Who is the Democrats most realistic choice for 2020 victory?

I think Democrats should look at 2024. I like Joe Biden.

While I'm not particularly impressed with any national politicians right now, wouldn't it be better to have, you know, national and international governance and policy experience?

Han Solo said it best: Running a country isn't like dusting crops. You could fly right into a star or too close to a supernova. That would end your trip real quick.

You need to know what you're doing, as well as surround yourself with people who know what they are doing.

Being a mayor, even of one of the largest cities in the country, does not qualify you or provide you sufficient experience to be president.

[quote]I think Kamala Harris will be a turn off for too many.

I wonder why of all the potential female candidate you picked Harris to dismiss, OP.

^ candidates

I'll take anyone at this point. Hopefully 2020 will bring us somebody that will appeal to the younger generation and who isn't tainted by controversy or being a celebrity.

My pick so far will be joe biden since I can't think of anyone else. I know progressives want Harris or Booker but can we play it safe and pick a white male. If we stubbornly pick a non white then we have learned nothing.

Stormy Daniels. The fun, open-minded candidate. And she's making her first Presidential appearance tonight.

She can't be any worse than what's in the White House now.

[quote]She can't be any worse than what's in the White House now.

Talk about a low bar!

GOP consultants are already assembling campaign intel on Sherrod Brown, Chris Murphy, and John Hickenlooper, so they must think there’s a chance they’ll run. Jay Inslee (governor of Wa state) may be a possibility as well.

OP, R1, R2, R3, R5, R6, and R7 = The Same Pro-Corporate Establishment Democrats Who Helped Elect Donald Trump in 2016 and Who Are Determined to Re-Elect Him in 2020

R8 I could be MUCH worse when I run for President again.

What about a Castro brother? I saw Joaquin speak and found him very impressive.

R10, he’s going to be re-elected even if Democrats nominate the blackest black woman in history.

I don't want Chris Murphy to run. He's like a boy scout. He'll get chewed up and spit out. Joe Biden is too old, otherwise he'd be a great choice, because I think he could handle it.

UGH I wanted to post here but the trolls already out in force after only 14 comments

R15 writes,

[Quote]UGH I wanted to post here but the trolls already out in force after only 14 comments

For you, R15…

I have R 15 blocked. I only block homophobes. Huh.

I literally cannot imagine what I've ever said on here that's homophobic. I'm one of the most liberal people I know.

Sally Yates, the one who warned Don about Flynn - twice.

[quote]I think Eric Garcetti ticks a lot of boxes - Jewish and Mexican roots, community oriented

That’s an asset? This is the same country that voted for Trump, right?

Trump will be re-elected

I am available.

R10 wrote this in another thread (yeah, I am a stalker, so sue me)

[quote]Datalounge’s Hillary Clinton voters helped elect Donald Trump to his first term in 2016. They are at work to get him re-elected to a second term in 2020.

R10 is a whiner who stayed at home on Nov 8, but blames Clinton's loss on those who showed up to vote. Idiocy at its finest.

r10 probably voted for Jill Stein like Susan Sarandon did.

Eric is a good choice. He may not have national experience, but at least he has experience in government (unlike Trump).

I don't think voters will take a mayor seriously as great as Garcetti comes across.

Kamala Harris should be the VP pick and she will go on to be president in the future.

Kamala will be a tough one to beat in the primaries. She will have the black vote and I don't think she loses millennials too badly. CA is also a very early primary this year (something I was strongly against. It takes a lot of money so disadvantages little guys early on.)

Mitch Landrieu?

Gillibrand

I'm going with Joe Biden for a single term to clean up this mess and his VP selection taking over for another 8 years. Lots of good dems for VP out there.

Sherrod Brown or Joe Biden. Kamala Harris for VP--she just doesn't have much experience yet and Trump has created such a shit-show that we need someone who can do a good clean-up. Particularly in the area of foreign policy where Trump has done unbelievable damage. Biden's an expert in that area. So, basically, he serves a term and then Kamala takes over.

Sherrod Brown's a genuine populist and, of course, is in Ohio. He's more able than Harris to pick up the Rust Belt..

I love Sherrod Brown. I wish he was showing more interest in running. It's only because he seems to be ignoring 2020 games that I have moved on to other candidates. I'm pretty firmly against Biden, Bernie, and Booker. Everyone else works for me really

R31 here again - Biden will also be able to take any of tRump s sh*t during the campaign.

Garcetti? An Eye-talian? I don't think so.

I think Biden is strong electorally yes, but I have little faith he would be an ally to liberals. I don't actually want the rust belt running the country, I just understand dems need to do a little better with them. But Hillary only lose WI, MI, and PA by a point. Don't think we need to rewrite dem platform to gain a single point and my sense from Biden is that he wants to do that

Garcetti is half mexican. Jesus are we progressives fucking stupid. Haven't we learnt anything.

Thank you for your support, R12.

Good point about Biden’s foreign policy experience, r32.

Cory Booker I cannot get behind. I saw him on CNN one time and he was a fool. Literally the only reason he is promoted is because he is black.

Her.

I like her too R41. I like her and Biden. I like Harris too, but I don’t expect a Democrat to win in 2020.

R32, Brown has to win his senate race this November. I don't think he'll make any other decisions until then. I don't think there's a ton to be gained in this environment by getting too much of a head start.

R42, Seriously? Have you seen what's been happening in the special elections? Trump has had underwater approval ratings since two weeks after taking office. No other president has ever had such consistently low ratings. Yes, there might be some election shenanigans, but you generally need a pretty close election to pull off that kind of thing.

And, between Parkland and Hurricane Maria, Florida may have just turned blue--wouldn't take much, just some Puerto Rican exiles registering along with motivated young voters.

I like Kamala, but I don't think she's ready, although she is whip smart and tough as nails. With her we have a situation similar to Obama, a one time senator with very little experience in the senate and no foreign policy knowledge. Not sure about Biden, he's creepy and is and looks too old. Also his unwillingness to commit to two terms is a big no-no.

Hillary was really the most competent candidate the democrats had in a very long time. She, Angela and Macron would have whipped Vlad's arse.

What Datalounge says I know the complete opposite is true and will happen. So, I’m sad but not surprised.

I know Biden can come off creepy, but him not having anyone accusing him of being a creep says a lot, I think if people can get past his age he will be the best bet.

Yeah, Kamala's my senator. I like her, but VP would be the spot for her. I do agree that Biden's old, but the State dept. is a disaster and the president really controls foreign policy--Biden does know foreign policy like no one else's business.

Sometimes you need experience--Jerry Brown is a much better governor as an old guy than he was as a young guy. Doesn't hurt to know where all the bodies are buried.

Hadn't heard of Garcetti before, but I like the sound of him.

r41

Yeah, because following up a grifter who chums up to David Duke with a grifter who chums up to Louis Farrakhan is just what America needs.

I wish Dario Frommer would come back to politics.

Saw Mitch Landrieu on Real Time the other night. He says he's not running but he's got a good grasp of the issues facing America.

And don't count out Bernie Sanders - though I think he's be just a tad too old to be President. Don't need a doddering fool for President for half his term.

Cory Booker might be a good veep candidate.

Kamala and Cory are not progressive. Kamala refused to prosecute Steve Mnuchin and his shitty bank and Cory is the poster child for shitty charter schools diverting funds from public schools.

Sen. Chris Murphy and an old hand with foreign policy chops as VP.

I think Biden is too much of a loose cannon, his “beat the hell out of Trump” attack was stupid. He's running for president, not some reality show.

I used to like Biden, but I think the main reason Obama stuck with him is because they looked good on "we are such good friends" PR photos. Obama was very much like Trudeau, his PR game was to sell himself to gullible millennials with nice and appealing pictures. Biden didn't contribute anything to the Obama administration and all said and done the wold is in a much more dangerous place than before they took office and they utterly failed to protect the country from some banana republic shithole with a GDP of Spain.

I concur R27 , although Trump is so unpopular AND those march for your lives kids will be 18 by the time it's 2020 so Kamala might can win.

Joe Biden most definitely is the most electable. He'll overwhelmingly win African Americans, whose support is crucial in the Southern primaries.

I'd like for Steve Bullock, the Governor of Montana, to run.

Unfortunately I don't see any of the women mentioned as being the first female president (that's going to need to be a major diva with a lot of personality).

It's going to be Bernie.

I can see Biden/Harris crushing Trump

[quote] Being a mayor, even of one of the largest cities in the country, does not qualify you or provide you sufficient experience to be president.

Especially when you haven't done anything particularly helpful.

I like Biden/Harris.

Biden's too old. And Bernie? Forget about it.

Kamala Harris seems to me to be in the strongest position. But she's a lousy public speaker. Don't discount that. Hillary was a lousy public speaker too. And Kamala's from California which brings nothing to the Dem Party. California's a given.

I think Landrieu is in a surprisingly strong position. Liberalish Dems from the South have won in the recent past (Clinton, Carter). And if Beto O'Rourke defeats Cruz, he'll be formidable. Both Landrieu and O'Rourke are great, charismatic public speakers.

It's not going to be Bernie--real Democrats know he fucked up the election--you see it time and time again in the special elections--the Berners aren't winning them, mainstream Democrats are. There's nothing about Bernie that will make him more appealing than he was in 2016--he'll still be old, cranky and short on actual accomplishments.

Joe is too old. They should run Asian. Anyone they run will win, anyone. Republicans are out and if trump keeps fucking up, we may all be dead anyway.

John Delaney

A few questions for those of you pushing Joe Biden...

1) What makes you think if he flamed out miserably in his previous presidential bids that next time would be different? You think he’d be a stronger campaigner at his advanced age than when he was younger?

2) Have you forgotten that Biden is largely responsible for Clarence Thomas being on the Supreme Court? You feel that that’s worked out well for us? (Not to mention his despicable treatment of Anita Hill. Think that won’t be raised in the #MeToo era?)

3) Aren’t you bothered by his constantly creepy behavior around women? Haven’t you seen the pics of him with women (not his wife) sitting in his lap? Or giving women back rubs at public events? (Again, #MeToo)

What about Brian Schatz from Hawaii? He just proposed to make all college debt-free (pure Millennial bait), and he’s relatively young and attractive. He’s not well-known, but that has its benefits (he’s likely under the GOP’s radar).

If we look beyond the big name geriatrics, there are a lot of choices with a great deal of potential.

What about O’Malley?

R64, After Drumpf, all of that is small potatoes. Biden isn't my personal favorite, I'm just thinking strategically--i.e. the closet racist/sexists can deal with the thought of him--and Drumpf is going to leave such a mess that we need someone who knows what the job is.

I'm also open to a good governor.

I think we need a superstar who'll mobilize people. Someone who stands out. Someone women and minorites will be passionate about.

O’MAlley is dull. Not even Marylanders find him exciting

Kirsten Gillibrand of course.. Argument settled.

Let’s face it, Dems are doomed. No one will ever be good enough.

The Midwest and South aren't going to vote for a WeHo mayor Eric Garcetti. Stop offering up his name. The only reason Kamala Harris could win is that she can possibly coax the black vote like Obama. I'd like to see Mitch Landrieu run. Well spoken and a Southerner.

R64 I agree. Everyone needs to get off the Biden train.

Whoever runs needs to stay far away from Al Sharpton. He's a complainer with zero solutions.

I agree R64, the only one pushing for Biden is Biden himself because he thinks he can still land the highest office. He failed during both primaries, he is way too old, he is creepy, he got baggage, he's been made fun of too many times, he will only commit to one term.

I think a Gillibrand-Booker ticket is a fine choice if these two could align. I F/F'd the "Eye-Talian" troll and put him on ignore because I believe Garcetti's being of distant Italian ancestry is not what would bar him from being a viable candidate. I hope other people F/F or put them on ignore. There is never even a funny joke attached to these numerous posts. I find them bigoted and offensive, though I'm not Italian.

R61 writes,

[Quote]It's not going to be Bernie--real Democrats know he fucked up the election--you see it time and time again in the special elections--the Berners aren't winning them, mainstream Democrats are. There's nothing about Bernie that will make him more appealing than he was in 2016--he'll still be old, cranky and short on actual accomplishments.

R61 suggests the 2020 nomination should go to real Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz, R61’s ideal candidate who is very accomplished—as she demonstrated while she was DNC chairwoman.

R64 writes,

[Quote]A few questions for those of you pushing Joe Biden...

[Quote]1) What makes you think if he flamed out miserably in his previous presidential bids that next time would be different? You think he’d be a stronger campaigner at his advanced age than when he was younger?

[Quote]2) Have you forgotten that Biden is largely responsible for Clarence Thomas being on the Supreme Court? You feel that that’s worked out well for us? (Not to mention his despicable treatment of Anita Hill. Think that won’t be raised in the #MeToo era?)

[Quote]3) Aren’t you bothered by his constantly creepy behavior around women? Haven’t you seen the pics of him with women (not his wife) sitting in his lap? Or giving women back rubs at public events? (Again, #MeToo)

There is a question you should have asked which is more important than your listed three:

What makes you think Joe Biden, who voted for the Iraq War, would be able to get elected president of the United States?

No one who was in Congress who voted for the Iraq War, and also no one was in Congress who voted for the Vietnam War, was later elected president of the United States.

Because, R3, OP is a realist and knows that a black woman wouldn't get elected.

Who is the idiot troll who keeps posting "who will the Democrats run" (implying he isn't one) threads? Enough already.. He's just trying to be divisive. Anytime a candidate looks like they might be inching towards a run, there's a thread on them concern-trolling about how "Democrats shouldn't use this person". It's obvious to me but apparently not to a lot of commenters on this thread.

Eric Garcetti - by the way - is a Jew who is a member of a very progressive, social justice-focused Jewish spiritual group IKAR.

Sherrod Brown may be undone by this:

Mandel called Brown “a real hypocrite when it comes to issues in respect to domestic violence and women’s issues,” adding: “You can probably read about that all over the Internet.” What can be found? The records from Brown’s 1986 divorce, his former wife stating that “he [Brown] has struck and bullied me … completely destroyed my peace of mind.” Mandel sees an opening to revisit the records because of Brown’s support for renewing the Violence Against Women Act.

Harris will be knocked out by Iowa and New Hampshire. It’s going to be Biden, Deval Patrick or Oprah.

Remember that Cory Booker has taken money from the NRA. That is enough for me to disqualify him.

A woman politician "who is a major diva with ĺots of personality" would never win.

After Trump , some people might was substance and seriousness. . How about Amy K?

Emma Gonzalez for Prez!

Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren

Martin Heinrich. Senator from New Mexico. Win or lose, he is nice to look at.

[quote]Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren

God NO!!!

Does that axiom from the Bill Clinton campaigning days still hold? "It's the economy, stupid"?

If so, and IF the economy remains strong (big "ifs", I know), I fear nothing will stop Trump in 2020. Sickening, but he really could get two terms. Though, hopefully, he declines to run for a second term so that he can get back to being a "businessman".

I can't believe people are seriously championing Gillibrand - the woman who brought along Mattress Girl to the State of the Union, and who eulogized Linda Sarsour & Tamika Mallory in the Time 100. She's a fucking embarrassment.

Mark my words: Obama is going to go full throttle in promoting Kamala Harris. So far there isn't any candidate that African Americans would vote for except for her. I'd prefer a Midwestern/Southern ticket.

Kamala Harris is a sure ticket to lose 2020.

Why would Kamala Harris be a "turn off"? Its not a porn magazine, its a political race. She is very qualified, actually.

The Democratic party needs to start fresh, but what is the likelihood that happening? Of someone new running for President over all those mentioned in this thread?

R93 writes,

[quote]Why would Kamala Harris be a "turn off"? Its not a porn magazine, its a political race. She is very qualified, actually.

Does your access to the Internet not allow you to use a search engine?

Try “Kamala Harris did not prosecute Steve Mnuchin.”

He can be an asshole but I think Gavin Newsom would be a strong choice. VP could be a woman of color.

Garcetti looks like he stepped out of a Men At Play video, so yeah, I'd probably vote for him.

I like Biden because there’s no skeletons in his closet. Who knows what’s going to come out the woodwork with all of these other guys whom never ran for national office. Yeah there’s pics of Biden getting touchy feely with the ladies, but some of these other guys might have women saying they were raped by them at the Republican National Convention. And who knows what other kind of dirty deals some of these sociopathic millionaire business types were engaged in that will turn into a scandal. Don’t have to worry about that with Joe—he couldn’t care less about money.

[quote] I like Biden because there’s no skeletons in his closet.

That's an interesting take. I suppose compared to Trump, he no longer has meaningful skeletons in his closet.

However, in the past, people liked Biden despite the skeletons in his closet.

Eric Garcetti is the son of former LA District Attorney Gil Garcetti, who helped fuck up the OJ trial by trying it in downtown LA. Gil Garcetti is now retired, and like many other public figures who have majorly fucked up, has become a "painter" - (see Bush, George W.)

I'd like to think Biden's past wouldn't factor into his campaign because Trump has moved the bar so low, but I've seen the media hold Democrats to standards they never hold Republicans to, so I'm skeptical.

