The theme for today appears to be that the Republican field of presidential candidates is lame. The party really is bereft of leadership. It lacks any true statesmen. They don’t even have anybody on the sidelines to come in at the last minute. Honestly, I don’t think we’ve seen a situation like this on the Republican side since 1964. Something similar happened to the Democrats in 1972 when Teddy Kennedy was too damaged by the Chappaquiddick tragedy to run. While George McGovern was a principled candidate who deserved to win, nominating a little known senator from South Dakota demonstrated that the Democrats were in a rebuilding cycle. In some ways, they were never the same party again. Watergate provided an illusory pulse of life to the party, but , in retrospect, it had lost its national viability. I think that is what is happening to the Republicans.
Obama’s reelection chances look very strong at the moment, but I think we’ll probably wind up with an accidental president in 2016. Both Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter were accidental presidents, thrust into power more by strange circumstance than their own merits. For that matter, the same can be said of Gerald Ford and, of course, Lyndon Johnson. Very few people predicted any of them would be president, and I don’t think anyone will accurately predict who will follow Obama into the White House.
I do feel confident that it won’t be anyone in the current field of Republican candidates. They really are monumentally lame.
I want Kirsten Gillibrand to run in 2016.
Any reason?
Good fundraiser, her tenure in the Senate is where I want the rest of the Democratic Party to be, she’s a strong and powerful voice for women’s and gay rights, she has a lot of grassroots support for her efforts on DADT and DOMA, and she’s young. She’ll be 49 or 50 by the time of the election, contrasting with an old white guy the Republicans will inevitably nominate.
Unless of course Marco Rubio runs in 2016, which is my biggest fear. I’d still like her to run, but it’s going to be a lot closer if he wins the nom.
You want another Senator? No thanks!! Why do you think Senators have a hard time getting elected President? At least with Governors, you know what to expect to a better degree.
Do you have a Democratic governor in mind? Schweitzer is all I see, and he’s less of a liberal than Obama. He is somewhat populist — and I do hate populism — and that will probably resonate with a lot people.
Patrick? Doubtful.
Interesting – I was under the vague impression that Schweitzer was some kind of progressive/netroots hero. But I could well be wrong about that. I also got the sense that Schweitzer is a really theatrical, entertaining politician, and frankly the Dems could use more of that sort of thing.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Gilibrand so far. Do you think she has the chops to go all the way? And I’m somewhat skeptical that the electorate would go for two Senators in a row, just given how many votes Congresscritters have to take and how easily demagoguble (made-up word) that is. The last time in living memory that we had two Senators in a row was JFK/LBK, and that was a historical accident.
Rubio scares me too. He seems like a damn effective politician. But he’s very right-wing and the electorate may have shifted a great deal by 2016.
Well he’s decent on energy — although bad on coal — and he’s a strong supporter of drug re-importation (although so was Obama before the give-and-take negotiating stuff came around). He’s vehemently pro-gun. He’s horrible on the War on Drugs. Most of his positions aren’t really on the record, but you probably got that impression because of the Democratic Convention. He’s probably like a populist Harry Reid or something on most issues; yes, very theatrical.
Yes, I think she does. Her being a Senator is something to be skeptical of, but not a reason to reject her. Obviously I’ll need to see the field that comes up from here until then, but as of right now she’s who I’m backing.
The mention of Kirsten Gillibrand is about the only thing that gets my juices flowing talking about the very far-off (in political terms) 2016 race.
She’s getting so good as a senator that it’s even making me a little nervous (in the getting on small planes sense). Best to put it to the side and continue to hope she continues to become an emerging star for a party badly in need of new blood.
As for two senators in a row, this is one of the more insignificant reasons not to consider her in that cycle. I would look at two other things that would make her attractive in comparison to the Dem she would succeed — a bolder (and longer) record standing for strong Dem principles as senator, and second, her her-ness. 2016 may not be the best time for another AA (like the current MA gov Patrick) to run — though I’m aware I’m on dicey racial politics grounds in so saying — but it will be a good time for a strong, viable woman to step up and finish what Hillary almost achieved.
