You are forgetting the Supreme Court. Given the age of the justices, the next president could shift…or solidify…the balance of power there.
Well, it ain’t gonna be Carly Fiorina.
I don’t know how excited I am about it, but I am cautiously optimistic. I was firmly in her corner in 2008, but was disheartened when Obama came out of nowhere and left in her in the dust. It made me question her viability as a candidate in future elections if another relative unknown rose from obscurity.
That being said, I think she is just the sort of old school politician this country needs right now. The Clintons (and yes I would view this as a two-fer presidency) have all the favors owed and back room-cross aisle connections that Obama lacked and which have made his presidency so generally ineffective vis-a-vis Congress. I think a Clinton presidency could get things done and unclog the Congressional drains.
It could be, but it’s not just a question of demographics. It’s also a question of leadership. Ronald Reagan kicked off that 30 year era. Got a Reagan? Right now all of your young charismatic figures are centrists and your progressive warriors will all be in their 70s or very near it in 2020. Reagan had an argument to make, and he made it well enough to jerk the electorate hard to the right despite not being a very good President aside from his ability to inspire. The Democrats don’t seem able to make that argument.
The Republicans didn’t dominate for 30 years by saying, “Oh, we’ll just wait for demographic change, and then we’ll dominate!” If Democrats think political dominance will just fall into their laps they are delusional.
Democrats need an FDR. They don’t have an FDR on the horizon. What they do have is a lot of Walter Mondales and a few Bill Clintons. The Clinton-types will get you some wins, but won’t push the national conversation to the left. Americans are still skeptical of government and Obama’s Presidency hasn’t changed that. Actually, it’s made it worse.
I’m pretty enthusiastic but I’m a centrist Republican. If my party manages to not pick a fringe candidate from the horde of prospects this could be an election where I don’t hate both sides of the general election choice. If my party rushes headlong in to the socially conservative realm I may well volunteer for Hillary. Just don’t call me a Democrat or expect coattails out of it. 
This is SO important, it can’t be emphasized enough. The Bush II appointees make up a hard-right plurality that, with Kennedy’s libertarian swing vote, have been systematically decimating the social fabric of America. These effects are far more lasting and, in many ways, far more serious than the effects of most legislation.
So I’m for Hillary if only for that reason alone – because she can win. I just don’t know enough about her to opine beyond that, but I’d suggest that her intelligence and political acumen might turn out to be surprisingly effective for advancing liberal policies. If folks could look past her stupid email server and whatever Bill happens to be doing under his desk, who knows, Hillary might be the Obama everyone thought they had in '08 and '12, but didn’t.
Like I said, Obama ran as an FDR but governs like Nixon. So we learned our lesson about getting excited about a candidate. The demographic trend is not something to sneeze at. A larger & larger % of the country realize things are going wrong. In between non-whites, millennials, single women and those who feel left out of mainstream society (both economically and socially) a broad coalition can be built. if a candidate can capture that feeling and actually act on it (which Obama didn’t, he just captured it and used his followers to gain personal power) then that person could set off a paradigm shift that will move the overton window to the left for a generation.
I’m not sure who that candidate will be. Maybe that is why liberals were/are so excited for Warren. Someone who doesn’t just run as a progressive, but would actually govern as a competent principled progressive would be great. Progressives need someone with FDRs public persona but LBJs governing capabilities. I’m not sure who that would be. Even if someone claimed to be that person, we could just be getting scammed again.
The demographic trend is definitely a thing, but since Democrats haven’t made the sale all it takes for Republicans to win among demographics they currently lose is to stop pissing them off. Republicans go out of their way to alienate certain groups. If Republicans get serious about solving that problem while Democrats just continue to wait for victory to fall into their laps, that victory will never come.
There’s also still the problem of distribution of demographics and the likelihood of certain demographics voting. Certain groups hate the Republicans, but since they don’t really like the Democrats all that much they don’t vote much. They need something to vote for, and Obama’s public image brought them out in droves. But even that won’t solve the problem of demographic distribution. Whites are everywhere and will continue to be everywhere in large numbers for the remainder of our lifetimes. Minorities are concentrated. Even in 2050, it will be hard to win Congress or even the Senate when whites are voting Republican 65-35. Which means that Democrats get wins but don’t actually move the country leftward. Despite demographic change, we arguably have the most conservative House and Senate ever.
Republicans and Democrats had long periods of dominance because they had stable, reliable constituencies. There were no “midterm problems” or “enthusiasm gaps”.
I voted for her in the 2008 Pennsylvania primary and am not enthused this time around. Im annoyed at this notion that she is “entitled” to be the nominee, I think she’s too old, too entrenched, and do we really need another go around with a Bush or Clinton. There are a lot of questions to be asked as it pertain s to the Clinton Foundation as well. I also never found her personality likable.
All that said, as a former Secretary of State and Senator, as well as a very hands on First Lady she has made her bones, and with a former President advising her, she is certainly more than qualified for the job.