I don't like Biden but he could do the job and I'd vote for him. Garcetti is an interesting choice. Harris would make a great VP candidate.

Dems need a white man for President with a minority woman as VP

This field is going to be so huge. We’re talking at least 20 candidates slobbering at the chance to run against a guy who can’t even hit 45% approval. Even if you don’t intend to make it, it’ll be great for your image to be on a national debate stage lambasting Trump. You can’t lose, really (unless you’re Bernie or Biden and this is your last chance to run).

There’s even a possibility that Hillary could run again.

After Trump and his slimey scandals, one would think that no Dem has anything that salacious in his/her background.

On the other hand, Trump seems to survive his scandals because he has that singular ability to fool people--like a cult leader.

I just saw Gavin Newsom speak at the March, and had the chance to meet him. He's certainly qualified. Doesn't hurt that's he's hot AF.

ANyone promoting a candidate from San Francisco or Massachusetts as president is the enemy of the Democratic Party

[quote] I like Biden because there’s no skeletons in his closet.

I don't think that's really true.

I can't believe Cory Booker is being mentioned. He's a black closeted gay man.

It's interesting and a little terrifying that so many of you think voters who "couldn't trust" Hillary would vote for Kamala Harris.

What has Kamala done to demonstrate that she can’t be trusted?

I don’t think trust is Kamala’s biggest handicap, I just don’t think she has a very politically charismatic demeanor or delivery for Middle America. I can’t imagine her on the stump at the State Fair in North Carolina, talking to Ohio factory worshipers, or at an Iowa megachurch. Obama could credibly and authentically fit in in middle, mainstream America, especially in 2008. She does not.

I was all about Kamala for president, but I think she'd make a good VP first. For President... I don't know who'd be good.

[quote] What has Kamala done to demonstrate that she can’t be trusted?

Nothing. Nor did Hillary. Some people don't want a woman in a leadership role. It's unfair, absurd and stupid, but the more we as liberals/Democrats/progressives keep pushing this the more a lot of America responds with Trump and co.

I wish Rosa Delauro would run in 2020.

I think Americans are okay with a female VP.

What about Ted Lieu? It has to be someone with the steel spine to survive the severe toxicity in politics right now. I love Chris Murphy, but I'm not sure he's that guy.

Kamala Harris will terrify white people even more than centrist Obama did.

Gavin Newsome

Being elected president is about branding. What is your brand--what do people think of when they think of the candidate. Obama was a cool egghead, Trump a shake-em-up dealmaker, Hillary a manipulative, conniving bitch, so forth.

That's why Biden and Bernie and Warren are the only plausible choices, for better or worse. And Biden vs Bernie will be the ultimate battle of the brands. Biden, the sensitive Irish uncle who has endured unfathomable loss but has balls of brass vs Bernie, the throw-em-all-out quasi-Socialist who speaks the truth to power and eschews even the Democratic party. I'd bet Biden gets the nom and defeats Trump. But who knows.

Hopefully, Bernie drops dead- and soon.

No Clintons, and no one Obama adjacent.

I agree with op, and in a similar thread last year/earlier this year I also mentioned Garcetti. He's young, Latino, and for those to whom it matters, he's smokin hot. He's revitalized LA, and has gotten the Olympics to come back there, and has created jobs via infrastructure in the city's transportation system. He'd be a solid candidate.

What about John Edwards or Eliot Spitzer.

Adultery doesn't stand in the way right now.

r19, I liked Sally Yates also, is she interested.

Gavin Newsom will probably run some day (and win), but he needs to hold a top office somewhere--he's running for governor., but he's not there yet. If he becomes governor of California, then it's time to start talking about him.

The Steve Mnuchin thing is a non-issue for Kamala Harris that Berners keep trying to turn into something.

Bernie will count himself lucky to stand on the stage with anyone mentioned as a possibility here. He's not fit.

[quote] Someone women and minorites will be passionate about

And not men?

Also the president and veep cannot be from the same state. Darth Cheney had to change his voter registration from Texas to Wyoming when he was picked.

Biden has Anita Hill.

I'm all for Biden, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, or perhaps John Hickenlooper. Signed fellow Midwestern DL'r.

Sure lets nominate a half Mexican like we don't need to scare middle America any further.

R119 writes,

[quote]Hopefully, Bernie drops dead- and soon.

No lives forever. (Too bad you never started.)

Dems also need a shitty Repub to run against. The left and media keep talking about how republicans are turning away from Trump. So it's obvious they'll run a typical, cleancut, social and fiscal conservative who is pro guns and anti abortion. Repubs always turn out to vote after they take a hit, which I believe they did when Trump won their ticket. And with the right candidate, they could give dems a fight.

I guess my Ted Lieu suggestion wasn't a good one.

[quote]I can't believe people are seriously championing Gillibrand - the woman who brought along Mattress Girl to the State of the Union, and who eulogized Linda Sarsour & Tamika Mallory in the Time 100. She's a fucking embarrassment.

Mallory still attends Farrakhan speeches, both Sarsour and Mallory defend him. Obama showed his true face when he made Sarsour a champion of change and send 200 million dollars to the Palestinians during his last hours in office.

I used to like Obama, but he was a piss weak president, brought nothing but unrest and failed to protect the country from the biggest outside attack in the history of the US.

I really dislike the guy now.

If Gillibrand is anywhere on the ticket, I will vote Trump.

Gillibrand's not going anywhere after her Mean Girls' takedown of Al Franken. She ended her political ambitions with that one. In any case, we don't need a candidate from a super blue state - doesn't add anything. We need somebody from a purple or even red state who can bring crossover votes with them. While I'd love for it to be a woman, after all the shit Hillary went through it's pretty obvious the US isn't ready to elect a woman. Maybe as Veep.

Beto O'Rourke / Conor Lamb is the best possible ticket.

hottest ticket =/= best ticket, r136

sally jessy raphael

Kamala I'm ok with... but she would probably be best in the VP slot for now.

I was with Biden but he looked poorly last time I saw him.

Deval Patrick is good. In a meritocracy, Jeh Johnson and Amy K.

In real life, Trump wins in 2020.

These all suck. It comes back to Oprah.

You have to be smokin crack to think Warren is a good candidate. Almost no one still thinks that

We need to hurry up and start naming white male s that can win against trump. My take Biden, Bernie.

Warren is the worst public speaker ever. When she talks she's like the school librarian who is haranguing you because you didn't turn a book in on time.

I would never vote for Bernie.

O'Rourke.

Monica Lewinksky

R132, I like Ted Lieu, from the little I know of him. Given the racism in the US, I don't know what his chances would be. I also like Warren a lot.

Ted was born in Taiwan. Can't run

All these foreign Teds... Cruz was born in Canada.

Lyin’ Teds!! All of em!

The President is a puppet chosen by whichever political party/private donors have enough money to choose one that aligns with their interests -- and the publics. Obama was like a blank canvas so it was easy for everyone to project their democratic dreams onto him while Soros backed him. Trump was also a political blank canvas -- ZERO experience -- and the evil Mercer and Koch families got him elected.

Nonsense, R152. LBJ was the opposite of a puppet. Obama and Clinton were distinctive. You sound like a Berner--now Bernie's not precisely a puppet--more like an egomaniac who couldn't be bothered to pay attention to how he was being used.

Dubya was a puppet--I'll grant you that. Nixon wasn't. People want Trump to be a puppet/figurehead, but he happens to be a semi-senile narcissist, so that makes things difficult.

All your comment really shows is that you don't understand how the presidency works.

Yep R153 BernieBros are idiots.

Maxine Waters for sure.

[quote]Warren is the worst public speaker ever. When she talks she's like the school librarian who is haranguing you because you didn't turn a book in on time.

I hate to agree, but it's true. Though to me there is something about her that makes her come across like she really really wants you to like her. Not the Republicans, but people in her party. Most politicians want approval, but there is something weak about her I can't put my finger on and it's not because she is female.

Warren is stiff and shrill. Know-it-all moralizing holier than thou ANNOYING. STFU, EW.

So Hillary/Warren 2020?

Yep Hillary/Elizabeth 2020.

Brought to you by Planned Parenthood.

Ahem

I never voted for your right-wing idol, Hillary Clinton, R145. (Never would.)

Joaquin Castro is getting a lot of airtime on MSNBC. He's interesting but he should have shown some balls (or his currently unemployed twin should have) by running for a bigger statewide office in Texas - Governor, Senate, something. He's got a safe seat in San Antonio. One of the Castros could have run against Cruz and both passed and Beto O'Rourke took up the challenge.

L'Audace, toujours de l'audace! That's what's missing from most of the Dems. They're such wimps.

I think Mitch Landrieu has a lot of charisma after seeing him on Maher's show. He's the right age (50ish?) and from the south. He will have a lot of black support from New Orleans as well--he's very popular. Kamala Harris might be good for VP or maybe Beto O'Rourke if he beats Cruz (please God).

R156 she's like the teacher who doesn't like you, is going to give you a bad grade but still doesn't want you to give her a bad review on that 'rate your professor' site..

Biden's mouth is his biggest liability, And recently, he's just been running off and not making a whole lot of sense. He also pissed off millennials with some Clint Eastwood Gran Torino type of speech.

O'Rourke is a progressive southern white guy who appeals to Hispanics and covers all the right demographics. he's a charismatic speaker and could be the Dems' next younger star similar to Obama. He could defeat Trump with the right running mate.

We do NOT need anyone older than 50 running. Biden is ancient, creepy with women, and likely getting dementia.

Along with the Electoral College, that requirement about being born in the U.S., to run for President, should be abolished.

R166 O'Rourke has got to beat Cruz and a Democrat hasn't been elected to statewide office since Lloyd Bentsen because Texas is so gerrymandered which has affected voter turnout which ranks 49th in the country. If he can actually get young people and Latinos to vote - he's in. But that's a big if.

Not that I agree, but like it or not, this is what most voters think of Warren.

POCOHANTAS

We need to please stop talking about Warren... she's like Electoral poison and she's far too old. She's not a realistic candidate who has any chance of winning.

Amen bro

Gavin Newsome!

[quote]In real life, Trump wins in 2020.

Not very likely, given his unfavorable ratings and his propensity for drama and chaos.

Personally, I'll vote for the Democratic candidate in 2020, whoever that is. Let's let 'em run and see who can raise money, who can create a compelling narrative, who can put together a national campaign, who can strategize successfully. Once we have that info, we can make an informed choice.

I would like Samantha Bee to run for president.

R174 She's a Canadian.

Whoever it is will without a doubt be a white guy.

Yes it most likely will be, R176... preferably a younger one.

I like the idea of a Beto O'Rourke - Kamala Harris ticket. I would love for Harris to win, but I am not sure the US is ready to vote in a woman president and the most important thing is a democrat in the White House ASAP now.

Gavin Newsome? A smarmy San Francisco politician has no appeal to Middle America and swing states. Imagine him campaigning in North Carolina.

I worry that Newsom likely has some #metoo revelations in his past that will come out and derail a campaign at inopportune times. Just a gut feeling.

R178, I like that ticket, O'Rourke / Harris, as well.

He'd just put on a fake hick accent, like Hillary did when she visited Arkansas, her 3rd "home state", r179.

It needs to be a moderate white guy at the top of the ticket and Kamala Harris as VP. No Bernie, no Biden, no Hillary, no Warren.

Kamala would drag down any ticket. Trust me.

R167, no foreign born US Presidents, thank you very much. No President Putins or Schwarzeneggers.

I saw Mayor Landreiu Of New Orleans and he was really good on Bill Maher's show last Friday. Check him out. Bechara, the AG of California is impressive. Eric Holder is seriously considering a run. Kristin Gillebrand is, Kamala Harris is, and so might Amy Klobuchar. Guys like Sherrod Brown and three or four other Senators are pretty damned impressive too. So we have a deep bench in terms of talent pool. We just have to get them out here so people will know who they are.

Gavin Newsom is completely charming. No sign of a #metoo. No one's ever claimed it wasn't all consensual. He'd go over fine in the Rust Belt--he's got that whole Irishman, baseball player thing going for him. That said, he's not going to run in 2020--he's trying to get the governorship.

R184, Kamala as VP would bring out the African-American vote--pivotal in states like Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Michigan.

R186, Kirsten Gillibrand can fuck right off. I will never vote for that self-righteous cunt.

I feel like Kamala would be successful in the VP role, and I'm in one of the rust belt states.

After what she did to Al Franken, I will never support or vote for Gillibrand.

Also...

R191, I hope that's true, but not sure if I believe her.

Hillary also said that she wasn't running on multiple occasions prior to 2016.

I'm not a fan of Gillebrand's either, but I'm just saying she is positioning for a possible run. Of course so is Bernie Sanders the whore who is now in favor of gun control, and so is Uncle Joe. I do hope that someone has "the talk" with Joe Biden. Maybe once he sees that there are a lot of really viable candidates out here under the age of 70, he might go home.

R192 -- did Hillary really say it that explicitly? I'm honestly asking; I don't recall. Those "I'm focused on my [current job]" or "that's not something I'm actively considering" types of statements are a bit different than Warren's pretty black and white statement that she's not running for President in 2020. I think the likely scenario is that she and her team did some polling and research and saw it would be a struggle for her and she's going to smartly focus on her Senate career.

[quote]Eric Garcetti is the son of former LA District Attorney Gil Garcetti, who helped fuck up the OJ trial by trying it in downtown LA. Gil Garcetti is now retired, and like many other public figures who have majorly fucked up, has become a "painter" - (see Bush, George W.)

Gil Garcetti was also an advisor for The Closer and Major Crimes.

R194,

She told Barbara Walters in 2012: "I've said I really don’t believe that that's something I will do again", when asked about a Presidential run.

I guess that's not an explicit denial, but she said something similar to that on multiple occasions.

Hillary should be given another chance.

No, HRC is done. She is too weary. It took such a lot out of her.

Hillary was done in 2008, but she won't let it go.

Who's been quietly courting the big donors? With whom are the big donors falling in love?

Good question, R200. Or, conversely, who have the big donors been sniffing around?

Don't forget me!

Buttigieg, from South Bend? Oh my.

All major cities in Texas went to Hillary in Nov '16, Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, Loredo. If Beto O'Rourke pulls it off in Nov, he is in the race.

r203, he's openly gay as well. Also recently got engaged.

Can you imagine? A gay president and a male first spouse?

America.

Beto O'Rourke and Joe Kennedy are campaigning together in Houston. They seem to be good buddies.

I think Deval Patrick could get the Obama machinery behind him in a way that other candidates - including Kamala Harris but excluding Eric Holder - couldn't. I also think that Kirsten Gillibrand has alienated the Clintons enough to stop loyal top staffers from committing to work for her, thus creating an opening for Patrick to assume the support of that power structure as well.

He could also float the choice of progressive attack dogs like Gavin Newsom or Sherrod Brown for VP to insiders, thus garnering strong endorsements from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and their attendant coalition of voters.

Furthermore, he'd be in a position to have a strong group of surrogates publicly commit to serving in his administration, in part because a Democratic wave in 2018 and 2020 would enable a smooth confirmation process.

Hillary 2020. It's already begun

[quote]I think Eric Garcetti ticks a lot of boxes - Jewish and Mexican roots, community oriented - but he might be deemed too “intellectual”.

This made me laugh. You can't be serious, OP.

[quote]Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Absolutely NOT.

I don't know why some of you think a women cannot be elected president. HRC didn't lose solely because of her gender. Conservative white people voted for females to be the "president" of their states in AK, AZ and TX not so long ago. You don't think they wouldn't vote for a national role those same women?

They should make sure whomever they nominate, s/he isn't a cat giver awayer

Is Kamala a lesbian? Could a lesbian win the White House?

Sorry, but no one from California. I'm from California and we tend to think that our way of thinking and living is how everyone should think and live - and the rest of the country, believe it or not, does NOT aspire to be like us. So NO to Gavin, NO to Kamala and anyone else. I think Kamala would make a strong VP, though.

Why not consider someone not already in office ..... let's think outside the box, ladies.

[quote]I don't know why some of you think a women cannot be elected president. HRC didn't lose solely because of her gender.

The fact that she won the popular vote by a wide margin proves that the USA is not too sexist to elect a woman President. The next woman candidate needs a little more widespread appeal, that's all.

I say a ticket with Rachel Maddow for POTUS and Tom Hanks as her VP. That's the ticket!

R216, actually a Democrat would have won against Trump if he were a man. Hillary’s purported weaknesses were largely fatal because she is a woman.

Especially no one from San Francisco or Massachusetts

[quote]Hillary’s purported weaknesses were largely fatal because she is a woman.

A woman who didn't set foot in Wisconsin nor outside the inner cities of Michigan and Pennsylvania. Women are always welcome at county fairs and pancake breakfasts. Where was Hillary?

Well, R216, wider appeal might be part of it, but making sure the fucking election is not stolen might also help.

