He has KFC gravy for blood, is so physically active he drives a golf cart on to the green, and is known to have a pretty wicked temper. Look at how Bush the Lesser and Obama looked after they left the White House, and they both took pretty good care of themselves.
Nearly anyone can be legitimate, as long as they are legitimate, It’s that easy. If the Party leadership/Super delegates start stacking the deck or look like they are stacking the deck then legitimacy starts to come into question, and if they are heavily Clinton camp as well as having the deck stacked for them, it will be very ugly.
The smartest thing the Dem party could do is for every Super to pledge, long before things come into focus, that they will vote with the *popular primary vote, and have some actual consequence for breaking the pledge.
*whether it is national primary vote, or their state’s primary vote might be a different best option for different voters.
I still think Biden fulfills all of these criteria and I am not sure his age is really that much of a problem to stop him from getting both the nomination and winning the election. Still, you are right, he is too damn old.
I think there is one other (obvious) potential candidate that fulfills these criteria but I don’t think she can win: Elizabeth Warren.
She is smart, tough, and moral. She has shown that she won’t back down from a fight and also shown that she wins most of the fights she takes on. Her morals are top notch and I doubt anybody would every find evidence that she has been compromised.
But as much as I like her I don’t think she can win. In the last decade I feel like my eyes have been opened on how racist and misogynistic my country is. I think any woman that runs will start with at least a 10 point deficit. Combine this with how progressive that Warren is and how much the right wing press has been working her over the last x years, and I don’t think she can win a majority.
Note: I don’t really think that Warren is that far from center; she is certainly closer to the center of this country than Trump and Sanders. But Fox News has been painting her as a communist as soon as she started becoming popular and if there is one thing that Faux News is good at it is spreading propaganda.
…well that certainly clears things up!!!
How do we apply this standard to the candidates listed in this thread?
Oh this nonsense. :rolleyes:
Why did you mention Clinton again? What role are you seeing her play in the next election? What is the “Clinton camp?”
What does this have to do with legitimacy?
My question to you was “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?”
From your answer it appears that at this stage (as I stated in my original response) we can’t know who is “legitimate or not.” So once again it isn’t a useful metric.
How the hell is any one supposed to say if the winner of a contest that hasn’t been held yet won it legitimately? That’s just fucking stupid.
It’s not that hard to understand.
The most important quality of a Dem Nominee in the general is to have the appearance of being a legitimate winner, And the best way to do that is let the people decide their nominee. The worst way to do that is to stack the deck so a Clinton Crony shows up again.
Not sure what sort of standard you use.
His official height and weight place him at the very top of overweight and just shy of obese (6’3" 239 lb), and that is assuming that the numbers are accurate (and clearly in pictures standing next to 6’1" Obama he is NOT 2" taller).
But one, I do not wish death even on him, and two a moderately obese 72 year old may not be the healthiest president ever but is at low risk of keeling over. Actually a 72 year old man at the lower section of obesity has a lower mortality rate than a 72 year old man who is on the thinner half of normal BMI.
Look at anyone’s picture’s at 55 compared to 63 (GW Bush) and at 47 to 55 (Obama). Eight years no matter what you are doing generally takes its toll. Here is a time elapse of Brad Pitt, scroll to 45 years old (at 8:11) and look how even he ages over the next 8 years. For 8 years older they each aged well actually.
…this thread is about “which 2020 Democrat can defeat Trump.”
I put up a list of characteristics that IMHO would be a good measure of who would and wouldn’t be a good candidate for the next election.
You told me that I had it wrong, that legitimacy was much more important.
So how do we use legitimacy to help pick the next candidate?
“We can’t.” You tell me.
And you are saying what I’m saying is fucking stupid?
But when you post stuff like this:
It makes it obvious you don’t have a clue what point I was trying to make. You don’t understand my point. You’ve gone off on a tangent.
So to be crystal clear: you aren’t talking about “legitimacy.” You are still ranting and raving about Clinton. You are talking about the process. Which is an entirely legitimate discussion to have. But I don’t think it belongs in this particular thread and certainly has nothing at all to do with my posts.
Sorry. Link did not drop. Here.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TxoTanN-UI
Yep, my bad. I had another window open where I was reading something about our Mayor Tom Barrett. I must have had the name Tom on the brain.:smack:
Yes. And especially DO NOT spread negative news about any other Dem candidate. Keep it positive. Tell us why your candidate is better, not why ours is worse.
They made plenty of shit up about Obama. Birthers were only one. Secret Muslim, and many others were spread. None of it was true.
Let me try this really slowly.
It is not 2020, it is currently 2018. There will be a passage of time between now and 2020. Occurring within that passage of time there will be a series of primaries and a convention to determine a nominee for the 2020 General election. At the time the 2020 election is held the most important quality the Democratic Party nominee for President will be the legitimacy of their position as the Nominee of the Democratic Party. If the nominee has that legitimacy, they will win, as simple as that, assuming Trump is the R Candidate.
