I never said it applied to all biden supporters. But for a % of swing voters, maybe 5% of the electorate, who could go either way, it is an issue.
Pretending this isn’t a fact of modern American life won’t make it go away. Nobody is saying that we ‘have’ to pick a white man as our nominee. But if the race is extremely close, then for 5% of the electorate, it could make a difference between winning or losing.
2020 is the best time to run a woman against the incumbent Republican. Women went D+19 (!) in 2018 house races. Democrats narrowly won white women in 2018 when Trump won them by 9 points in 2016. What could be a better time to run a woman against a deeply unpopular, openly misogynistic, Republican incumbent?
Exactly! That’s why I think the attitude of rejecting the entire female gender out of hand, which inherently stinks already, is also particularly wrong now.
I would bet my last dollar that our first Jewish president will be a Republican and not a Democrat. There are a number of high profile Jews on the hard right, like Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro, who have huge followings. Right-wing Christians would rather vote for a right-wing Jew than a left-wing Christian, I think. There may be a lot of ((())) bullshit with the alt-right, but if ex-president Trump were to give his seal of approval to this hypothetical Jewish Republican candidate, it would override that. The whole idea of people hating Jews because they killed Christ is largely a thing of the past; the “Jewish banking conspiracy” thing is still a thing, but it’s pretty fringe at this point.
How? Explain to me how Martin O’Malley could beat Trump, and why the others couldn’t. I’m not seeing it. He’s the epitome of a forgettable also-ran. If there’s anyone from the small pool of 2016 Democratic primary candidates who has the best chance of beating Trump, it’s Jim Webb, but he’s not running again as far as I know.
The candidate could be a disabled Mexican-American lesbian from Rhode Island, if she’s electable. It’s some magical combination of charisma, gravitas, likability, relatability and luck. For a Democrat, anyway. Republicans seem to prefer the old-west sheriff slash daddy figure type.
I can’t really choose anyone yet. Let’s have a big, chaotic primary season and hope like hell that we can find consensus.
This would be a good place to have ranked voting, like Maine!
I’ve got two pretty much tied for now, one or two right behind, and a few I’d be very happy with.
Top two are Brown and Harris but having to choose just one went with Brown.
Too bad we couldn’t set up the poll like ranked choice voting, limiting choices to our top three picks. (Maybe we can – I’ve never set up a poll here.)
I went with Biden, but only due to his experience and ability to put things back to rights more quickly than almost anyone else except Obama. Plus I know he would call on Obama for help, even if only informally. I’d be equally happy with Brown and am a big fan of his. The choice was basically a toss-up for me. Pair either Biden or Brown with a Harris or Duckworth, and I’m all the way onboard!
Realistically, I’d vote for any on that list over any Republican. But of that list, there are some names that are near the bottom for me: Hickenlooper (poor judgment), O’Rourke (lack of experience), Sanders (once lost, my affections are never regained. Please just go away, Bernie!)
ETA: DSeid, I should have read your post more closely! 
Nothing, I expect.
However, I would expect that most people’s awareness of most of the potential candidates is somewhat superficial at this point. I’m a political junkie, as many of us are, but I’ve been preoccupied with the midterms - still really am, as stuff keeps staying up in the air.
My attitude for the past year has been, there’s plenty of time after the midterms are over to familiarize myself with the 2020 field. I will have a much better idea of who these people are six months from now.
Campaigning is kinda stupid right now because it’s the holiday season, and people are busy. And at least for January, it makes sense not to pull attention away from the newly Dem-controlled House. But after that…well, consider that Obama declared his candidacy for the 2008 nomination on February 10, 2007.
To be clear, the professional predictors are gamblers betting on candidates’ chance to be the nominee. If the total amount of money wagered is large enough, the laws of market economics take over and the predictions from this betting markets might be considered as informed probabilities. However, (a) the wagering may not be sufficient at this early date to be treated as informative; and (b) the odds may be swayed by people betting for emotional reasons rather than betting with a hard-nosed gambler’s mentality.