Bernie really pissed off the gun rights kids. He showed up at their first rally - the school walk out rally - one of the students was speaking in front of the Capitol - he shows up, go up on stage and grabs the microphone and gives a speech. They didn't know what to do. And then when they found out his votes regarding gun control, they were furious. We can thank Bernie for the rules at the big march - no politicians will speak, no one over 19 will speak. And according to Twitter, they want nothing to do with Bernie Sanders.

Dems wouldn't be that stupid would they?

[quote]making sure the fucking election is not stolen might also help.

If you really believe thirteen Russian trolls on Facebook tipped the election to Trump, you are a fool.

The problem with DL is it doesn't nominate a candidate, it casts one. Progressive enough, hot enough, whatever enough.

The Dems need a platform that resonates and then somebody who can convincingly carry it - and majorities to deliver it. A couple simple ideas people can get behind.

But they don't need to do much. They don't need to lurch far left or avoid progress in the platform either. The election wasn't lost last time by much, even with the other side making effective use of Hillary's baggage and her own lack of appeal as a performer (I agree she was eminently qualified.). And in the meantime Trump will keep on being Trump. Whatever the state of the economy - and we are overdue for a recession and a major stock market crash - the tax cuts won't have trickled down as imagined.

Reading some of the comments I realized that progressives have learned nothing since the 2016 election. We are like stubborn children who refuse to accept mistakes. Sure please go ahead and nominate a minority and white female. Why are some of you wishing the economy will tank such awful negative thoughts. We need to move on from trump been indicted. It is a waste of attention and resources. It is an unnecessary distraction to get us enraged and it only works for the benefit of Nancy and Schumer. Even a majority dem in the house or Senate will not indict trump. It is all political theater and we are the fools falling for it. We need to focus on making sure he never gets re elected in 2020.

The political writer at NYMag recently tweeted that big money donors are backing away from Gillibrand because of the shit she pulled with Al Franken.

Is Gillibrand folksy, in a southern or Midwest way?

My first choice is Kennedy/Harris. My second choice is Biden/Sanders. Of course who knows if Biden or Sanders will live long enough.

Sanders is not a Democrat r228

Doug Jones. If he could win in deep red Mississippi, he would have a good shot at the White House.

Let's nominate someone who has absolutely no appeal in the Rust Belt and Midwest. And then let's all be shocked when he/she loses in 2020.

R231, you are so right.

I wasn't surprised in the least when Trump won. I went out the midwest in July 2016, and didn't see a Clinton sign anywhere, what I saw was wall to wall Trump signs. That, and the fact that Bernie trounced her in the Michigan primary told me that she was going to be in trouble in that part of the country.

But hey, it far more important to cater to the minorities and left coast/northeast liberals than to actually win an election.

The problem is r232, what works in the Midwest doesn't work in the bigger, liberal states.

Conor Lamb wouldn't have won in most places in NY, California, IL, etc. He's a very conservative democrat.

Sherrod Brown. Need a candidate that can appeal to blue collar mid-west voters. Biden could do so as well, but his age could be problematic.

Hillary again....just no. Super qualified, but not a good campaigner on the national level, and twice picked staff that didn't deliver.

Bernie? No. But CNN is pushing him.

Sherrod Brown would be good. And, I didn't think so before, but adding Congressman Joe Kennedy to the ticket just might be the right combination.

Timing might be a bit off, but if former Tenn., governor Bredesen can win the Senate race there, that would impress me, speak well for an ability to succeed w. people away from the coasts.

If Biden can pull of 2020 I say let him, but then Chelsea for 2024! We need a Clinton woman in the White House!

Agree with those who say Sherrod Brown. We need someone from a swing state.

No, R223, you're the fool to think that I'm a fool and to think anyone would believe the shit you're peddling. It wasn't just "some trolls on facebook." It was a massive, all encompassing effrot. Which we all now acknowledge. We,ll most of us.

I still believe that Hillary won and it will come out in the not too distant future.

How about a candidate from rust belt states. Someone from the battleground states. Since we don't have our own trump someone who can speak the poor whites language, then we need to look outside Cali and ny.

hillarity 2020!

Stop naming politicians from Massachusetts, especially a Kennedy. That’s stupid.

It’s true that current day Californians will have a hard time appealing to mainstream America. The state is so different from heartland America.

Hillary should run with a more dynamic running mate. Kirsten Gillibrand and Hillary would be unbeatable.

I'm hoping Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown runs. He would be a great nominee that appeals to middle-America. To balance the ticket, the Veep slot should go to someone like former National Security Advisor Susan Rice...female, minority, Nation Security background.

Along those same lines, I'm hoping for the GOP to dump the Cheeto in Chief and replace him with moderate GOP members. Olympia Snowe, the former Senator from Maine, is one the few tolerable Republicans. There are a handful of others in the GOP that have called out Trump, like Arizona Senator Jeff Flake.

How awesome would it be to have a presidential race pitting Brown-Rice (D) against Snowe-Flake (R)?

And what is "poor whites language" r241?

racism?

Jobs, economics, r247.

R 247 poor whites language doesn't have to be racism. It has to be someone who can connect to them and illustrate how his policies will benefit them too. Someone who can sell jobs, health care, infrastructure in a language they understand. Obama did connect with them and we need to find that candidate again.

R239 eat all.

It’s hilarious that you all keep going on about the Russian trolling that went on during the election.

Hillary had her own paid trolls online during th election, do you all forget?

Short and selective memories, I guess.

[quote] Hillary again....just no.

Hillary again....just YES. She will win this time, I can feel it.

Of course it’s Hillary again! dl elder gays are with her!

OK. You need a profile. You need a type. What we need, is another Bill Clinton. His 1992 campaign was masterful. He knew how to sell it. So as we talk about candidates keep that in mind. That's the "type" we need. Some one who is not only smart, but someone who can sell it. (And someone who is a very shrewd strategist, because Clinton never gets his props for strategy.)

The democrats better focus on winning the house and senate. We don't want Don to nominate or appoint any new SCOTUS justices.

The fucking DNC sent me an email to get $$ with a list of 'who I prefer to run for President in 2020' which included Bernie the 80 year old shit stirrer and nobody I'm interested in. The last choice was 'I'm not interested in any of THESE candidates and I'm voting for Trump'.

Fuck the DNC, fuck Perez and fuck Ellison. Holy shit. What losers.

Get the ideas first and then a decent candidate who can sell them.

Hillary was a smart candidate but she had so much baggage they could twist against and they did.

But look at Bernie (who I thought spelled disaster as president)... nonetheless he put forward simple ideas and he sold them... I don't think he is the answer next time but he's an example of how to get it right.

He was an example of how to do it right in 2016, but the DNC and DWS and Hillary wouldn't hear of it.

Now, I think Bernie is too old. I don't think he would survive another campaign in 2020 but R256 I think you are 100% correct. Someone electable, with earth shattering charisma needs to run with most of Bernie's ideas and his ability to excite the electorate. They need someone with Bernie's ability to show the poor and working poor and blue collar people both Dems and Rethugs that he really cares about them and will help them. I can't even count how many interviews they've done with Trump voters who said had Bernie been the D candidate they would have voted for him.

Dems believe they will win because people don't like Trump, not because they have any good ideas.

They're not inspiring, they don't make me want to get out and confidently vote for any of their candidates. Trump had MAGA. Hillary wanted us to be with her. Fuck that, now it's, "A Better Deal"? Nope, the dnc will never learn. They need new blood, and not the new extreme left, or the Bernie or bust crowd.

They're all running on an anti Trump agenda. But never address anything they are pro, or standing for. I'm sorry if it upsets some people, but not being Trump isnt enough for me, and I imagine others as well.

Honestly, at this point if a strong, moderate independent candidate would come forward, and make a legitimate run, with grassroots effort, I'd support them. I need someone that isn't a puppet of the failing dnc, or the gun nuts at the nra. Someone pro America, pro sensible gun law reform, pro civil/equal rights, believes in a smaller government, someone that believes that the person in charge of educatiom should have at least once before stepped inside a public school, someone that will call out big pharm companies to stop screwing us over, and someone tough on fixing our national security problem, and our borders without dehumanizing people and tearing apart families. The Republican party is nuts, and is now filled with racist bigots. The Democratic party is weak, and has allowed its progressive platform to be taken over by an over the top agenda that is now limiting our freedom of speech, and is focused on taking away our 2nd amendment rights, and if you don't cater to Twitter, you are also a racist, somethingphobic, bigot. I can't with the major parties, they're both broken. #goindependent

I needed to rant, sorry.

No Dem believes that, R258, and, in fact, they do have good ideas, as they've articulated over and over again. No Democratic candidate has run on an "anti Trump agenda," which is why they've been winning in the off-cycle elections. You have this weird idea of what "Democrats" are and it just doesn't match to reality.

The real test is if dems will outmatch trump supporters in 2020. We need to give our side a reason to vote against trump. The dems reclaiming the majority in the house and senate should not be a big deal. When Obama was president dems lost lots if seats and it is bound to happen with trump. The real test is if we can make sure trump does not get reelected and that is why the momentum needs to keep going into 2020.

Every single dem that does an interview is their to state exactly how they oppose Trump. Every bill or reform Trump and Congress has tried to pass, all they say is how bad it is. They never provide any solutions, or other ideas. It's simply that they'll vote against anything repugs try to pass.

In the last election, guess who came to visit my homestate? Was it Hillary? Was it Obama? Was it Biden? Michelle, and her shaken core? Nope it was Sanders, and Trump. Did I vote for them? Nope, but at least they came and shared their ideas. Yea, i live in a red state that typically goes red, but if you actually want change, come out to us that support you, and have an uphill battle to change minds and votes in a difficult place. The dnc simply wants to cater to the coasts and big, already blue areas and cities. Guess what, our votes count just as much, and it bit them on the ass in 2016. I never once saw a Hillary sign last election. People wanted change, wanted jobs to come back, wanted some help. Would Hillary have brought that? I believe she could have, which is why I voted for her, but she and her camp didn't care enough to talk to us, or even try to reach moderates who made the difficult choice to vote Trump. We "flyovers" are hard red, but the younger generations are blue leaning, but the dnc doesn't care. As long as they stay in their blue bubbles where everyone agrees with them, they're fine. I'm no Republican either. The repugs in my state have put us in debt, and ruined our education system. #goindependent

[quote]Every single dem that does an interview is their to state exactly how they oppose Trump.

Oh, bullshit. If you're going to troll like this, can't you at least [italic]try[/italic] to do it intelligently?

[quote]Every bill or reform Trump and Congress has tried to pass, all they say is how bad it is.

Duh ... that's because everything they've tried to pass has been bloody awful. That has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with policy.

[quote]They never provide any solutions, or other ideas.

Of course they do. Your ignorance is your own fault, not theirs.

I'm following Beto O'Rourke's campaign in Texas. He has plenty of ideas and is forging a positive campaign. He barely ever mentions Ted Cruz - all Cruz's campaigning so far is totally negative, attacking Beto and big, fat lies. He's not called Lying Ted for nothing.

I hate hearing that Democrats are just anti-Trump. It’s an empty complaint; parties out of power focus on who is in power, especially when they have no legislative control, like they do now. It’s the same whether it’s Trump, Obama, George W. Bush or the rest.

Fine, you want the DNC to concoct your magical plan to inspire people in those poor, forgotten flyover states to abandon the GOP, and come up with catchier messaging, as if any slogan from “Yes We Can” to “Make America Great Again” is all that good.. And then what? I have a suspicion that this is one of those demands people make knowing that it could never be met, and is therefore made in bad faith.

Admit it, R261. You’re a conservative at heart and the only reason you’re not on the side of the GOP is that they don’t like gay people. You have so many of their talking points down already, especially the contempt for the so-called coastal elites.

It's a bullshit argument that isn't borne out by reality. Notice how none of these whiners can actually point to any Democratic candidate? Here's the reality:

[quote]Second, Trump is not figuring heavily into the campaigns these candidates have run. The Beltway and Twittersphere are consumed with debates over whether Democrats should or should not be speaking directly to anti-Trump anger, or whether their failure to more directly attack Trump’s tax plan is helping it (and Trump himself) edge up in popularity. But Post tells me that these candidates are mostly “campaigning on hyper-local issues.”

[quote]For instance, Post says, in Virginia, one Democrat campaigned on fixing local traffic problems. In Oklahoma, one stressed shortened school hours. And in southern Minnesota, one campaigned on expanding rural economic opportunities and improved access to hospitals. In rural and exurban districts, the quality of roads and schools is a big issue.

In short, Democrats are doing precisely what the whiner above insists that they aren't doing.

As for Trump and the Republicans, the 2018 campaign will be a referendum on their performance, just as every mid-year election is. And even more in this case because of the unified Republican rule. That's just the reality.

[quote]You have this weird idea of what "Democrats" are and it just doesn't match to reality.

And there lie the seeds of defeat. If you're right and R259 is wrong, the Dems have to make the case, not just tell everybody they're wrong.

Bernie's the only Presidential candidate who failed to secure his parties nomination, yet somehow ran this amazing campaign.

Yes, amazing, if you take out his low support among minorities and older women.

Bernie should have done even better than he did, considering the assistance he got both from the Kremlin and a media so bored by Clinton that they even covered a fucking bird landing on the old crank’s podium.

[quote]People wanted change, wanted jobs to come back, wanted some help.

LOL, good luck with that fly over idiots.

R267, you just proved my point, since what you write doesn't even remotely come close to what Democrats are actually doing. And since they're winning, hands down, while doing it, I'm afraid that your concern trolling about "the seeds of defeat" is rather bizarre.

Bernie and Trump had the same message: I'm gonna take all the goodies away from the people you hate and give you all the freebies!

The fact that some of you think the Dems they are currently pushing is a good thing, is hilarious. Y'all think the party can do no wrong, it's always something or someone else. You're winning now? You sound like Trump. There is a major disconnect between the top tier dems and their candidates with the common folk, call us flyover idiots if you want. If you think that the way the dnc is running things now is fine, and everyone is okay with it, we'll all be in the same boat we were in in 2016. And I'm sure you'll all be shocked, and will cry yourself to sleep by how you don't understand how some people disagree with you, and wonder where it all went wrong, about how you were certain you would have victory during the midterms.

In Texas, O'Rourke will never beat Cruz. If you believe what the news, based in NYC is telling you, then you're sadly mistaken. As I've stated earlier. If you don't come to the heartland to see how it actually is, there will always be a disconnect.

R273 I'm in Texas. Only the psycho teabaggers like Cruz and their numbers are shrinking. Trump only beat Hillary by 9% in Texas with a very low voter turnout. If we can increase turnout, the GOP's out.

[quote]The fact that some of you think the Dems they are currently pushing is a good thing, is hilarious.

Try this again in English, won't you?

[quote]Y'all think the party can do no wrong

Now if only someone on this thread had actually said anything like this. Sadly, they didn't. Next strawman argument?

[quote]You're winning now?

It's called reality, dear; you should join us here someday. Lamb in Pennsylvania, Jones in Alabama, 39 out of 43 state races, the majority of which were in red districts. So yes, dear; we're winning.

[quote]There is a major disconnect between the top tier dems and their candidates with the common folk

Of course there isn't, which is why you didn't even try to support this bit of drivel.

[quote]In Texas, O'Rourke will never beat Cruz.

*shrug* You're probably right. So? Right now, the Democrats have a very good shot at winning the House. If they continue to win with the numbers they've had over the past year and a half, they will retake the House. It's unlikely that they will retake the Senate, something that everyone knows. 2018 is a brutal year for Democrats in the Senate.

[quote]If you believe what the news, based in NYC is telling you, then you're sadly mistaken.

It's called reality, dear. You should try it someday.

If only there was some way we could know who the original poster was for all these quotes.

What R209 says.

Eric Garcetti's only intellectual talent is being able to smile while attending the opening of an envelope.

[quote]I'm from California and we tend to think that our way of thinking and living is how everyone should think and live - and the rest of the country, believe it or not, does NOT aspire to be like us. So NO to Gavin, NO to Kamala and anyone else. I think Kamala would make a strong VP, though.

[quote]Let's nominate someone who has absolutely no appeal in the Rust Belt and Midwest. And then let's all be shocked when he/she loses in 2020.

Ignoring Californian democrats is a dangerous game.

Eventually, [bold]Californians[/bold] are going to [bold]demand[/bold] representation in the big ticket. It's the same argument that Latinos and Asians are making, there comes a time when being "friendly" towards a group is not enough.

I don't know what you're waiting for the South and Rustbelt to do? They are not voting Democrat no matter what. You can target PA, but that's about it. The 2020 presidential/congressional election is going to be won by Gen Z (Arizona, Texas, Florida) and by bringing voters that did not vote in 2016 (Florida, Texas, PA) and by keeping Blue States Blue (Minnesota, Virginia) . It ain't going to be won by trying to win over Alabama or Mississippi.

If the DNC makes the [bold]fatal[/bold] mistake of telling the electorate that Californians are not important to the party (Californians having the biggest depth of Dem politicians) you'll see the Independent and Republican party make ground on what it is a blue oasis.

