The Clown Car that is to come

[Phoebe]

Well? Who do you like? I'm uninspired so far. Hopefully Romney will see fit to try to primary Trump (or Pence, depending?) and that changes the options considerably.
I really don't like Gillibrand, Warren, Bernie, and NO WAY to Beto. So... What else ya got?

[bralbovsky]

Gillibrand has been working on her voice, so it's less painful to listen to her. Still has lots to learn.
Bernie is too old, and didn't pull his weight when he had the chance...

This is silly .It's too early to even have a program for this game.

2020 will be a panic election, which means tons of bad decision making. Either Mueller report will come late enough to be a post mortem for US, or just in time. The place is on fire and it won't be getting better. I expect it will be won by a couple of white guys who aren't too scary. When the house is on fire, you want a fireman, not a firefighter (whatever the gillette ad teaches us, it shows how hard we resist evolution), but a fireman. Officer Friendly from 1980. So no girls, no brown people, nobody with weird ideas. A good smile and a few lines on his face. That's what we're going to pick, qualified or not. Pence looks like an undertaker. Kasich Romney is a winning ticket, maybe Biden Beto, because logic will be paralyzed. I don't want any of those guys to be president, mind you, but the bar is so low, anything would be better than Putin.
The guy who pulls you out of the fire doesn't have to be a rocket scientist, just has to have strong arms and a reassuring demeanor. Do we need someone F ing brilliant and radical, yup. That person, who may not exist, will never win in this environment.

So I propose a set of rules. including...No sitting senator is allowed to run. Their getting the majority is too important. No sitting congressperson is allowed to run, same reason. That turns it into an entirely different game.

[Phoebe]

Warren announces run. Liberals: "She's a genius to get out in front of the others!"

Gillibrand announces run. Liberals: "Is she so committed to principles of Justice that people won't elect her? She's too good for us."

Harris announces run. White liberals: "How dare she appropriate MLK day to announce? How dare she fail to prosecute people and companies they only had weak cases against, when she was California AG?" Black liberals: "How dare she be a prosecutor and AG in the first place?" LGBT liberals: "How dare she follow the law as AG in the first place?"

[Mike]

Yes. It is gross and unfair. I'm glad she's fighting the good fight, and I hope people stand with her and highlight the hypocrisy of the left. That being said, I don't think that there is any chance for a brown woman to win the presidency in this environment. Electing a female president at all is already almost a bridge too far. But hopefully her run helps normalize both women and people of color as mainstream candidates.

[poorpete]

For the last decade, I think Gillibrand has been the best senator in America. I don't know if that translates into presidential leadership, but right now she's my preference.

Just like Harris, she's getting hit for doing fine but not-perfect in her previous job, which is like if people kept harping on the one election Obama lost over what happened when he landed on the national stage.

[buckett]

Bernie is pretty clearly the best choice, but this thread is Exhibit 34713874019 that too many people have weird hangups with him.

I'm not over-the-moon with Kamala Harris' AG record - you guys can make all the excuses you want but she did some pretty gross things - but more than happy to overlook it if she actually embraces a progressive platform, which it looks like she might. I think she's saying the right things.

Warren's colossal blunder in taking Trump's bait on the stupid-as-hell genealogy test makes me very worried about whether she is savvy enough to win a general election.

I generally like Gillibrand.

I really, really like Sherrod Brown, both as a candidate himself but also, if he preferred, as a VP pick to someone regarded as more centrist (i.e. Harris) and appease people to their left (i.e. me).