Schweitzer? Smart guy with an interesting int’l background, but reps a population-tiny, nearly all-white, gun-nut state and has this obsessive thing about pushing for “clean” coal (which would coincidentally help the industry in his home state). Not likely to make much of a big splash with the minorities in the party. Haven’t really heard much from him in last few years on the national stage, except for a good speech at the 2008 convention.
Second that.
Color me PollyAnna, but if 2010 demonstrated anything to the Independents and barely committed Dems it is that not voting for Dems or staying home does not simply translate into a lesson learned for Dem leadership, it allows the Destroyers a place at the table where they will be intent on masacre.
If that lesson finally sinks in and the GOP candidates continue to swirl in the toilet we should go for the gold and grab the last chance to take back Congress, keep Obama in and with nothing to lose on a last term mentality for him, really make some progressive fixes. When if not now?
Great plan. What issues will the Democrats run on in 2012? I mean, after they agree to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; after they give up on job stimulus; after they’ve agreed that budget cutting is the only game in town.
“We’re bad, but the other guy’s worse?” Seriously, that’s the plan?
Indeed.
Yes, cutting social security, medicare, and medicaid certainly makes ME fired up and ready to go, especially when i consider how much I have saved for retirement. Boy that president Obama, he’s sure a winner, eh. Hope and change!
I really think this is a deliberate move so they can pull Jeb Bush’s name out of the hat. He has been laying low for just this reason and will appear as the new, clean and reasonable candidate. God forbid….he ruined Florida and gave us “w”.
Russ Feingold is to me the person who has the most credibility. I mean we’re talking politicians here, so I’m not believing that he is a pure as new snow, but I think that he has the integrity and the basic human decency to be an effective progressive president.
Unless this country changes beyond recognition by then (for the better), I just don’t see Feingold as a realistic candidate in 2016.
Feingold may run again in the new WI – for gov or senate
The republicans have shown they do not need a republican president to get their polices enacted. All they need is control of one part of the government, a POTUS that governs to the right of where he ran (and is afraid to stand up and be counted), and our radical SCOTUS. Do a little rending of garments, and you get what you want.
This; http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/they-shot-few-hostages.html
In such circumstances why bother with somebody who is ‘reasonable’? You can depend on the Democrats to put up a moderate republican that will give you all that you want.
nalbar
I’m still not seeing where Obama is acting to the right of where he ran.
He ran as the “Don’t you think times were good under Clinton? Let’s go back to that, except without all the screaming about scandals” candidate. So far, that seems to be what we’ve gotten – the screaming about scandals has been mostly confined to fake crap like the birthers rather than true-but-trivial crap like the Ken Starr garbage. (As always, actual scandals in the government are ignored – trivial scandals boosted.) And he’s operating pretty much exactly as I would expect Bill Clinton to operate in this environment – except that Clinton was lucky enough to ride the economic wave of the tech bubble and Obama has had nothing like it. Policy-wise, though, I feel like I’m getting exactly what he promised – a return to Clintonism. Many folks forget just how much liberals hated Clinton during his first term in office, I think. I was consistently shocked during the campaign that so many liberals were rallying around someone who was actively promising them that he would be Bill Clinton part 2. I just figured that after 8 years of Bush, Clinton looked a helluva lot better.
(Hillary Clinton ran as the “Don’t you think times were good under Clinton? Let’s go back to that” candidate. She lost partly because of her Iraq war stance but I still contend she mostly lost because people saw Obama as a valid alternative “back to Clinton” candidate and hoped that he could keep his hands to himself for 8 years.)
Actually O ran as the Didn’t you think Clinton was a tepid incrementalist? candidate, the Didn’t you think Reagan was much more of a transformational president? candidate, vs Hillary’s “I think 8 yrs of my husband’s peace and prosperity presidency was transformational”.