Eric Garcetti, Eric Swalwell , and Kamala Harris are great VP choices, and no amount of courting flyover states will change that. Keeping California blue and happy should always be a priority.

With that said, 2020 will be a rich pool for Dems.

My VP choices are between Rouke (if he wins against Cruz), Castro, Swalwell, Harris, Garcetti, Heinrich, and Kennedy III. <3 <3

Ideally, the head of the ticket should be someone from the battleground states (PA, Arizona, Florida, Texas) or someone recognizable like Eric Holder or Sally Yates.

As mentioned above Garcetti is kind of a nothing ball. Talks a lot but not much real action. Kamala would be great but that's wishful thinking. Now pretty boy Gavin Newsome is an interesting choice.

No Biden! No Bernie!

Personally, I don't think you have to choose between the "rust belt" and California, or between white voters and, well, everyone else. Democratic candidates recently have worked on crafting a local message, tailored to the people in their district and state, and have had a lot of success doing so.

Fairness, jobs, health care, equal opportunities for everyone, schools, roads, bridges, job retraining, college tuition, retirement ... these are all pretty universal themes.

What do you mean Garcetti is a nothingball? He has managed Los Angeles pretty well. Under his leadership (well some credit goes to Villaraigosa) Los Angeles is positioning herself to become a top destination of the Americas and Asia pacific , created jobs, got the Olympics back to the US, has successfully traveled all over the world to promote the economy of Los Angeles and California, and made Los Angeles the only city to increase its tourism in the whole United States. Garcetti had made himself known world wide thanks to his great sales skills.

If you successfully manage New York City, Los Angeles, or Chicago, you are well vetted to run for vise president at least. If successfully manage a state like New York, California, Illinois, or Texas, you're well vetted to run for president.

Bill Clinton had operatives and a rapid response operation that included people such as Lanny Davis, Paul Begala, and James Carville. George Stephanopoulos was smart as a manager. They didnt take prisoners. Obama had David Axelrod and others that were great strategists.

John Podesta, Robby Mook, Joel Beneson, Huma Abedin, and a few from the Social Justice groups? Who did Hillary have tearing Trump a new asshole? She didn't listen to Bill.

For R281:

Mr. Garcetti may end up looking more attractive in places like New Hampshire than Los Angeles.

“The mayor running for president?” Eli Broad, a philanthropic and civic leader, said archly. “He’s showing quite some ambition.”

“He’s stayed away from many controversial issues,” Mr. Broad said. “Pensions. Education reform. He’s done a lot of other good things for the city. But he’s not Mike Bloomberg.”

Mr. Murphy, the Republican adviser, who lives in Los Angeles, said while Mr. Garcetti’s bearing and biography would win him a burst of early attention, he may not have the record to carry him through a competitive primary.

“He doesn’t have an ideological profile,” Mr. Murphy said. “He can’t brag about having done much of anything in Los Angeles. The reputation he has among California pols is as a showhorse, not a workhorse.”

[quote]Mr. Murphy, the Republican adviser, who lives in Los Angeles

Honey, the opinion of a Republican strategist is not an opinion in which you should judge Garcetti's work or any California democrat for that matter.

Anyone but Biden or Bernie.

Bernie got less votes than Trump OR Hillary so please take that fucking asshole's name off the lists. All of the lists...except the shit list.

Hillary got the most votes and they fucking stole the election from her so please stop cataloging of her short comings and all the bullshit about what she "wasn't enough" of. Every single motherfucker who runs for President has shortrtcomings or deficiencies and makes mistakes. Their campaigns have glitches and screw ups. ALL of them. But no one is defined by her mistakes and her real and imaginary shortcomings the way Hillary has been. We really need to stop doing that.

And I will say it once again. Do you really think Putin and Trump and their entire cabal put all that time, and money and effort into fucking up and interfering with our election if they didn't guarantee the outcome by stealing it? It's very easy to steal and election. Very easy to hack into voting machines and alter votes. you do a few here and a few there and Boom. You lose Michigan by less than 11000 votes. Please tell me you're not waiting for "official confirmation" that they stole the election.

Getting back to 2020, the Dems don't know how to tell their story, don't know how to sell. They are really poor on messaging across the board. Clinton (Bill ) could sell. But too many Dems will tell you how to make a clock when you ask for the time. Obama was really poor on messaging. It's a good think people decided he was smart and likable. We have too many "crusaders" in the Democratic party. people just want things to work. I think we need to sell competence as much as anything.

Biden is a fool for thinking people don't make fun of him the third time running.

My sense is the average American is exhausted. All of the culture wars of bathrooms, gay marriage, guns, abortion, etc.

I think most people are in a mindset of trying to get by. It really is the economy stupid. How to get health insurance cheaper. How to able to have a better chance at the American dream. I do think gun control may be the one hot fire social issue in the 2018 and 2020 election, but for the most part, I really think it comes down to the basics next time around.

Democrats focused too much on "boutique" issues (including gay marriage which I do not regret) and not enough on the foundation bread and butter issues. I don't blame Hillary for the loss, but recent left wing culture as a whole. The working class in America cried about the loss of their jobs in a faster moving automation world, they were told to check their white privilege. They complained they couldn't afford drugs anymore and not making enough money, they were told to have a gender inclusive bathroom in their restaurant or they were a bigot.

I just want a Democratic leader who will call Trump out on his bullshit, not talk down to middle America, and not be afraid to confront the crazy regressive leftists on the left too.

That would be a dream candidate, R288!

I agree with R288. But who is out there that can do this?

See, here's the problem with R288's analysis: Clinton won among those who said that the economy was their number one concern, so clearly she had a message that appealed to those people.

What R288 probably wants is a contemporary version of a Sister Souljah moment for Democrats, where the candidate stands up against nuttiness on our side. But that was a different political climate, and I do wonder if it’s even possible in the age of Twitter outrage.

Obama did have an inadvertent version when he was caught on mic calling Kanye a jackass in 2012. Whoever the nominee is for 2020 should probably be overheard saying something like “Can’t Lena Dunham shut up for once?”

I can’t deal with the Hillary apologists.

An experienced, intelligent hardworking candidate is not enough if people won’t vote for you. Voters don’t owe politicians a damn thing.

American has shown twice that it will vote for an inexperienced black guy called Hussain and a financially and morally bankrupt, racist rapist from Reality TV over her, no matter how experienced, intelligent and hardworking she is. Her campaign was upended by a socialist, atheist, Jewish, professional politician who was not even a Democrat.

The Democrats need someone who will respect the electorate enough to get people voting for them, be they from Michigan, Pennsylvania or California.

Smart choices are what is needed - so let’s keep disaster Debbie Wasserman Schultz out of this.

R293 it's a question of charisma. Trump, asshole and conman that he is, has it. Hillary -for all her qualifications- didn't. Bill C and Obama did.

The Dems need a star and we'll know when we see him (because I don't think a her can be elected).

Assume the Russians did have a substantial impact on the last election. The challenge moving forward is that what they did can be replicated by Americans. I wonder (hope?) that the Clinton War Room strategy can be used to deal with this propaganda. I keep thinking of the debate where Trump stalked Clinton around the stage. I never understood why Clinton let that go during the debate and certainly why it wasn't an issue after the debate.

R278 - Californians can demand whatever they want, but the candidate still has to make it through the primaries. Obviously there is a middle ground as far as a Californian taking the VP spot. A person of color. You have to admit as far as the electoral college is concerned a White Californian brings nothing to the ticket.

I'd like to see Mark Dayton Governor of Minnesota run.

I'd like to see someone from Texas as VP. Julian Castro maybe?

Agreed r293, though I think the right “her” can get elected one day but she will need to be the ideal woman the way Obama was the ideal black man in attracting the most and offending the least.

He was able to spin his external baggage into positives and not react fiercely to the constant, disgusting barrage of racism and bigotry hurled at himself, Michelle and his daughters. Hillary couldn’t not call out sexism because that is at the core of who she is: she’s a lawyer, a second-wave feminist and policy maker who fought for womens’ rights.

[quote]Assume the Russians did have a substantial impact on the last election. The challenge moving forward is that what they did can be replicated by Americans. I wonder (hope?) that the Clinton War Room strategy can be used to deal with this propaganda. I keep thinking of the debate where Trump stalked Clinton around the stage. I never understood why Clinton let that go during the debate and certainly why it wasn't an issue after the debate

All this is true, but unless the Democrats have solidly formulated economic and social policies and a candidate who can sell them to the people who, rightly or wrongly, feel ignored in light blue and purple, states then the Russians propaganda won’t even matter.

I think Dems need to cool it a bit with the immigration. Most want to save the DACA kids, including me, but that does not mean that most Americans want unlimited illegal immigration in the name of... diversity?

Most have a mentality of "we need to have enough resources to support Americans who are already here before we worry about new people"

[quote]Being a mayor, even of one of the largest cities in the country, does not qualify you or provide you sufficient experience to be president.

Oh please, it's 100 times the experience of the Cheeto we have in the White House right now. Large cities are complex and they really do require skill and knowledge. LA city is almost 3,700,000 and growing. Compare that to some corporate CEO who has no idea how give and take and live with a balance of power.

[quote]We have too many "crusaders" in the Democratic party. people just want things to work. I think we need to sell competence as much as anything.

Yeah, lets higher a Billionaire who has gone bankrupt 4 times and never pays his bills. He will make America great again.

The only ones that are credible are Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. This is proven in poll after poll.

Do not believe the Russian Troll on social media.

[quote]Assume the Russians did have a substantial impact on the last election.

We don't have to assume anything, the election was [bold]stolen[/bold] from Hillary. How can anyone even entertain, well apart from idiot Berniebros, any other explanation after all the exposure on Russians hacking our voting rolls?

[quote]I can’t deal with the Hillary apologists.

Then shut the fuck up Ruskie troll @ R293. For as long as people remember remember what took place in 2016, people will blame and suspect Russia stole the election, because obviously they did.

r301, Fuck Bernie

[quote]For as long as people remember remember what took place in 2016, people will blame and suspect Russia stole the election, because obviously they did

Lose the obnoxiousness. We know Russia stole the election. But some Hillary apologists believe that means that means their hands are clean. They’re not. And long as the Hillary apologists ignore the fact that it’s not just Russia and Dudebros and the Deplorables and the White Fraus that are the problem, because it was partly their own hubris THAT PUT A FUCKING RAPIST IN THE WHITE HOUSE then they’ll lose even more pitifully than they did last time.

Sorry Bernie Bros, hes too old at this point, literally a troll by all standers. He will drop dead and be sitting in shit stained diapers by the time the next election comes around. Do you really want to roll him out on stage like they did to daddy bush at the convention where his pants were up to his neck?

Any Dem candidate who mentions Russia or Russians will disqualify himself as a serious candidate.

Bernie Bro R304 is triggered.

Except for ... and ... and ... and .... you are to blame! Any one of those groups you just made exceptions for would have pushed Hillary's electoral vote over the top. She won the popular vote by more than 3 million, or have you forgotten.

Thanks for the advice Russian Babushka at R306. We dont really need Russian Fraus posting here, we have enough of our own.

Deval Patrick is the whole package and will be hard to beat despite what the racists here will say.

Patrick already has Obama's team at the ready to work for him.

Patrick is going to be the nominee.

I think the Eric Garcetti thing is a waste of time. Homelessness has exploded in the city and there something like 50,000 people living on the streets of Los Angeles. Google some images of Los Angeles skid row. LA actually has a very weak mayor But more than anything else I can point to any specific accomplishments that Garcetti has made in the city. But seriously parts of LA look like a Third World country with people living in tent cities and while that isn’t his fault his response to it has been to raise taxes.

[quote]Californians can demand whatever they want, but the candidate still has to make it through the primaries.

There is a reason why California moved its primaries earlier in the year. The Sunbelt pretty much votes in unison, which will help California (actually any Western Democrat) pick up some serious buzz because the stretch between Super Tuesday (March 3rd) and March 17 (Illinois/Florida/Arizona) is where most of the votes could be distributed. No longer will Iowa, North Carolina, or New Hampshire will set the tone of the Democratic primaries. If anything, Western Democrats could skip Iowa or New Hampshire and nobody would care come Super Tuesday (March 3rd). In the new schedule [bold]Nevada[/bold] will be a better indicator of how the rest of the primaries will pan out, and they are likely to vote in late January or early February.

If any person thinks Nevada is going to choose a midwestern/East coaster over a Western candidate, then I have a golden bridge to sell you.

Late January/Early February: Nevada

March 3rd : Alabama, California, Texas, Virginia

March 10th: Idaho

March 17th: Florida, Illinois, Arizona

March 26: Hawaii (likely to move to March 10th)

This schedule is extremely favorable to any California candidate. It practically begs, "Take me! Take me now!"

[quote]. But some Hillary apologists believe that means that means their hands are clean

Anyone who voted for Hillary did everything right. Are you projecting BernieBro @ R304 ? I know, it wounds you to have been so wrong...but what are you going to do. You'll forever be a loser.

R306, that is a very big problem. Fuck you.

R306 has a point; the party itself can’t control dirty tricks from the opposition.

But the party itself can chose a better candidate and run smarter campaigns and not allow outliers like Sanders the power to dilute their message.

You can’t guilt trip people into voting for you. You need to seduce them.

[quote]It's called reality, dear. You should try it someday.

Ah, the invocation of Godwin's Wife's Law.

Deval Patrick is the nominee.

The real question is who should his VP be?

Deval Patrick is the nominee? Really? It's already been decided?

Guess we don't even have to bother to vote then, huh r316?

R316, This country is not going to elect another black man this soon. I heard this myself and said, people said they wouldn't elect Obama and did but it's not going to happen. The racists are emboldened.

Holder and Deval are not going to be the nominee.

Eric Garcetti does not think he can be president. He wants the VP nomination. There is no other way for him to get his name on the national stage that to mount a primary bid, get good responses from Nevada and California in the moved up primaries.

r306, the said thing is there are a lot of people who believe pizzagate and think that Hillary was running a child pedo ring.

One problem was that it wasn't brought up enough during 2016. It should have been exposed back then by the Obama administration and more by Clinton, who touched on it but the white house and intelligence committeed, failed this country by only discussing her email issues and let the real crook slitther in.

[QUOTE]This country is not going to elect another black man this soon.

The fuck are you talking about? Obama left office with an approval rating in the 60’s. He’s still voted the “most admired man” in the country. If it wasn’t for the 22nd Amendment, America would’ve elected a black President again in 2016 when Obama demolished Trump while winning his third term.

If Deval Patrick is perceived as having Obama back in office, then he can start measuring the Oval Office drapes right after he secures the Democratic nomination.

That was completely disproven r218. Clinton's weaknesses were her's and her's alone.

R293 said, " An experienced, intelligent hardworking candidate is not enough if people won't vote for you. "

I agree with this. The problem with the rest of your post is your subtle defiance of logic. Please keep in mind, as you continue to attempt to marginalize all of us who supported Hillary, and who KNOW the fucking election was stolen, that Hillary WON by more than 3 million votes. That's not a "too close to call" like Gore vs. Bush in Florida, that is a substantial margin. A discernible victory.

Hillary had an economic message. She spoke of it often. She talked about retraining workers, she talked about creating opportunities, she talked about educational incentives, etc. She even had a special program for those displaced by environmental concerns like the fucking coal miners who voted against her. At no time did she say her economic proposals excluded the white working class some Dems want to canonize.

Putin hated her. he wanted her stop her and he did. And he used a vile outrageous treasonous whore to do it because Trump embodies the contempt Putin has for America.

Our real task between now and the next Presidential election, and truthfully we should have done it for the 2018 Mid terms, is to stop foreign governments fro influencing our elections. The Israeli Interest Section and the Middle Eastern Interest Section, and a lot of other Interests will object and so will their lobbyists but we need to stop the foreign money and the foreign influence in the strongest way possible. And we need to go all out in educating voters on the tactics to look for with all these cyber attacks.

R323 here. It won't matter who we run, if outsiders can manipulate our systems and fuck with our elections. That is the lesson of 2016.

[quote]Democrats focused too much on "boutique" issues (including gay marriage which I do not regret) and not enough on the foundation bread and butter issues. I don't blame Hillary for the loss, but recent left wing culture as a whole. The working class in America cried about the loss of their jobs in a faster moving automation world, they were told to check their white privilege. They complained they couldn't afford drugs anymore and not making enough money, they were told to have a gender inclusive bathroom in their restaurant or they were a bigot.

Republicans were the ones who were bringing up these issues in order to distract from important issues like the economy. The whole idea of banning gay marriage came about because Republicans were desperate to shift the narrative from what was going on in Iraq at the time. They do this all the time. And what do you expect the democrats to do in return? Of course they have to say something.

And "Boutique Issues" AKA any issue that doesn't revolve around straight white men. In case you haven't noticed, black women have been saving (or trying to save) the democratic parties asses time and time again over the last decade. They came out in overwhelming numbers to support Obama, they supported Clinton when a huge number of white women didn't, and they were the big component in helping to defeat Roy Moore. THEY are the most devoted supporters of the Democratic party, and it's a slap in the face to each of them to dismiss their concerns and issues as nothing. If anything, the democrats need the minorities more than they need the Caucasians.

