Who will we run in the next presidential cycle and who will they run?

[mirror wall]

Sorry if this has been discussed to death, if so, please simply point out some resources for me. I haven't been keeping up with the political tide lately, and I'm just curious to see what the general consensus is.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. There is no consensus. It's more than two years away.

[MJGurl]

2. Mark Warner!

Clean, green and not obscene!

[Gato Moteado]

4. yeah, he looks good too right about now.......

....we have a good supply of intelligent, qualified people in the party. warner could be the guy. also, he would look good as the vp candidate as well.

[MJGurl]

5. The last thing we need is a Senator/Congressman

running for office. Just getting to that position they have too much ammo against them already.

Hillary/Gore/Kerry et al are damaged goods at this point.

[politicasista]

6. I disagree. Any of those people are qualified....

and have a right to run. We need to let the people speak. Experience is going to be one of many factors for 2008.

Plus, Gore and Kerry have already been through the Rovian smear machine. The media and the RNC will smear ANYONE, regardless if he/she is a governor or senator, clean or not. That is why 2006 is so important.

JMHO.

[MJGurl]

9. of course they are qualified to run

but do you want to field a winner or loser? Putting up candidates that are doomed from the start is no way to win elections.

<Civics mode>

And btw, the USA is NOT a democracy, rather a constitutional republic.

</Civics mode>

[politicasista]

10. Everyone wants a winner

But expecting a "fresh face" to wave a magic wand and think the campaign will be perfect, the media will be fair and balanced, ALL Democrats will be unified and on message, and people will just show up and vote because it's a governor is far from reality.

[MJGurl]

12. My cat has a better chance of winning

than does Hillary. Putting her on the ballot will have the same effect as all the anti-gay ballot items did on the last presidential election -- guarantee that the haters show up to vote. She is way too polarizing. The worst thing my cat is noted for is occasionally getting a turd outside of the literbox.

[woo me with science]

54. Soooo.....

Tell us about your cat.

[karynnj]

17. You define them as doomed

I don't.

By the way, CW is that McCain, who also lost - and lost BADLY - to Bush is the best Republican chance.

[MJGurl]

20. Doomed, in a general election yes they are doomed.

Gore/Kerry couldn't even beat Bush, despite the gold-mine of material he gave his opponents.

I find it highly unlikely that there will EVER be a nominee that has the comedic values Bush presents. The next guy won't have those flaws, and you think the re-treads deserve a shot at whomever it is?

Show me you can

A) do the job
B) win

[politicasista]

22. The GOP controls MOST if not ALL of the broadcast media

If you think Warner or any other Democrat is above the smears, well think again. It doesn't matter if the candidate is a clean, fresh face, as long as the media is under GOP, control they will go after ANYONE just like they did Gore/Kerry.

Will you stay on message or repeat the lies of the media about the Democratic nominee? Without a fair election and media control, it won't matter if that "clean" candidate will show us that he/she can do the job or win.

[MJGurl]

24. No one is above smears

but I think Gore/Kerry have too many "skid marks" on their reputation already.

And I think the "The GOP controls MOST if not ALL of the broadcast media" rhetoric is just as ridiculous as the Jews control the media, Hollywood etc.

[politicasista]

26. That's cause by 08, they will have nothing left to throw at them

A new, clean, candidate will have EVERYTHING thrown at them. Gore/Kerry have already been through the fire, and both have made mistakes and know what to do differently in the next election cycle. The same that happened to them will happen to anyone period.

[MJGurl]

28. There's an old saying in the music industry.

"You can't polish a turd".

[politicasista]

29. You calling Gore/Kerry turds? n/t

[MJGurl]

30. the way they run campaigns.

[politicasista]

31. What candidate/nominee has ever ran a PERFECT campaign? n/t

[MJGurl]

33. You confuse "perfect" with "successfull"

And that being said I don't think there is a snowball's chance in hell that Gore/Kerry could beat a GOP sponsored pink baboon. They have proven in the past that they run bad campaigns. Seriously, why waste resources on these guys?

[politicasista]

34. I mean successful too

Why don't you trying running a campaign if not running for office. You don't know what those two men went through. There characters/records were attacked, their familes were attacked and viciously smeared, and their images were nothing but lies from the media.

