Your 2020 Presidential Candidate Speculation Thread

agreed

my current faves: Gillibrand, Duckworth, and Oregon's Junior Senator Jeff Merkley.

"Inevitable" is an albatross as a political tag

especially 3 years out from an election

i really dig gillibrand.

I can't remember if it was Pod Save America or Axelrod's podcast where she did it, but Gillibrand openly and convincingly apologized for a vote she once cast and that she now has a full understanding of why it was the wrong side to take on an issue (gun related legislation, iirc) and I've never heard a politician on any level in either party be so contrite and willingly admit to being wrong. That won me over on her for sure (and voting no on all of Trump's cabinet appointments for as long she did helped).

― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Sunday, December 3, 2017 4:19 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think it was immigration actually, unless she's done it twice, in which case all the better.

The Secret to Understanding Kamala Harris

nothing to add here pic.twitter.com/ARYNwCaqA3

— Shuja Haider (@shujaxhaider) January 12, 2018

Warren says she's not running.

http://www.newser.com/story/256430/warren-not-running-for-president-but-hedges-on-one-thing.html

Warren is pretty clear about it every time she gets asked. I don't know why it makes news sometimes and doesn't at others.

I have no idea whether she will in fact run, but anytime anyone says "I'm not running" without further specification, they should be understood to be referring only to the present moment and not any future moment.

Warren will not run.

but who will unite the dems, whoooooooo

if Gillibrand sticks to eschewing corporate PAC donations and will unambiguously argue for single payer i think she'd probably do ok at bridging the Bernie wing and the With Her Still wing

Yeah, Gillibrand is carefully constructing her 2020 candidacy while everyone else is just looking at their month-at-a-glance calendars.

Not if you’re watching Senate hearings but OK

TOMBOT WHO WILL UNITE THE DEMZ

When was the last time anybody scored a soundbyte in a senate hearing that paid off big dividends in a presidential campaign?

subquestion: does it matter whether or not a presidential candidate knows anything about policy

which is more important: how much a candidate knows about, i don't know, anything at all, or how much time they've spent on tv

i actually think that overall, even in the post-trump era, knowing anything about anything is more important, but it's not a slam dunk case

boy, all those undecided voters who are paying close attention to what potential candidates are doing 24 months before the primaries are going to flock to gillibrand, i tell you! flock!

This far out, the most a candidate can do is talk to insiders, by which I mean elected politicians, county-level party chairs, donors, and known activists (paid or unpaid), and try to drum up early support, whether it is a wholehearted commitment or a cautiously provisional one. The voters have no one on their radars, yet.

Nobody is going to unite the demz

Whichever poor bastard has to pretend to be the DSA “leader” endorsing the 2020 candidate at the convention, well, they will have taken the job, such as it will be.

The verb phrasing will be easier at that point though

The Democrats looked kind of disunited in 2006, too. Right up until they didn't.

so youre saying obama should run again

danny de vito is going to unite the demz

demz what?

demz nutz

ty

they seem to be doing good with Generic Democrat vs. Trump in all those polls. they just need someone with no personal opinions, no past history, no way to speak to the public, no physical body, etc.

an...al gore rhythm...if you will

well done

haha

holy shit

"if Gillibrand sticks to eschewing corporate PAC donations and will unambiguously argue for single payer i think she'd probably do ok at bridging the Bernie wing and the With Her Still wing"

there's already a contingent that hates her for going after Franken (a contingent that has chalked the entire franken thing up to russian interference) and a good portion of those people seem to be bernie people, so I don't know.

really? i thought they were mostly hillary ppl --- most of the bernie-lovin lefties i follow on twitter seem pretty nonplussed by anything to do with "russian interference"

the narrative that russia did everything bad seems to have been most enthusiastically embraced by centrists unwilling to confront the fact that the dems made some pretty dumb decisions in the election, but maybe i'm off base here idk

if you mean they're perplexed why anyone would go that off the deep end into russian interference, yeah

sorry i shouldn't be snotty about the actual meaning of 'nonplussed.' your post is otm, not off base at all

Ordinarily the specter of Russian interference, apart from actual manipulation of the vote totals, would seem like a fairly small splash in a very big pond, but there are plenty of reasons why this does not apply to 2016, an election where the distortions created by the electoral college allowed a minority of voters (~3 million fewer votes) to elect the president, and the three most decisive states were decided by extremely thin margins. Not to mention that the candidate who benefitted from these anomalous events to become POTUS is a racist, semi-literate narcissist with proto-fascist leanings.

Under the circumstances, if Russia intervened sufficiently to help create this result, the majority, who voted against it, should be furious.

Someone said something about an exhaustive list? I won't go that far, but I'll list about two dozen of the likeliest Democratic candidates (at least 1/3 of whom likely won't end up running), and some of the likelier also-runs:

Joe Biden
Cory Booker
Sherrod Brown
Steve Bullock
Andrew Cuomo
John Delaney
Eric Garcetti
Kirsten Gillibrand
Luis Gutierrez
Kamala Harris
John Hickenlooper
Eric Holder (or Sally Yates?)
Jay Inslee
Van Jones (as Oprah's campaign manager?)
Amy Klobuchar
Mitch Landrieu
Terry McAuliffe
Jeff Merkley
Martin O'Malley
Deval Patrick
Tim Ryan
Bernie Sanders
Tom Steyer
Elizabeth Warren

Might run to make Joe Biden look youthful?: Jerry Brown
Might run to constantly poke Andrew Cuomo?: Bill de Blasio
Might run to No Elizabeth Warren?: Gina Raimondo
Might run for Vice President/as surrogate?: Cheri Bustos, Julian Castro, Jason Kander, Patrick Kennedy, Seth Moulton, Chris Murphy, Eric Swalwell
Might run to support Putin/Trump?: Tulsi Gabbard, Dennis Kucinich