Educate yourselves. Sheesh. In every state in the union the GOP has a defined strategy to divide people, and mobilize their voters. There are two think tanks in particular that you ought to familiarize yourselves with. This shit doesn't happen by accident or coincidence. Google ALEC and also check out the Mackinac Policy Conference. These two organizations primarily, along with a couple of others, set the agenda. ALEC tells the Republicans state legislators what to do, what bills to introduce,what issues to promote, etc. and the Mackinac Policy Conference does it for the governors and the national leaders of the GOP. Been going on for years. So whether it's about toilets, or Gay Marriage, it is part of a planned deliberate strategy. "Boutique issues" are a GOP strategy. And a lot of special interest group coordinate with the over all strategy, I'm talking about the NRA, the healthcare lobbyists, the banking & financial services industries, defense contractors, and the fucking anti environmental groups.

R280, the problem with crafting a message that appeals to people on a local level is that you end up with DINOs like Conor Lamb.

I really don't think there is one candidate that will appeal to everyone. The coasts have moved far left and the middle is moving more to the right.

Someone with Bernie's messages (but having a viable plan behind them) would work.

Russian and domestic FBI interference, dark money, stolen social media data, a conservative group swallowing local news media...

But sure, let's do some more navel-gazing about how Democrats fucked up in 2016. That'll surely help us come next election when the GOP doubles down on their dirty tricks.

[quote]She talked about retraining workers, she talked about creating opportunities,

Just how old do you think these people are? We are talking about people who know that after being retrained it will be hard for them to find work because of their age. So, no, these people knew there were no opportunities for them.

Until Dems overcome the gerrymandering and systemic voter purging that target minorities, they're going to have to pick bland candidates who appeal to the moderates if they want to win outside of solid blue states. Ohio, Florida and Michigan won't vote for Kamala Harris. They need someone young, white and male who will appeal to the racist, sexist "moderates" who turned their back on Democrats after Obama and Hillary. Like a Gavin Newsom or John Delaney or Chris Murphy.

As fucked up as the Trump administration has been, the biases of poor, rural, white, uneducated are too ingrained to vote for a non-white, non-male. Obama was an aberration. I bet it's going to be 20 years before we get another black president.

R330, you might be suprised at what the percentage of people is who have a bachelors degree or higher in this country.

[quote]Ah, the invocation of Godwin's Wife's Law.

Ah, the desperate attempt to evade when you don't have any answer for the point being made.

R318, you would be wrong in your statement. Patrick can and will win shoould he be nominated.

Exactly, r320. The current white man in office keeps sinking the Dow, keeps creating enemies abroad, keeps losing staff, etc. yet r318 and others bring up Patrick's race for some reason. Look at his credentials.

Oh the winning this whiite man does!!! Will the winning ever stop?!?!

[quote]That was completely disproven [R218]. Clinton's weaknesses were her's and her's alone.

You are absolutely idiot R321 if you think being a woman didn't hurt Hillary in the election. The USA was not ready to elect a woman and people have to accept that if we are to move forward. America is misogynist. [bold]American white men have a problem with women in power[/bold]. Period.

2020 might still be a hostile environment for a woman to run.

[quote] In case you haven't noticed, black women have been saving (or trying to save) the democratic parties asses time and time again over the last decade

[bold]Bless black women[/bold] but people need to stop saying black women are saving the Democratic party because it is not true. I watched in disbelief as Democrats pushed this narrative after the Virginia election when the real story was that 1) Hispanics outvoted the black community by 3%, 2) Hispanic women were the largest percentage of the Democratic vote in Virginia, and 3) it was the first time where if you had removed the black female vote Democrats would still have won the gubernatorial election. The media is unable to give credit unless it involves whites or black people, but the public should know better. It is not to take anything away from black women that historically been loyal soldiers of the Democratic party, but both black and white communities need to get their heads out of their own asses and look what's around them. It ain't only black and white.

The West/Southwest and Illinois is where most of the democratic votes come from, and Hispanics (not black) are a large reason for that occurrence. You can now add Virginia to the same list. So if anyone deserves to be bragging about saving the Dems are them. Eventually, people will need to start giving credit to both Hispanics and Asians, cuz' they are saving all of your asses.

In every recent presidential election, voters have elected the candidate with more personality and charisma. It's why Trump beat Hillary, Obama beat Romney and McCain, Bush beat Kerry and Gore (yes, I know, Gore actually won), and Clinton beat Dole and Bush Sr. If you don't have the "it" factor, you lose. Issues and policy positions are mostly irrelevant.

I knew Hillary's campaign was in trouble when one DataLounger gushed, "She's so smart! She sounds just like a Harvard professor!" (and actually meant it as a compliment).

The other thing we know is that voters will go for the shiny, new candidate or the "outsider" every time over the calm, rational, experienced candidate.

Yet, as Democrats, we refuse to believe these glaringly obvious truths.

The economy can be in the toilet, and we can be on the brink of nuclear war with North Korea, but voters will still re-elect Trump if we nominate another bland, charisma-free policy wonk.

The ginger Kennedy. With Elizabeth Warren.

Hillary is the obvious choice. But sexist attitudes will try to stop her.

Garcetti pings.

If he beats Ted Cruz, the nominee will be Beto O'Rourke. Right age. Totally bilingual. He's new to the national scene, he's good looking, he's charismatic and articulate. A great public speaker, perfect candidate's family - attractive school teacher wife, photogenic kids. If he can win Texas, he's unstoppable.

After Trump, I think people will want someone with more experience.

The former mayor of Atlanta, Shirley Franklin is awesome

A charismatic young Democrat from Texas would be a gift from the gods. A lot rides in that particular senate race. He could be a good VP pick to keep the West happy, and then they can run someone from PA or Northwest as the Dem party is edging to do.

R343 we need a candidate from a red or purple state. The northwest, Ca, NY are pointless. They're automatic.

Patrick/O'Rourke ticket?

R345 Could be but Massachusetts is a useless pickup. They always vote Dem. Aren't there any purple state Dems with some sex appeal?

Gavin Newsom has it all- looks, Getty money and has been a Mayor and Lt. gov ( both two terms). Prior to Board of Supervisors for SF. He's the one to watch. Right age too, 50.

I think the nominee has to be at least a Governor or a Senator to have the right resume to challenge the Moron.

We need to elect Beto O'Rourke this year, and push him for a VP run in 2020. Not sure for the main candidate.

[quote]The northwest, Ca, NY are pointless. They're automatic.

You have to factor the primaries first because of the new primary schedule. With California moving earlier, the Southwest becomes the most powerful area in the primaries and will probably decide the outcome. Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina used to determine the tone of the Democratic primaries. Well those days are over, thank god.

It's the Sunbelt that matters because of the primary schedule and potential congress gains later in the general election. Nevada, Arizona, Texas, California, and Florida all vote similarly in the primaries. Watch how Bernie Sanders/Joe Biden/Rust belt Candidates crash and burn after the primary as the focus turns to Nevada and later March 3rd (Texas, California, and Alabama) and March 17 (Arizona). If any Midwestern candidates want a chance , they need to go the route of winning South Carolina (January), Virginia (March 3rd), and Illinois (March 17) to survive Nevada and March primaries.

If we had a viable candidate from Florida, that could be a candidate from a purple/red state, but we don't so the focus should be in PA, Virginia, or the Southwest. Outside of that, I don't see anyone else making a dent. Actually, the poster pushing the guy from Louisiana might be into something. All the Sunbelt states vote similarly in the primaries.

Listen to Beto's Town Halls. He's running a Town Hall in Beaumont right now. He takes questions and gives very knowledgeable answers. He just took a question from a trans vet who sounds like she's a hypochondriac. He's so patient and helpful despite the fact the vet's borderline abusive.

[quote] With California moving earlier, the Southwest becomes the most powerful area in the primaries and will probably decide the outcome. Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina used to determine the tone of the Democratic primaries. Well those days are over, thank god.

But isn't California still after Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina? Aren't those still the first states? Usually, most of the candidates drop out after those first 3 states. If you don't do well in either Iowa or New Hampshire, you're in big trouble. And then if you don't do well in South Carolina, you're finished. The nominee is likely to be someone who can win either Iowa or New Hampshire or both.

Patrick has appeal beyond MA, r346.

Newsome looks like and probably is a world class sleazeball douchebag.

[quote]Someone with Bernie's messages

He never had a plan, except taking votes away from Hillary Clinton.

Fuck Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein, the new lefties are toxic traitors. At least with the alt right you know they are evil. These lefties live in your house then they steal your food and kill you while you are sleeping.

So nice of you to only quote a very small portion of my post, r355, and then essentially repeat what I said about needing a plan.

[quote]Fuck Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein, the new lefties are toxic traitors. At least with the alt right you know they are evil

Oh, that’s helpful 🙄

[quote]So nice of you to only quote a very small portion of my post

Your post never made much sense because Bernie never made much sense, he never rose above simplistic slogans and catchy one liners.

Bernie and Trump are the same ranting, grumpy old man. And neither has the IQ of a border collie.

[quote] he never rose above simplistic slogans and catchy one liners.

And yet, those are the things that get you into the White House. That was always one of Hillary's big problems. She never had ANY simplistic slogans or catchy one liners. If you'd ask one of Hillary's die-hard supporters what Hillary planned to do if elected, the answer you'd get is "She'd do a lot of things. It's complicated. Read her website!"

It sure would be nice if we could find a nominee for 2020 who has a few simplistic slogans and catchy one liners. I'm not saying they can't be smart and sophisticated. But if they can't dumb it down for the masses and put it on a bumper sticker, it'll be 4 more years of Trump.

[quote]And yet, those are the things that get you into the White House.

The majority of democrats don't fall for catchy one liners, hence why Hillary won the primary by 3.7 votes and the general by 3 million.

The reason Trump won is because the election wasn't fair and just and therefore not legitimate.

[quote] The majority of democrats don't fall for catchy one liners,

You're deceiving yourself if you truly believe that.

Remember "Change you can believe in"? Or how about "A place called Hope"?

Voters of both parties ALWAYS fall for catchy one liners.

R358, I never said Bernie made any sense. You have issues.

R349,

Beto O’Rourke for the top of the ticket. Kamala Harris for VP.

[quote]Voters of both parties ALWAYS fall for catchy one liners.

Stronger Together isn't a good catch phrase? Or were you offended and overwhelmed by a candidate who could back up the catch phrase with an actual strategy?

R301...

You nominate either of those fossils... Sanders or Warren, and I’m voting Trump.

You don’t have to believe the Russian trolls, just believe me...

signed, Pennsylvania Democrat.

Sanders is gonna be 80 when the next election rolls around and Warren screwed herself with her claims to be part native. The allegedly Indian recipe she contributed to - I am not joking - PowWow Chow - that's a career killer.

Of course we have to start looking for the right Dem to run in 2020 but right now we should be focusing on 2018. We can't survive with the GOP running wild until 2020. We must win back at least the House and put an end to what the GOP wants to do to the poor and the middle class and working people as quickly as possible or there won't be a country left by 2020.

If Dems lose in 2018 that will embolden the GOP like never before. They will take everything that isn't nailed to the floor and even at that, they will just take the damn floor too.

Unless you are 1% rich 2018 should be what you're fighting for and getting those around you to fight for now right now! November will be here in the blink of an eye.

OK write this down. Mitch Landreiu. Mayor of New orleans. He is getting a LOT of attention lately. He was on with Bill Maher a couple weeks ago and he also won the Kennedy Foundation award and he's got a great style. Go on you tube and find something and check him out. He is working hard to become a national figure. He's a much better more likeable politician than his sourfaced fuck assed sister.

[quote]She never had ANY simplistic slogans or catchy one liners.

She did too! What was 'I'm with her'?!?!

[quote]You nominate either of those fossils... Sanders or Warren, and I’m voting Trump.

That's what I'm trying to argue... the solution does not lie in a name. We are idiots to be playing political Barbies with fucking names. The name matters less than the idea. What are the Dems selling? Why should you get behind the Democratic candidate.

We've got to stop playing popularity contest based on name, likability, fuckability.... it isn't enough.

I don't care if the Democratic candidate for any election is a cardboard box. Anyone who votes for Trump or any Republican is worse than the Deplorables. You are really a total piece of shit. How can you dare to say anything negative about people like Sarandon or those who voted for Stein or didn't vote because Sanders wasn't the candidate and you're doing the same exact thing HYPOCRITE! I voted for Hillary because she was a Democrat, not because I thought she'd be a great president. I just knew she'd be better than Trump as ANY Democrat would be. If you say Trump is better than Sanders or Warren or any Democrat on the face of the earth please do us all a favor and give up your citizenship and leave the country.

Anyone who considers him or herself a Democrat and votes for any Republican no matter who the Democrat running is no Democrat. You're a damn Deplorable and you know it! You have nothing but hate in your heart for non white, non Christians, gay people, and for the poor and hard working poor. Yes, you can be gay and be a self hating gay who votes for those who will only hurt us. You're probably rich so the GOP being in charge is really what you want anyway.

No one can hate any Democrat or Liberal/Democratic Socialist that runs as an Independent that much that he or she would vote for Trump or any Republican and still say I'm a Democrat and a decent person.

Winning early states, i. e. Iowa, New Hampshire, and SC, means a lot more than their delegates. Small states, early, allow for much retail politics. Candidates without massive money can still do well in them via shaking hands, visiting coffee shops, talking to the local media, getting, local and state-wide endorsements, attend town halls, and succeed in debates. Win early, money rolls in. Caifornia is a huge, populated state. It requires money to campaign there and buy ads to reach most people. I can understand why California moved up---to have a greater impact with the outcome. It will be tough on the early lesser known candidates with modest resources.

R372, Bernie would have ballooned the deficit to the point the country would have had trouble making interest payments a few years after he took office.

I would have not voted if Bernie had been the nominee because I think he would,have been just as bad as Trump.

And if it had been Bernie vs. a moderate republican like Pataki, I would have voted for Pataki.

It's all you party first freaks that are killing this country.

[quote]Bernie would have ballooned the deficit to the point the country would have had trouble making interest payments a few years after he took office.

I'm not sure that's true. From the Washington Post today: "as budget analyst Richard Kogan points out, the notion of a U.S. debt crisis is overblown, because it doesn’t account for our national assets which are much larger and are growing faster than our debts “and have been for almost all our history.”

And from that report: Finally, some worry that the growth of federal debt threatens to bankrupt the nation. We just noted that if your income grows faster than your debts, your financial position improves. Similarly, if your assets grow faster than your debts, your financial position improves. True, federal debt really is a government liability. But the federal government, state and local governments, households, and businesses possess real assets as well, such as bank deposits, stocks, bonds, and real estate. It would be concerning if the nation’s debts were growing faster than its assets, but the opposite is the case: the nation’s assets are growing faster than its debts and have been for almost all our history.

For example, as of December 31, 2017, Federal Reserve data show that households had $15 trillion of financial liabilities (debts) but also had $114 trillion of assets, for a net wealth of $99 trillion. This wealth vastly overshadows the net financial liabilities of the federal, state, and local governments. The United States as a whole is far from anything that could be called bankruptcy: counting the liabilities of a) households, b) businesses, and c) federal, state, and local governments, but also counting their assets such as the value of businesses and real estate, the nation’s net wealth is $92 trillion.[18] Fundamentally, this net wealth is a source of national income and constitutes a base from which federal taxes can be drawn. This fact helps keep the government creditworthy.

Moreover, the nation’s net wealth continues to grow. The Federal Reserve’s data extend back to 1945. Even after accounting for 72 years of inflation, the nation’s average net wealth per person increased in 51 of those years and is currently four times as large as in 1945.[19]

Future generations will inherit the debts of the federal, state, and local governments. But they will also inherit assets worth far more.

Bernie has done fuck all in all his years in Congress. He renamed 2 post offices, got a job for his bitch wife as head of toxic waste disposal for Vermont. Then they tried to dump Vermont's toxic waste in an impoverished Texas border town.

He shoots off his mouth. That's it. Had he been elected (and give me a break) he could have done nothing with the GOP majorities in Congress. He's a joke.

r339 There's a reason Garcetti pings.

Can you guess?

There are some serious flaws to that line of thinking, r375. I have a ton of questions, starting with who are you going to sell those assets off to? China? Russia? Private corporations? In effect, Trump is doing something similar now by allowing drilling in parks and look at how well that is going over. Now, imagine selling that same park to China.

Anyway...Bernie's plans would have added 18 to 24 trillion to the national debt in 10 years time. His plans had some serious flaw like based on unrealistic GDP growth, underestimated costs and taxes that had been tried and failed in other countries. And, yes, r375, we'd have to make interest payments on that debt... or we can just sell off bits and pieces of the country /s.

