Random questions . . .  

Who else in the Democratic party is likely to run? Is there any indication that Gore will run again?

Will the primary schedule be changed or will it remain as it was this past year? Any chance the Democrats and Republicans could agree on a uniform schedule that is a tad bit more sane than the one we have now? (Personally, I was always partial to a national primary, but since that seems to run counter to our political culture, how about a series of evenly spaced elections moving from smaller to larger states?).

When was the last time that both parties had open primaries the same election cycle? Does this serve as an advantage to both parties, or at least neutralize any advantage that the Republican candidate would get froma  Democratic party fight?

That's Rod Blagojevich, not Ron.   His first campaign back in the 80s centered entirely around the spelling and pronounciation of his name.  And he hasn't exactly been doing a presidental candidate caliber job as Governer; it is not likely he will be re-elected.

sPh 

Clinton's performance in the 2000 Senate campaign -- running very far behind Al Gore in one of the most Democrat-friendly states of the union -- was, moreover, pretty unimpressive.

Is this really indicative of how she'd play on a national level?  She was dealing with the whole carpetbagger thing then, of course.  Which, as I recall, probably cost her some support -- not enough to lose the election, but plenty enough to make is closer than Gore/Bush.

It seems obvious to me that Clinton can win.

If she runs against the pet goat. (Translation: "Huh?")

But insofar as everyone seems to be yearning for Democrats to articulate "the over-arching positive vision of where the country should go and how to take it there; a concept of how the world works - and how it should" this isn't getting the job done....or else that she'll take her game to a new level rather than passively acquiesce in the notion that the nomination is hers for the taking.

Oh, I think she has a very good chance in the primaries. She's the one to beat, in fact. For some reason, she's as popular with liberals as John McCain.

The thing is, is with everybody else, she fails the sniff test. That is, the country has sniffed her and didn't like the way she smelled. Outside of Democratic circles she sets everyone's teeth on edge. I specifically include large numbers of women (Yes, I've talked to various women about it). I don't like her, and I'd have a hard time telling you why, except she comes across as smug and sanctimonious. George Bush for the multicultural set. The poster child for 'effete liberals'. Seriously, if Kerry got a hard time with the windsurfing, wait until they get ahold of Hillary.

Basically, her leg up is that she's female and was married to Clinton, and that second one is her downfall, since everybody knows what they're getting.

Now that I think about it, it strikes me that her popularity is less her stance or her capability per se, than simply that she's a photogenic female Democrat and lots of D women identify with that, regardless if her actual talents. ("She's like me!") Nobody else identifies with her. Rather the opposite.

I didn't say I wouldn't hold my nose and vote for her in the general. I probably would. But I would vote for Janet Reno or Barbara Boxer with more enthusiasm.

ash

['When you pull back far enough, watching R's and D's go at it is like watching a very very old couple having a walker race, and one of them is dragging an oxygen bottle for the emphysema.']

Cranky Historian writes:

When was the last time that both parties had open primaries the same election cycle? Does this serve as an advantage to both parties, or at least neutralize any advantage that the Republican candidate would get froma  Democratic party fight?

Good question. One answer is 2000, but Gore was sorta the incumbent. (Same with 1988.) If you want to look at an election in which neither party had a presidential or vice presidential incumbent, you'd have to go way back to 1952. I think the party of the incumbent president mattered quite a bit then. Truman was very unpopular, and an inconclusive war was continuing to rage. Add to that the fact that Eisenhower was a national hero, and the Republican was a lock. But he had to go through a bruising fight to get the nomination.

I think it will be Warner on the right, Clinton in the middle, and Feingold representing the democratic wing of the democratic party. Feingold would be the underdog, but I think he may be the one who could provide the best new perspective and surprise some people in the primaries.

Hillary is going to have to commit to serve out her term if she runs for re-election to the Senate. That takes her out of the presidential sweepstakes in 2008. If she decides not to run for re-election, then that signals that she will go allout for the nomination. My guess is that she will prefer to stay a Senator from New York.

That was supposed to be "Liberals are bitterly opposed to those who are bitterly opposed to her," e.g. freepers, Whitewater groupies, and the other assorted purveyors of Clinton-hatred on the right.  No suggestions of intra-party hostility intended, or, I hope, taken.

Thanks!

Do you know by chance how Eisenhower handled the war issue back then? That is, how did he criticize Truman's handling of the war?

I really don't see any purpose in the rating system. I think it is here just because the computer wizards who design web site software can do it, and that, in their mind, justifies doing it. I rate comments by various "systems", depending on my mood when I read them. Usually, I highly rate those that do a good job of stating something or raise a new point of view, and a low rating for those I consider unadulterated BS. My rating of the rating system is "0".

"Hillary is going to have to commit to serve out her term if she runs for re-election to the Senate. That takes her out of the presidential sweepstakes in 2008."

Why on Earth do you think this?  She's already made it reasonably clear that there will be no pledge this time, unlike in 2000.

The fundamentalists will not support Romney.

He's a Mormon.

Most fundamentalists see the Mormons as a cult. 

I don't know, when did W start to emerge?  I didn't think it was until Late '98 or 99.  Or Clinton for that matter.  If anything Dean may have gotten started too soon and peaked before it mattered.

