate I linked to yesterday, she was not a top speaker — her opponent probably “won” the debate. She’ll be easy to brand as a “flip-flopper.” (In the debate she solemnly promised to serve 6 more years in the Senate. Just a few weeks later she practically told Stephen Colbert she was running for President.) To compare her with an Obama or even a Carter is laughable.
But I’m not trying to pick on Gillibrand. I don’t see any strong candidate. 
I’m sorry. I missed that you had already posted this.
I’m not an Avanatti for Prez fan, but neither do I want to see him railroaded by some Roger Stone-style smear.
That’s because you haven’t *seen *anybody yet. It hasn’t started yet. We’re in a fairly unique position in history, where there will be a lot of people who wouldn’t have otherwise considered running for president taking a serious look at the brass ring, simply because of the abomination currently sleeping in the WH. There’s gonna be a grand buffet of candidates, I reckon, stepping up to the big stage. No one’s going to hang back this time because a Hillary-type is there to be crowned.
One reason the Democrats did as well as they did up and down the ballot last week is because there were really good candidates up and down ballot. That means really good people were stepping up to get this done. Do you see any reason to believe that sort of thing will suddenly stop at the presidential level?
Now I’m not saying that the Democrats are a shoe-in in 2020, but there’s absolutely no reason to be despondent because you don’t currently know who the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee will be.
Resume doesn’t matter much any more. Name recognition doesn’t matter much right now. What matters is who can capture the public’s attention and dollars once this thing starts rolling. You simply can’t know who that will be at this stage. So of course you don’t see any strong candidate. But you will.
Very well said, 100%.
Perhaps. But you totally missed my point, which was that by this point in the cycle the eventual winner of earlier elections was already a nationally known personality of great achievement and/or charisma.
Obama was attracting gasps of awe long before 2006. Bill Clinton had charisma, achievement, and national stature before 1990. Besides the obvious {Clinton, Gore, Biden, Sanders, Warren, Bloomberg, perhaps Cuomo} who do the D’s have of such stature and charisma? If you mention names like Harris, Gillibrand, Booker, I’m afraid I’ll need to ask for a cite on your dictionary definitions of “charisma, achievement, and national stature” and “gasps of awe.”
Follow-up:
Jimmy Carter “came out of nowhere” to win the Presidency in 1976 and may be an exception to the rule I just stated. But he had a special charisma, and projected morality and sincerity. This was what the country was looking for then. I didn’t follow politics in 1975-1976 but (though hind-sight is 20-20) I wonder if some who listened to Carter knew right away that “He was the guy.”
Do any of the present crop of candidates have a special charisma? a special message or vision? (A message more than just anti-Trump.) Does any project, like Carter, “I am not the usual politician”? I’ve been clicking on speeches by the candidates and haven’t found it. (Maybe Julian Castro? But support for him hasn’t caught on at SDMB.)
Bill McRaven has the achievement that, IMHO, would catapult him to the top if he ran. But apparently his disease is too serious for him to run.
Seriously? The guy who looked at Trump in the run-up to the 2016 election, was fine with what he saw because he thought Trump could bring back coal? That guy? The guy that thought that the ridiculous notion of ‘bringing back coal’ was more important than how obvious it was that Trump wasn’t fit for office? That guy?
If he really and seriously though that, he’s Palin-level stupid. If he didn’t think that and still voted for Trump, he’s beyond Palin-level stupid. He’s a non-starter.
He voted for Trump. He is disqualified from any Democratic ticket, and should be disqualified from any elected position above ‘dog catcher’.
He didn’t just vote for a Republican. He voted for Trump.