O won over HRC mostly on the excitement and newness factors — to his credit he ran a better campaign, while Hillary (my candidate), forgetting it was the lib base-dominating primary season and not the general election, ran an Orthogonian sensible, moderate one with Mark Penn in charge. Let either her hubby, or a Paul Begala or even a Terry McAuliffe run that campaign, and she wins the nom then the general against the hapless and stupid McCain/Palin.
Wouldn’t Biden be the presumptive candidate for 2016? I think he’s been a good veep thus far, is there any reason he would not be the VP candidate in 2012? Hillary? God I hope not.
Joe Biden will be 74 in 2016, and Hillary Clinton will be 69. That is getting a little old to win.
Hillary Clinton’s current activism as Secretary of State indicates to me that she sees being a Secretary of State who navigated US policy through the Arab Awakening to be the capstone of her career. If it turns out well, she could be seen as of the stature of George C. Marshall as Secretary of State.
she could retire to the SCOTUS also
of course if she does, and Thomas hasn’t retired in a huff already, I’m going to lobby for televising.
In earlier times, I might agree. But I think that any new SCOTUS candidates will be in their fifties just to put their stamp on the court for a generation.
Democratic candidates win when the Democratic establishment backs them solidly. In 1972, the Democratic establishment in many state sat on their hands because in the aftermath of 1968, the convention in 1972 was opened up in a way that the establishment couldn’t control. Well, in 1972 the Democratic establishment taught those idealistic kids a lesson all right. Barack Obama was a little-known Senator from Illinois who made a Ronald Reagan style splash as a keynote speaker in 2004. Jimmy Cater was a little-known governor of Georgia. Bill Clinton was a little-known governor of Arkansas who bombed his keynote speech in 1988.
As for Carter, here is the primary field he was up against: Jerry Brown, George Wallace, Mo Udall, Scoop Jackson, Frank Church, Robert Byrd, and Hubert Humphrey.
And here is the result (map) in the primary.
And the result in the general election.
Given the strength of the field, I don’t think there’s anything accidental about Carter’s election at all. But in 1976, the Democratic Party created super-delegates–essentially the Democratic establishment in sanitized and smokeless form. Knowing that they could be kingmakers again, Carter benefitted from an aggressive turnout where there were still major political machines.
As for 2016, the Democratic candidate list looks like:
John Hickenlooper
Dan Malloy
Martin O’Malley
Deval Patrick
Mark Dayton
Brian Schweitzer
John Lynch
Kirsten Gillibrand
Al Franken
Sherrod Brown
Maria Cantwell
The Republicans are in a mess right now, and their bench depends on how many of their shining star governors survive re-election. But at a minimum, they have:
Rick Perry
Jeb Bush
Terry Branstad
Sam Brownback
Mary Fallin
Nikki Haley
Bob McDonnell
Scott Brown (if Massachusetts elects him to a full term)
(Fallin and Haley only because they are most likely shoo-ins to be re-elected based on the Republican dominance of their states)
Yep, I don’t see any of the current crop in the mix for reasons of age or sanity.
But it could be that 2012 instead of being the same old fight could be a realigning election in which a totally different frame is put on issues.
Here’s a wild question about 2016, given the fields. Is this an election in which an outsider to politics altogether could make a go at it, either within one of the parties, as a third party candidate, or as an independent? And would that candidacy come from the left, the right, or the “center”?
And a warning. A lame candidate, given the right circumstances, can still win — George W. Bush is a good example. So don’t count on the public’s awareness of a candidate’s lameness to carry the day.
It takes more than just having the backing of the Dem Establishment wing for Dems to win. It’s more accurate to say you need both wings — moderate and liberal — united, plus a confident, competent nominee who knows how to campaign aggressively and boldly. HHH and JC in 68 and 80 respectively had the backing of the establishment, but not the liberal base. Both lost. The party was more united in 1988 but had a weak candidate as campaigner. United wings in 92 and 2008 w/excellent campaigners.