So, yeah, I would have stayed home if Bernie ran or I'd vote for a moderate republican before I'd vote for Bernie.

Sally Yates for President

Al Franken

Why is somebody trying to push Deval Patrick so much in this thread?

I mean, I get it, you love him, but geez, are you a part of his early exploratory committee or something? A member of his family?

Can I see who else is running before I decide who to support?

If it was Sanders, Trump, Stein & Johnson? None of those.

I'd have voted for Evan McMullin.

the dotard will be primaried in. 2020. Mark my words. Kasich, the Bible beating misogynist governor of Ohio is ramping up his rhetoric and bullshit machine trying to appear as a "reasonable " alternative to that orange idiot. It's a lie!

Kasich is annoying and boring, listening to his interviews. He apparently is short-tempered and holds grudges (as DJT does). Still, he'd be a big improvement if he managed to win. Not hard, given the mess and bottom standards of Trump-Pence.

[quote]But isn't California still after Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina? Aren't those still the first states? Usually, most of the candidates drop out after those first 3 states.

Not so much when you have Nevada going third before South Carolina. Any politician from the West would be huge favorites in one of the first three primaries. It changes the landscape and narrative of the primary, especially when California and Texas loom only a few weeks after. People forget Clinton retook the momentum from Bernie Sanders after he pulled the upset in the New Hampshire primary. She won Nevada (Feb. 20) and took that momentum to the South Carolina primary (Feb. 27).

Because California might be only two weeks after Nevada, the momentum from a Nevada win could easily upstage a loss in Iowa and New Hampshire (the first two primaries). One could argue that for many of these politicians the primary will not start until the Nevada primary (3rd/4th in the 2020 calendar).

California voting on Super Tuesday(March 3rd) means that Western politicians will start fundraising early in the 2020 primaries creating buzz early on. Anyone in the West Coast/South West could win it big in Nevada, carry that momentum into South Carolina (even without winning there but just performing decent), and take California and Texas and they would be near or in the lead.

The primary could be determined by March 17 to be honest.

[quote] Stronger Together isn't a good catch phrase?

No, it was a terrible catch phrase.

R384, a boiled turnip would be an improvement over Trump (as I've mentioned here before), but Kasich isn't nearly as moderate as the image he likes to project.

[quote]Beto O’Rourke for the top of the ticket. Kamala Harris for VP.

I would love that, they're both great.

Kasich's a rightwinger but compared to Trump et al, he's Karl Marx.

Despite that faux air of reasonableness, R389, there really isn't much daylight between Kasich's views and Trump's views.

If Bernie Sanders were in the White House he would flood the country with gay and women hating towelheads. It would be 24/7 Linda Sarsour.

Nope. Kasich is worse because he appears to be "reasonable ". He's not.

[quote]the dotard will be primaried in. 2020

Would he be the first sitting president to face a challenger for his second term?

No, R393. Ted Kennedy challenged Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Yeah, R394 we can thank Teddy posthumously for Reagan.

Thanks R394, who determines if there is a second candidate? Is it the DNC/RNC or the challenger himself?

Kasich on the issues.

[quote]Thanks R394, who determines if there is a second candidate? Is it the DNC/RNC or the challenger himself?

The challenger. In theory, the DNC and RNC are supposed to remain neutral until the voters have spoken.

Thanks again R398!

We can also thank Teddy for not having universal health care in the US.

Ted Kennedy really screwed us, but then again Universal Care would have gone down the moment the Clinton presidency ended. Bush Junior and his assholes would have cut it by the knees.

[quote]then again Universal Care would have gone down the moment the Clinton presidency ended.

A Jesuitical argument, given that it went down during the Clinton Presidency.

[quote] Stronger Together isn't a good catch phrase?

"It's My Turn" is better.

I'm not voting Republican. I too will vote for a cardboard box before I ever vote for a Republican. They have to pay a price for not standing up to and repudiating Trump. They also have to pay a price for the destructive undemocratic policies they have enacted. There is nothing that they stand for that I can ever support. NOTHING. They want to privatize everything. Prisons, Schools, the military, and dismantle as much of government as it is possible to dismantle.

They will pass more and m ore of the tax burden on to us at the state and local level. They will foul our environment, our water and our air, we will be eating foods laced with chemicals, and Flint Michigan's water crisis will be the gold standard. Once the banking and financial services industries are deregulated what do you think the impact will be on the average consumer? How will we deal with the absence of a healthcare system when people have to use the ERs as their primary care physicians? When Medicare & Social Security are dismantled ad millions of older people are living in abject poverty? Who will pay for that? We will. They oppose increases in the minimum wage, don't forget that.

The GOP offers us nothing but hard times. And a ballooning out of control deficit is a threat to our national security. Period. Some debt is good. But this is debt on steroids. The only way they've been able to get support is by lying, distorting, spreading fear and division, and suppressing the vote. That ought to tell you all you need to know about what they offer.

Bernie isn't a Democrat. He could never win. He couldn't even get more votes that Hillary or Trump during the primaries. He would have been a polarizing President who has demonstrated inability to work with Congress. Like Trump, he would have spent most of his time running around the country to rallies. And if you stand too close to him you will realize he smells bad. Joe Biden has run for President three times. Enough.

Star quality is more important than competence or experience.

Dull smarty pants bullshitters like Hillary, Gore, Dukakis, Mondale LOSE. Hillary was a terrible terrible candidate.

Trump is a talented performer. And has a devoted base.

The game is afoot!

It's going to be somebody who is comfortable--and a natural--at taking Trump to task and offering a viable alternative. I think that person is going to come out of nowhere, relatively speaking. Maybe a more dynamic Jimmy Carter? An inverse Ronald Reagan? Yeah, we need a savior at this point. Sigh.

By the way, saviors are usually bad news, especially the grandiose egomaniacs. I mean, most politicians already have that gene to start with. . . .

[quote]Yeah, we need a savior at this point.

Germans in the 1920s thought exactly the same. Didn't work out for them much.

Beto O'Rourke's fundraising numbers skyrocket - wow.

R406 you're describing Mayor Landreiu to a "T". I'm serious. I never heard of the guy and suddenly he's everywhere. Check him out.

Here you go. He's also got articles in The Advocate and one on CBS News. Watch him on Maher too.

OK so all the recent publicity is because he has a new book coming out. I think he could be a better version of Biden. Maybe not the top of the ticket, but certainly on the ticket.

I don't see a Mayor as big enough, especially not a Mayor of a small city like NOLA. The crime figures in NOLA alone will do him in.

Apparently, Eric Holder is considering running for President.

R406 - Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan didn't come out of nowhere. Aside from being the governor of California he almost won the Republican nomination in 176. Jimmy Carter announced his candidacy for the nomination in 1974. He was governor of Georgia and known in the South.

Democrat or Republican, stay away from Louisiana politicians, including their family dynasties.

Jimmy, our first white trash president. But, he didn't cheat on Roslynn.

JImmy wasn't white trash. Trump is our first 100% white trash president. Well maybe second after Andrew Jackson.

Eric Holder would lose. Mitch would lose.

Biden/Deval Patrick. EXCEPT that Biden is declining fast.

So who for 2024?! I think 2020 is a lost cause.

Jimmy Carter is a Putin bitch now.

Barf

None of these scary clowns.

You're not worried about the deficit R374. That's pure bullshit. If you were you'd be fighting against the tax bill that passed. You'd be fighting against military spending. Like all Rethugs, which you've given yourself away to be, you're worried that some poor people might get something for free, even if that something is some lousy food or an education so they can work and pay taxes in the future. What Bernie wanted to give the working poor and the poor was peanuts to the deficit compared to Defense spending and these tax cuts. But you seem to be peachy keen with those. You were terrified that with someone like Bernie an extra 50 bucks a year might have come out of your pocket in taxes that would go to needy people. And you were even more terrified because the way Bernie wanted to pay for it was making the very rich pay their fair share which they have not paid since the early 80s. My guess is you are in that class. Maybe not one of the 1% but close enough that greed guides your life.

[quote]Trump is our first 100% white trash president. Well maybe second after Andrew Jackson.

You should have said Andrew Johnson, whose wife taught him how to read.

R422, I am very much against the tax bill. This thread isn't about the tax bill. If this thread were about democratic nominees AND the tax bill I would rail against Sanders AND the tax bill. Unlike you, I kept,on topic.

Not going to happen, r364. Patrick is getting the nomination.

[quote]he didn't cheat on Roslynn.

"I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times."

It's more honest than Mike "Mother" Pence, r426, so fuck off, freeper fag.

The only place I read anybody suggesting Deval Patrick is on here. He has a fan.

Obama is a big Deval Patrick fan r428.

[quote]I'd like for Steve Bullock, the Governor of Montana, to run.

He really needs to increase his national profile if he wants a serious shot at this. Seems intriguing on paper, but who knows anything about him?

So Obama posts here then, r429?

R429, yes, Obama is a fan of Deval Patrick, but he LOVES Eric Holder and they're working together on the Redistricting issue. They helped get a Liberal judge elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court last night. Scott Walker was devastated. He has lost his fucking mind. So I think Obama will have a real hard tie because if Biden, Holder, Deval Patrick and Kamala Harris all decide to run, he is going to have to barricade himself in the house and stay away from the primaries. He's close to all of them. We should also be looking at Latino candidates. Bechara the AG of California is really a good guy. As for Mitch Landrieu, would not dismiss him. He definitely has a place in this conversation, just not at the top of the ticket. He was either the Lt. Governor or the Attorney General in La. so Mayor of NOLA is not his first rodeo. His father was in Jimmy Carter's cabinet and was very popular. I can definitely see him as a Joe Biden type as the VP running mate of someone else.

I like Eric Holder but he's a divisive figure like Nancy Pelosi (through no fault of their own, they just get the rightwingers frothing at the mouth). Dems will have to seduce some moderate GOP into voting for us and I don't see Holder doing it.

Patrick's in Massachusetts with 11 fucking electoral votes. Nope. We've gotta get a candidate who can carry purple states.

Obama just wants another black guy in the WH, image, image, image - bla bla bla. Obama was so obsessed with his clean shirt image he forgot to check on what Putin was up to.

Hahaha, r429.

Just do a search of Patrick 2020, you racost fucking fag.

Al Franken

Miss r417. Carter graduated high at the US Naval Academy, became a multi-millionnaire farmer/businessman, was a state senator, governor, and US President. He authored many books, volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, started a peace center, did world-wide observations promoting voting integrity, etc.

What are your credentials to call him a redneck? Very doubtful your genetics and successes are lofty.

For Christ sake, Joe is simply too old. Let us get someone who is young and very clever.

No one who is over 70. Period.

Yeah R439. We need somebody young and vigorous (and hot won't hurt) to make the difference with fat old geezer Trump and robot Pence even more obvious.

And if Trump survives till 2020, not a woman. A woman would have to attack him as brutally as he attacks women and aggressive women turn people off. Sorry, just being honest here.

Next January, whom ever leads the charge to impeach Trump...that person can be our candidate and PLEASE! We do not need 16 fucking candidates.

[quote]We do not need 16 fucking candidates.

Why not? I look forward to a lively Dem primary. Part of the problem with Hillary is that it was a coronation.

R442. Yep. Say what you will about Republicans but at least they gave their voters a choice instead of expecting them to hold their nose and vote for the chosen one.

Garcetti is Jewish,Italian and Mexican? All the deplorables and some of the other folks who are not will have issues with that for sure.

[quote] Say what you will about Republicans but at least they gave their voters a choice instead of expecting them to hold their nose and vote for the chosen one.

Um ... you really don't know too much about Republican Presidential politics, do you? 2016 was the first year in a couple of decades where there [italic]wasn't[/italic] an "anointed one" in the Republican primary.

R432 - I suspect the only role the Obamas will play in the primaries is fundraising for the DNC and GOTV in general. I think they both become less effective in the general election if they back a candidate and that candidate doesn't get the nomination. I put GOTV during the primary season on the list because the earlier you start the likely you are to identify Republican efforts to suppress voter turnout.

I agree R437. I'd add to your list his own party doomed his presidency. If Carter is white trash or a redneck I say bring it on. That's what the Democrats need to win the election.

How about 2008 R445. McCain was hardly anointed going into primary season.

I find this push for a younger candidate is the Democrats shooting themselves in the foot. You know which age group as the highest turnout rate - 60 and over. I'm not saying that group won't vote for a younger candidate but if you support someone because of their youth you may have a problem.

Pochahontas 2020!

[quote]Part of the problem with Hillary is that it was a coronation

Who was so great that they got cast aside because of Hillary in 2016? Enlighten everyone if you will.

The competition was shit. It's not Hillary's fault that the best the party could come up with was some cranky old independent milking the democratic party for publicity, and another guy who got in because of pics of his flabby, naked chest. Oh, and he played guitar in band.

Do you not understand that no serious contender was allowed to run against Hillary r448? That is what people mean when they say it was a coronation.

I happily voted for her and wish she had won, but I won't deny that is how it went down.

What serious contender?

Biden, before his son died, for one, r450.

Deval Patrick has the trolls and naysayers running scared.

Biden ran for President twice and never got the nomination. That's because he's got issues going all the way back to plagiarizing Neil Kinnock and supporting Clarence Thomas.

And how was Hillary responsible for that R451?

r444, and we care what they think about our candidate why exactly?

R454, are you serious? Obama is the one who discouraged Biden multiple times from running so Clinton could run.

R453, yet he is being touted as a contender in 2020 so I'm not sure what your point is.

R454, and to add Clinton's own team put pressure on Biden's donors to not back in him.

Clinton headlocked Biden and forced him to inhale her smelly queefs until he promised not to run.

Anyone who bothered to watch Biden speak in the last couple of months would realize he is not viable. He went on some big Clint Eastwood Gran Torino type of lecture of millennials. And his recent remarks about wanting to take Dump outside and beat the crap out of him were cute, until you realized that was the only thing in the speech that made any type of sense. He was rambling incoherently throughout most of it.

But let's make him President in 2020. The fuckups will be even worse then when he was Vice President.

R445 That's exactly what they were saying. Please reread what the poster said and realize that you misread it.

I didn't misread it, R460; the poster was wrong. Republicans have a "chosen one" more so than do Democrats, e.g., McCain and Romney in 2008 and 2012, respectively. And that was true in 2016, as well, with Jeb Bush, who locked down the support and the money very early in the cycle. However, for the first time in decades, the Republican voters declined to vote for the chosen one.

But the point is that it wasn't "Republicans offering a choice;" it was Republican voters overriding the party's chosen one. That also happened on the Democratic side, with Bernie's candidacy. Only, in that case, Bernie got outplayed and couldn't muster the necessary support to win, at least partially because his numbers and his promises never added up and he wasn't able to articulate exactly how he was going to make his promises come true.

Deary he was referring to this last time around. So the poster wasn't wrong at all. If you want to add your own spin fine. Just don't put words into other people's mouths!

Did you read the part where I pointed out that they did have a "chosen one" in 2016, "deary?" So yes, the poster was wrong.

Republicans used to have an appointed one until about three election cycles ago when the change in campaign financing happened. Then they became a clown car. At the same time, the democrats, who used to have a clown car, started to narrow their field.

Good points, r461.

I would add that it's possible the Republicans could have a very competitive field in 2020 because Trump is not safe from primary challengers. John Kasich in currently in New Hampshire. Jeff Flake is ready to rumble. Paul Ryan has one eye on the door and the other on the possibility of a run for the presidency. Ted Cruz would primary someone in his party without provocation, so why not include him too. If these four are running in the primary, what's to stop others? Mitt Romney could try his Nixonian best in an attempt for a second run in the general. Chris Christy is bored and binge eating with nothing better to do. Jeb Bush wants a mulligan. Etc.

Terry McAuliffe, former VA governor. Thought he would be awful when he was elected, and he turned out to be pretty awesome.

It really depends on what happens over the next couple of years, R465. Right now, the party's base is firmly behind Trump, beyond all reason. If that remains true, I can see some noise in the next couple of years but probably not a serious challenger. If Trump shows signs of losing that base, if we have a recession, if we go to war with North Korea or Iran, if the Blue Wave this year is a tidal wave, then all bets are off.

If not Trump, then I don't really see a "chosen one" on the Republican side, since you could make good arguments for all four of the people you mention. So that poster above may then be right.

Regarding 2016, the link below is fairly typical of the kind of story being written about Jeb. His strategy was to essentially overwhelm his competitors, lock up the endorsements and money, and ride to victory as the "chosen one."

[quote]fairly typical of the kind of story being written about Jeb

Edited: fairly typical of the kind of story that was written about Jeb in mid-2015.

The difference, r467, is that Jeb didn't discourage people from running before entering the race.

Yeah, he kinda did. He basically did what Clinton did, presented himself as the "chosen one," the one with the resources, the unstoppable juggernaut, leveraging his name and his father's and brother's connections, hauling in huge amount of cash, working to scare everyone else off.

