I’m curious…who do you WANT to represent the Democrats in the next Presidential election? Not who will you hold your nose and vote for (since I presume many of you don’t really want Obama, based on posts I’ve read about Obama lately), but who do you really, really want? Let’s say that it was up to you to pick a candidate who would be the Democratic candidate and run against whoever the Republicans pick in the general election…who would that person be?
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Barack Obama (or was a prereq that the poster didn’t want Obama?).
I don’t think she exists in the current political sphere.
A question of whom we want in the election must necessarily take electability into account, and anyone who managed to primary Obama would have a tough uphill climb for that. So I want Obama in the next election.
Now, if we could get whomever we wanted to win the race, that’d be a different story. But that’s sufficiently counterfactual that I don’t consider it worth bothering to give much thought.
No, you only get to pick the Democrats candidate here. So, 3 votes for Obama, and one vote for a candidate that doesn’t exist.
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Obama–anyone else I can think of right now it too left to win.
Obama. His first two years were probably the most legislatively successful of any Prez since Johnson, and certainly the most successful at passing Progressive legislation. Obviously he’s been more constrained by political realities since the midterms, but since then I think he’s played the cards he’s been dealt pretty effectively.
The big O. He is still the same guy I voted for, and I knew what I was voting for. I read his book, I knew he worked for the compromise he could get and not ideal he would never get. What I want is a Democrat controlled House and Senate with Senate leadership that will make the other party actually filibuster rather than threaten to. Or hell, if we are taking wishes, a 60 member majority in the Senate.
Obama. I am not 100% satisfied with his accomplishments so far, but I recognize that he had a lot of opposition to fight, and I’m not sure that I, or any other candidate I can think of, could have done much better.
Considering electability, Obama. He’s governing pretty much from the center and while there are things he’s done I don’t like, on balance he’s doing well.
Disregarding electability, Russ Feingold. He’s too far left to get the job, though.
I’m not a liberal, but I want Obama. He won’t be bound by the re-election problem, and might actually fix things…as opposed to the partial achievements like Healthcare, Finance Reform and War Exit.
Obama is the choice as a candidate, given reality; it isn’t even a question.
How about asking who we’d most like to have as President, assuming the electoral victory could be guaranteed? I’d go with Feingold too - progressive, pragmatic, experienced, and effective. There’s nobody else who could advance us farther.
Obama - there is no better qualified D out there. Though Andrew Cuomo is looking good for 2016.
I don’t know if I count as a liberal (certainly not a SDMB liberal) but I’ll play one for the purposes of this thread.
Back in 2008, I preferred Hillary Clinton over Obama because I felt that she would be more willing to fight for what she wanted and more effective in getting things done. Considering one of the main complaints against Obama (outside of him being a Kenyan Marxist Muslim) is that he has been to willing to seek accommodations, I stand by what I thought back then.
That said, I don’t want to see a primary fight. If Clinton were to ask me if she should run, I’d tell her no.
The same Lyndon B Johnson who waged the unwinnable War on Poverty, who via his welfare legislation caused black illegitimacy rates to sky-rocket, who pursued a Laodicean strategy in Vietnam?
As a classical liberal I’d like someone like Scott Brown or Mark Kirk to be President (provided they adjust their views on abortion).
I’m as satisfied with Obama as I think I could reasonably expect to be with any president. No, he’s not farting rainbows and puppies, but he’s doing pretty well overall.
I’m on board the Obama wagon. The lack of progress on some issues lies with republican assiness, in my opinion. I see him, time and again supporting legislation that I want and support so, there you go.
For electability, I’ll have to go with Obama. Yes, he has really upset me with all the compromises but, all in all, he truly has not been nearly as horrible a President as the right demonizes him to be.
Count me as another vote for Russ Feingold if we’re discounting electability.
Obama. I’m mildly upset that we don’t have anyone for 2016 so far, though.
Qin, the poor will always be with us, but the Judeo-Christian tradition still supports redistribution.
Oh, the OP. I don’t know. Jerry Brown has his hands full in California, and he’s old. Feingold might be OK.