New Republic: The Democrats Must Nominate Another Woman for President

[Virginiá]

https://newrepublic.com/article/145867/democrats-must-nominate-another-woman-president

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Putting aside all the Clinton-talk in the article, I did think the idea was interesting. Trump's presidency is serving as a serious galvanizing force for women, and indeed a lot of the "resistance" is being powered by women, so Democrats would be wise to find a strong female candidate who is relatively scandal-free and can command the enthusiasm of a large base of supporters. They need to take advantage of the political furor that is ongoing right now, and if Trump runs again, it will be even more imperative. It will give women a very good reason to hit the streets to support the candidate. As we can see now, there is a lot more grassroots energy now than during the Obama era, and the right candidate can supercharge that in 2020.

I still think it should be Warren, for both ideological reasons but also because she is passionate/authentic in her beliefs and connects with liberals in ways other candidates probably can't. I know Atlas loves to say Warren would be defeated anywhere from a squeaker to a landslide (lol), but I just can't disagree more. I don't even really understand why this is a widespread opinion either. It seems like it could be due to a lot of polls showing opinions of her more polarized than other politicians, but one must also consider that she is somewhat more well known and conservatives have been trying to muddy up her image for some time now. In fact, iirc, it's actually a priority of the GOP to try and drag her down before 2020 is even here.

Anyway, thoughts?

[Virginiá]

jfern, what is your honest opinion of Gillibrand and her progressive bonafides? I'm a bit curious whether she is one of those more moderate Democrats that jumped on the progressive bandwagon when they saw that was the way the window was blowing, or if she has some history with it.

One thing the 2020 candidate needs is to be authentic, or at the very least, appear authentic (shudders). This is a pretty important attribute with Millennials at least, and it would be a waste to get stuck with someone who comes off as an opportunist, either from the start or after months of nasty campaigning against the GOP nominee.

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Given my beliefs about how the country's political orientations are shifting (re: TD/BTM), I'm a bit more picky about who I want leading the party into the 2020s. I feel like there is going to be a real opportunity to enact actual change sometime in the next 10 - 15 years, and I'd hate for that to be squandered with a candidate who isn't willing to take some risks.

[Virginiá]

but if it becomes all about IT'S MY TURN, I'll probably look at other candidates in the primary.

I think if 2020's nominee is a woman, they will probably be more reserved about that. At least I'd hope so. It didn't look so great for Clinton, and it's superfluous to boot. Everyone knows that it would be a big deal to elect a woman as president, and talking about it a ton like Clinton did can be a turn off to some voters. The candidate would be wise to emphasize their other strengths, and let the gender aspect speak for itself, outside of maybe some limited gestures meant to motivate their primary supporters/volunteer base.

[Virginiá]

They seem to have realized that defending Hillary and Bill has no upside anymore. Gillibrand, who owes much of her success to the Clinton machine's support, will not be the last major democratic contender to condemn them. I think the democrats will nominate a woman, but it shouldn't impact the result of the election unless they try to run with "vote for HER because it's time for a WOMAN to be president" again while ignoring the real issues. What even was Hillary's message? It seemed like her gender was her only selling point. While I dislike Warren, she'd at least rally the base behind ideas.

Hillary's platform had a huge number of policies described, and in an ideal world, people would have just looked that up and knew what she was selling them. But that's not the world we live in. People want a clear, concise message about a generic theme that doesn't involve a lot of policy nuance. The only way to drive that into people's skulls is to ramble on about it over and over again, and talk about it every chance they get. But we all know Hillary didn't do that. In fact, ad-wise, she talked about policy less than almost every party candidate for the last generation, iirc.

Point is, the actual ideas are not the problem here. The next candidate, Warren included, needs to find an clear, effective theme for their ideas that makes sense to people. However this is not something I think Warren would have trouble with. She comes off as authentic, and she already has a brand that she sells well.

[Virginiá]

I knew what policies she ostensibly supported, but you cannot deny that she failed to in any way make the case for them. Her campaign was focused entirely on "Vote for me because I'm a woman and Trump is an asshole" She wavered considerably on policy when actually asked, as seen by her trying to walk back calling TPP the gold standard of trade deals.

Well not only did she not talk about it enough (or at the right times), but something else I left out of my post is that the candidate needs to become ubiquitously associated with the theme they are selling in voters' minds. Bernie's authentic feel and non-stop talk about the 1%/etc practically made him synonymous with the word billionaire. Compare that to Hillary, who became synonymous with the words corruption and liar. This was largely out of her control once she started her campaign. Her actions as Secretary of State ruined her political future, but she wouldn't find that out until years later. I think there is a limit to how much any politician can become "known for something." Sometimes things happen that kind of derail them, and make it hard for people to see that person in any other light.

It's for this reason that Hillary was almost doomed from the start. Once that email scandal broke, and the FBI investigation that followed, and all the other little things all just helped paint her as corrupt and almost everything people hate about politicians. I'm not sure she could have talked her way out of that. No amount of great campaign ads, or great speeches were going to change it. Every time things started looking good for her, Comey chimed back in with something new to say that once again reminded people of who she was. Or new emails were leaked. Or whatever. It just kept going on like this. The only thing that kept her viable, imo, was Trump and his ability to surround himself with his own scandals.

Maybe in the future, the party can develop a mechanism to eject a candidate from the party if they become embroiled in criminal investigations/huge scandals at the start of a presidential election.

[Virginiá]

Hey there why are you saying he should report me? There’s a limit to how many characters you can post (it basically stops you from posting more than a certain number of characters ), so I don’t think I did something wrong.
You can put the two threads together if it really bothers you but tbh I see multiple threads on the same issue constantly, so I wasn’t aware that was an issue...

Well, there is actually a rule against re-posting entire articles (or most of) because not all sites/newspapers/etc freely allow redistribution of entire works like that. It's easier to just limit the amount you post from the article, so as to fall under fair use guidelines. I forget what the exact restriction is - maybe like max of 20% of the article or something. Most new threads I start are news articles, and I tend to take a few paragraphs that I feel best summarize what the article is about.

Also, having a post reported isn't always bad / a person trying to get you in trouble or anything like that. Sometimes it's just to have a thread merged with something else, or moved to another board, or whatever.