If they do not have that legitimacy it will be another coin toss. Now I cannot guarantee anyone in particular will win at all, let alone they will win with legitimacy. I can however guarantee certain conditions that will assure they have no legitimacy. Those conditions involve having a Super-delegate out vote of the will of the people as represented by the popular vote of the Members of the democratic party. And if that overruling of the will of the people occurs for a candidate who is perceived as a crony of the Clintons, they will certainly have no legitimacy once again.
Correct, legitimacy is of overwhelming importance. And trying to game the system to get the “correct candidate qualities” is leading down a dangerous road toward telling the power brokers and favor traders to anoint another head to to to grant the crown to, which is anathema to legitimacy.
When the hell did I say that?
I said I can’t tell you if the candidate who will run after that passage of time in 2020 will have legitimacy, because that time has not passed yet.
The way to have a legitimate candidate is simply have a legitimate and fair process to select a nominee that represents the will of the people of the democratic party.
There now I have told you again “how we use legitimacy to pick the next candidate”
Note that the Superdelegates were not critical for Hillaries win. She won without them.
However, Bernie gamed the system by winning caucuses, and without them, he never would have been close.
So, in actuality, Clinton was the legit candidate.
But yeah, Rove, the Russians and the Bernie Bros all tried to show how unfair Superdelegates were, event tho they have been around for a while.
It does have to do with the problem.
Too many Democratic Party officeholders lined up behind HRC in 2016. Why?
[ul]
[li]Did they think she was so remarkable that it was worth endorsing the most hated woman in USA politics?[/li][li]Did they fear the power of whatever friends the Clintons still have?[/li][li]Did they intentionally nominate her to lose, hoping she’d finally go away?[/li][/ul]
There needs to be a justification. Failing that, we have a problem, and papering it over doesn’t solve it.
There are still progressives, and there are still centrists/neoliberals; and they may have cause to work together in the future. But the neoliberals don’t really want to concede anything, power or policy, to the progressives. The progressives are sick and tired of being told we can’t have socialized medicine, we can’t have tuition-free college, we can’t have them in our lifetimes, we can’t have them ever. The two sides don’t trust each other and won’t work together for long.
The real problem is that the Democratic Party doesn’t work. It can’t be trusted. The next two elections are going to be about defeating Trump, and should be about rebuilding our institutions and the postwar order. But after that? Look how quickly the Democratic Party collapsed after 2006-2008.
More horrifyingly: If the past is our guide, there is a very strong possibility that the next Democratic president will be full of forgiveness and excuses for Trump, the GOP leadership will be left in place, and no consequences will ensue. Not only will the rate of extra-judicial murders go up again, as from GWB to Obama and Obama to Trump; not only will the tax cuts be maintained; but other elements of Trumpism will be normalized. We may win the election and not save much of anything.
The country needs someone who will stand up for principle. The party needs someone who will stand on principle not only against the legacy of Trump but against that of G. W. Bush and that of Reagan. And failing that, honestly, there’s a good chance that the idealists and reformers won’t be there until one arises.
…no need. I understood you the first, second and third time you completely missed my point.
Its 2018 right now, not 2020.
The thread we are participating is currently in 2018.
This thread asks the question “which 2020 Democrat can defeat Trump?”
I posed a few characteristics of what I think would be the perfect candidate to defeat Trump.
Happy Fun Ball used those characteristics to come up with a candidate that, in their humble opinion, would have some of what it would take to defeat Trump.
But you’ve claimed that “legitimacy” is more “important” than any of the metrics I suggested. So how can Happy Fun Ball use “legitimacy” to come up with a better candidate?
Lets pretend for a minute that “legitimacy” is the MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER in deciding the next election.
How do we measure that now, in 2018?
You’ve told me that answer. We can’t know that now. In order to find that out we have to, according to you:
Do you see the part I bolded?
The part I bolded is what this thread is about. Its literally what we are discussing. Who is going to be the nominee? Lets speculate!
But “legitimacy” doesn’t allow us to speculate. Because its a metric that can only be applied once we have had the primary and we’ve selected the nominee.
We can’t use the metric. Its literally impossible to apply the metric to the current pool of candidates because we can only measure “legitimacy” after the candidates have been whittled down and one selected.
It doesn’t have to be a coin toss. You know the process. It isn’t going to change before 2020. There is a very good chance that by your standards the candidate that represents “the will of the people that vote Democrat” won’t win the primary.
If that happens what are **you **going to do? Pack a sad? Vote for the Green Party? Not vote at all?
If the person that wins the democratic nomination is the “legitimate candidate” and they defeat Donald Trump but they don’t win the popular vote: would you consider them to be “the legitimate President?” The process allows them to win, but they didn’t win “the will of the people of America.” So how would that sit with you?
