A feather in your cap, to be sure!
Y’know, it seems to me a Communist can be just as good an NRA member as any other. Does none of the membership object that they’re going way, way beyond gun-rights politics here?
Get ready for the “Hillary is going to take all our guns away” bullshit. The rubes ate it up when it was Obama, so it’s a dead certainty they’ll trot it out again.
Man, I’d really love to see how the right-wing spin machine would try to cast Schweitzer as anti-gun, if he runs. Well, OK, I’d also love to see him run for other reasons, too, but that’s definitely part of it.
Along with conservatives and libertarians, actual communists and anarchists have been among the staunchest supporters of gun rights I’ve seen online.
In other words, you want to eat your cake and eat it too:
A far-leftie that can win an election.
If I were a Democrat I would be championing for a moderate. That’s the only way y’all get shit done.
I’m no Commie really, but I do have a red custom-made message-button I wear at SF cons: “If guns are outlawed, how will we shoot the capitalists?”
Depends on who the lefty is running against. A Warren or a Sanders or a Kucinich could not beat Jeb Bush – but could wipe the floor with Cruz, Perry, Huckabee, Carson, Gohmert, etc. Probably even Walker or Christie (he’s not hard-right, just too sleazy to win).
Not really I’d be fine with a Hillary or an Obama. Anyways I’m not a “far-leftie” in any meaningful sense considering my ideal candidate would be a Hubert Humphrey clone not some Kucinich.
Another option is to go for a “centrist” who is right-wing on issues you don’t care about but left wing on issues you do. Jim Webb is that kind of candidate, anti-war and economically populist but to the right of his party on social issues.
Another way to get there is to go for a guy with a reputation for working well with the other side. Russ Feingold and Ron Wyden are much too liberal to be President, except for the fact that they keep on finding common ground with guys like John McCain and Orrin Hatch and don’t use harsh language to describe the other side. Packaging a candidate as “moderate” is as much about tone as actual positions.
It’s official - Hillary’s in: http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/12/politics/hillary-clinton-president-2016-election/index.html
And SNL has a pretty good spoof: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/04/12/snl-imagines-hillary-clintons-presidential-announcement/
So is Hillary the only candidate being fielded by the Democrats?
What if she injures herself like she tends to do?
As mentioned upthread, other Dems more-or-less plausibly mulling over a 2016 run include these dudes:
I don’t think Webb is necessarily to the right of his party on social issues, unless you’re considering his opposition to women in combat from 30-odd years ago. It seems like his views have evolved on this issue, and he wants to make criminal justice reform a central theme of his domestic agenda.
Actually, I’m having difficulty understanding why Webb isn’t attracting more attention - even in six pages of this thread he’s only been mentioned briefly. He’s got an impressive resume: Decorated combat marine, SECNAV and Asst. SECDEF in the Reagan administration, (should be good for at least a little bipartisan good will) successful journalist author and filmmaker, Senator. For those of us who are still a bit ambiguous about HRC he looks like a pretty good alternative. I think he could do well in the primary and if nominated would have at least as good a chance as Clinton in the general election.
I’ve heard little about him. But after looking him up he’s right up my alley. I’ll have to keep and eye out and hope he runs (just the fact he sponsored the Post 9/11 GI Bill means I love him).
It also doesn’t hurt that he was anti-Iraq from the beginning. Hell, on 9/12 he wrote in an article, “Do not try to take land!”
Webb is still not a fan of affirmative action and is not too immigration-friendly either. He does favor a path to citizenship, but he voted against the Bush-Kennedy immigration reform bill and yes on making English the official language of the US.
It probably wouldn’t be useful to say he’s left or right so much as a populist. He’ll definitely reshuffle the coalitions a little if he’s nominated. The Democrats will win more white votes, more male votes, and minority turnout will probably decline.
I would say opposing (especially race-based) affirmative action and supporting English as an official language are perfectly reasonable positions consistent with a liberal viewpoint. The Democrats definitely need to nominate a populist-in the absence of a Huey Long, a Webb or Schweitzer is our best bet in that regard. I disagree, incidentally, that minority turnout will necessarily decline especially if nominee Webb or Schweitzer makes a judicious choice for a running-mate-Cory Booker becomes a distinct possibility (and an excellent balance) or perhaps Elizabeth Warren.
That depends on what the media focuses on in regards to a nominee Webb. Just putting a black guy on the ticket won’t help much if the media portrays Webb as a white populist candidate departing from Democratic orthodoxy on minority issues. Minority turnout is unreliable enough under the best of circumstances. If all minority voters learn about Webb is “opposed to affirmative action and immigration reform” then they will stay home. That probably won’t matter in the end, because if Webb wins the Reagan Democrats he wins the election. I was just observing that it would shuffle the coalitions a bit.
Webb can try to have the best of both worlds by advocating a switch to class-based affirmative action(which I think he may support), and making it clear that he does support a path to citizenship(albeit first after securing the border). The problem is that he’s not a good enough speaker or charismatic enough to control the narrative the way the best candidates do. Much as with Al Gore, the media is likely to decide what his candidacy is about and they’ll tend to focus on different things than the candidate would prefer.
She lost a wrestling match with a pretzel? Oh, wait, that wasn’t her, was it?
Or by continuing to have negative stories about her drip out. Did you read the latest about how she was asked about her email in 2012 and refused to answer the question? No, nothing to hide at all.