As a “member of the tribe” I would say I certainly expect that a woman becomes president sooner … hell more than half of American adults are women. Jews are only under 2% of American adults. A bit more than American Muslims or Hindus but not leaps and bounds so. The fact that there has yet to be a woman president is significant; that there has not been a Jewish one not so much so. People think there are more of us than there are.
In Congress today there are 30 who identify as Jewish (28 of them Democrats) … about 13%. Cantor was Speaker. And there have been quite a few Jewish governors, including from states like Iowa, Utah, Missouri, Illinois, Vermont, Oregon, and more … we are not talking only New York or Florida.
There are anti-Semites to be sure, and those who would never vote for someone who is Jewish. But fairly few Americans are seeing “Jewish” as disqualifying. Sanders in a general election would have had more negative reaction to his atheism than to his being of Jewish descent.
Anyway. Nothing may “fundamentally change with any of these people between today and the start of the next campaign” but lots will change about how much we know about them and how well they do expressing their visions to a national audience. Right now they are a group of people at a party we haven’t talked to much and few of us are ready to say which one we most want to marry.
Beto for strategic reasons. He gives a huge potential for a Democrat to carry TX, while it’s safe they will still carry many of the other big democratic states like NY & CA. Also, think other southern and possibly Midwest states could start to lean Democrat if it looks like TX would get behind Beto. Don’t really know that much about Beto, doesn’t matter, my vote is “Anybody but Trump.”
Cribbing from 538: If considering strategic reasons then one needs to assure wins in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, or be able to be confident of pulling off Florida plus another Sun Belt state (North Carolina, Arizona, Texas or Georgia) or possibly think of it as Texas plus another Sun Belt state.
Beto lost to Cruz in Texas. No shocker that but it does not give confidence that he would be Trump there. The potential to win it is there but calling it “huge” is an overstatement. Less poor odds than some others have yes but you’d still have to plan a path that does not rely on it.
Is he someone who is better able to deliver either of those paths than the others are?
I’d love to have Texas in play and it should be fought for, but depending on it is foolhardy.
The safest path strategically is the Northern Path. Assure wins in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, and then stretch for Ohio and the Sun Belt, Texas inclusive, maybe winning something out of the mix as well. One or more are doable.
That’s part of why Brown is leading this poll despite the fact that Beto has been the celebrity of the season. He’s the one who at this point seems most likely to be able confidently deliver the Northern Path while having a reasonable chance of delivering Ohio as well, and maybe something out of the Sun Belt group.
And he has the goods as well!
Beto would be a fucking disaster as a candidate. He would never be able to connect with the Rust Belt. I hate calling it that because it shouldn’t be rusty - just as a sidetrack, if I were running for president, I would have among my arsenal of catchphrases something along the lines of “we’re going to clean the rust off of the belt” or some other facile but memorable line relating to the idea of literally restoring a rusted object to a shiny and clean one…it’s fucking stupid but people would remember it so it would serve its purpose as an effective catchphrase.
Anyway, presumably most of us here are acquainted with at least a handful of blue collar industrial workers…I don’t mean to paint with too broad of a brush, but ask yourself, who is more likely to gain traction with those guys, Sherrod Brown, or a dude who was photographed wearing a flowery dress? Yeah yeah, I know, but make no mistake about it, that fucking picture of him wearing that dress, or whatever it is, would be fucking EVERYWHERE if he were running against Trump. EVERYWHERE. He would BECOME that damn dress, that’s how relentlessly the picture would be used in attack ads.
The best strategy in my opinion for Democrats moving forward in the presidential election, is reclaiming the industrial states, and getting black voters energized. Beto doesn’t check either of those boxes. Younger voters might swoon over him but younger voters cannot be counted on to deliver an election.