Clearly, it didn't work, but it was basically the same strategy that Romney, McCain, Bush, Dole, etc., employed. It's just that this time it didn't work. There certainly was no conscious decision by anyone in Republican leadership to not go the "chosen one" route that they had employed for at least the 30 years or more. R443 gave the Republican leadership far too much credit.

Did he bully donors and have the president tell you not to run, r470? There's a big difference.

R461 The discussion when I posted was about 2016 so I didn't think I had to reiterate the election year in question in my own post because I figured most people here are somewhat intelligent and could follow a simple conversation. We weren't talking about 2012 or 2008 or 300 motherfucking years ago. We were talking about 2016. Okay? And so my post was correct. Republicans offered up almost 20 candidates to choose from in 2016 while Democrats offered Hillary and a couple of bookends, one of which unfortunately (for her) actually proved to be popular and thus some competition which she wasn't able to shake off right up to the DNC convention.

[quote]We were talking about 2016. Okay?

Duh. No shit. That doesn't change anything, as the posts above show.

[quote]And so my post was correct.

No, it really wasn't.

[quote]Did he bully donors

Yes.

[quote]and have the president tell you not to run, R470?

There was no Republican President, so he couldn't have.

[quote]There's a big difference.

Not really.

As for Biden, he's on record as saying that the only thing that blocked him running was his son's illness.

[quote]Had Beau Biden never fallen ill, Joe Biden would have run for president. “No question,” he told me. “I had planned on running, and I wasn’t running against Hillary or Bernie or anybody else. Honest to God, I thought that I was the best suited for the moment to be president.”

R473 You're still denying that 17 Republicans ran for president in 2016 even though there are about a million articles, photos and videos to prove me right? Really, bitch? Are you going to deny that Hillary ran on the Democrat side in 2016 too? I mean, why not, right? You're denying everything else. Do you have AIDS-related dementia or are you just the contrarian troll who posts shit they don't even believe in order to raise people's blood pressure?

[quote]R473 You're still denying that 17 Republicans ran for president in 2016

You really can't read, can you? When you've actually learned to read and comprehend what I wrote, and when you have a response that demonstrates this, I'll take you seriously. Until then, I'll continue to regard you as the moron that you are.

Kamala Harris does not give off charismatic vibes

R476, don't even bother...r473 is DL's resident cupcake/quote queen troll.  She's never wrong even when she's totally wrong.  She's usually the harbinger of a death to a thread.

Dear Cupcake / QQ...link to a credible source about Jeb bullying donors in the same way that Biden's donor's were.  Also, you do realize that Jeb brother and father are considered presidents, right?  Obama was a sitting president at the time.  I said "president" which takes into consideration Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr. and Carter.  So, I ask again, did Jeb have a president harass any of the nominees?

I think part of the reason Biden didn't run was also that Obama would have supported Hillary over him.

Biden just isn't POTUS material.

Deval Patrick is 60. Not too young nor too old. He's perfect.

Jennifer Rubin at in The Post last week says he's the best candidate by far for 2020.

Biden didn't run because his internal polling showed he was the least popular possible candidate since 2014. In 2015, he was already behind Bernie Sanders too. Biden also didn't run because the DNC was 20 million in debt because of Obama.

Remember that no candidate wanted to help the DNC get out of the red. It took Hillary Clinton to put the DNC back on track in order to secure a 2016 Democratic primary. Had the Democratic party not been rescued, the Democratic party would not have held any primary for the 6-9 Democrats that entered the race.

As for Mitch Landrieu of Louisiana, because it's very likely that Texas might have one strong candidate in the race (Castro or Beto O'Rourke if he wins over Cruz and keeps his incredible buzz) there are not many options outside of Louisiana and Alabama where he could win early enough to create buzz to stay for the long run. He would have to hope to do well in Iowa (1st stop) or South Carolina (3/4th stop) at least to give himself momentum for Super Tuesday on March 3. Texas, California and Virginia are the three big getters Super Tuesday. His only hope would be to win Virginia and overperform everywhere else. A huge task when you take into account that California and Texas will have their own strong candidates running too.

The Daven Patrick troll needs to droop it. Obama pushing anyone is not likely to have much effect outside of Illinois and New Hampshire (maybe). Unfortunately Illinois doesn't vote until March 17, and New Hampshire is not a big point getter. Eric Holder might have a better shot, but it depends if California, Texas, and Virginia are not running anyone competent.

The 2020 calendar looks to be:

[bold]Iowa[/bold] is first,

[bold]New Hampshire[/bold] is 2nd

[bold]Nevada[/bold] is likely third, [bold]South Carolina[/bold] is likely 3rd as well or 4th

[bold]Super Tuesday[/bold] is 5th: Texas, California, Virginia, Alabama, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont, and Massachusetts

The first 5 primaries will trim the field.

Patrick also had a largely successful tenure as Governor - being able to draw consensus from both sides of the aisle. He is not a partisan and that will be a draw.

He gave an interview last week to a Kansas City radio station that was received quite well.

He also campaigned for Doug Jones and Jones team credits Patrick with getting out the large African American vote.

Patrick is not to be ignored despite what the racist trolls here think.

Let's don't forget Amy Klobuchar. I've seen her on TV and she is stellar. I really like her. She comes across as a soccer mom, as far as looks go, but she is sharp, and tough. What I mean is she doesn't come across as a warrior like Kamala does. I love Kamala but IMO she's like the female version of Eric Holder. Both of them a re combative, warrior types and I think that will not work in a general election. Amy on the other hand projects the "Little Red Hen" thing. She's the worker bee.

A republican primary would be excellent for us. It would tear the republicans apart.

Sherrod Brown and any other Democrat who is currently holding office should not run for President in 2020, if it means they will lose an opportunity to run for re election. We need ever single Dem office holder we can get. I'm sure by February, 2019, several viable candidates will emerge.

Obama has his personal favorites, but he won't actually publicly support anyone until the primary is over.

A centrist Democrat has no choice. We need a progressive.

the cute blonde congressman on morning joe a lot.

smart and a darling!

Does he have a name r490?

gay gayerson

And then lose middle America again, r489

You guys are not paying attention,[bold] look at the first five stops of the 2020 schedule[/bold]. Those are the states that will decide the top candidates, unless we get an outright winner after March 3rd (Super Tuesday) and the race is decided.

What type of candidate is likely to win Iowa,

What kind of candidate is likely to win in New Hampshire,

What kind of candidate is likely to win in Nevada

What kind of candidate is likely to win in South Carolina,

What kind of candidate is will be able to win which states on Super Tuesday...

By this time next year will know who is thinking about running, then given the states in play, we'll be able to assess what is likely to pan out. I highly doubt California is not voting for one of their own, ditto Texas, and there is no way Nevada is not voting for a strong Californian or Texan. I doubt Alabama won't for a strong Texan. That leaves Iowa and Virginia as the two big states and a bunch of little ones.

I hadn't realized before the campaign in 2016 that the DNC was flat broke and Obama had done nothing to help. He was a one-man band.

R481, whatever Jennifer Rubin says... you can just assume the opposite is true.

My know-nothing opinion is Joe Biden being the one with the easiest time beating Trump and that's because he cuts into Trump's base. I don't like Harris.

Jennifer RUbin is a Conservative columnist who hates Trump I agree with her comments about 50% of the time. I do not agree with her on Deval Patrick. He;s a good guy, but I don't see how he can get elected. When Obama announced in 2007, something about him, I just KNEW, ya know? And by this time in 2019 we will absolutely know who is in. The fundraising committments and early endorsements have to be tied down. Just remember. If you see Tad Devine near anyone, run the other way. He ran Kerry in 2004.

The A listers, in terms of the people who run campaigns and work on them, will have to be nailed down early too. So we need to read the Cook Report andThe Hill and Axios to find out which people are leaning toward which candidates. Of course who knew Joe Trippi before Howard Dean? Or Plouffe before Obama.

R498 R499 here. We also ought to be trying to discover through the Washington D.C.type blogs and news outlets which members of Congress have the best staff? Because if some Senator decides to run, they will likely be hiring or already have hired a top notch staff. Building a campaign organization is no joke.

[quote]My know-nothing opinion is Joe Biden being the one with the easiest time beating Trump and that's because he cuts into Trump's base. I don't like Harris.

I can see Biden being competitive in Iowa and New Hampshire and then quickly fall to the wayside once Nevada's primary takes place. Since I guarantee you both Biden and Sanders are thinking about running. They might never take off because they are running for the same demographics in Iowa and New Hampshire. They could cancel each other off allowing for a Kennedy or Booker to sneak through. Once those first two primaries are over with, the field might expand, not retract, because all of the sudden Western candidates become competitive with Nevada, Texas, California coming up.

Sanders just trashed Obama yesterday while allegedly honoring Martin Luther King. He's dead.

Joe Kennedy was on Kimmel last night. He seems like a nice guy with a good sense of humor but he also seems like a lightweight, tentative and unconvincing. His positions on marijuana and health care are out of line with younger voters and I don't see older voters going for him either.

I'm hoping for a Biden/Kennedy 2020 but in all political reality The race will begin after the 11-6-2018 midterms. That is when a party assessment can be made and people actually start campaigning.

Rosa DeLauro 2020

R504 - or when they start making close door speeches to the financial sector.

R488, Rubin has been gang busters on her anti Trump columns. She knows exactly what she's talking about.woth regards to Patrick.

Biden, Sanders and Elizabeth Warren will be too old in 2020. Much as I like Warren, I think they are also old news (although I think Biden might have beaten Trump in 2016). I think maybe Beto O'Rourke and possibly Landrieu are good because they are largely unknown and both have charisma and are youngish and from the South. Kamala Harris might work as a VP candidate but she lacks warnth. Amy Klobuchar is too much of a frau type. I love Sally Yates but I doubt that she is known enough from her brief exposure in 2017. I think Sherrod Brown is great but he will be in his late 60s in 2020. Chris Murphy of Connecticut has great appeal for anti-NRA Dems, but may be too New England to appeal to Dems elsewhere. Mark Warren has stature but apparently has too many skeletons in the closet. So I say O'Rourke/Landrieu in 2020. (Watch them on recent Bill Maher to get what I mean). Personally, much as I'd like to see Deval Patrick as the candidate, I don't think people are ready for another black president (sad but true) or another woman candidate (I voted for Hillary but agree that she was not likeable--which unfortunately is what people look for). BTW, I am older and female FWIW.

R508 I thought it was wonderful we had a black President with Obama. I thought and still do think that he's a wonderful person, a competent President but he was so anxious to be a Goodie Two Shoes that he could not gutter-fight a la LBJ which is what we needed. And, tragically, despite the fact he is an exemplary human being, all he did was make a bunch of rednecks froth at the mouth, so much so they voted for somebody from New York which they historically hate.

I don't see another black Presidential nominee or a woman Presidential nominee being successful in 2020. I wish I did but let's face the facts: this country is fucking racist and fucking sexist and will be for a long time to come. Europe, we're not.

R508, I don't think being in his late 60s will be a big deal with Sherrod Brown--Trump, of course, is older. Brown will be mid-term 2020, so running won't affect his seat. He's a populist in a swing state.

As for California voting for one of its own--depends on which "own" it is. The SoCal politicians don't tend to have a lot of pull up north. Kamala Harris is ours, but she's only been a senator since 2016. She's liked, but not loved. Dianne Feinstein and Jerry Brown are both better known and more popular--though Feinstein's age may bring her down. Gavin Newsom's got potential, but, if he wins the governor's race, he'll have barely been in office. I barely know who Garcetti and Becerra are.

California's a really big state and it's so blue that Democrats just kind of run against one another, so voters won't necessarily unify behind the California candidate

I don't trust Mitch McConnell . He's sliime. And he just admitted they are facing "hurricane force" storm and he doesn't know if it's a category, 3.4.or 5. He hopes they "can hold on." When he says something like that publicly, IMO he and the GOP have something crooked up their sleeves. All this theater at the border focused on "illegal" immigration is a strategy they intend to ride back into Congress.

If Trump is not too old, NO DEMOCRAT is too old.

Sorry, but I'm not measuring Dems against the standard of Trump. I'm weighing all the things I think we need to do to win. That's my measurement. And right now Biden is still enjoying the "afterglow." But he should not run. And if people are still stupid enough to believe Bernie they deserve him, but I'm not going to let it happen without a fight. IMO from a strategic POV, the only value I see in a Biden candidacy is that he might cancel out Bernie. All Bernie is is a spoiler getting rich off his misdeeds. Biden might stop him in his tracks. But I believe the person who astutely observed that Biden would do well in the first few primaries then fade. With any luck that may be enough to cancel out Bernie. Remember. A lot of Bernie's support was fiction and it was over blown. They were busing people to his rallies and in many cases paying them. I don't think Beto or Mitch Landrieu while very impressive, are top of the ticket guys. They might do well as someone else's running mate. I could see Sherrod Brown and Mitch Landrieu. That would be a tough ticket. So would Sherrod and Amy Klobuchar.

Bernie will always be a fringe candidate. He will never win the nomination without the backing of the Democrats' key constituency: blacks. They were leery of him during the 2016 cycle which is why Hillary romped him in diverse states. If he wins, he will only become the nominee in a fractured race.

Bernie is basically Nader with a bit more appeal.

I like R485's suggestion of Amy Klobauchar. She is the most popular politician in Minnesota and regularly gets cross-over support. I do not think she would emerge as the nominee if she runs though because she isn't as combative as Harris, Brown, Booker, etc.

She's "boring" but god i would love to get back to boring politicians running our country again without doing a face palm and rolling my eyes in disgust every time I get an AP alert.

I really respect Amy. Not many folks in DC I can say that about.

REGARDLESS of who the nominee that emerges is, they will not be perfect. They will have votes they have taken that are questionable now looking back. There is no such thing as a perfect presidential candidate. I would hope that regardless of who it is, we will come together and do everything we can to elect them.

R517 - I understand your argument. The first time heard it was 1995. Bill Clinton was the candidate. i had several conversations with LGBT Democratic Party activists about the advantages of having a Democratic leading the Executive Branch of government. At the time Clinton , a moderate within the Democratic Party, was not liberal enough for me. I agreed then and to a certain extant agree today.

I still have reservations with the philosophy. After I committed my energies to Clinton's re-election campaign what did we get - Welfare Reform. Of course DOMA. Then once he was re-elected we got deregulation of the financial sector.

This is just my experience and considering I've always worked with Democrats but never as a Democrat I'm a little bit of an outsider. i found party leadership in my state to be dismissive of my concerns with a candidates position rather than acknowledging the differences. Its easy for people who are inline with a candidates positions to insist we have to work together.

Beto O’Rourke is the next President. And yes, you heard it here first.

He’s the next Obama, and anyone who hasn’t realized that will soon be educated.

R519 he's the only Dem I see now who has charisma and is a great public speaker. But beating Cruz'll be hard and if he can't take Cruz down (and you can count on the teabaggers in Texas doing their damnedest to cheat) he'll look like a loser.

On the,Republican side, there are several that may enter the 2020 primaries: Rubio, Cruz, Kasich, Romney, and Flake. Pence too if he not indicted and Trump isn't a candidate again. Even Miss Lindsey may give it another useless shot.

R522. Did Miss Lindsey ever get above 0 % in the polls last time around???

I don't think Miss Lindsay ever made it to the grown up table debates.

For the Deval Patrick fanboy: I checked out his twitter. It's dead. Where's all this enthusiasm for him?

The Republican nominee will be who Putin decides. Trump and the GOP are resisting breaking down that intrusion apparatus.

If Sanders gets the Dem nod, it is a win-win for Putty. And as Kushner has financial funny business going on, meet Jane.

Howver, the next crop of Dem candidates will not let Sanders slide. He will receive criticism and get pressed to explain and defend his spending and budget proposals. The math doesn't work, free college tuition isn't happening, and good luck overhauling Wall Street and installing state ownership of the means of production..

A pasty white man from a big city with a Native American woman from the south as his running mate.

Maybe Trump is more your speed, r525. His Twitter is very lively. I think we need an antidote, and I think the country agrees.

Like Barack Obama before him, Patrick is well-known and liked with both the powerbroker class and the base who watch the conventions and follow the party and its major players. I don't see reason to believe that his success won't continue with an introduction to a wider population of voters.

He's also positioned better than most of the primary field:

[quote]Obama strategist David Axelrod has had several conversations with Patrick about running, and eagerly rattles off the early primary map logic: small-town campaign experience from his 2006 gubernatorial run that will jibe perfectly with Iowa, neighbor-state advantage in New Hampshire and the immediate bloc of votes he’d have as an African-American heading into South Carolina.

Republicans nationally see Lindsey as a war hawk. That didn't go so well after the "W"-Cheney era. The "single, straight" show, they won't buy again in 2020 either. That said, his Senate campaign coffers are over-flowing with cash from military industrialists and other special interests.

R528, Obama was able to win the 2008 nomination despite losing the Sunbelt, the popular vote, and the minority vote, but that was a year when the Sunbelt had less political pull. Impossible in today's climate. Davel Patrick has no real ties to the Western part of the country. He might be able to make a run in Iowa if Obama plugs him insatiably, but he is dead in the water everywhere else. Virginia? South Carolina? Tennessee ?

