My thoughts ran the same direction as yours.
I’d have spent a lot less money & effort on the Hillary campaign if she was running against Rice.
I dunno. I’m not sure that a large chunk of his base—call them Reagan Democrats—would have followed a candidate that I’m guessing wouldn’t have been as populist, nativist, and anti-illegal immigration as Trump initially positioned himself.
That said, the election was won by Trump by around 100,000 votes in MI, PA, and WI. Less than one percent of the 13 million or so total voters in those states. Any candidate that wasn’t as unfavorable as Hillary Clinton would probably have given the Democrats the win. That includes Warren, Maria Cantwell, Beverly Purdue, Christine Gregoire, maybe even Janet Napolitano.
It’s hard to overestimate just how much Clinton (and Trump, too) were disliked by the electorate. Which leads one to think that pretty much anyone else would have won.
[spittake]You SPENT MONEY on that shit? [/spittake]
Goddamn P. T. Barnum!
If there’s a post of the year award for 2016 the above gets my vote.
I voted for Trump, not because I liked Trump, but because I loathe Hillary. I would have voted for Carly Fiorina, or Sarah Palin, or Aunt Jemimah or Lizzie freakin’ Borden over Hillary. So, to answer the OP, yes, from my perspective.
Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth, Kamala Harris, Michelle Obama, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Oprah Winfrey, Madonna, Tina Fey… pretty much anyone.
I would guess thousands of women could have beaten Trump. Assuming that a) they could have gotten the nomination-and it takes a lot of organization and or appeal to do that- and b) they hadn’t been the subject of years of attacks and scrutiny (deserved or undeserved doesn’t matter as long as it hasn’t been dragged out over years).
So, Hilary lost not because a women can’t win-something like 90% of Americans said they would vote for a qualified women and that was back in the 90’s, but she suffered years of deliberate attacks on her character and actions by the Republicans. Just as her husband did, just as Obama did, etc. It is a deliberate political strategy of the Republican party. I am sure they view it as an honorable strategy that protects the country from unworthy people and oh by the way it benefits their power structure, but it is their strategy.
And I think that is one reason why Bernie might have won. Not because he is a man, because he hasn’t been the subject of years of Republican scrutiny and attacks. I think it is a major reason why Obama did win. He wasn’t on the list long enough. Once he became a national figure, it was too late. The strategy spent eight years attacking him, but given his national position he was able to stay ahead of the attacks personally. His agenda didn’t fair so well.
Like a good supreme court justice, the best candidate is one without a paper trail-or in this case a Republican attack history. Which is why Elizabeth Warren will never win a national office. She is on the attack list.
See post #6.
Rosie O’Donnell. Okay, she may not have won, but the debates may have been more entertaining.
Except that it is a valid question in terms of appeal to demographics. The conventional thinking is that a female candidate faces an uphill battle against people who won’t vote for her, even though the best estimates of the effect quantify it as being about 3-4% of the popular vote, and largely a demographic that will already vote socially conservative anyway, while it is demonstrable that on a typical election since 1980 women turn out more than men in a gap that bridges to vastly exceeds that margin, and as the selection of Sarah Palin demonstrated, it is not necessarily a negative even for a female candidate that is manifestly unqualified depending on political bent. In other words, yes, the parties should select candidates based upon the best qualifications and appeal to core and key swing demographics, but if anything, a female candidate should sway the more typically pragmatic or undecided voters.
That women, and especially young and minority women, did not turn out in droves to support Clinton says very much about her lack of appeal and the perceived disinterest in the problems faced by minorities and mid-America, notwithstanding the manufactured or exaggerated scandals that may have made the difference between marginal success or failure. A popular female Democratic candidate should have absolutely wiped the floor with Trump, especially after his campaign turned to outright misogyny (which was pretty much the very beginning with his repugnant statements about Megan Kelly). The arrogance and hubris of her campaign in largely ignoring those segments, as well as selecting a running mate on the apparent basis of not outshine get her. This is the way most people who were not dyed in the wool Hillary advocates felt about her.
The answer to this is not to avoid running a woman candidate; the answer is to next time select a candidate that doesn’t begin with a massive deficit of public trust and enough ethically suspect actions to seemingly legitimize questions about their integrity. And if that candidate is a woman, so much the better because nearly any moderate to progressive female candidate should be able to pull the majority of female voters with relatively modest effort. Liz Warren, Kamala Harris, Tammy Duckworth, Tulsi Gabbard, take your pick. Hell, mix and match, and let the next Republican candidate spew vitriolic bile at an actual popular female ticket, and see how well that goes for them.
Stranger
Yes, of course I did. She was running against Donald Trump.
I was about to post this and then I saw you already had. Condi Rice would have won the primary and been quite a contender in the General Election.
I’d love to see Tulsi Gabbard run in 2020. Hillary Clinton isn’t shit because she’s a woman, she’s shit because she’s Hillary Clinton.
I nominate Olympia Snowe.
Judge Judy
Which is why you should not look at a map when it comes to figuring out the depth of political support.
Those giant areas on the map are giant because relatively few people live there.
Manhattan has more people than Montana, but you won’t see the island where Donald Trump lives on any electoral map of the US.
A projection like this works much better.
If you had a candidate as charismatic and “hopeful” as a Bill Clinton or Barack Obama running against Trump this year, they would’ve won, male or female. Are there any women with that level of charisma right now? Not sure. IMO, this was a year that was going to swing to the Republicans no matter what, unless you had a superstar Democrat on the ticket. It wasn’t so much that Trump won, rather that ® won. The fact that the ® was Donald Fucking Trump is just an unfortunate end result.
The charisma of both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama snuck in out of nowhere, so if there was a woman charismatic enough to have retained the White House for the Dems, it’s likely most of us don’t even know about her.
Just MHO.