It’s not necessarily virtue signalling. What if Al had literally done an actual Pizzagate style ring? If they had asked him to step aside then, would everyone still be all “they’re just doing that for the votes!”
Wow. Just wow. Everyone’s opinions count. That’s how democracy works. Everyone who has a vote, that is.
Well, yes and no. See the GOP and the Dems are parties, who get to pick their candidates. So GOP voters opinions count as to who would be the best GOP candidate and Dem voters opinions count as to who would be the best Democrat candidate.
But GOP voters dont get a say in who would be the best Dem candidate. and vice-versa.
Tell me more about this Tom Johnson. Has he ever won an election? There’s certainly no current federally elected official by that name.
Ron Johnson.
Really. Just really. When deciding what candidate to run for one party’s nomination not everyone’s opinions count. Some not only do they not have a vote in the primary to decide which candidate but they also don’t have a vote worth chasing after for the general. That’s how this democratish system works.
That third of voters who LOVE Trump? The Democrats do not choose their nominee based on appealing to them. When deciding who to run they do not count. Exciting turnout among those in your camp, appealing to those who could possibly swing … those voters count.
Really. Just really.
…just from this thread alone we can tell the biggest problem that we’ve got: there is no stand-out candidate (yet). The current lot range from divisive to uninspiring to wishy-washy to simply too old. Out of all the names that have been mentioned Biden is the only one that I think could go toe-to-toe with Trump on a national stage, but he’s too fricken old. And i fear a campaign like this would be seriously detrimental to his health.
So who do I think would be best for the next election? Someone who has the following characteristics:
Integrity. And I mean Obama-level integrity. No skeletons in the closet. And if there are “skeletons” then they’ve been dealt with openly and publicly. No ammunition for the alt-right and surrogates. That won’t stop “birther tactics” and the like, but it will mitigate them. Policy positions based on honestly held and well-reasoned belief and not on “what they think” will get them votes, changing positions as the wind changes.
Moxy. Won’t back down from a fight. Strong support base (family, friends, etc) because the campaign will be soul-destroying, relentless, slog. Quick-witted. Smart.
Street-fighter. Its going to get dirty. I’m not saying they need to “get dirty in response.” But the primary Republican weapon in the next election (as it was in the last) is the Talking Point. “The Deplorables” comment was an effective and devastating Talking Point last election. They need to be tackled head-on and destroyed, not allow them to fester and linger. Make them pivot from point to point. Turn every attack around and throw it back in their face.
A Proven Leader. Someone with a track record of being a thoughtful yet decisive leader, who commands respect not out of fear but because they earned it.
In addition to all of that, whoever gets picked won’t succeed without:
100% support. Whoever gets the nomination gets the support. 100%. No crying in your milk. No voting third party. No dragging the feet. The world can’t afford another 4 years of Trump. The world will not be the same if we get 4 more years of this Republican Party that has ceded control to the worst person in the world. So no fighting. Get out and spread the word and get out and vote. Follow the rules of your state, get people enrolled and get them to vote.
So ignoring the picks we’ve seen so far in the thread, if we were to think outside the square what are some of the names that might fit the bill?
There is nothing wrong with those, but the most important characteristic is legitimacy(or at least an effective illusion of legitimacy)
Obama won because, while not perfect, he was widely enough seen as the choice of the people.
Hillary was never widely seen as anything but the result of three decades of the rich and powerful manipulating and corrupting the system for their own ambition.
Two thoughts:
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All the discussion of white voters really makes me realize how racist American society is. We can’t even talk about Americans without putting racial categories front and center. Oh well.
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People said this above, but I don’t think it has been stressed enough. Joe Biden will turn 78 in November of 2020. Seventy-eight. Donald Trump will be 74.
I have friends in their 80s, so I am well aware that people can lead full and stimulating lives in their mid- to late 70s and beyond, but 77 is a hard age to take on something as grueling as a year of presidential campaigning.
Trump, who carries a lot of extra weight, may well take himself out through natural causes before 2020 in any case. A lot of choleric, overweight septuagenarians who ignore their doctors’ advice experience heart attacks. The 2020 R candidate may well be President Pence, riding on the coattails / sweeping up the dustheap of the late Trump’s legacy.
Mark Warner.
Another approach is to play the polarization game harder than the Republicans have played it. A loud, aggressive, and extreme leftist who makes Bernie’s policies look like Reagan by comparison.
…legitimacy isn’t a characteristic. Its a narrative. Its a narrative not formed by the candidate but by campaigners, thats formed by the media, that’s formed by the Russians that have and are actively trying to undermine your elections. You say it yourself: the **illusion **of legitimacy.
These are simply narratives. Talking Points. The very thing I just said need to be “tackled head-on and destroyed, not allow them to fester and linger.”
