She was born on October 13th, 1989; her 35th birthday will be less than a month before the 2024 general election. So, yes, she’d be old enough.
Yeah, don’t see it - she’d get crushed IMHO. Most likely in the primary, most likely early. A little like the far more seasoned Newsom in California she’d have the potential to be wildly popular in cobalt blue enclaves, but probably not be able to compete nationally.
My money’s on Newsom to run and to win if Biden steps down. The curious factor is “if.” If Biden were 20 or even 5 years younger, we wouldn’t be discussing this topic–of course a scandal-free first term President is going to run for a second term. It would be shocking if he didn’t, and foolhardy for anyone to challenge him.
But because Biden is in his 80s, and we can wonder if the actuarial tables will decide for us, we are reasonable to speculate in a very practical way. And the same thing is happening with the GOP–both frontrunners would have a much firmer grasp on the nomination if they were 5 years younger. But they’re not, so we’re looking at a gigantic crapshoot in the next two years, in which at least one of the two is likely to die, suffer a serious medical incident, or just decide not to run because he feels too worn out to run for and serve another term.
By whom?
Given that Democrats have made South Carolina their first primary state, I imagine she’d get flattened right out of the gate (not that an early-state loss is unrecoverable).
It is 12-20 years early for AOC. But in 2044 there will be 180 million eligible voters born after 1980, most of whom don’t like social conservatism.
Obama in 2004 was a 43y/o state legislator and law professor, who then came roaring onto national recognition. AOC did the last bit first. So yes, I too would hold her for 2032 (but NOT 20 years, though, in the best of cases for the progressive side, by 2044 AOC will be “the establishment”.)
… except (a) there is a need to counteract existential threats way before 2044 and (b) that demographic predestination is not something to count on.
Any even marginally more centrist candidate. Which is almost all of them.
He’s repeatedly said he’s not interested at this point and he would be challenging fellow Californian Harris with whom he has previously had a cordial relationship. Newsom deciding to backslide now to enter the race would be seen as naked ambition of a weasley sort. But beyond that, as experienced and seasoned as he is, he has a couple of personal skeletons in the closet and he’s a very loud liberal from California.
I could seem him winning the primary. He’s for sure a more capable and charismatic campaigner than Harris. I have strong doubts he can win a national election against the strong headwinds of “crazy California radical” - that very combative attitude that endears him to a liberal constituency might seem terrifying to a good chunk of the larger country.
But we’ll see, I have been devastatingly wrong in my predictions/musings before 
.
You’re framing the question in a way I’m rejecting. You’re asking whether, if one searches every elected official who happens to be a Democrat, there might be someone qualified to run as President. That’s a trivial question in the sense that the answer is “of course.” Other people are not even reaching that level.
I’m not interested in trivial questions. I’m fulminating against the state of the Democrat Party as a whole, a party that does not champion its worthy candidates, a party that has been stagnating, a party that has left its elders in power for too long, a party that is not in touch with the changes in the country, a party that purports to stand for good things but fails to delineate them in a way that boils down to actual policies.
What does Gretchen Whitmer stand for? What policies will Tammy Bladwin run on? What has Kamala Harris made her own as Veep? Do any of them have a foreign policy?
The Republican Party does not have these problems. DeSantis, Pence, Cruz, Youngkin, Haley. Their goals may be despicable, but potential voters have them firmly in mind. They stand for crazy, they’re proud of it, and they work to install their crazy into law. That’s a bench.
Chaos rarely wins against organization. Organization has gotten the Republicans control of seats from local school boards up through city councils, state legislatures, and now the House. Given the awfulness of the current Republican party, anybody that the Dems can get behind might have a decent chance of winning. That chance would increase greatly if the Dems could figure out what they stand for and then go for the candidate most likely to achieve it. Beating Trump was that thing in 2020 and Biden was chosen precisely because he was thought best to achieve the goal.
Stop throwing out random names. Tell me what they are for and what they are against and what they plan on doing about it.
Yes, I’m being a gadfly. I want to win.
Huge landslide… for his opponent.
Yeah, unless Harris is dead or resigns or something, she is up next. She polls well too.
My impression is that no one takes these demurrals very seriously. “What I said back then is changing as the political landscape changes” seems to suffice. If Biden decides not to run, and Harris comes in fourth or fifth in an early primary or two, I can see him jumping in the race, or getting in even later as a compromise candidate.
Do tell.
A lot of Democrats want exactly that.
I don’t think a random guy on the Internet posing as “gadfly” in a discussion of Democratic politicians will help Dems win any better.
If the Democrats are the party of sober governance, that’s nothing to sneeze at. Plus voting rights, reproductive rights, labor rights, fair wages, fair taxation. The people mentioned in this thread stand for those things. To be honest, declaring anything more these things that at this point in the cycle just runs the risk of getting you torn down between now and 2024. Keeping a lower profile, while building up support in lower-key ways is a more successful way for the Democratic bench players to operate, fundraise, build support from power players behind the scenes. Jumping up into full-fledged campaign mode promoting your policies and ambitions is nothing but trouble.
Doesn’t make the people being mentioned here any less of a bench. Maybe not fully-formed candidates, but that doesn’t matter at this point in the cycle, especially if there’s not actually a presidential campaign to run in until 2028.
But we got you down for “Bench is Empty.” Some of us still enjoy discussing the bench players we see because of their potential. Hell, we’ve got more than a year until the first presidential primary, with an incumbent president who will probably run for re-election. Why on earth would any sane Democratic politician throw a target on their own back by attempting to meet your standards of being a bench player? The people being mentioned in this thread are the bench. They’re the ones who are up next. Whether they can have a fully-articulated trove of policies and capture the imagination of the electorate, time will tell. That time doesn’t have to be today. They’re still on the bench.
Reproductive freedom, sane COVID precautions and investment in infrastructure. Among other things.
I voted for her twice, I’d vote for her again.
So you agree with me.
Why not do so in a thread titled “Potential Candidates”? I’m replying to the thread as titled.
So she’s a basic vanilla Democrat. My heart beats fast.
True, if she runs I’d vote for her. I’d also vote for the decaying corpse of Hitler propped up on a plank over any Republican.
That’s not the point. You need people who are not base Democrats to vote for her. Saying she’s over a bar that consists of a line painted on the floor isn’t enough.
Your pedantry brings absolutely nothing to this. I’m done here.
Now now. The corpse of Hitler. We’ve never had a president who couldn’t think before.
or have we…?
If DeSantis et al qualify as a bench by virtue of standing for crazy, then the Democrats in this thread qualify as a bench by virtue of standing for sane.
Do potential voters have them firmly in mind? There is no evidence of that.
Moderating:
You don’t get to define the thread for everyone. The subject is broad as set forth by the OP, and not limited to persons being named whom you feel are qualified within your own definition. Moreover, you’re being pretty jerkish. Stop now.
No warning issued.
Well, no, I don’t think she is. I think she’s got balls of steel. She shut the state down during the peak of the COVID pandemic despite it being a wildly unpopular and seemingly at the time a career-destroying move. She put her principles ahead of potential votes. She was the target of a kidnapping plot and still didn’t back down. She was not intimidated by Trump’s threats. She aggressively defended women’s right to choose and declared that’s she would pardon any medical professional who performed an abortion if we reverted back to a 1920s abortion ban. Maybe if you understood the misogynistic hatred leveled at her here in Michigan and the absolutely zero fucks she gave in the face of physical threats, you’d have a clearer picture of why she’s such a badass.
Whether that’s going to sway moderates, well I think the recent election outcome is hopeful. She brought out the votes, which is a good accomplishment considering how many people she pissed off with the COVID shutdowns.