Gore/Kerry have MORE integrity in their bare hands that Bush EVER will.


Could you deal with that?

Noticed you didn't answer the question about what candidate/nominee has ran a PERFECT/SUCCESSFUL campaign.:eyes:

[MJGurl]

39. Tough Titty

So they dealt with a lot of unpleasentries. Thats the price you have to pay if you want to win power. It's not like they didn't know what they were getting into.

And YOU didn't address the issue of "media being controlled by XXXX" as anything but rhetoric.

Sounds like you had a horse in the race at some point. All the losers go to the knackers.

[politicasista]

40. It is NOT rhetoric. It's the truth

Some facts:

In his new book, “Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over For Bush,” Eric Boehlert dissects the Beltway media’s culpability during the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth smear campaign from the 2004 campaign and concludes the episode “likely delivered Bush the cushion he needed to win in November” and “represented an embarrassing new benchmark for campaign season reporting.” “Lapdogs” holds the press accountable for the central role it played in enabling a smear campaign that consumed the crucial campaign month of August 2004 — “a media monsoon that washed away Kerry’s momentum coming out of the Democratic convention.”

How, for instance, the Washington Post published 13 page-one Swift Boat stories in 12 days, most of which failed to address the key fact that the Swift boat allegations — that Kerry lied about his Vietnam War record — were riddled with errors and compounded by the veterans’ fanciful, ever-changing stories. Despite the lack of evidence to substantiate their claims, which were floated 35 years after the fact and bankrolled by partisan Republicans, the press refused, in real time, to call out the Swift Boat allegations as a dirty trick.

http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=2880

More:

The Fox News Effect

By Richard Morin
Thursday, May 4, 2006; Page A02

We report. You decide. Does President Bush owe his controversial win in 2000 to Fox cable television news?

Yes, suggest data collected by two economists who found that the growth of the Fox cable news network in the late 1990s may have significantly boosted the Republican Party's share of the vote in the 2000 election and delivered Florida to Bush.

"Our estimates imply that Fox News convinced 3 to 8 percent of its audience to shift its voting behavior towards the Republican Party, a sizable media persuasion effect," said Stefano DellaVigna of the University of California at Berkely and Ethan Kaplan of Stockholm University.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/03/AR2006050302299.html?nav=rss_politics

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1269340

[MJGurl]

45. IT IS RHETORIC

When you claim one group CONTROLS the "media".

I'm a daily reader of the WP,NYT. If you think they, as well as CBS,NBC,ABC,CNN,PBS,NPR and even Fox are ALL controlled by the GOP then you've swallowed the kool-aid.

[politicasista]

47. delete dupe post n/t

[politicasista]

48. I don't drink kool-aid thank you very much n/t

[TheFarseer]

52. good info

I'll have to read that book. Personally, I'm not sure I buy the voting machine thing. I think this can all be attributed to the GOP propaganda machine and this family values non-sense. If the machines were rigged, why are they trying to get voter ID cards, make people in blue strongholds wait in line forever and purge voting roles in black communities? That would be totally unnecessary if the machines were rigged.

[karynnj]

43. Your choice has run a grand total of one race

Has no foreign policy experience and from the NH Road to the White House has many issues where he doesn't have a point of view. He COULD have run for Senator, getting us the VA seat and run in 4 or 8 years as a very impressive candidate.

From what I saw on RTTHH, either Kerry of Gore would easily beat him in a debate.

[MJGurl]

46. If one thing Bush proved

it is that you don't NEED foreign policy experience to win an election. And I've heard Warner speak many times, he can handle his own in a debate.

And lest you forget, a candidate like Warner is what we need. Someone the red states can tolerate.

[politicasista]

49. Bush proved you can cheat your way into the WH too

Does Warner have a plan for Iraq? What about election reform or has he mentioned the Voting Rights Act?

[karynnj]

50. That was in 2000, a period of tranquility

Lest you forget, if Kerry would have gotten 60,000 more votes in Ohio he would have won. Not all red states are in the South. There are likley states that Kerry won, that Warner could lose if he appears less experienced than a Republican -especially a McCain or Hagel.

