Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush — Governors every one. In fact the only Presidents elected in the 20th or 21st centuries where Senator was highest previous post are Warren Harding, and two with super charisma: JFK and BHO.
There are several Governors touted for the big job. Let’s please discuss them and watch them speak on YouTube before giving up and going with a Senator.
Correction: the precedent has been established for foreign-born Republicans. (IIRC there wasn’t the slightest whimper of “not natural-born” McCain, except perhaps from the fringiest fringe.) It is the GOP which bases its campaigns on Lies, Lies, Hatreds and Lies. I’ll bet two cases of the delicious sweet-sour sticky rice whiskey that if Duckworth becomes a nominee FoxNews will rant about her “non-Americanness” every single day.
Bullock; Hickenlooper; Cuomo; former MA gov Patrick; former VA McAuliffe … anyone else worth discussing? The governor bench is deeper on the R side than on the D one.
Cross off McAuliffe as too tied to the Clinton legacy. Patrick currently works for Bain? Hard to get the progressive wing to embrace that. Cuomo? No. Hickenlooper and Bullock? May both be too moderate to get the nom even if they’d represent good options in a general.
Happy to be sold on one of them though!
And besides governors we’ve had former military too, but McRaven has significant chronic illness, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, concern about which would dog him in a campaign making every sniffle into a big deal for the media.
Seriously? You really think Mike Pence could have been in elected office for almost 20 years and have a problem simply being around people who aren’t white males?
One thing that won’t help Democrats defeat Republicans is their treating them like the caricatures of Republicans in their heads, rather than the actual people (however much you may dislike or disagree with them) they are. Underestimating the opposition is a bad, bad strategy.
There’s a number of Democrats that probably shouldn’t run:
Cory Booker - Unmarried, that’s a political problem. He also is weirdly detested by a number of the hardcore progressives even though I think he’s a pretty liberal Senator.
Tammy Duckworth - Amazing woman, but I don’t think she should run. I don’t think she looks like Americans believe a President should look, she’s also disabled. None of that should matter but I 100% think it does matter, sadly.
Kamala Harris - I worry that she doesn’t have the firebrand streak in her that I think a successful Dem will need in 2020. She’s smart, competent, and mainstream–but I’m not sure that’s what it’ll take to get the electorate on your side anymore. I also worry about her general political base. She’s not lefty enough to have the foaming-throngs of leftism like Sanders and Warren, and she hasn’t built up a big “establishment” base either. Her approval ratings in California are mediocre for someone who wants to run for President, in a State where a Democrat should be very popular.
Andrew Cuomo - I don’t see a lot of popular support for him regardless, but this guy is a bad idea. New York politics is a contact sport and he’s got a lot of dirt on him from playing that game so long, he’s also too divisive. He’d be a good target for a lot of Trump’s attacks too.
What concerns me is the two who I think would be strongest, right now, would be either Biden or Bernie at the top of a ticket, with maybe Harris as VP. I don’t know a lot about Hickenlooper, it sounds like he could be okay but I feel like he has no name recognition.
I feel like Elizabeth Warren would be a strong VP pick but I’m not sure she’s ideal for the top of the ticket.
I guess you were blissfully unaware of Rush Limbaugh 24 years earlier. Hillary had been the target of conspiracy theories for about a quarter century. It was reckless for her to run.
And I hope by now we’ve learned our lesson.
I can’t speak to what non-Midwesterners will think, but whenever Tammy Duckworth speaks, she proves how American she is, unlike that funny-sounding New Yawker with two foreign parents.
That’s not speculation: It’s established fact. He’s not allowed to meet one-on-one with women: His wife needs to be present to chaperone him.
Martin Hyde, don’t forget that the reason for Duckworth’s disability is war wounds. I don’t think that you can lump “disabling war wounds” in with disability in general, in the eyes of the American electorate.
I supported Jim Webb in 2016 (well, until he dropped out, anyway) - a guy like that could NEVER be “swiftboated” under any circumstances. Not gonna happen. And he’s a true conservative Democrat, he’s pro-gun, he’s the kind of guy who could kill it in the Rust Belt and Middle America with blue collar white voters and veterans. But he was far too conservative to make it in the primaries.