Louisianan is definitely running someone, so is Texas and California. What prayer does Patrick have of winning any of those states? 0

If you want the nomination and you can't carry the top two states (TX, CA), you are not going to get the 2020 nomination. He'll look weak going into the general and Obama doesn't have the pull in those states.

Patrick works for Bain Capital - Mitt Romney's outfit. Talk about a Corporate Democrat.

Chelsea Clinton is the perfect candidate, but everyone is too afraid (or sexist) to say so.

R529. Miss Lindsey polls at 0%. Let’s forget her.

R532, you are a troll that wants a Clinton bashfest. Blocked.

Maxine Waters is the ideal Dem candidate.

She’s female, ancient, crazy, and a POC.

She’s everything the Dems seem to want in a candidate.

R534, you are a troll that wants a anti-Clinton bashfest. Blocked.

You know, by this time we all should know what the Dems stand for. Yes they'll differ here and there and sometimes they'll say something that will startle to generate some enthusiasm. But the bottom line is the candidate who wins is the one people are at ease with. Someone they are comfortable with. Hillary WON by 3 Million votes because she was familiar to us. Trump was familiar too. But he wasn't quite good enough. He needed extra help. Whatever. I'm just saying that unless the Dem comes out against abortion, against Gay marriage, against minimum wage, against gun safety, then we can pretty much write the platform in our sleep. So we need to focus on who can sell it. Sell it. Sell it.

That's what we are trying to find out, who can sell it. We won't have a familiar face this time around, so we are left wondering who can take over.

One thing for sure, whoever it is, it's going to be someone who will have a profile by this time next year. Most candidates will start announcing towards the latter half of 2019.

Who is the person who keeps pushing Patrick? For now, the Dems must do everything to win and no to a black man and woman for POTUS now. Get a white male candidate and a VP who is black or a woman. I'm not saying this because we need to be practical and strategize to win. For now, Biden is the guy and he's topping the polls.

I would like Beto to be the nominee but he must win his Senate race first and then we can talk.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, IN is the one to watch. Afghanistan vet, educated white male, openly gay, married with children, totally progressive but totally non-threatening.

I don't think we can tell [yet] who the favorite might be, but we can surely tell who has no chance.

Biden, a hasbeen never was. His pass bids never amounted to anything. There's resentment towards the Obama administration for not being stronger on Russia and Biden was very much at the center of it. He has no leg to stand on and any goodwill towards him will turn into anger if he runs again.

Sanders, again there is resentment towards him for being an instigator. If by some chance he doesn't get dragged by the Russian scandal, the Democratic candidates will finish him off by calling him on his 2016 fraudulent campaign.

Take a dare,

Vote for Claire!

McCaskill 2020

Patrick will not be the nominee and Obama isn't supporting him. Obama will support Kamala Harris. You heard it here first.

Biden is older than Father Time. Not going to happen. I don't care what the polls say.

Ted Lieu

Maxine Waters is not crazy at all, colorful maybe but certainly not crazy.

What Maxine says can be blunt, entertaining, and revealing. She's not a spring chicken either.

Whoever it is the candidate will have to conform to these stats to appeal to the majority of voters, white male between the ages of 40-55, scandal free background, married to a woman with possibly 1-2 kids. Experience in state and local politics preferably from the middle of the country, centrist views and politics.

I don't understand the obsession so many have with suggesting politicians who already have one foot in the grave even two years before a presidential election.

In the real world, how many of you would hire someone 70+ for an 8 year gig running a company?

Old people are cool. I've always preferred spending time with them than with the young cunts of today but let's be honest. People that age have limitations both mentally and physically. Being president is an incredibly stressful job. Nobody here believes Trump's doctor when it comes to his health and we all know Hillary is routinely injuring herself falling at 9/11 ceremonies, stairs (UK and India), and bathtubs which result in boot and arm casts for weeks/months at a time.

Someone in their 50s is better. Younger than that and one might say they lack real world experience. Older than that, and they're falling apart. Being president ages you like a fucker too. Remember when Obama's hair used to be black?

It also needs to be someone who hasn't spent decades at the government teat as a politician to the point they've long forgotten what life is like in the real world. Someone who remembers what the inside of a supermarket, a filthy subway, a crowded doctor's office looks like. Someone who knows what things are like at a typical public school. Someone who understands the job market because they've actually been in it sometime in the past half century.

Someone who knows what it's like to have to decide between paying for a bus or train ticket to get to work and eating dinner that night because they only have so much money in their wallet and can't afford both. Someone of the people and for the people. Someone who can talk to people and not down to them. Someone who understands the common man's needs and fears. No insulting pandering. No celebrity schmoozing. No shady deals or pasts to be exposed during the election.

Someone who tells the truth even if we don't want to hear it. Someone who knows how to run things and get things done. They don't specifically have to be likable but we should at least be able to trust them like one would a parent, knowing that we'll be safe in their hands.

Who is that?

Kamala Harris was on the Ellen show yesterday. Ellen is clearly a fan.

I hate to break it to the BernieBots, but there's only one choice: Kamala Harris.

The same Kamala who joked on Ellen about killing the president in an elevator?

r550 I think she could be a good VP candidate if paired with a more aggressive candidate (Biden), but she is not commanding, convincing, or charismatic enough for the top of the ticket. She delivers her "joyful warriors" line with all the fervor and conviction of a 90 year old.

R553: Biden more 'aggressive'? If anything, as a strong woman of color, she'll always be accused by racists and sexists of being 'too aggressive'. I'll always love her for making Sessions say: 'I'm not able to be rushed this fast! it makes me NERVOUS!', as in the video below (especially from the 3 minute mark on). She's a tough, highly competent woman.

r545, not American born.

r551, I'm not a Berniebot, but why is Kamala Harris the only choice?

I just want to step back for a moment to say something about something that keeps coming up. Everyone who runs for President has "something" in their background that can be used against them. If they don't then the GOP will invent something. It's a given. There's no way to avoid it. They regularly take strengths and use them against our candidate. They went after Hillary for Benghazi. The facts of the Benghazi attack pointed the finger directly at Congress slashing the budget for security, but they literally insisted she MURDERED our ambassador. It was ugly and vicious and that's what they're like. I don't want to hit Benghazi or Hillary too hard but the point is they will find something and exaggerate it all to hell. It's part of "opposition research."

Did George Bush's being AWOL from National Guard duty hurt him? Or allegations of his drunkenness and cocaine use? Trump's multiple sexual assault charges, his bankruptcies, his shady business deals, etc., buying all his merchandise in China and Mexico hurt him? Obama and Reverend Wright? Martin O' Malley's problems in Baltimore? It's unavoidable. What is important is not what they find, it is how it's handled by the candidate and his media operation. let me say that again. It's UNAVOIDABLE . What is important is not what they find, but how it's handled by the candidate and his media operation.

So yes, we need to find some one with great qualities. But mostly we need to find someone who can sell the Democratic vision. And all the nonsense from the pundits that the Dems "can't just run against Trump" is bullshit. We better not be shy about going negative. We better not show any reluctance to go on the attack. Never has anyone deserved an ass whipping more than Donald Trump and his entire gang as well as the GOP led Congress. What is important is not to simply attack him, but to SHOW how his policies affect people's lives. There is a direct impact. We need to catalogue it. I personally want someone who is colorful, exciting, is a good salesman and is really smart and agile with a quick mind.

If kamala Harris is all we got we might as well hand trump his two term now.

R554 I see what you're saying: she does have to walk a fine line (to not come across as too aggressive). Even with the Sessions clip, she has to pepper her reactions with toothy smiles. And she's obviously very competent: there's no question of that in my mind.

But she just comes across a little sleepy in the Ellen clip. Like she's just going through the motions and not fully convinced of what she's saying. Especially "joyful warriors" -- it's almost like she's realizing as she's saying that line that it's not hitting ("they go low; we go high" it ain't). She's not really selling anything she's saying in that clip; it's all just a bit weak. She actually reminds me of a middle-school principal for some reason, with her big smiles, "joyful warriors", school stories and gentle leg slaps.

Of course, she can work on talk show appearances -- this is kind of a test run at this point.

R554 Also, I wasn't saying she necessarily needs to be more aggressive. But maybe her smiley school principal approach would pair well with a more brash candidate like Biden. Biden wouldn't need an "attack dog" VP candidate, so she'd be free to be whatever that is in the Ellen clip.

[quote] [bold]Someone in their 50s[/bold] [...]It also needs [bold]to be someone who hasn't spent decades at the government teat[/bold] as a politician to the point they've long forgotten what life is like in the real world.

Your first statement contradicts the second R550. You cannot be 50 years old and not have spent your life in service. If you are 50 years old and have never been in government, it means you have no knowledge of government and have no business trying to run it.

You can't have it both ways. Obama's inexperience did end up costing us in the long run, next time we might not be so lucky.

[quote]If kamala Harris is all we got we might as well hand trump his two term now.

No she's not, but then you knew that you little Bot. Is that your knew tactic to persuade people's opinion R558? I guess you're going to have to continue your fake outrage because California politicians will only get more embolden to run for national.

Dear Kamala, Please lose the pearls.

R561 Not contradictory at all. Not everyone gets into politics straight out of school. Some come into it quite late after succeeding elsewhere. Those are the people who would know about the real world and the problems real people face.

R563, again both statement contradict each other. If someone runs in his 50s, you'll probably cry about the guy being too old to run for anything.

The presidency requires a vast amount of specific sets of experiences. Would you employ a rookie to head the education department? No, you'd employ someone who has the experience to understand the system. If you don't have experience with international politics, local government, and national government you are not qualified to run for office.

And over 50 based on your description you ageist asshat, r563.

I don't give a shit how old the next person will be as long as they have what it takes to right this ship after the mess Trump made, and someone with strong foreign policy experience to help rebuild relationships and stand up to Russia and NK.

R565 has lost her marbles.

If politicians are now beginning to show up in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina; and are not from those places or vacationing, they are seriously considering running.

Oh yeah, a lot of parading is happening already. But the true test is who is going to attract the $$$ people and the top flight campaign staff. Watch to see which former staffers of... start hanging around with certain possible candidates. If you see a lot of former Hillary and Obama staff gathering around Eric Holder that says something. OTOH, the person who shows they can overcome deficits like no staff or money but that they can connect with audiences is something to watch for. I remember when Jimmy Carter was visiting states and traveling all over with a rag tag staff when they could afford to meet him, and he literally spent the night at people's houses in Iowa and all over the place. The "smart money " wasn't with Carter in the beginning.

That's why I like Biden, who is solidly a Democrat and Kennedy, who would step in if Joe got a call from Beau...

THAT'S what VPs are for.

[quote] But the true test is who is going to attract the $$$ people and the top flight campaign staff.

And this is where it pays to come from a Big state like Texas/California where money will suddenly grow on trees for the local candidate. The joke for many years was that candidates head West in order to campaign East. I no longer see Westerners blindly opening their pocketbooks to the token Democrat, especially when they are starting to wake up to the realization that the rest of the country doesn't take them seriously. 2016 Clinton was the first time a democratic campaign since Bill Clinton really hit the Southwest. She was all over Texas and Arizona all throughout the primary and general election. Kerry didn't do it, Obama didn't do it, and Gore half-assed committed to it. She might have lost those two states, but regional Democratic leaders saw gains. It's the reason grassroot movements throughout the country are winning elections, because they are concentrating on them, their communities, and their problems. People are realizing general elections are too volatile and never set in stone, so people are starting to look local. Regardless of what happens in the general, people are going to turn to their communities and elect people that resonate with them.

I doubt someone like Kennedy, Sanders, Booker, or Holder will be able to rack up the money early on like let's say someone from California or Texas could. When people start throwing names around, people need to consider things like money, location, national exposure, and the primary schedule. How likely is this person to find support and money for his/her campaign for those first early primaries? What states is he/she likely to win early on in order to outlast his/her opponents?

[quote]What is important is not what they find, it is how it's handled by the candidate and his media operation. let me say that again. It's UNAVOIDABLE . What is important is not what they find, but how it's handled by the candidate and his media operation.

Oh.

Maybe I did lose.

I like the fact that Kamala is aggressive, and think it’s one of her strengths. She’s a former prosecutor who is able to cut through the bullshit and get to the point.

If anything, I think she should capitalize on that and downplay the “smiling middle school teacher” act.

Honestly though, I think she’d be better in the VP role as an attack dog for a Presidential candidate who is more charismatic.

Clinton faced an opponent that was colluding with a foreign power and hacked the election to either alter voter rolls or purge votes destined to Clinton. The 2016 election had extraordinary circumstances, and even then she came close to winning.

Exactly R573, and it' too damned bad we have to keep repeating that for the brain dead BernieBots and Clinton haters. And BTW: Hillary did what no other candidate did. She shared all her fundraising with local candidates in state races. She was helping down ballot candidates in every fucking state. And she gave money to the DNC because they we re broke. So do not ever come around me telling me WTF is wrong with Hilary. Because you aren't good enough to wipe her ass.

HIllary lost because she thought it was beneath her to have to campaign in the “deplorable” Rust Belt states.

R575 Hillary lost because Putin supported Trump, Bernie and Stein and stirred shit.

R575 I wish I could send you one of Minnie's chocolate pies.

Hillary lost because she played it safe and tried to fall over the finish line. She didn't fight for herself and the Dems didn't defend her from press and GOP attacks.

There were many factor that played into her loss, but the most potent one was the Russian Collusion because the election was hacked.

[quote] Dems didn't defend her from press and GOP attacks.

The Dems were actually fighting with her (Sanders, Brazille, Biden )

People, people, people. Hillary is Histary. Kamala Harris is another triangulating, "third way" Wall St Democrat. Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, IN is the actual future

Mayor Pete ButtPlug.

Mayor Buttigieg (D-Bumfuck, IN)

I hate to say this, but everytime I see his last name I think for a few seconds that it is "Buttplug".

So for sure Kennedy and Harris will run. They've been doing the network talk show rounds recently. They want America to get to know them. Kennedy was on Kimmel the other night, and couldn't answer a single question without rambling. Harris did fine on Ellen and was quite charming.

R580 = Author of Politico article, Scott Mahaskey.

Bitch, where is this nobody going to get support for mounting a campaign? He's from Indiana? Girl please, when that state starts voting Blue, then we can talk.

Kennedy is too young.

Mayor Buttigieg couldn't even win the DNC chairmanship and represents some random flyover city that people pass when they're going to Chicago.

Mr. Buttigieg needs to run for governor, then if he wins, we can talk.

Forget the Buttplug.......

Kamala Harris is staffing up under cover of the midterms and her operation to support Democrats across the country.

She's notoriously bad to work for, however. That's not a complaint that Hillary Clinton or Obama ever faced, so it does worry me.

The level of anti-Maltese racism on here is really concerning.

[quote] And BTW: Hillary did what no other candidate did.

Yes, she did what no other recent Democratic candidate had done: Completely ignore states like Wisconsin and Michigan.

Right. She was supposed to go to Wisconsin when the Pulse Nightclub shooting happened. She rearranged her schedule to go to Florida. If she had not you could have villified her for not showing support for Florida. You dumb ass fuckers. This is why Dems can't get their shit together. They tear down the best that is in us and fuck over one another. And she did go Wisconsin and to Michigan, so stop fucking lying. It has been verified that Michigan and Wisconsin were hacked. The fucking Russians even paid Michigan a visit in 2015 to see how to make it happen. I'm fucking tired of attempting to argue or reason with fucking trolls. You shit stains can plug your ears and close your eyes but you cannot alter the truth. Repeating your fucking talking points doesn't change reality, it simply marginalizes you.

R592 shows John Kerry in Wisconsin!!! LOLOL! Yeah. Good ol' President Kerry...oh, wait...

[quote] John Kerry in Wisconsin!!! LOLOL! Yeah. Good ol' President Kerry...oh, wait...

Kerry won Wisconsin. Hillary didn't. Kerry won Michigan. Hillary didn't. Kerry won Pennsylvania. Hillary didn't.

Kerry won 251 electoral votes. Hillary only won 227.

Kerry's loss came down to a single state: Ohio. Hillary lost nearly all of the swing states.

I don’t think her visiting these states would have helped her much.

I’m in Western PA... and you could barely even find a Hillary sign anywhere. Trump signs were everywhere on houses in all different economic classes of neighborhoods. Trump’s rallies here were always packed too.

There was minimal interest in Hillary and her stale policies that might have been popular 20 years ago. People wanted radical change here and thought Trump would bring it.

If that mayor tries to run... you know Trump will continually refer to him as Mayor Buttplug, right?

Maybe people should grow the eff UP and stop making stupid jokes about each other's names. I've never made fun of Tubby's last name.

Kerry didn't run against a Republican colluding with Russia. Hillary did.

Kerry didn't run at a time when voting rolls from 20 states were being hacked. Hillary did.

Kerry didn't visit the Southwest. He lost New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado.

He lost. What are we talking about?