The reason I answered “Of course not” to that is you could have perfectly cromulent reasons for supporting Sherrod. As long as your reason is not the rejection of the entire female gender out of hand, like you often see in this forum, not proceeding on the attitude that only a white man can save us. You haven’t taken that line. If you like Sherrod for his positive qualities, I have no objection at all. I’m not anti-male, I’m just anti-misogyny.
All other things being equal, I’d prefer that women be in power, rather than men. Amy Klobuchar, in particular, seems like a very intelligent, competent, and good-spirited woman who would make a very fine President. (Here is a WaPo article which describes the choice between Klobuchar and Harris as pragmatic vs inspirational, respectively.)
However, in the fight to oust the Trump Abomination the only criteria which have any relevance whatsoever are Electability, Electability and Electability.
I admit to being nervous and pessimistic enough to worry that running a woman will just give the haters another excuse to hate. I’d love to be proved wrong.
I’m not enamored with a Beto candidacy either, but want to address your 2nd point: the unreliability of young voters.
This is a problem worldwide. Some young people are active politically but on balance they do not vote. This wasn’t always so: In the 1992 U.K. general election, voter turnout was 75% among the old (65+) and 63% (not that far behind) among the young (18-24). By the 2015 election, these numbers were 78% and only 43%. Decisions that affect the young are being made by the old, and the young are letting them get away with it.
In the 2016 U.K. referendum a whopping 80% of young women voted to Remain, but that wasn’t enough to hold off the Old. (This may be a bad example since youth turnout may have been unusually high in that election, though still not as high as turnout among the old.) In the U.S.A. if the Young turned out in any numbers approaching the turnout of the Old, Hillary Clinton would have beaten Trump in a landslide.
In the 2017 French Presidential election (first round), Jean-Luc Mélenchon was the top choice among voters aged 18-24. Yet he finished in 4th place. Contrast this with the French election of 1981 which had record turnout; and saw young French people filling the streets in celebration.
Change anyone’s mind on a partisan topic? That seems to be futile in today’s clime.
Instead let’s focus on Getting out the Youth Vote.
Thinking a white male is our best bet to beat Trump doesn’t automatically make a person a misogynist. My wife, a feminist through and through, specifically wants a white male at the top of the ticket in 2020. That’s because she thinks, like I do, there’s a very real chance sexism will prevail in 2020 if a woman is the nominee. Stop trying to make this about a white male “saving us.” It’s not.
There aren’t many voters out there who won’t vote for a presidential candidate because he’s a man. Unfortunately, I reckon there are still plenty of voters out there who will NOT vote for a presidential candidate because she’s a woman. The 2020 race is not the time to test this theory.
Well, as Bernie Sanders demonstrated, it’s possible to energize young voters with an old candidate. I doubt the reverse is true, which is why Brown still kills Beto in the matchup that I explained.
All Brown would have to do would be make plenty of public appearances at colleges with a lot of animated, pugilistic, quotable moments, some off the cuff sarcasm, or whatever kind of tactic got a good reaction from the audience (it would be a process of trial and error to determine how to best get a rise out of the crowd, but he’d figure it out eventually) and throw a lot of bones to younger voters [cough…marijuana…COUGH] and he’d be the next Bernie, but a younger and scrappier model. I think he could pull it off.
He could wrap up the blue collar industrial Democratic demographic, have a strong foothold with the younger voters, and with a charismatic running mate who’s black or Hispanic, help his chances with that block also.
Just to play Devil’s Advocate then - when is the time to test that? I mean philosophically I lean just a little in the direction of you and your wife. A straight, white, nominally Christian and probably Midwestern man is the safest pick from a realpolitik POV. I voted for Sherrod Brown above. But then again a black man with a rather foreign-sounding name won two elections. Hilary Clinton who had a lot of baked in negatives( fair or not )and wasn’t anybody’s idea of a great campaigner came within a hair of winning another.
So when do we roll the dice on another non-white or female( or both )candidate? After Trump is gone? What if after Trump we get Rush Limbaugh or some other red-meat throwing clown running for office? Waiting for the perfect alignment of the stars isn’t always a great idea.