FWIW this and the VP thread have me happy to realize the deep bench of talent and upcoming talent on the D bench. I never even knew of Polis, for example. I am happy with the Harris of today and do not fantasize of any other choice, but I am also relieved to know that in the god forbid case that she does not win this November, there is no lack of amazing talent to evaluate for the job of rebuilding our country and undoing the damage of a Trump second term.
And may we not have to worry about that bench stepping up until Harris is finishing her second term!
Whitmer and Polis are both subject to term limits and will be unable to run for reelection in 2026. Of course they might run for Senate, take a Cabinet post, etc. But timing is everything in politics. Today’s hot contender is completely forgotten about in two years. One thing that Harris’ unexpected elevation has done is thrown a lot of prospective Democratic President’s plans into disarray as they try to figure out how to stay relevant for up to 8 years waiting for their next opportunity.
For right this moment, Harris isn’t just the best choice; she’s the only choice.
If we’re talking about a magic-wand hypothetical where we instantly get whomever we want as President, or a hypothetical future race, I’ll add another vote in favor of Tammy Duckworth. We’re going to need extreme responses to clean up the extreme mess that the Republicans have left. Duckworth is a fighter, and I think that she’d be willing to take those extreme responses.
I am hopeful but the task is not A speech. She has to keep hammering in ways that are not just repeating the same one that she likely has been doing in a mirror for four years. It’s not a stand up show with the same honed material; the modern cycle will demand fresh stuff every week if not every day. And no stupid mistakes along the way.
In general, I’d say that the person you want for the job is the person who doesn’t really want the job.
A person who ran for office of their own volition and who has worked to build a name for themselves isn’t the ideal person.
You want some person who you’ve never heard of, who was press-ganged into it by friends, family, and community, because they know that’s the right person for the job.
I understand this sentiment, but I’ve never agreed with it. I really don’t want someone who doesn’t want the job in the White House. I’ve always thought it was odd that politics is the one area of human endeavor where we actively despise those who attempt to advance themselves. Sure, there are people who run for office for the wrong reasons. But I want someone who’s has the fire to serve and has the ambition and determination to put themselves through the democratic wringer to be President.
Harris is fine and dandy. Right now I think she’s the only one who can slay the dragon. I can tell you who would NOT be a good choice is Joe Manchin. He made some noise about making a run but really Joe, look in the mirror. There will you see the only person who thinks you should be president.
Yeah, there is this kind of thought that someone who didn’t seek office and was gang-pressed into it would be incorruptible, even though there is no reason to believe that just because someone did not aspire to power that they would not then be seduced by the opportunities once it was available to them. And it ignores that someone who didn’t run for office or come up through public service is likely going to be completely inept at dealing with both the politics and the actual responsibilities of the job, including learning how to develop trusted advisors and delegate authority while still maintaining responsibility. As much as he was often beloved by progressives, Barack Obama was largely distrustful of the ‘experts’, often insisting that he understood more than they did after a cursory reading of material, which hamstrung him in many ways when experience and deep knowledge was required, and it took him a while to forge good working relationships with many Democratic leaders because his meteoric rise didn’t allow time to develop that network or to learn who he should and shouldn’t trust on particular issues.
If you want a president who didn’t actually want to do the job, look no further than George W. Bush, who was basically subordinated by his own Vice President and Secretary of Defense into engaging in the two longest and least fruitful wars the country has ever fought under highly dubious rationales. That’s what you get with someone who doesn’t want to do the job.
Or Warren G. Harding, quoted as saying, “I am not fit for this office and should never have been here.” He had no vision for the country, let his corrupt friends do whatever they wanted, and just tried to do as little as possible until his term was over.
He’s often considered among historical scholars as one of, if not the worst POTUS in history. That is what you get when you have someone in that job that never wanted it.
The view comes less from idealism and more from history. The leaders who have gone down as the best were the ones that were relatively ambivalent about having power but serious about how to use it appropriately - Washington, Fabius, Bolivar, etc.
Balancing the budget, for example, is rarely going to enamor you with the general public. You might need to raise taxes, you might need to cut some programs, etc. In decades and generations, the choice improves the quality of life because you’re not chucking debt on the shoulders of future generations but today it’s pretty much always worse. So if, today, during your lifetime, you want to build your fame and popularity then you’re disinclined from making unpopular decisions. That limits your options, significantly.
Fabius, having the answer that was the cheapest, easiest, and safest for the nation - with a fairly well guaranteed success outcome - was kicked out of office for making unpopular decisions. They brought him back because no one else had a true path to winning.
Popularity is not correlated to wisdom.
A person who isn’t driven to hold the job has incentives to see to it that there’s a successor, that the system will continue to function successfully without a single point of failure, etc.
To be sure, if your guy is just looking to escape at the earliest possible opportunity and he’s not even willing to take on the responsibility, that’s bad and won’t work. But I’m not suggesting that. It does need to be someone who accepts the gravitas and accepts that they have a duty to the people to do their best. It just needs to be someone who has no particular desires past that.
Stewart has no experience running a large organization…but I’d take him over Trump.
In theory, Kamala should have experience from acting as AG of California but, given her problems just managing her own VP staff, I am reminded that a lot of AG’s delegate most of the work to someone else and largely serve as a mouthpiece. You can get voted in and, by dint of simply doing nothing, pass through without scandal or harm. You don’t work your way up, through the system, demonstrating your ability to manage to become state AG, Senator, nor President. You get there by succeeding in a popularity contest.
In a sense, Trump is the most qualified of the bunch, except that he mostly seems to have shrunk the business he inherited, other than finding a niche that fit his talents in entertainment production. Minus con-artistry and creative accounting, I’m not sure that he’d have made it through to today. And I’m not sure that really counts as “successful business management” in the sense that we’d desire.
If I was Stewart’s friend, I wouldn’t be encouraging him to run. Just “not wanting the job” isn’t sufficient to become “press-gangable”. You press-gang someone because they’re clearly a good fit for the role - both in temperament, wisdom, and experience.
That would certainly make for a more interesting State of the Union Address, and he could double as the “Featured Entertainer” at the White House Correspondents Dinner. I’d prefer him as Vice President, however, where he could preside over the Senate and roundly mock them for their complete lack of accomplishment and using the filibuster to avoid actually doing the hard work of negotiating a compromise.