(minor factual correction: Clinton in ’88 was the nominating speaker — the only one — not the keynoter, who was Gov Richards)
And 2016? Right now, who cares? What’s becoming more interesting by the day is the way Obama is squandering his 2012 chances with his constant caving on bedrock Dem principles in order to appear as some reasonable “grown up” in the budget fights with the GOP. And if current trends continue, if he insists on bargaining away the New Deal in order to look moderate and sensible to the political middle and the Establishment, he’s going to lose his party’s base just as Jimmy Carter did in ’80 or HHH in ’68.
Obama has suddenly gone from reasonably safe for re-elect to no better than 50-50, even with a rogue’s gallery crop of shape-shifting Goopers with no clear front runner and no Bush in the race, at least for now. Dems should not take 2012 for granted …
My first point went to the sandbagging of McGovern by the state and local establishments.
My point about Carter was that he was not accidental. He had to work very hard amidst a strong field to come up with the nomination.
Dems should not take 2012 for granted, but the way to win 2012 is to win back Congress in a way that tests what Obama’s vision really is. I’m afraid that at the moment the math in the Senate is not there, and the Senate leadership is making it worse. It would be a good time for the Senate to publicly stand up and tell the President strongly and firmly “No” on a compromise. But we are in an era of orchestrated statements, not real debate. Call it kabuki if necessary. And the intent is not to show division within the party ranks even though it is substantial.
I am beginning to think that none of the current crop of candidates will be the nominee. And I don’t think they can run with another Bush quite yet.
One other thing to notice is the referendum items that Republican legislatures in swing states (and NC is is one in 2012) are putting on the ballot. More constitutional amendments against gay marriage, for example. Constitution restraints on tax increases. Anything to fire up listless voters.
Well my point about McG was that he stood for the proposition that winning candidates in our party usually need to be able to adequately bridge the ideological divide between the two wings, and not essentially represent just one or the other (McG, my first vote, and proud of it, easily was in the antiwar liberal wing). Muskie was probably the only viable candidate that year who had the ability to bring both sides together. McG lost the chance to beat Nixon the moment he was nominated (following his CA victory).
And sandbagging occurred not just at the local/state levels, but at the national one: LBJ gave only the most tepid, technical “endorsement” and pointedly declined to appear in public with George at his ranch. Big Labor leaders didn’t want him. A fairly prominent Democrats for Nixon national movement sprang up — started by some TX Dem pols, promoted by those in the moderate establishment wing.
Carter: yep, he worked hard, and long, starting with the then-newly important IA caucuses. Hard work, but helped tremendously by a very favorable MSM (Johnny Apple at the NYT FP’g his 2d-place finish in IA as a huge upset), plus a field crowded with many liberals most of whom had woefully underfunded or late-starting campaigns (thus, not quite the very strong field it looks like on paper), and finally a few conservative types (Scoop, Wallace) both of whom were much more flawed, or shopworn, than the moderate fresh-faced Carter.
Agree about encouraging Congress to push Obama towards a bolder vision. And I wonder whether there’s anyone in the Obama admin in the inner policy circle who’s in a position to tell him about his failure so far to draw the line in the sand. Clinton had a few no-nonsense, courageous lib principles-oriented people like that or those who knew when to say No to major, extreme GOP demands — particularly Hillary — as did JFK (Sorensen, Ken O’Donnell his chief of staff, Arthur Schlesinger, and of course Bobby).
Obama seems to have surrounded himself with a bunch of bipartisan moderate types, and perhaps those also not inclined to strongly speak out and tell the boss he needs to do better. Axelrod is off about to help run re-elect, and soft liberal type Plouffe doesn’t strike me as the bold, outspoken type of the sort capable of telling O he needs to get tougher with the Repubs. Biden, maybe, unless for some reason he feels insecure about staying on the ticket next year.