I don’t agree with your definition of “legitimacy.” Its like arguing Trump isn’t the legitimate President because he didn’t win the popular vote. So if we can’t even agree on how to define legitimate, how can we use it as a metric to test the candidates?
How can we use it as a metric to test the candidates when we can’t know it until 2020?
This is your bias talking. You obviously don’t like the Hillary. You are entitled to not like Hillary, but you dislike of Hillary is really clouding your judgement here. This has nothing to do with the discussion.
No it isn’t. As defined by you its a meaningless pointless catchphrase.
Give me a fucking break. I’m not trying to “game the system.” What the fuck is that supposed to even mean?
We are speculating. We are guessing. We are trying to figure out who is the best person to take on Trump at the next election. There is no “dangerous road.” This is an internet message board. We are having a discussion. Power brokers? Favour traders? Anointing another head to “grant the crown to?”
What the fuck are you talking about?
All I’ve done in this thread is say “here are some qualities that I think are important qualities to have in order to be able to defeat Trump. Who has these characteristics?”
How do you get “I’m trying to game the system” out of that?
Ummmm…
Exactly here.
Well tough. The process allows the democratic party to select a nominee that doesn’t strictly "represent the will of the people. What is it are you going to do about that?
My question to you was "how we use legitimacy to pick the next candidate from the candidates that have been mentioned in this thread."
The answer, which you have said VERY SLOWLY for me in this very response, is that we can’t. Not until 2020. So everybody, lets pack it all in. This thread is closed until after the primaries, after the candidate has been selected, when we are finally able to apply the legitimacy test!
Joe will be 78 if sworn in. He might flip PA, but he’s gaffe prone with a long record in the Senate which makes him an easy target. I sort of liked Joe, 20 years ago. Now he’s a little punchy. Being angry is not enough.
Yes please, Trump would be all over her. She’s an angry type who falsely claims to be part Indian. Progressive types would like her, but she would not draw well in many states.
Anyone with a D next to their name wins California. Harris is new to the senate. Probably a better gimmick type of VP pick.
.
Probably the best pick of the lot, too bad the DNC torpedoed him. If elected he would be 78 when sown in. Like Biden, Old, old, old. But he brings class to the ticket, something Dem’s badly need. And he can probably raise money as fast as anyone.
Ties to Wall Street? Next.
Summary: With two very old men as the front-runners, and bunch of young/unproven types, you might see one person fail to get a majority for a while, which will make the long-term funding for the race more difficult for the winner not to mention in-fighting among the party. Will the DNC play favorites again? Trump has a good economic record to run on, a loyal base, and will have a better coordinated team around him. He speaks well, and still draws large crowds in the states he won. The Dem’s best chance to win might be to pick their best fighter, not their best candidate. However there are very few good old warriors, and the young ones are unproven.
…I’ll take this as a vote for Hillary then?
I posted the CNN link of top ten candidates in the other thread on Dem 2020 nominees. Here’s my breakdown, hopefully not a DEM breakdown…
- Joe Biden - Awesome, but too old.
- Elizabeth Warren - She’s a woman. Nope.
- Kamala Harris - see above
- Kirstin Gillibrand - see above
- Bernie Sanders - (spits out coffee, bills CNN for new laptop)
- Eric Holder - Looks like Obama. Nope.
- Steve Bullock - Meh.
- Cory Booker Looks like Obama or a sportscaster. Nope.
- Mitch Landrieu - Who??
- Sherrod Brown - Who dis??
Dems have to have an incredible candidate who is a better celebrity than the Orange Turd. A woman? After last time?? Over the beloved racist/Russian apprentice? Forget that. Sanders is a joke, even if he gets the nom, it’s a burnt Sienna landslide. Reason I dissed Corey and Eric is exactly what any potential deplorable will think when they see darker skin that isn’t orange.
So far for me, it’s Biden, who better have THE BEST running mate due to age. Problem is, to steal some votes from the Orange Lovers, it has to be a rich celebrity who’s beyond outspoken, but a Democrat. Lots of luck to us.
The Dems need someone with class? Compared to the vulgar scumbag atop the republican party? That is precious.
You’re “analysis” of any Democratic candidate is to be mocked and immediately discarded. Biden = gaffe prone? Did you come up with that yourself? Booker = ties to Wall Street. OMG. Wall Street? Holy shit. Is this lazy, buzzword nonsense meant to be taken seriously?
I look back at 1992 Bill Clinton. He may not have been the perfect candidate, but he pretty much was a perfect candidate. Unlike his wife in 2016, he recognized that you RUN for president, you don’t MOSEY. The Clinton (92) “Rapid response team” was amazing. When someone threw a charge at him, they had not only an answer for the charge, they used rhetorical jujitsu and turned the opponents charge into a counter attack. And they did it so well and so fast that the charge and the response were generally reported in the same media breath. Now I recognize that the world has changed since '92 (and certainly not all for the better) but that kind of approach is what I’m talking about.