Will the Democrats nominate a George McGovern or a Bill Clinton in 2020?

[arkirk]

Monday morning quarterbacks....The current state of the environment and world politics is too grave to go back to the same clowns who fucked things up. If they were in some sort of legislative office and haven't been voting straight "NO" for a long time they should not even be considered. You won't find a person with the integrity of a McGovern in the Democrat party. It may be difficult to find a candidate in political life today with that much integrity. Bernie was right. The system is rigged. We laughingly refer to our elections as democracy, when it is really just a system that smacks of dynastic empowerment of the uber rich.

Trump is a fishy swimming in the stream, uber rich but a little to "novo", though he sports all the pathos of the uber rich. He doesn't have an uncle or father who was president. He is the beneficiary of an accident built by the Koch Bros. and others of their ilk...a system that allows a MINORITY party to win elections because the districting of the votes has been prearranged by investment in countless costly down ballot contests in the states (gerrymandering). Clinton had a bubble machine that was broken from the start and Trump had an invisible machine...the structure of the electoral college....and his obscene personality that seemed to appeal to angry people (kinda like Charley Sheen).

What is needed is smart leadership not afraid to socialize thing that need to be socialized...like health, education, and welfare. What is needed is smart leadership that practices genuine diplomacy in the world and eschews war. What is needed is someone with a clear understanding of the global warming crisis willing to make his case in the U.N. and willing to commit to minimizing warming (and flooding and drought and famine). Such a person would have to love the human race and not think of it as a source of slave power. Such a person could not be connected with a war machine or a market machine or a prison industrial complex. Find someone like that and half the people in this forum would want to shoot him...not elect him. We need above all else, honesty.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

All that work just to say "Booker (probably too early), Wyden, Cuomo, why not Spitzer?!, Kaine, Bullock, Malloy." Wow.

When I say "who could possibly be the next candidate" you reply with "Trump stinks". When I say "Uh, the question was 'who could possibly be the next candidate' and you talked about Trump instead" you reply with "you're wrong, and it could be Booker, Cyden, Cuomo, Spitzer, Kaine, Bullock, Malloy."

I was right that you talked about Trump instead of the topic, and I have no idea why you keep talking about bumping off Biden. Why would you want to talk about bumping off Biden? That wasn't the topic either.

So, in a question about who the Democrats might run, your topics of discussion are "Trump stinks" and "bump off Biden." Wow.

*flush*

 

[Terrell]

I'm not sure who should run the DNC, but whomever it is, probably isn't working for them at this time. Tom Sawyer has already made all the necessary points to that. Their job is to do whatever it takes, short of breaking the law, to win elections and they failed to do so.

As for the next candidate for President, I don't know who that should be. I'd hope for someone who is center-center left that has the talent needed to sway voters to his cause, and has the balls to kick the Republicans in the teeth if that's what's necessary to govern. Same for the House & Senate leadership should the Dems retake them in or by 2020.

For now, the Dems need to be working on grabbing as many seats in state legislatures as possible. If they're not already working on finding candidates with a realistic chance of winning, and doing all the background work to get them on the ballot and into office, then they're not doing their jobs adequately. The same applies to governorships.

An example of where the Democrats need to get to work is finding a candidate for Florida governor in 2018. Rick Scott (R) is term limited, and has to go. If the Dems aren't already working on fielding a candidate to take back that governorship they're not doing their job. The last Democrat to be elected governor of Florida is Lawton Chiles. Democrats also need a good turnout operation since FL's gubernatorial election coincides with midterm elections rather than presidential elections. Poor Democratic turnout is something that the party needs to work to fix, especially in midterms & special elections.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Democrats also need a good turnout operation since FL's gubernatorial election is not at the same time as the presidential election. Poor Democratic turnout is something that the party needs to work to fix.

Which is the key point. The Tea Party managed to take over the Republican Party because they showed that they are willing to come out and vote in the primaries and the off year elections. Then when Trump took over the Tea Party, he took the Presidency. The answer to the OP's question will lie in whether or not the left wing is able to do the same in 2018. If they can show that their current anger translates into votes, they will give us the 2020 nominee. If they ignore it and stay home like they've done in every other off year election, the people who gave us Hillary Clinton will give us the 2020 nominee because the pissed off left wingers will have decided that they don't want a say in the matter. If those people only show up for a few months every four years and then wander off grumbling when they aren't handed everything they want on a silver platter, they'll be treated as the irrelevant nobodies that they're telling everyone they are.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Democrats also need a good turnout operation since FL's gubernatorial election is not at the same time as the presidential election. Poor Democratic turnout is something that the party needs to work to fix.