[MJGurl]

51. Kerry would have won in 2000?

wha wha what?

[karynnj]

53. I sincerely think so

What doomed Gore more than anything else was the debates where he was seen as 3 people. Kerry in all debates he has ever been in has been extrordinary. The question is what he would have run on. The environment was a huge issue for Kerry then as was healthcare (Kerry and Kennedy wrote the S-Chip health insurance bill that Kerry was dropped as a sponsor from when Kennedy was able to get Hatch to sponsor it). The Cole would have put Kerry in a position to speak about everything he knew on international terrorism. (Gore as part of the administration was pretty silent) Kerry was/is one of the sharpest people on the Finance committee so he would have been at least as good on Social Security. Also, in 2000, the media was better. McCain might have protected Bush less.

The other thing is that in 2000, Kerry would have been freer to speak of Iran/Contra - in 2004, Reagn had just died, it was a no win propisition.

Gore himself was concerned enough with a Kerry run that he gave Kerry a Kerry 2008 red tee shirt at a 1998 (1999?) St Patrick day's in Boston. What was more likely is that Kerry could have been Gore's VP but Gore took Lieberman. Kerry would have decimated Cheney - unlike Lieberman. (Imagine Kerry speaking of his opposition to Head Start and school lunches - Kerry is incredible when speaking about protecting kids.

[karynnj]

42. List all the negative things on either of their reputations

As to media, I was of course speaking only of news:

- Radio - I don't know the % of time liberal talk radio is on vs right wing talk radio. But in NYC there is far more RW and NYC is liberal.

- Cable TV - just go through the list, it's highly biased. In 2004, after each debate the round tables were alwys more RW than LW people.

- The networks - may have been pretty balanced - after each debate they listed the same numbers of errors. The problem is that Kerry's "errors" were often correct or quite insignificant while Bush's were huge.

[karynnj]

25. Bush was nowhere as weak as you suggest in 2004

1) He was an incumbent war President
2) THe RW had a huge part of the media working for him - even some previously identified as liberal.
3) He used the churches
4) He used lies so big - on the war - that Americans chose to believe him because not believing him meant accepting that the US had not been a force for good.
5) The Democratic vote was suppressed - Kerry likely DID motivate sufficient people to get out to vote in Ohio - but through 4 hour plus lines that many people simply could not afford to wait in and problems with registrations - not enough votes were cast. (These are not Diebold theories etc , these are ways the RW surcumvented the intent of voting laws but didn't break them.)

Also, Kerry has learned and improved. In 2004, he was the easy winner of the primaries. I have yet to see a better choice for 2008, though there is a year and a half till the primaries. Unless the "new" person is better then Kerry of Gore, they have less chance to win.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

36. Very true.

We forget he was still polling at or above 50% on Election Day. While that doesn't make him particularly invincible, combined with incumbency is still pretty darn formidable.

[karynnj]

41. Not to mention that many pundits spoke of 50%

as a threshold below which you would lose. The problem with this is ignores those who disapprove, but are on the further to the right. (Think Buchanan)

When you thow in the fact that the media really made it hard for people to know Kerry at all, it's amazing he did as well as he did. He was outstanding in the debates and his convention really did as well as a convention that got 3 hours of coverage could do. (Consider Clinton got 9 hours at his.)

[karynnj]

16. Or you can say that they are vetted

Especially Kerry and Gore. Kerry has lived a clean enough life that the Republicans made stuff up AND it has been disproved. Gore was always described as a "boy scout". Both of these men had reputations for years as serious, intelligent public servants and their real biographies show it.
ANY new candidate will have every facet of their life exposed, and interpreted as negatively as possible.

Your comment that these men are "damaged goods", gives the RW slimeballs a victory they don't deserve. Both John Kerry and Al Gore have a right to be proud of what they've done in their lives. They are honorable, accomplished, moral men.

[Gato Moteado]

3. well, we don't know for sure until after the primaries, but.....