Enthused? No. Will I vote for her? 99.9% sure at this juncture if she’s on the ballot the first Tuesday November 2016, I will pull the lever for her.
If she keeps making speeches like the voting rights speech yesterday it will raise more enthusiasm than she needs. I went from lukewarm to somewhat hot in one day. If she can keep hitting that note, it’s a cakewalk for her.
What I’d like for Hillary to do is say the era of bipartisanship is over. Obama bent over backwards and did handstands to try to get Republican cooperation, all they did was shit in his face at every opportunity. What Hillary has that Obama lacks is the ability to know she’s in a fight with ruthless crazy bastards.
As a factual answer to the op, obviously quite a few people ARE enthusiastic about her.
I am not but I am not looking to be excited; this isn’t a revolution. I am looking to hire someone who will be competent, not nuts, not extreme, show good judgement, and able to get things that make good sense done. I want to keep out someone who will do serious harms.
I am enthusiastic about keeping the Far Right crazies who dominate Congress counterweighted though …
Fuckin’ love it! A deft combination of progressive idealism and stab 'em in the guts realpolitik. Pubbies can choose between two options, the first is to pretend they didn’t hear her say it, the other is to explain why they don’t like more people voting.
To be fair, Obama knows that now. It just took him way too long to start governing that way.
She gave that speech at Texas Southern University, a historically black school in Houston. The comments in the* Houston Chronicle* revealed the depth of racism & sexism out there. Most of the ignorant fools who posted are deeply delusional.
And she was talking about a “vast right wing conspiracy” years ago. Lots of people laughed but she was right.
If I want “excitement” I’ll watch an action movie. I’ll be exceedingly glad to vote for Hilary even if “my vote won’t count” here in Texas. Sure, I’d love more liberal options in the future. But we need sane appointments to the Supreme Court to ensure we have a future.
(Then there all those Republican hopefuls who inspire projectile vomiting.)
I’m guessing here, but I’d be willing to bet that whole voter thing is the advice of her Prince Consort, Horndog Bill. It is beautifully pragmatic and progressive. Start pressing for turnout, start by pointing out who doesn’t want any such thing to happen. The beauty part, 'eh, is letting the Pubbies trip over their shoelaces trying to come up with a good reason not to. Just as she said, who is afraid of the big bad voter turnout? And keep saying it, because this is one that they just don’t want to touch. First to fuck it up? Kasich:
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2015/06/05/3666635/republican-governor-super-lame-response-hillary-clintons-call-expanded-voting/
It shouldn’t take anybody more than 30 minutes to vote, and pretty much everybody should be registered. Crazy talk! Demagoguery!
(Of course, we should not forget that expert opinion has it that the core constituencies of the Dems only add up to somewhere around 35-80 per cent of the voting public. But that’s an estimate. Ball park figure. Round about there.)
It’s also dogwhistling. GOP voter suppression efforts have focused on minorities, and addressing the subject to a minority audience is a way of telling them who’s got their backs, in that and most other ways as well. It’s a good way to work a base constituency without visibly pandering.
“Favors owed”? Really? Because here’s my first thought about that:
Let’s see, there were all those pork-barrel jobs–no, wait, lost in “Reinventing Government.”
Well, still, political careers–nope, who lost Congress for the Dems?
Um, cabinet appointments? Yeah, for a bunch of wonks who mostly went on to no political career; Bill Richardson and Rahm Emanuel; and some Wall-Street-oriented economists, I guess?
Well, there you go. If Robert Rubin and Larry Summers can make a difference, that’s something.
Except that the big problem in Congress is all the term-limited red staters who came in after the Clintons. They by definition owe the Clintons less than they owe scorn for the Clintons. “Old school” doesn’t work there anymore.
Who else owes them a favor? Rush Limbaugh, maybe? And now they’re repaying it, by giving him something to gripe about for another eight years.
Her friends from the “Family”? Yeah, maybe.
The only way this works is if she gets Congressional candidates to run with her, as part of her coalition, and gets them elected. Absent that, I don’t see the point.
Here’s what you (and Democrats in general) are doing wrong. You’re looking to the Presidency to do that. You have to start thinking more like a parliamentary party than like you’re voting in a monarch.
You need a leader, yeah. But who have been the leaders of the conservative movement? William F. Buckley, maybe? Grover Norquist? Rush Limbaugh? Newt Gingrich, for a while?
The conservatives won in 1968. They shot your dreamers and you have no one left brave enough to lead you. You just have politicians who want to be moderate, President, and not dead.
If the blatant phoniness of changing positions on issues, unethical behaviors including storing emails on a private home-based server (consider this now in light of the recent Chinese hack), and taking charity contributions from foreign leaders who wish to buy her influence, are all the “faults” of what may be a great president…
…then SURE, enthusiasm is warranted.
You forgot Benghazi. Obviously, you don’t respect our heroes.