Which is the key point. The Tea Party managed to take over the Republican Party because they showed that they are willing to come out and vote in the primaries and the off year elections. Then when Trump took over the Tea Party, he took the Presidency. The answer to the OP's question will lie in whether or not the left wing is able to do the same in 2018.

Ohio most likely can't send more than 4 Democrats to Congress, out of 16. 2010 was an absurd outcome because it was the wave that added to the State legislatures under Republican control and the redistricting as required even 10 years. 2018 means jack, 2020 is the crucial election because that is where it would be possible to balance the scales in states and undo gerrymandering. Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina, Texas are all grossfully gerrymandered in Republican favor.

Democrats, Maryland and maybe California.

If they can show that their current anger translates into votes, they will give us the 2020 nominee. If they ignore it and stay home like they've done in every other off year election, the people who gave us Hillary Clinton will give us the 2020 nominee because the pissed off left wingers will have decided that they don't want a say in the matter. If those people only show up for a few months every four years and then wander off grumbling when they aren't handed everything they want on a silver platter, they'll be treated as the irrelevant nobodies that they're telling everyone they are.

All of that is irrelevant. We have no clue what will happen in February with Trump in charge. Forget the consequences of his Presidency by '20. The Dems had a good candidate, the Republicans a terribly awful one. The terrible won because... well... we still aren't that sure yet. I mean other than all the lying his voters believed.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Which is the key point. The Tea Party managed to take over the Republican Party because they showed that they are willing to come out and vote in the primaries and the off year elections. Then when Trump took over the Tea Party, he took the Presidency. The answer to the OP's question will lie in whether or not the left wing is able to do the same in 2018.

Ohio most likely can't send more than 4 Democrats to Congress, out of 16. 2010 was an absurd outcome because it was the wave that added to the State legislatures under Republican control and the redistricting as required even 10 years. 2018 means jack, 2020 is the crucial election because that is where it would be possible to balance the scales in states and undo gerrymandering. Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina, Texas are all grossfully gerrymandered in Republican favor.

Democrats, Maryland and maybe California.

If they can show that their current anger translates into votes, they will give us the 2020 nominee. If they ignore it and stay home like they've done in every other off year election, the people who gave us Hillary Clinton will give us the 2020 nominee because the pissed off left wingers will have decided that they don't want a say in the matter. If those people only show up for a few months every four years and then wander off grumbling when they aren't handed everything they want on a silver platter, they'll be treated as the irrelevant nobodies that they're telling everyone they are.

All of that is irrelevant. We have no clue what will happen in February with Trump in charge. Forget the consequences of his Presidency by '20. The Dems had a good candidate, the Republicans a terribly awful one. The terrible won because... well... we still aren't that sure yet. I mean other than all the lying his voters believed.

And the only way you're going to change that gerrymandering is by putting Democrats in the state legislatures and having the Democratic voters demanding that they don't fuck shit up the same way that the GOP did when they had the chance. The GOP certainly isn't going to do anything about it. This is a decade long process which isn't summed up by the results in 2018, but the results in 2018 will show whether or not that decade has started or is still a decade away.

 

[lpetrich]

Is there anyone who doesn't amass a fortune giving speeches to Goldman Sachs

You're complaining about that?

or who doesn't take 20% of their campaign funding from Saudi Arabia?

You're complaining about that? At least if that is actually the case.

Anyone who doesn't laugh when leaders of sovereign nation are murdered

You weep for Muammar Khadafy? I thought that he was supposed to be a great international villain.

and their countries descend into chaos? Anyone who doesn't ignorantly support the war machine?

Right-wing pacifism is such a sight to see.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Jimmy Higgins summed up the whole of his contributions to this thread with this incredibly witty post.

*flush*

 

[Derec]

The answer to the OP's question will lie in whether or not the left wing is able to do the same in 2018. If they can show that their current anger translates into votes, they will give us the 2020 nominee.

I hope they don't. We do not need an ideologue, we need somebody pragmatic.

 

[Derec]

Monday morning quarterbacks....The current state of the environment and world politics is too grave to go back to the same clowns who fucked things up. If they were in some sort of legislative office and haven't been voting straight "NO" for a long time they should not even be considered.