Possible Republican challengers if Trump remains in office: Mark Cuban, Jeff Flake, John Kasich, Mitt Romney

Possible Republican candidates if Trump is removed from office: Steve Bannon, Marsha Blackburn, Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich, Nikki Haley, Mark Meadows, Mike Pence, Marco Rubio, Ben Sasse, Rick Scott, Scott Walker

Possible Independent tickets if Trump is the nominee and Dems nominate a Sanders-type figure: Michael Bloomberg/Mike Mullen, John Kasich/John Hickenlooper, Howard Schultz/Mark Cuban or vice versa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1SdjRSqqHE

I think Biden wants to run and today is more likely than not to do so, but not sure he'll be better than 50-50 next year. I think a handful of Senators may run, but that Klobuchar won't, that probably only one (at best) of Brown/Merkley(/Ryan) will, and have my doubts about both Booker and Harris, though at this point I expect both Sanders and Warren, even if less sure as to the latter. The Governors are harder to read at this stage, by design, but I expect at least one each from East and West, and maybe two. Garcetti appears to be running, and not sure he'll be the only big- (or smaller-)city mayor, but he's the only one I'd put above 50%. The out-of-offices I'm pretty skeptical of, though Patrick, e.g., may be likelier if Biden begs off. What Steyer's up to, I have no idea. I'll guess maybe 12-15 contenders.

i assume de blasio will be running. he has enough national recognition and is very tall, so he would seem likely to attract enough support to be considered a Serious Candidate, at least at the beginning.

knew it was gabb before i finished scrolling down

btw your list is insanely long

I like Merkely. He has a strong set of progressive positions he can push. But he'd really have to catch fire to have any chance. He's a little-known name, from a small state, and not very charismatic, although the same could be said of Bernie.

otoh, Bernie lost the nomination in what was essentially a two-person field by Super Tuesday. I don't think Merkely can stand out in the crowd that will be running this time.

btw your list is insanely long

― NBA YoungBoy named Rocky Raccoon (m bison), Tuesday, March 13, 2018 7:40 PM (forty-one seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Also distinguished. But not exhaustive.

I endeavored to list those likeliest to run, not those likeliest to succeed. I think there's a serious prospect of Merkley running, though he may well be among the drop-out-before-or-right-after-Iowa cohort.

Everybody I know in Oregon loves Merkley. I'm on the same page with a lot of his positions, but what a drip. He's the Tim Pawlenty of righty politics.

(I still lol when I remember Lawrence O'Donnell 100% GUARANTEED that Tim Pawlenty would be the GOP nominee shortly before he dropped out of the race.)

*lefty

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/286/197/c6c.jpg

What matters most...no the only thing that matters to me is what their position was on TPP

"if Gillibrand sticks to eschewing corporate PAC donations and will unambiguously argue for single payer i think she'd probably do ok at bridging the Bernie wing and the With Her Still wing"

there's already a contingent that hates her for going after Franken (a contingent that has chalked the entire franken thing up to russian interference) and a good portion of those people seem to be bernie people, so I don't know.

― akm, Monday, March 12, 2018 9:20 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

really? i thought they were mostly hillary ppl --- most of the bernie-lovin lefties i follow on twitter seem pretty nonplussed by anything to do with "russian interference"

the narrative that russia did everything bad seems to have been most enthusiastically embraced by centrists unwilling to confront the fact that the dems made some pretty dumb decisions in the election, but maybe i'm off base here idk

― gbx, Monday, March 12, 2018 10:15 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

like legit people with any visibility or just the trolls that go on her facebook page and vomit rage every time she has a sponsored post? like i'm genuinely asking.

bc i've seen a whole lot of the latter and i don't want to be 'that guy' but if i were working for the GOP i'd figure we might as well start sowing discord/ kneecapping potentially strong Dem contenders ASAP.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/01/why-obama-has-failed-to-close-guantanamo

multiple "viral" 80s Bernie vids making the rounds lately but none seem particularly damning (or interesting)

where someone did the dramatic heel turn and reversed a stance upon getting safely elected?

this happens all the time

There's a good case to be made that Trump made half a dozen outrageous promises while campaigning, such as 'every one will have great medical insurance and it will be cheaper, too', then transparently did the opposite, but he was transparently conning people in a way rarely seen before.

In general, presidents reverse themselves far less often than Congressional reps, who arrive in Congress and discover they have almost no power as individuals and they need to compromise their positions to fall in line with their party or to horse trade their vote. By contrast, the president has the power to do more things by fiat and doesn't need to heel turn to fall in line.

I'm sure Jim in vancouver sees it more in Canadian politics than we do in the USA, because parliamentary politics are differently structured than here.

This @PeterBeinart piece gets to something that has always bugged me: She was seen as a lackluster campaigner until she beat Scott Brown, then a dynamic campaigner when she didn't challenge Hillary, and now a "school marm" campaigner because uh reasons https://t.co/qmh9YRNbxf

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) April 9, 2019

My hot take on Warren is that she indeed damaged herself (years ago) with the Indian heritage claim, and that this has hurt her in polling, but that polling is being mis-read by people assume she's not a good campaigner. She is *very* good on the stump.

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) April 9, 2019

why bump this thread and not the other one

it all goes to the same place in the end

Forgive me

Current List:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/21/politics/2020-democrats-running-for-president/index.html

Yes. Still 19 candidates.

And also for all of my degenerate friends:
https://www.oddsshark.com/other/2020-usa-presidential-odds-futures

although I like this, because it's graphical
https://www.sportsbettingdime.com/politics/democratic-party-presidential-nominee-odds/

Didn't realize Beto had so much money.