Joe Biden will be 70 next year. He is most likely retiring, not insecure. And he’s a smart enough pol to know that a strong young vice-presidential candidate can set up a strong position for 2016.
I hadn’t thought of this scenario. So game out who the 2012 vice presidential candidate should be to position for a strong 2016.
Here’s a starter list:
Russ Feingold has the stature and is not too old (63 in 2016) – however does not balance geographically
Mark Pryor – geographical balance – Southern state – but not likely to swing Southern votes
Michael Bennet (52 in 2016) – geographical balance
Chris Coons – (53 in 2016) – geographical balance, but freshman Senator
Amy Klobuchar – (56 in 2016) – but no geographical balance
Al Franken – probably the only one who could run at his age (65) in 2016 – wide appeal in progressive wing makes up for lack of geographical balance
Kirsten Gillibrand – (50 in 2016) – probably the youngest strong candidate – geographical balance – easy to backfill Senate seat
Jeff Merkley – (60 in 2016) – geographical balance
Sheldon Whitehouse – (61 in 2016) – geographical balance – strong liberal creds – good record
Maria Cantwell – (58 in 2016) – geographical balance – strong liberal creds – strong record
Gabrielle Giffords – (46 in 2016) – assuming full recovery – name recognition – geographical balance
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz – (50 in 2016) – FOB – DNC chair – geographical balance – Southern state
Jim McGovern – (57 in 2016) – geographical balance
Keith Ellison – (53 in 2016) – gutsy move
Steve Israel – (58 in 2016) – DCCC chair, geographic balance
Ben Lujan – (44 in 2016) – Hispanic, geographical balance, young, renewable energy cred
Heath Shuler – (45 in 2016) – geographical balance, Blue Dog — yeah right!
Tim Ryan – (43 in 2016) – Ohio – progressive cred
Dan Boren – (43 in 2016) – Southern state – conservative wing
Tammy Baldwin – (54 in 2016) – liberal cred – Madison WI
Hilda Solis – (59 in 2016) – Hispanic, cabinet secretary (exec experience), geographical balance, labor cred
Shaun Donovan – (50 in 2016) – there, but not likely
Janet Napolitano – (59 in 2016) – Governor, geographic balance, national security experience
And here’s the Obama punch-a-hippie counter-intuitive possibility: David Petraeus
A little surprised to see you think Biden will step aside next year. I haven’t gotten such an impression, and while I agree it makes some solid political sense for setting up our 2016 nominee, and personally I would favor it as I also think a very dynamic replacement could also enhance O’s re-elect chances — we also know high-powered pols can be very sensitive about maintaining their positions and status and so may resist the political logic.
That’s probably doubly true of the VP slot — most of those who’ve been removed (Ds haven’t done it since FDR, iirc, though there were interesting rumors that JFK wanted LBJ gone, and LBJ may have believed them in the final year of his VPcy) have either not gone willingly or eagerly or have already previously laid down some sort of record signaling they’d become disloyal and unreliable.
That said, assuming Biden is going willingly, my top picks would meet this basic criteria: that s/he would have to likely improve the chances for the ticket’s success, rather than just the usual “not hurt” VP slot standard criterion.
So, Kirsten Gillibrand, my top pick. He’d want to go younger, a little more liberal in the relative perception to the P, and female since he’s hurting a bit with the white female group last I checked. Plus also KG is a positive, energetic personality. Contrast with the older, low-wattage Napolitano for instance. Doubtful if Gabrielle Giffords will have fully recovered by next year — and a very intense national campaign is something she’s never experienced. Probably too much recovery too quickly to ask.
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (sp) would be my 2d choice in the VP stakes. Younger, more lib, woman, positive likable personality.
As to other female senators: don’t know them well enough to comment.
