Of course she’d choose now to not be stupid. I’ll share some choice ones as they come in though. She’s been very reliable the past couple of years.
Okay, based on how thoroughly she dominates a barely blue state (Minnesota), and how well-liked she appears to be across the political spectrum, and how generally decent she comes across, I am now on the Amy Klobuchar 2020 train. I hope she runs, and if I had nothing else to go on, would support her over the other Dems. Of course, I might change my mind during an actual primary campaign. But I don’t see any significant weakness (or any weakness at all) for her.
Welp. looks like Beto might have some free time on his hands.
If you start now, maybe in 20 years you can reproduce the Hillary hit job on Harris. That didn’t happen overnight, you know.
Oh, he started his hit job on Harris ages ago.
Right now I’d say Booker, or one of the Castros. I’d happily support other minority male/female candidates in their 40s-50s. I REALLY want a candidate who is forward thinking, and who can energize the youth and non-whites.
Yeah, I kinda like Biden and REALLY like Warren, but their age alone puts me off. Biden will be 65, and Warren 71. Yeah, I have met the occasional still vital septuagenarian. But I’m ready for a changing of the guard. Hell, the blackhawks just hired a head coach in his young 30s! 
Pretty sure Biden will be 77.
And here we have the problem with the Castros in a nutshell. “One of the Castros” will not be on the ballot. A specific Castro might be, and the fact that neither of them stands out enough for a lot of people to pick which one suggests that neither of them has got enough of a distinctive presence to make any headway in a Presidential campaign.
I like Claire McCaskill. I never thought of Joe Manchin but he has national name recognition. He is a moderate on many many issues and has won in a Deep Trump territory.
Newsday - Democrats’ Dream Team in 2020
Sorry, if you hit a paywall.
Not sure that’s the best ticket, but at least there are some ideas worth thinking about.
Joe Manchin? I never, for a second, considered not voting for Hillary once she got the nomination. I’d very seriously consider sitting out Manchin. If Trump gets closer to being Hitler than he already is, I might consider Manchin in the general. But I certainly would do whatever I could to beat him in the primaries. Voting for Manchin would be like eating cat poop.
Does Manchin have anything going for him besides possible appeal to “centrists” and “red-necks”?
I won’t repeat my screed from the other thread, except to note that Charisma is what we want. AND the ability to stand up to Trump in a debate and make him look like the raving looney that he is.
Sanders and Biden have charisma (but I’d demote them for other reasons). Sherrod Brown and perhaps Julian Castro have charisma (although not at as strong as Sanders or Biden). Amy Klobuchar? Maybe.
So please: Focus on which candidate has the personality and speaking style to appeal to the under-informed masses. The general election will not be decided by policy wonks. Ignore the candidates’ stances on the issues (except to veto DINOs like Manchin or the Whatshisname that I almost got Warned for calling a hijack).
Charisma is overrated. It’s obviously not overrated when you see it and everyone agrees the candidate is special that way, but I don’t think you’ll find much daylight between candidates with some charisma and candidates with little. There’s guys like JFK, Clinton, Obama, and Reagan, and below them it doesn’t really matter. So unless one of these guys is one of those big 4 charisma-wise, there’s no point in worrying about it. And as far as I can tell, there are no candidates of that caliber. So Democrats searching for charisma will go about as well as Democrats searching for a veteran in 2004 to own the chickenhawks.
I think the real key to 2020 is authenticity, which can also be hard to ascertain, except for those who score very high in that category, and THAT’s where Biden and Sanders score very high. They aren’t particularly charismatic, although they have their moments, but I think few doubt that Biden and Sanders are who they say they are, whereas most of the younger ones seem to be ever changing, trying to market themselves, to position themselves. No one has any idea what Booker, Gillibrand, Harris, or Castro really believe in or what motivates them or what their values are. With Sanders and Biden, there’s just no doubt about who they are, and that’s important to voters.
I use charisma in a broad sense to include authenticity. That’s the sort of charisma where Carter shined, and Sherrod Brown has it too, I think. Gillibrand? No.
But charisma in a broad sense is more than just authenticity. I don’t know if either Gore or Bush was particularly “charismatic” (in your narrow sense) or “authentic,” but Gore lost in what should have been a shoo-in election because his personality was less appealing than Bush’s.
I’ve already asked my delegates to support Sherrod Brown. But if any refuse to support a white male, I commend Amy Klobuchar, the Senator from Minnesota to your attention.
Brown or Klobuchar. Please cross everyone else off the list!
Ah, I agree with your definition of charisma. It’s really sad about Gore, because Gore is not nearly that stiff or unlikeable when he’s free of the need to be a politician. So is Hillary for that matter. People bad at politics should just be themselves. It’s not like the world just ends if you don’t win elected office. But if they insist on constructing a fake public persona, we’ll continue to see through it and reject them. And that is sad, because Gore would have been a fantastic President.
But most elections do not involve a super charismatic candidate. Most are just contests between two guys we couldn’t care less about unless we’re mad about something and it’s not really about them.
Trump is also intimidated by military men. McRaven would completely throw him off his game. Easy easy win for Dems. Harris rides shotgun.
Nooooo, we did that with Bush/Kerry. Military men are good, but the military aspect should just be part of the resume that helps, not the main thing to look at. Vets’ record in elections recently has actually been piss poor. War heroes are 0-4 since 1992.
Kerry was Swiftboated. By the GOP dirty tricks dept.
McRaven has chronic lymphocytic leukemia. As far as I understand it isn’t exactly killing him( maybe by inches ), but I’m sure he couldn’t get elected with a diagnosis like that even if he were interested.