No, there’s no way in hell he’ll run. And if he did, there’s no way he’d get the nomination.
I do think the Democrats’ only chance moving forward is guys like Webb though. Unlike a lot of people who think the Democrats need to move to the left and get the “progressive” vote out, I think moving to the right is more likely to win the Presidential election. I’m not saying the Democrats collectively as a party need to abandon progressive platforms, just that at this point in time, I don’t think Bernie-type candidates are the ones that can beat Trump in 2020.
I think the Democrats need to win back the Rust Belt from Trump. I think it can be done. I think it will require a man. I think this man will have to have a tough personality, he will have to be aggressive, and be capable of making blue collar workers think he is on their side. I don’t think this is impossible. Human beings and their opinions are malleable and subject to being swayed by a charismatic personality. But the focus needs to be on job growth, economic growth, patriotism, the idea of America being a leader in the world again, it needs to be Kennedy-esque…I think it’s possible. But I don’t know who among the Democrats could step up and do it?
Polices, schmolicies. Neither Clinton nor Obama had much in the way of policies, but are regarded as great Presidents because they had strong leadership abilities and … most important … won their November elections!
I was very disappointed by the 2016 Democratic debates. There were five on the stage: two were just there as stuffing, two got most of the questions, and one — Jim Webb — just stood around getting understandably angry he was seldom called upon. Is it too late to try Webb again?
Or are we just focused on the top names? Two octogenarians and Kamala Harris?? Are those our choices??? (Just give me my cyanide pill now; this is getting too painful to watch.)
Cheer me up, please! Mention someone who has a chance. Hickenlooper? I’ve never heard of Hickenlooper — should I search for him speaking on YouTube and hope I get enthused?
Who cares why I’ve not heard of him before? I’d not heard of most of the proposed candidates. What I want to know is: Is Hickenlooper the man who will ride in and save America?
Kamala or the octogenarians — they ain’t it. Surely even the D’s aren’t masochistic enough to go with Warren or Booker. So, should I just pencil Trump in for six more years?
I’m not sure Booker is as masochistic of a choice as you might think. I think he just might be able to pull it off. The rest, I agree, are unlikely to get it done. I used to think Biden could be a contender, but I don’t know anymore. I don’t think his age is as big a weakness as many people seem to think, but it still a potential weakness and the candidate has to have as few of them as possible.
My gut feeling is that it will wind up being Warren, and she will lose, and we will have to look at Trump’s orange mug every day until 2024.
I’m comforted by the following fact: there are tons of liberals and liberal-leaning voters (and moderates) who either didn’t vote or voted 3rd party because they thought Hillary was a shoo-in to win. And she still barely lost, by only a few tens of thousands of votes in 3 states.
So without evidence that Trump’s popularity and appeal has grown since election day 2016 (and I’ve seen no such evidence), then all we need is a candidate slightly better than Hillary Clinton. Maybe not even that, since I don’t think as many of those non or 3rd-party voting liberals and moderates will sit out this time.
IMO, all the major Democrats (plus Sanders) discussed in this thread meet that wicket.
You’re making the mistake of underestimating his appeal, the same mistake everyone made the last time around. I do think his popularity has grown among the base, which seems more fired up now than ever…I see no reason why the Rust Belt states who helped him win would be any less inclined to vote for him again, and he continues to hold constant rallies touting his supposed job growth. He will be the incumbent, and the incumbent usually wins.
I don’t think “just slightly better than Hillary Clinton” is an acceptable qualification for the Dem nominee. Is this really - really - the time to half-ass it?
Of course not – hopefully we’ll have the best and strongest candidate, and nothing I said conflicts with that. And it’s only a feeling – I’m not making any predictions this early.
I was thinking about this this morning. I think that a lot of the Senators we’re discussing seem less than impressive as potential chief executives. Some of that is that we don’t always think of Senators as leaders, which is perhaps unfair. I think a lot of that is that we have a stereotype of what a Presidential candidate is like; someone with a feminine manner doesn’t fit our stereotypes.
I’m kind of going back to my idea of talking to the senior State Department staff that Trump let go early on. See who they would want to work with, or if one of them would even run personally.
But of high-ranking pols, the names we know, I think the answer may be in leaving behind a conventionally “masculine enough” ticket, and just going with pols who are personally appealing.
Today, maybe for the first time, I thought this: A Warren/Duckworth ticket makes a kind of sense. One has Great Lakes roots and represents the idea of military sacrifice; the other has Great Plains roots and speaks for the middle class and common man. I’d put Warren at the top of the ticket, because she’s older and wouldn’t have to be the mother to a two-year-old at the time. But Tammy Duckworth as Veep might work out.
Or maybe Warren/Harris. I would like Kamala to stay in the Senate longer and not try to jump ahead to the Presidency too fast; I think being out of the Senate & Bill Clinton’s VP for eight years made Al Gore’s reputation just a little more ridiculous. But Kamala Harris is not Al Gore, so maybe it’ll be OK. Unfortunately for my preference that Kamala stay in the Senate, “Warren/Harris” rolls off the tongue too well. (And of course, as a nerd, I remember that Warren and Harris were the names of two different publishers of hyper-femme comic-book icon Vampirella. This means nothing; but the low-grade weirdness of it makes this ticket feel, absurdly, more plausible.)
You are persuasive. I can see it, too. All Trump has to do is tweet that a couple of thousand times along with enumerating the cons’ perception of all the terrible things OBAMA did and, bye-bye, Dems.