And if you can't find that person? Stay home? And if you can and they lose as badly as McDoesn'tGovern? Still nominate him or her?

You won't find a person with the integrity of a McGovern in the Democrat party. It may be difficult to find a candidate in political life today with that much integrity.

Integrity means little when you are too radical to win.

Bernie was right. The system is rigged. We laughingly refer to our elections as democracy, when it is really just a system that smacks of dynastic empowerment of the uber rich.

You may have missed it, but dynasties were rejected this year. Jeb went nowhere fast, Hillary snatched a defeat out of jaws of victory.

Trump is a fishy swimming in the stream, uber rich but a little to "novo", though he sports all the pathos of the uber rich. He doesn't have an uncle or father who was president.

You are losing me.

He is the beneficiary of an accident built by the Koch Bros. and others of their ilk...a system that allows a MINORITY party to win elections because the districting of the votes has been prearranged by investment in countless costly down ballot contests in the states (gerrymandering).

Gerrymandering has fuck all to do with presidential elections (except Maine and Nebraska to a very small degree). The rules of the elections were set in the constitution (Art. II, Section 1), and were written long before either Koch brother was born. The shapes of the states are also not some Koch brothers conspiracy.

Clinton had a bubble machine that was broken from the start and Trump had an invisible machine...the structure of the electoral college....and his obscene personality that seemed to appeal to angry people (kinda like Charley Sheen).

What is needed is smart leadership not afraid to socialize thing that need to be socialized...like health, education, and welfare.

Isn't welfare already socialized? And most education, although I think private education is good (especially on university level) as long as it is not publicly funded. With health I see benefit in having a system with both public and private elements.

What is needed is smart leadership that practices genuine diplomacy in the world and eschews war.

"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock." Will Rogers
"The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank!" Lt. Cmd. Montgomery Scott

Seriously though, we should not rush to war. It should be last resort. But it should be resort our leaders are willing to take when appropriate.
Diplomacy should not mean one is naive. Take Jimmy Carter and his administration praising Khomeini as "a saint" with the result that he wasn't opposed and we got almost 40 years of Islamic theocracy there and the danger of theocratic and terrorism-supporting regime getting nuclear weapons.
In other words, when practicing diplomacy be very careful you are not cast in the role of the "nice doggie".

What is needed is someone with a clear understanding of the global warming crisis willing to make his case in the U.N. and willing to commit to minimizing warming (and flooding and drought and famine).

I liked Obama's "all of the above" approach. I.e. work on switching to non-carbon energies in the long term but with understanding that the transition will take decades and that in the meantime it is better to develop domestic sources of oil and gas rather than to rely on and enrich the likes of Russia and Saudi Arabia. The next Democratic nominee would be well advised to take that approach as well. Unfortunately Obama himself abandoned that approach lately. He canceled offshore drilling expansion. He killed the Keystone XL and is needlessly delaying DAPL. And just now, he rescinded oil leases because yet another Indian tribe conveniently declared the area to be drilled "sacred".

Such a person would have to love the human race and not think of it as a source of slave power. Such a person could not be connected with a war machine or a market machine or a prison industrial complex. Find someone like that and half the people in this forum would want to shoot him...not elect him. We need above all else, honesty.

And we also need a realistic approach to world problems, not wide-eyed naivete of the Carter administration for example.

 

[Derec]

I'm not certain your point. Strength is a relative quantity and compared to Trump, Clinton was a juggernaut. Compared to Obama, Clinton was a relatively strong candidate.

A  juggernaut (UK Listeni/ˈdʒʌɡərnɔːt/, US /-nɒt, -nɔːt/, jug-ər-not[1]), in current English usage, is a literal or metaphorical force regarded as mercilessly destructive and unstoppable.
Sounds more like a description of Trump, at least as far as his detractors are concerned.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The proof of a political candidate is in the voting.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

The answer to the OP's question will lie in whether or not the left wing is able to do the same in 2018. If they can show that their current anger translates into votes, they will give us the 2020 nominee.

I hope they don't. We do not need an ideologue, we need somebody pragmatic.

No, I think you need someone pragmatic after you get the ideologue. The left wing in your country needs to get itself inspired and motivated. Doing so will, of course, lead to some things which need to then get cleaned up afterwards, but that's better than leaving half of your country unengaged because it's clear that they have nobody advocating for their issues on their behalf. You have that on the right and you need it on the left.

