The US was ready for Elizabeth Warren but the people in charge are too idiotic to be able to cultivate those with the most potential, with respect to what the majority craves.
That’s a mouthful.
This.
Reminds me of some posters who say that Florida was “rigged” for Bush in 2000 and that Gore should have spent his campaign resources in other swing states instead. “Rigged” when the outcome difference was 0.01%?
If the people were ready for Elizabeth Warren, then why the heck didn’t Elizabeth Warren run for president already?
It’s all very well and good to pontificate about what the public really wants. But the way the public shows these things is by actually voting. You think the Republican establishment in 2016 wanted Donald Fucking Trump? Of course they didn’t, but the problem for them is that Trump got more votes than anybody else.
So of course the Democratic establishment in 2016 didn’t want Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. They wanted Hillary. They backed Hillary. But they also backed Hillary back in 2008, and look how far that got her. But in 2016 the only person running against her in the primary was Sanders. And Sanders didn’t get as many votes as Hillary. That’s just the facts. Would Sanders have done better if the Establishment had backed him, or played fair and didn’t support Hillary? Sure, probably? But so what? Why do you think they didn’t support Sanders? If Sanders had been the type of person who would get the support of the Democratic establishment, he wouldn’t have been the candidate you wanted.
Elizabeth Warren is not the transformative candidate you’re looking for. The Democratic establishment is never going to talk up someone with left-wing economic views, because they’re the establishment. If you want an economic left winger you’re going to have to get used to the idea of winning against the establishment, not somehow winning over the establishment. You only win over the establishment AFTER you’ve beaten them.
The U.S. will probably elect a woman President in my lifetime, and she’s to be center to right of center, with hawkish views on military intervention abroad (HRC would have mostly qualified, but the amount of negative baggage she carried (which would’ve required a major Air Force One fleet expansion) has ruled her out to this point. Not that she’s quit trying.
Surprising that Maxine Waters was cited as an example of an accomplished female candidate derided due to gender. Beyond dipping into conspiracy theory (i.e. promoting the idea that the C.I.A. was responsible for the crack epidemic) she’s been cited as one of the most corrupt members of Congress by a liberal watchdog group.
“According to Chuck Neubauer and Ted Rohrlich writing in the Los Angeles Times in 2004, Maxine Waters’ relatives had made more than $1 million during the preceding eight years by doing business with companies, candidates and causes that Waters had helped. They claimed she and her husband helped a company get government bond business, and her daughter Karen Waters and son Edward Waters have profited from her connections. Waters replied that “They do their business and I do mine.”[60] Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) named Waters to its list of corrupt members of Congress in its 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2011 reports. She was accused of using her position to prevail upon officials to meet with OneUnited Bank without disclosing that she and her husband had significant stock holdings in the company.[61] Since she was on the Financial Services Committee she largely had the role of determining where TARP funds would go. $12 Million in TARP funds went to OneUnited without her ever disclosing that she had a financial stake at the company.[62][63][64] Citizens Against Government Waste named her the June 2009 Porker of the Month due to her intention to obtain an earmark for the Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center.”
Sure, just like it was firmly believed that the first black president would be a Republican.
The first woman President will be whoever the first woman President turns out to be. She’ll be a real person, not a Frankensteinian monster cobbled together by focus groups. A few decisions made differently, and it could have been Hillary, despite all her faults.
I agree though that the first woman President isn’t going to be some radical left-winger, because America isn’t going to vote for a radical left wing candidate for President, male or female. That’s firmly outside the American political mainstream. And the only President in the modern era who was elected from outside the political mainstream is Donald Trump.
I’m giving this a bump to see if there’s more discussion. The climate WRT to women in public life has changed since August when I started this thread. There’s been a shift…a disillusionment with men in public life, a ripple in the Force. The grind is not so firm for men as it was.
What do y’all think, in light of recent developments?
While the percentage of women voting Democratic increased in the Alabama Senate election this week, of greater significance is that the black vote far exceeded all expectations. Doug Jones made a special effort to woo black voters and it appears to have made the difference. Black women, BTW, voted 98% for Jones.
I’m encouraged that women are running for races at every level, because building numbers at local and low levels increases chances for higher office. At the Senate and Presidential level, though, being a woman does not yet seem to be the tipping point and I’d be surprised if the 2018 races changed that.
After she does a term for Governor of Oregon, I could get behind a “Tina Kotek For Prez” campaign.
So you are of the opinion that, were he able to run again, Obama would have lost to Trump? Yeah, your argument kind of falls apart on that one.
I missed this thread earlier this summer but the topic caught my eye today as timely since Ihad just read this piece from The Atlantic. I think a simple acknowledgement that women are equally qualified for the country’s highest positions of leadership will be one of the powerful sources driving 21st century politics because the trend will be in a one-way direction.
There are absolutely many women who are qualified. That’s not the issue. It’s not the candidates who are backward, it’s the voters. That may have changed since so many heretofore esteemed men have recently been found to have…er…feet of clay. That’s why I resurrected the thread.
What do you mean by “the trend will be in a one way direction”? Not clear to me.
Hillary Clinton was Lady Macbeth in the flesh, full of ambition scandals, and lies.
There is no reason why a woman cannot be president, but I suspect there will not be a major party candidate that is female on the ballot for President in the next eight years.
I suspect that if we looked it up, most states have had a female win a state-wide election at some point in their history, probably quite recently. The voters aren’t backwards, they just didn’t like that one particular woman enough for her to win. If someone like Nikki Haley ran and got significant support from other women, she’d win handily.
I don’t know. Could Obama have beaten Trump in 2016? Could Obama beat Trump in 2020? I don’t know.
Why do you think that is?
The US is definitely ready for a female president. One almost won it.
And then there’s this:
From Wikipedia’s List of female governors in the United States.
Yes.
Elizabeth Warren…the first woman and first native American president ?..SARC
There’s also the Senators:
from Wikipedia’s Women in the United States Senate: List of states represented by women
Comparing the two lists, it looks like there aren’t a lot of states were a women has not won a top-tier race.
I would have no problem voting for a REAL woman.
I would never vote for a person who " feels" they are a woman or who surgically was made like a woman.
I don’t think Lady Macbeth would have won the popular vote, do you?