Elizabeth Warren gave a horrible interview on Pod Save America last week and she’s definitely dropped down on my list of desired nominees.
She needs to quit trying to be folksy. The nonsense about Dunkin’ Donuts versus Starbucks doesn’t play well outside of New England.
She needs to really get her act together about financial markets regulation. I work in that industry and I was just cringing listening to her mistakes. Not quite as bad as Bernie Sanders’ deer in the headlights interview with the New York Daily News, but pretty close.
Jacquernagy has given up on female candidates for US President. It’s a theme in his posts.
I, who remember mocking Hillary Rodham Clinton as a “Frau” on this board, am more sanguine about someone named Amy or Tammy pulling it off. HRC had the baggage of moving between “married to a politician but with her own private sector career,” “First Lady,” and “trying to be a politician in her own right.” And she has, still, the baggage of the man she married. Someone who has built her own career without ever trying to ride on her husband’s name could have a shot.
Sherrod Brown, as the highest-ranking pol in the USA to be a labor union guy, leads my list. You need working class support to have a shot.
For actually doing the job? If I were a campaign pro, I’d seriously and repeatedly interview each of the senior State Department hands that Trump let go. Would they, could they, handle the job? Who would they recommend? Who would they want to work with? The USA is going to have to rebuild, and so is State.
First of all let me just state in no uncertain terms that I have not given up on female candidates for President. In fact, I am absolutely certain that there will be one, sooner rather than later.
There are two separate issues here. One, the fact that Hillary was a very weak candidate. The popular vote isn’t what wins the election any more than the baseball team who hits more balls into the outfield wins the game. It isn’t the number of balls that are hit, it’s where they go.
Two, the fact that, in my opinion, there is too much of an undercurrent of sexism in American society for a female candidate to be the strongest possible candidate for President to run against Donald Trump in 2020. I’m speaking only of this very specific scenario. It doesn’t mean that in the future there won’t be “moments” that can be seized by a female candidate and that she won’t win, or that she won’t be a good president. It means that, right now, in this country, in this political climate - unfortunately - being female is a liability for a presidential candidate.
I think that an election where there is less at stake - where the Republican candidate is less potentially destructive than Trump - would be a fine time to run a female candidate. I just don’t think this is the time to try something that’s never been tried before with a successful outcome. That’s all.
I could be wrong - I am not a political scientist. I am a layman informed by my own intuition and observations, not by any kind of formal training, and I do hope to be proven wrong.