The men: no clear first pick. But with another male on the ticket yet again, O would need something more than just geographical balance. Again, some energetic charismatic personality to go with a more liberal record than O has shown so far — that helps firm up base support which is badly sagging right now. So, eliminate all moderate DLC or blue dog types in this scenario.
Feingold: just too temperamentally mavericky to trust on a ticket in the #2 slot, though I like his politics usually, etc.
Franken: probably a laughable idea, particularly since he’s a Dem and thus would be treated snarkily by the MSM, but I’d be intrigued nonetheless. Smart, likable, knows the issues well and is a couple of ticks to the left of Obama where he could help with the base. Prefer woman, but if not, Franken — to shake things up especially if in a come-from-behind or near-Hail Mary scenario mid-2012.
When I say that Carter was an ‘accidental’ president, I mean that he wouldn’t have won without Watergate. It doesn’t reflect on him personally or how hard he fought to win. What I’m getting at is that the Dems were basically dead as a national party after 1968 but they got this massive infusion of life from Watergate, which gave them huge majorities in Congress that took a long time to whittle down, and gave them a four-year stint in the White House that they didn’t really have any right to expect.
Without Watergate, we might not have had a Democratic president until 1992 or 1996 or maybe not at all. Our country has a right-wing streak and the laws and media make it very hard for a left-leaning party to win nationally.
What’s changing is the demographics. Before too long, it will be the Republicans who can only hope for a big scandal or a massive economic downturn to get them in the White House.
Is your argument that without Watergate, Reagan would have won the GOP nomination four years earlier? I was in the South during much of this period, and I did not see the popularity of Reagan in 1974 an 1975 that I did in 1979 and 1980. And Carter won all of the Southern states in 1976, but only Georgia in the South in 1980 (he did not suffer Gore’s indignity).
And the county results in 1980 are very interesting if Carter lost because he was not right-wing enough. That is a very striking political map.
I’m trying to predict the Republican and Democratic fields without Watergate. Spiro Agnew wouldn’t have been in it (he would fit in the current Congress however). So Howard Baker, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Rockefeller, Harold Stassen, John Anderson, George H. W. Bush. Democrats would have looked the same. Carter decided to run before Watergate ever hit. He positioned himself as a Southern liberal in the mold of Lyndon Johnson but without the rough edges. When he began his campaign, he was very popular in Georgia because he had moved the state beyond segregation after Lester Mattox’s administration and had streamlined government administration — no, that did not mean cutting.
The demographics work only as long as the GOP is bigoted against African-Americans and Hispanics. There is a lot of sympathy for the GOP emphasis on individual responsibility and social issues. But the demographics start fragmenting as a block as prosperity draws off upper middle class people into core Republican themes. Not likely soon, but it’s there if the GOP ever reforms.
I wasn’t trying to predict the candidates without Watergate. That could be an interesting exercise, but it wasn’t my point.
My point is that the Democratic coalition broke up in 1968. The loss in 1972 was no fluke. It was an indicator that we no longer had a majority party. I believe we would have lost Congress shortly after 1972 if not for Watergate. And it would have stayed lost for a while. I also think we would have had trouble winning the 1976 election. And I think we would have faired just as badly as we actually did in 1980, 1984, and 1988. It may have even extended out all the way to the present day if not for two other flukes (Ross Perot and George W. Bush). I don’t think the Democrats have a national party, and I don’t think they’ve had one since RFK was gunned down. What’s happening, though, is that the Republicans are imploding and are not a national party either anymore. So, we have this giant space in the middle that Obama is trying to hold, and it’s making progressives go insane.
Let’s not forget the role of the all-the-time media in the last cycle. The coverage of a handful people as a “massive Tea Party turnout”; the heavily-right weighted coverage starting one heartbeat after Obama was elected; the failure to see the word “filibuster” anywhere anytime over two years; and the complete and utter lack of historical context in any news organization.
The reeps may not have a candidate that meets your definition of ‘viable’, but with a media like ours, the ultimate pick probably won’t need one.
I think their field is exactly who they are.