First of all, in a debate, he would not be alone with her. He’d be in front of an audience, a moderator or panel thereof, a camera crew, etc. And even then, if he wants his wife in the vicinity, I’m sure that’s available to him.
Secondly, Attack from the 3rd Dimension also said that her race would make him uncomfortable.
Basically, that poster is trying to say that because he’s a Christian fundamentalist Republican, he’s so pathologically racist and sexist that to debate Kamala Harris on stage would give him too much a case of the willies to function properly. That’s ridiculous.
I agree that the characterization of Mike Pence - who I don’t like at all, mind you - is totally absurd. The guy is a brick wall. He’s one of the most composed and polished politicians I’ve ever seen in my lifetime (32 years), just solely in terms of presentation - certainly more so than anyone else in Trump’s whole administration (I’m excluding James Mattis because Mattis is not a politician.) Pence is not going to be rattled by anything in a debate, and it doesn’t matter how stupid you may find his ideas about women to be.
I just don’t think that’s true. It worked with Kerry because he turned against the war after his service, grew his hair out, attended anti-war rallies, spoke out against the idea of Vietnam being a justified war…the fact that he served in combat didn’t make up for this behavior in the eyes of his opponents. Perhaps just as importantly, Kerry came from a moneyed family and his stint in the military was spun as more of an attempt at pedigree-building than a genuine desire to serve the country. (Yeah, yeah, I know - I’m just saying how it was spun.)
None of those things are true of Webb, the circumstances are just different, plus Webb was also Reagan’s Secretary of the Navy, those are pretty unimpeachable credentials.
They could try to swiftboat him, but I doubt it would work, mostly because I imagine he would push back against it personally.
As he was a Marine who saw combat in Vietnam (receiving a Navy Cross, and a Silver Star), I wonder if there are any Bob Kerrey-like stories about him and his unit that would be used? Not that I think he committed any war crimes, or have any evidence of same, but in war, especially that one, shit happened. Things that made sense at the time might look horrific to a populace not used to thinking about war or understanding that occasionally some people are just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Or maybe I’m just thinking that too much of Fields of Fire was autobiographical.
I liked his candidacy as well, and wanted him to run in 2008.
I really doubt that would be a turnoff for most people. Humans admire combat veterans pretty much universally, except in a handful of religious sects who are not meaningful voting demographics, and the idea that someone killed people in a war is not going to really bother anyone.
But furthermore, could you imagine Trump trying to argue about military policy in a debate with Jim Webb or someone like him? Can you imagine what an idiot he would sound like? I do think the debates (and the subsequent replays and discussions of them online) are a huge part of the election, and in this regard someone who can, for lack of a better word, swing a bigger pair of balls at Trump would be able to take him down a notch or two, to put it mildly.
It was enough of a turnoff to torpedo any ambitions Kerrey had for higher office. A bigger problem would be that Webb will be 74 in 2020. And while that’s the same age as Trump, if Trump campaigns like he did at the end of October in 2016, no one should have any questions about Trump’s stamina. Biggest problem seems to be that the Democrats don’t seem to want white males as their candidates for higher office, which is a reason I don’t think Hickenlooper will get much traction if he runs in 2020. It would be interesting to see Webb have to disavow his 1979 article, Women Can’t Fight. He had to a bit for his Senate campaign, but it’s obviously a much different climate today.
Trump would get his head handed to him by Webb in a debate question concerning military affairs. Which is why Trump would rapidly try to make it about personality or anything else instead. Webb was renowned for being a gigantic asshole who couldn’t get along with people when he was SECNAV. And probably contributed to him only being in the job for a year. Did he have the same reputation as Senator?
Of course, all this is academic: I seriously doubt he’ll run.
Sure, maybe as far as just attacking his Military service. But now “swiftboating” has grown to mean such things as Birtherism, Hillary Murdered Foster, etc.
And today’s Democratic party is totally like the one when Bill ran and won. For one, you lot actually seem to care about sexual harassment by your political figures these days…
But hey, go on rolling your eyes. I like seeing my political opponents continue to shoot themselves in the feet.