That is, however, assuming Trump runs again. My spidey says he won’t. Trump has been awash in stuff from the beginning that he doesn’t like and is no good at – not to mention his low boredom threshold. (He spends much of his time ignoring or even walking out on his advisors when they’re trying to brief him on something.)
So who will run instead will have an effect on who the Dems put up.
Right now, Biden is making early-run noises. As for who else they’ve got? Nobody stands out, but it’s early days yet – kind of. Others had better get on the stick pretty soon, though.
I could live with Biden. (It’s amazing, how far my standards for Good President have sunk since Nov 2016. I think I’d consider Booboo Bear at this point.) But I’m not crazy about Harris. We must always remember the “heartbeat away” thing. Gotta think about my VEEP choice some more.
Can he do it? He did a good job as mayor of Denver and then as governor of Colorado. Colorado has a nontrivial immigrant (legal & illegal) population which seems to be well-managed; Colorado pioneered legal weed during his tenure without it becoming a national embarrassment. Colorado isn’t particularly large in terms of economy or population, but he was equal to the task of running it and its largest city. I’m pretty sure he’d have to win the election with zero Bible Belt states.
Hickenlooper might make a good president, but from what I’ve seen of him he’s too nice to effectively annihilate Trump in any meaningful (read: Neanderthal) way in ritualized combat. For voters who respond to chest-thumping, it’s Trump all day long.
Not Hickenlooper. I disqualified him when he and John Kasich began kicking around the idea of a Kasich/Hickenlooper joint ticket. If Kasich has become a “moderate Republican,” then the battle is already lost. (Check his record.) That Hickenlooper would even consider such a joint run disqualifies him in my view based on his bad judgment.
I want to see a Mark Warner/Tammy Duckworth ticket. They’re both young and have actual government experience. Both could be safely sacrificed from the Senate by 2020 and replaced by Democrats. They know how things get done. They understand the importance of diplomacy in a global world.
Warner is wealthy, but he has voted against his own personal best interests as a senator (tax bill, e.g.). Duckworth brings the military cred. Plus they’re both simply stellar individuals, IMHO.
This is my concern, too – that Rust Belters who maybe only voted for Trump out of dislike for Hillary will vote for him again just to prove they weren’t wrong the first time. It’s human nature to want to confirm you were right, especially when there are others calling your decision stupid.
So people who might have chosen a Biden over Trump in 2016 will go the other way in 2020.
We need someone who’s not just better than Hillary, but in a whole different strata,
Warner sounded like a good prospect to me when someone here described him, but I remember looking up videos of him on YouTube and feeling like he lacked the charisma and aggression to get it done in the election. His voice and mannerisms reminded me of Tim Kaine. I don’t think that’s the kind of guy we need.
Fair enough. BUT even if he’s a DINO, he’s neither incompetent nor evil, and he can grab Republican votes away from Trump. If he runs as a Dem, what are liberal Dem voters gonna do–throw a tantrum and sit it out so Trump gets reelected?
It was probably me that described him earlier. I’m still sold on him.
I’ve watched him a lot, and he’s no Tim Kaine. He’s the co-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, working with Richard Burr (R-NC) on their part of the Russia investigation. It’s the only congressional committee that’s managed to hold it together and has continued to work in a bipartisan way. I admire Warner for that.
I’ll allow I may be wrong, but it’s possible you’re underestimating the public’s appetite for draaaaama and chaos by 2020. I have a feeling that a steady, non-dramatic, competent, experienced and honest ticket may be just what the doctor ordered.
He ticks the white male boxes and isn’t “coastal.” Duckworth brings the women and the non-white interest.
I’ve no idea if he’s even interested in the job. But I’d sure get behind him if he is. I urge you to give him another look.
Yes, stage presence is the key quality we need. Forceful presence and good rhetoric skills are important traits for a President to have but, even more importantly, they’re essential to getting elected. I agree with you about Tim Kaine — he was quite lacking in “Presidential stage presence.”
But I’m not sure I’m always a good judge of “stage presence.” That’s why I asked others to evaluate Hickenlooper. Booker? I don’t think so. Harris? Maybe, but I’m doubtful.
Biden? I love Joe Biden, and I think he has good “stage presence.” But health can deteriorate very quickly in old age. He might be a youngish 75 year-old now but an old 77 year-old when debating for the big job. Read my posts in 2016 — I was rooting for the Democrats to ignore the primaries and select Biden instead! (Dopers laughed at me for this and suggested that I study Civics 101 — but then it turned out the Chairwoman of the DNC was seeking the same solution behind closed doors.)
I would like to see Mitch Landrieu be taken seriously.
The Landrieu family tree is a bit mysterious, with rumors suggesting that his family have some African ancestry. Even if they don’t, he clearly understands the plight of Black Americans and he understands racial injustice that ordinary whites don’t. Moreover, he understands racial polemic in ways that other “progressives” (like Bernie Sanders) don’t really seem to feel comfortable acknowledging or talking about openly.
At the same time, Landrieu is a guy who is well connected to state politics and he understands generally how the game of politics is played. Unlike Bernistas, he understands you can’t just fall on your own sword. You have to have pragmatism and a real-world understanding of issues, not just chant “$15 per hour” to actually accomplish change. Landrieu understands you have to build coalitions.
I gotta say, I’ve got nothing against Kamala Harris, Corey Booker, or Joe Biden, but Landrieu just seems like a better choice.
Mention someone who has a chance. Hickenlooper? I’ve never heard of Hickenlooper — should I search for him speaking on YouTube and hope I get enthused?
Who cares why I’ve not heard of him before? I’d not heard of most of the proposed candidates. What I want to know is: Is Hickenlooper the man who will ride in and save America?