....it sure looks like mccain is the new recycled piece of dog crap that they repubs are going to try to market. his maverick days are over and he's proving to be the same type of puppet material that the repuke party found in reagan, poppy, and chimpy. my guess is that he will be the last repuke standing after the primaries. they don't really have much else other than a bunch of white trash windbags like frist.

as for the dems, that one is a lot harder to read. the media seems to be pushing for hillary, but i think she's just too polarizing of a figure. obama has a lot of charisma, but he might still be too green. maybe edwards and kerry will both throw their hats in again and if they do, one of them would probably be the favorite. my hope is that al gore enters the race.....he might be the best qualified of them all. a gore/obama ticket would be awesome.

[karynnj]

7. Here's a thread where the op lists everyone he can think of

declared, undeclared, likelyand unlikey. Many people responded with views of 10 most likely real candidates (over both parties). If you're really interested, this thread would help.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2637912

[primative1]

8. I hope Ralph Nader Runs

He's about the only one Ive seen so far thats not out to prop up his own a**.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[primative1]

14. Sorry if I forgot my pom poms

Go team ... rah rah.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

15. Perhaps you missed the "Democratic" part of "Democratic Underground"

Perhaps you'd be more comfortable at another site.

[primative1]

19. Democracy means more than the democratic party

Excuse me for noticing that the democratic party isnt any more interested in democracy than those other guys. This is about america, not temporary ego lifts. But if you force me to chose between the politicaly correct choices of the day... okay Al Gore. And you know why?
Because if he attempts to stand up to the party insiders and take their limelight, they will quickly paint him into ross perots luny corner. From there I hope he runs as an independant, because he actualy does have a message. And you know who would be his ideological soul mate? Thats right Ralph nader.
Now there is a ticket I would hole up at some intersection and scream for night and day.
Gore/Nader '08 ... sweet huh?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

21. No, it's not sweet. Not even fucking close.

Nader is an infantile megalomaniac. Nader is little better than Larouche.

And Democratic Underground is NOT about democracy - it's about the Democratic Party.

[MJGurl]

23. Nader - LaRouche 2008

I just threw up in my mouth a little.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

37. Welcome to DU!

I kind of like the Nader/LaRouche idea, actually. Only a fucking crackpot would vote for that ticket, so that should properly eliminate the possibility of any lefties that aren't really paying attention getting duped by Nader again.

[karynnj]

18. Nader - the choice that gave us Bush

Unles you believe his egotistic "not 1 cent of difference" comment between Gore and Bush. If you do, there's no hope for you.

[primative1]

32. Using that type of thinking

you must absolutly be enthralled with ross perot.
I still listen to the speaches and the ideology behing the,
Its never wise to make decisaions based on what lapel the american flag pin is on.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

35. Actually, I am.

We wouldn't have gotten Clinton without Perot.

I listen to speeches and ideology too, probably vastly more than you do, as it's my job. The differences between the two parties are as clear as night and day. Only those who don't pay any attention at all or are braindead still claim there's no difference. I wonder - which of those groups you file yourself under?

[karynnj]

44. The fact is the real choice in 2000 was Bush Gore

In fact I agree more with Gore's positions than Nader's and even more with Kerry's. I definately didn't like Perot.

[AndyTiedye]

11. Repubs Will Run McCain and Some Fire-&-Brimstone Fundie

so that the Fundie gets to take over after McCain dies in office.
Then they can bring back the Inquisition here, as they have already done in Iraq.

[windbreeze]

27. Nope, they're going to run.....

Jeb....just you wait and see...yeah I know, everyone says the country will be bush fatigued by then....uh huh...well, I would have thought they were already there in 2004, but they weren't....and a lot can happen in the next two years....* is already promoting Jeb, and stating that he is the most natural choice...I don't believe the party likes or trusts McCain...and I think they are using him right now to draw attention and fire...but they are going to drop him like a hot potato...when the time is right...and yes, I could be wrong...we'll see...
windbreeze

[FrenchieCat]

38. Until we know the results of election 2006, and see what

the issues of importance are, there is no General Consensus, here....or elsewhere.

The bottomline is that we don't need politicians who are in it more for themselves then are in it for this country.

We need some real leaders with real experience who in time past have demonstrated that even on gut instinct they know how to react in ways that are best for this country!