 

[Derec]

The American people are to blame for this outcome, not Clinton.

As Berthold Brecht said, "... the people had forfeited the confidence of the government and could win it back only by redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier in that case for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?"
And isn't this exactly what Democrats are trying to do with mass immigration of people of whom they think will be reliable D voters in perpetuity?

 

[Derec]

No, I think you need someone pragmatic after you get the ideologue. The left wing in your country needs to get itself inspired and motivated. Doing so will, of course, lead to some things which need to then get cleaned up afterwards, but that's better than leaving half of your country unengaged because it's clear that they have nobody advocating for their issues on their behalf. You have that on the right and you need it on the left.

Replacing one kind of ideologue with another is not a good solution.

 

[Derec]

The top rated non-sports TV show in the US last year was The Big Bang Theory. Perhaps the DNC could nominate Jim Parsons - All he needs to do is record an ad where he walks into the oval office and says to President Trump "You're in my spot".

And the best thing is that even though he is white and male, he is also gay which would make him acceptable to the Democratic base progressive stack-wise.

 

[ksen]

I have heard that Hillary is considerably charismatic in one-on-one situations. Dems need someone with crowd charisma like a Trump or a Bernie. And someone without thirty years of republican attack-dog scars all over them. And definitely someone who doesn't sound fingernails-on-chalkboard screechy every time they try to be emphatic. So yeah - prob'ly a male.

I have heard the opposite, that she is more charismatic when speaking to a crowd (as hard as that would be to believe). But then I doubt that either of us will ever have the chance to know which is true.

I met Hillary in 1992. She was kind of cold.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

No, I think you need someone pragmatic after you get the ideologue. The left wing in your country needs to get itself inspired and motivated. Doing so will, of course, lead to some things which need to then get cleaned up afterwards, but that's better than leaving half of your country unengaged because it's clear that they have nobody advocating for their issues on their behalf. You have that on the right and you need it on the left.

Replacing one kind of ideologue with another is not a good solution.

I disagree. What your country needs is an engaged electorate. Almost half of you didn't vote and many of the rest, especially on the left, only did so grudgingly because they were voting against something as opposed to voting for something. Another pragmatic, middle of the road nominee who'd promising to maybe look into some of their issues and perhaps start the first tepid steps of implementing part of a few of them (provided that doing so polls well in the suburbs of the swing states) isn't going to do it. Your country needs to go too far the other way and then recorrect instead of just treading water in the current doldrums.

 

[Derec]

You seem to be saying, a Clinton would be a smarter choice, but they just did that and lost.

I do not think Hillary was a smart choice. Yes, she was considered moderate, but she was not a strong candidate for several reasons (and her gender was the least of it, in fact it probably helped her on balance). My post was less about Hillary than it was about going forward to 2020.

And maybe only a man could win in America.

I don't think so.

 

[Derec]

Huh, I didn't know that. Will have to check.

"We write to urge the Department of Justice vigorously to enforce federal obscenity laws against major commercial distributors of hardcore adult pornography," the senators wrote. "We believe it is imperative that the Department, with cooperation by the FBI, investigate and prosecute all major producers and distributors of adult obscenity. We need your leadership."

The signatures on the letter from socially-conservative Republicans like Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and Jim Demint of South Carolina are unsurprising. However, some fairly liberal Democrats also joined in: Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California, Tom Carper of Delaware and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. Also on board from the Democratic side, though less surprisingly: Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

Senators ask Holder for more pornography prosecutions

 

[Derec]

I disagree. What your country needs is an engaged electorate. Almost half of you didn't vote and many of the rest, especially on the left, only did so grudgingly because they were voting against something as opposed to voting for something. Another pragmatic, middle of the road nominee who'd promising to maybe look into some of their issues and perhaps start the first tepid steps of implementing part of a few of them (provided that doing so polls well in the suburbs of the swing states) isn't going to do it. Your country needs to go too far the other way and then recorrect instead of just treading water in the current doldrums.

Do you think everybody who is not an ideologue from the left or right fringe is necessarily tepid? I know Hillary was, but that is not necessarily the case. One can have strongly held political and policy opinions without being on the left or right wing of the political spectrum.
My ideal candidate would be strongly libertarian on social issues, moderate on economic and foreign policy and strong on opposing illegal immigration while still being pro-immigration at reasonable levels in general.