Apparently he’s delusional and thinks he can beat Trump. On the contrary, he’s the perfect foil for Trump, with all the same weaknesses Hillary had. Plus he won’t deliver young and minority voters, AND he’ll have less of an advantage with women than Clinton did.
Now that’s not to say he CAN’T beat Trump, but unless he’s the only guy running on the Democratic side, which won’t happen, it’s hard to see how he’d be the guy you’d want as your standard bearer. If Mac can beat Trump, then anyone can beat Trump in 2020, so why not go for someone Democrats actually like?
He won the governorship largely on the tails of Bill and Hillary. He is about as close to the Clintons as you can get without marrying Chelsea.
He does have an particular knack for raising money but bundling big money isn’t as important as it used to be. He is politically smart but unfortunately he is one of those Democrats who are enticed by the siren song of gun control. He somehow thought that gun control would be a winner even in a place like Virginia. He has moderated and now he keeps his trap shut after Democrats lost seats in the Virginia senate and house because of gun control. But he won’t be able to run away from his gun control past.
I don’t often agree with you, adaher, but I’m with you on this one. If he wants to run in the 2020 primary, fine. But I doubt he’ll get very far because I’m pretty sure no one really likes MacAuliffe. It’d be like Andrew Cuomo running (which I could see as well.)
I’ve been pleasantly surprised with his performance as governor (I voted for him, but didn’t particularly like him at the time). Every major decision he made that I can think of was correct, by my memory and opinion.
I’d have no problem with him choosing to run, but I’d probably support another candidate in the primary, purely because I think he doesn’t come across as genuine at all and we’d have stronger options to beat Trump (or Pence or whoever). So I’ll disagree that he “shouldn’t be considered” – I’d consider him – but I probably wouldn’t support him. And I doubt he’d have a big base of support in the primary, and thus probably wouldn’t win.
This. I described him here as “a faceless, soulless, unprincipled corporate hack with minimal ties to the state he was running in” among other things, but figured better to have one of those than a theocrat like Cuccinelli.
Then after he won and became governor, every time I looked across the Potomac to see what was going on in the Old Dominion, he was doing good stuff. So if he runs in 2020, I’m not going to write him off in advance. This ex-Virginian owes him at least that much courtesy.
I think that he’s kind of a backroom wheeler and dealer. I’ve grew up in Virginia, and after crossing the river for ten years, have moved back. I don’t disagree with anything that he’s done, but like others, I don’t think he has the charisma to get elected President.
In 2012, he ran unopposed in the Democratic primary, and I think he was a long shot candidate. I think that he benefited from Cuccinelli being a little too out there for Virginia, and the corruption scandal that was engulfing Bob McDonnell. Hell, Cuccinelli was leading for most of the night until Fairfax was counted.
I expected him to be a good technocrat, that’s probably part of what attracted him to Bill Clinton. It’s not that he wouldn’t be an okay President, it’s that he’s exactly the kind of guy the public has been moving away from in recent years. His kind of politicking is going extinct.
Sorry, we forgot to take a pic of the moving van crossing the Potomac. Not exactly George Washington crossing the Delaware. Or even Washington crossing the street.
Personally I think both Trump and Hillary were weak candidates, any generic Democrat would have beaten Trump and that will be even more true in 2020 if Trump is on the ticket. But yeah, Mcaullife is far from the best bet in that regard and there is a decent possibility that the GOP will have a better candidate than Trump anyway.
He might run, but I don’t really expect to even make it to Iowa. I expect a large field of candidates in the early debates, similar to the Republicans in 2016. It’s too bad Virginia has the one term limit for governor, 8 successful years as a governor would look pretty good on his resume. Unless there is a surprise, it doesn’t look like there will be an open Senate seat in Virginia any time soon.
Being a former chairman of the DNC is just not going to help put 2016 behind us. If he does get into the race, I can imagine a lot of the questions asked of will be DNC related. Hopefully, a successful 2018 midterm run will help put the “DNC rigged the primaries” flames out.
Let him be a cabinet secretary, that seems like something he’d be good at.
I can see him getting early unexpected (to the public and media, anyway) traction due to his time as DNC Chairman (money, prime speaking engagements, perceived momentum). In the early going, it’s really a lot about party relationships at the ground level, which he would have in spades.
Once he gets in front of actual voters, it’s a different story. There I would expect the anti-beltway, anti-Clinton energy to prevail. So, instead he’ll keep his name around for VP, if it makes sense (geographic balance, non-politician on top of ticket, etc.)
He’s a good enough technocrat that I think he’d be valuable in a Democratic administration, or even as VP. But his brand of politics needs to just go away. I’m not talking about Third Wayism, which IMO is a perfectly valid approach to governance. I’m referring to his insider approach, raise as much money as you can and keep your wealthy backers happy while trying to trickle down some good legislation on the poor and middle class.
I saw him speak about a month ago at a gathering of law folks from various fields (Law enforcement, public defenders, prosecutors, judges, school personnel), discussing the amazing changes they have made to the Juvenile Justice System in Virginia. Really all he did was bring in Andy Block to run our DJJ, and then listened to Andy about how to fix the problems. Everything he talked about was everything I wanted to hear and that the state was truly moving towards significant juvenile justice reform.
And yet, the entire speech was like nails on a chalkboard. It was all me me ME, look at me… He could not have sounded more like Trump if he had said “bigly.” I don’t believe all politicians are like this. And I would not support his getting the Dem nomination.
