Your 2020 Presidential Candidate Speculation Thread

sorry but if you’re the least bit “conflicted” about that clown running for president you’re a lunatic

Could be! I just mean that, presuming that some colorful clown will be on at least one half of the ticket, or at least the potential for a colorful clown, since the election - my god, ELECTION! - of Donald Trump means that literally anyone can become president, I'd rather it be Avenatti than Vince McMahon or whomever.

I wonder if a country that could or would elect Trump can ever be normal again

lol

we've always been that country, as Mencken predicted this a century ago. We just had to wait for skin-crawling shamelessness to reach weekly TV.

I don't think we've ever had this degree of daily insanity driven by one person for years on end.

media saturation ftw

Would love to be able to pretend Trump wasn’t a uniquely dangerous/damaging and that the nukes he’ll probably threaten to use again don’t exist.

no one's pretending

let's be real Trump is too much of a coward to nuke anything

not true. He's literally too stupid to understand the consequences of using a nuke

which is why it's totally plausible that he could do it

He also believes that missile defense works. He thinks his threats brought NK to the table. Even if he ultimately is a self preservationist who doesn’t want to manage a war, his rhetoric could box himself in and lead to miscalculations on either side of conflicts. Also he appointed Bolton who has actively tried to sabotage diplomacy in nuclear negotiations.

[Seth Moulton](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/28/seth-moulton-congressman-run-president-2020-profile-215428) certainly has the background story, though most expect him to enter the Senate first.

Seth Moulton certainly has the background story, though I'd expect him to do a term in the Senate or MA governorship first. At the very least, he'd make a good VP pick to debate Pence.

a few xps, but why are we discussing this dude like he has thoughts? His foreign policy is nonexistent; it consists entirely of lizard-brain instinctual domestic politics.

75% of it is base-pandering red meat. the MAGAhedeen guys are all like "I want a president who comes to the negotiating table with such a big swinging dick that they need to cut a semicircle out of the table to accommodate it."

He doesn't know much but he knows who loves him, and what they'll cheer about when they hear it at a fucking rally. Their adulation gives him life; he doesn't spare a moment's thought about whether people die to get him another fix of that drug. Note well: I don't mean that he knows and doesn't care. I mean that he doesn't even care enough to want to know.

Sure, there's another 25% of it that is just dictator fanboyism. But that's not like some coherent ideology - it's just that he sees that Putin has power and can act with impunity, so he's like "Man I wish I had some of that Putin-style power." It's as complicated as seeing that a guy at a skate park has a nicer board than yours, so you want a board that is like that.

I wonder if a country that could or would elect Trump can ever be normal great again

I don't think we've ever had this degree of daily insanity driven by one person for years on end.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 10 August 2018 18:27 (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

do u mean the US or do u mean ilx

cos

Morbs should run 🏃

Not sure if this got posted

always psyched when new folks stop by my happy hour pic.twitter.com/zWl4MmfNdF

— we're going to abolish ICE (@SeanMcElwee) August 10, 2018

can we keep trump outta this thread tho

Yes please

come on down, Eric Swalwell

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/20/politics/swalwell-consider-president-2020-cnntv/index.html

i heard andrew yang discuss dem pres campaign and i tried to envision the most technocratic policy revisions evar getting traction. still, if conditions decline as forcefully as he envisions, death might be more desirable, just in terms of societal collapse factors.

watch out america, garcetti is coming

I am concerned for the Mayor's safety. This crowd is dangerously fired up. Someone please call the Ohio National Guard pic.twitter.com/Pdv1kHOwNm

— Hayes Davenport (@hayesdavenport) September 7, 2018

it's so sad that he survived the joker only to be felled by bane's attack on the football stadium :(

I want Flake to run. I do. It will be like watching red ants set upon stale meat.

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) October 16, 2018

I'd prefer not to give Trump the easy W of getting to own fuckboys like Flake and Sasse and Kasich on TV for six months.

Sasse won't run against Trump. I doubt Flake will. Kasich badly wants to and probably will.

Mittmentum

and he’s going to get eaten alive

Mittens won't challenge Trump. Kasich wants to real bad though. I don't think it will go well for him.

anyone who runs will know exactly what they're up against this time

Not so sure about that

i honestly can't think of a republican who would stand a chance in that primary field at this point, trump has so completely warped that party's brains. My racist republican uncle slams Paul Ryan, Sasse, Romney, Kasich almost as much as he continues to bring up Hillary clinton

They won't win, but they might succeed in reexposing the Republican party to values that they associated with that party in their youth. Honesty, dignity, ideological principles (not mine, mind), maybe even reality.

In truth, though, the next election will be decided by gasoline prices, which in my opinion will be north of $6/gal. Dems can run anyone more charismatic than HRC and Trump loses. I still hope its a national security Dem, as I'd like the GOP to become a minority party for two generations.

Gas prices? What makes you think that?

wtf / whomst tf is a "national security Dem"

gasoline prices, which in my opinion will be north of $6/gal

Shale oil and fracking will probably keep gas prices under that $6/gal threshold for a while longer, but there is a lot of liquidity in the system now, with few places to re-invest it for a quick profit, so inflationary pressures are going to build until the bubble bursts again, which could happen before 2020. In which case, gas prices are def not going to be north of $6/gal.

Biden

xp

Sasse won't run against Trump. I doubt Flake will. Kasich badly wants to and probably will.

― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, October 17, 2018 7:11 PM (fifty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

kasich has been running against trump for the last 3 years, trump has been running for the last 4. if Biden runs will be living in 2016 for the rest of our lives

I feel like Beto O'Rourke and some attack dog as VP would probably be a good ticket. They absolutely need to run someone out there who is not 80 years old.

Gas prices definitely an underappreciated sleeper issue for 2020 (even without SA kicking off) but the rest of that sanpaku post ... I don’t know

speaking of the superannuated....

From Esquire, June 1982. Joe Biden's been considered presidential material for nearly 40 years. The undead walk among us. pic.twitter.com/sehBI2jONc

— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) October 17, 2018

stopped clock

> wtf is a "national security Dem"

Military and State dept vets. I've mentioned Seth Moulton upthread as the JFK-alike natural VP pick for 2020 (and he would be a contender for the top slot in 2024+ after a stint in the Senate/MA governor), but there's Gabbard etc. and a whole slate of 2018 newcomers.

As for oil prices, the secular trend is driven by the lack of major conventional reservoir discoveries over the past 50 years or megaproject investments over the last 10 (Chris Skrebowski used to be a great resource on this). US shale wells experience annual decline rates of 25-30%, so with increasing scale they've become a Red Queen's race ("running to stand still") with little opportunity for market impacts. There's a huge backlog of drilled but uncompleted wells in the main plays, but again, the scale and protracted price slump has resulted in a severe shortage of enough fracking completion crews or wastewater disposal to markedly increase production over the next couple years. As for the companies involved, shale E&Ps screwed their shareholders years ago, screwed their institutional creditors over the past couple years, and the Fed cash spigot is closing thanks to "full employment". So, its still all about the Saudis and Iranians.

Serious Chevy Chase vibes off that '82 Biden pic.

maybe all men looked like that in 1982

no. as I recall it, they did not.

Here's @KamalaHarris doing what @MichaelAvenatti got called out for. I'm a bit conflicted on this, because it's important to build small-donor capacity, but also important to be transparent in how it's done... pic.twitter.com/4Z4EHLftwh

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) November 8, 2018

She should fire the consultant who told her this was an acceptable ploy. The fact she agreed to it is troubling.

Yeah what the hell