Obama won despite being an enemy of the people, a muslim, a dirty socialist. Hillary lost despite being the best person for the job, despite her having won the popular vote. These are talking points as well. Narratives and talking points are very easy to create and even easier to propagate. They don’t even need to be true.
Then I am really confused by your post. These are all Narratives and talking points as well.
Integrity.
Moxy.
Street-fighter.
A Proven Leader.
Nooooo. That is too much of an echo of the right-wingers that bitched that if only Romney and McCain had run further to the right they would have won. I thought it was a dumb argument then and the same holds true on the opposite end. Genuine progressives just don’t have the numbers in this country to carry an election.
…you can’t fake integrity. Go on: dig up some dirt on Obama. I’ll be waiting right here while you do so.
You can’t fake moxy. You either have it or your don’t.
You can’t fake being a street-fighter. It isn’t a narrative crafted by someone else. If you get punched you punch back. If you take it and don’t hit back then you don’t have what it takes.
You can’t be a “proven leader” unless you’ve proven you can be a leader.
None of these are as nebulous as “legitimacy.” I dismiss your characterization of how Clinton was “widely seen” and would only put a fraction of her loss down to this. That you’ve embraced this narrative says everything about my point.
No, that’s just wishful thinking. Trump is a lifelong nonsmoker and nondrinker, he’s only moderately overweight, and he’s hyperactive. He moves around a lot. He’s a large man, but not a sedentary one at all; he’s spent his entire life pacing around rooms and he seems like the kind of person who sits down and then gets back up three minutes later and does that over and over again. Also - because he has no scruples and apparently no conscience, he probably has WAY lower overall levels of stress than the average person. He just doesn’t give a fuck; never giving a fuck = lower levels of stress.
Trust me, he is the kind of guy who lives a really long time.
About Bernie Sanders:
The reason why Sanders had so many enthusiastic supporters was his personality more than his policies. He seemed super authentic, passionate, uncompromising, and energetic. I knew a lot of people who were over the moon with Sanders but barely even knew anything about what he stood for, they just thought he was an awesome guy. This sounds stupid, and ill-informed, but it cannot be discounted. There is a lot to be said for sheer charisma.
So, John Kerry has no integrity or maybe the narrative about him just made it look that way ?
Or the narrative can be that you have no maturity or self-control.
So George Washington maybe? Who else has “proven” to be a leader?
It’s all narrative, there is no objective reality, it’s what people believe. You have to stop giving a crap about what the hard Rs and hard Ds want, they are completely irrelevant. It the third in the middle( in select states) who are the only ones who matter, and pretending otherwise is absurd failure of understanding strategy.
Its about the independents, and the leaners, discouragable enough to stay home, or go 3rd party etc.
And among that group Clinton was overwhelmingly seen as illegitimate, a fact which when combined with the quirks of the electoral college was enough to overcome the fact that the exact same group also overwhelmingly saw Trump as a miserable lying ass.
Video of John R Allen:
Longer video:
…I’m not sure of your point. Kerry did have integrity. The narrative, propagated by the swift boaters, said he did not. Kerry didn’t fight back well enough against the narrative. He wasn’t a street-fighter. So integrity wasn’t enough.
But that’s a narrative. Again thats my point. You can characterize anyone as anything. But actions speak louder than talking points.
What metrics do we normally use to determine who is and isn’t a “proven leader?” We use those metrics.
It isn’t all narrative.
:: looks around ::
I beg to differ.
Indeed.
I don’t give a fuck what the hard Rs and hard Ds want.
If they are the only ones that matter then fuck everything. Fuck it. Give up. Go home.
You can’t ignore this group. But you can’t become a “slave to the narrative.” Yeah the last election hinged on a fraction of a vote in a few key states. But if you only focus on that handful of voters then everything else falls apart.
Its about much more than just this.
You didn’t talk about “that group.”
You said “the most important characteristic is legitimacy.”
If your only goal in selecting the next candidate is to target “that group” then you are going to let Trump and his surrogates control the narrative. You will spend all of your resources going after a group of people who may never vote for you anyway. You throw the people who uncategorically support your candidate like black women and other people of colour under a bus.
You either win over “that group” by showing that you deserve their vote or you don’t. You do that by being a candidate that has integrity, that believes in what they believe in, that can stand toe-to-toe with Trump.
Who is “legitimate?” We are two years away from the elections and we can’t even pull a name out of the hat that we can all agree on. If you try and select a candidate based on “legitimacy” then you need to narrow down the list first and then see which way’s the narratives start to form but we just don’t have time to do that. Its a silly metric that really has no practical use. How would we apply it to some of the people listed so far? Apart from Clinton (who isn’t going to run so I don’t know why you bought her up) which of the candidates listed so far are not legitimate candidates?