"I don't actually know anything about Blagojevich except that I used to work for a guy who works for him -- maybe he's a terrible governor. But Illinois Democrats seem to be doing something right."

Well, at least you know when you're making uninformed comments.

According to the SUSA tracking poll, Blagojevich is the 6th most unpopular Governor in the nation.  His approval rating is at 38%, and he is at risk of losing the Governor's mansion in a solidly blue state.

Eisenhower did not run against Truman, per se. During the campaign, he just flashed his credentials as a five-star general who won WWII in Europe and said he would go to Korea. That was enough.

"If that gains traction, she will have to commit to serve out her full six-year term or essentially admit that she really wants to be president."

I think you badly misread the NY electorate.

Everyone knows that Hillary is running in 2008, and given the NY electorate and Hillary's in-state ratings, she will have no trouble winning re-election despite not duplicating her 2000 pledge.

And I say this all as someone who isn't in favor of nominating her in '08.  But you're dreaming if you think the '06 race is likely to provide her a significant speed bump.

Well, I guess I'm going to go all-out and start flogging this in half the TPM electoral threads ...
Jon Bon Jovi for NJ Governor in '05.
JBJ for the Dem Presidential nom in '08.
Photogenic? Check.
Telegenic? Check?
Working-class roots? Check?
Up-by-his-own-bootstraps bio? Check.
Rich enough to plausibly claim a la Schwarzenegger to be unaffected by fundraising? Check.
Heart in the right (i.e., left) place? Check. 
Soccer-mom appeal without alienating the pickup-driving menfolk? Check.
Potential for Reagan/Schwarzenegger "reforming citizen-politician" vibe? Check.
Absence of McCain Factor (i.e., not headstrong enough to want to write his own campaign speeches and go off-message)? Check.

"Actually, she's a pretty strong candidate in polls right now."

The problem is not her standing in head to head horserace polls.  The problem is her high level of negatives.

She is starting the race with a much higher than normal percentage of the electorate already having closed their minds to her.

That doesn't mean she can't win.  She's probably a stronger candidate than John Kerry, who almost beat a weak incumbent.

But it does mean that she has very little chance of significantly expanding the Democratic coalition in the way Edwards or Warner could.

-----

"People should not underestimate Hillary's appeal to important swing demographics, especially swing demographics who don't closely follow politics."

While Hillary could indeed run strongly in the suburbs and among single women.  I greatly worry about how she would fare among rural voters, which is the demographic where Democrats most desperately need to improve their standing.

Perhaps I am simply projecting, but my sense is that many Democrats are secretly horrified by the idea of a Hillary candidacy, but are afraid to speak out strongly because they suffer from a desperate condition of bleak inevitability.  They are afraid that if they say what they really think, they will provide the Republicans with the ammunition to defeat us again.

If there are others who feel the same way, I encourage them to speak out, and put an end to the Hillary run right now.  There is nothing we can tell the Republicans that they don't already know.  They must lie awake at night, shivering in ecstatic anticipation of sinking their teeth into Hillary.

If Hillary gets the nomination, she will not just lose, but her loss will be a debacle for the Democratic Party, a historical calamity that may thoroughly wreck the party.  Hillary has major skeletons in her closet.  It will be one searing scandal after another with her campaign, and will unjustifiably establish in the minds of most Americans the indecency of the Democrats, and their remoteness from basic American moral values.  I say unjustifiably, since rank and file Democrats are so much better than Hillary Clinton and consort.  The spirit of the Democrats is so much more noble than the ignoble body of the Clinton machine.

Hillary represents the very worst of the contemporary Democratic Party - cynical, unprincipled, dishonest, ruthless, empty of everything but a lust for power and control.  I don't believe that an authentic word ever passes her lips, except for those rare occasions when she lets slip her emotional frustration at those who set up roadblocks to her personal ambition.

The Clintons have made a career out of a mad, lying scramble for power, using and abusing people on their way up, then viciously wielding the power they have won to silence or pay off their accusers and victims.  They have left a trail of broken people in their wake.  In Bill, I at least see a genuine compassion existing, weirdly, side-by-side with his cold appetite for power and callous and destructive personal habits.  With Hillary I see only the appetitive drive without real compassion.

I was willing to defend Bill while he was in power, because I wasn't about to let the Republicans advance their rotten agenda by driving a Democrat from office.  But it is time for the Democrats to finally excrete those two lying turds, and look to the work of regenerating the party and rescuing it from the very real moral damage, and foul doublethinking legacy of the Clintons.  What they have bequeathed to us is a carcass of a party - one in which a fragile shell of decent policies surrounds, and is held barely intact by, a dismal cloud of jaded manipulation and spiritual emptiness.

I hope for some candidates in 2008 with more solidity and moral heft, people who still posess the stout and compassionate hearts and profound moral outlook that once breathed life into the good policies.  What we have now are wan and unimaginative policies that seem to be maintained mainly by the inertia of the professional policy establishment and established lobbies.  It would be good, for example,  to have a candidate who really believes in Social Security, one who believes deeply in and is moved by the vision of an American community in which the younger generation supports collectively with their work the old. I'm no mood for another company man or woman who knows how to defend Social Security with a thousand banal, sensible, wonkish reasons why it is simply too impractical to change the present system and rock the boat - but doesn't feel the part.

If we don't stop this neo-Clintonian wave now, it will be too late.  The Clinton machine has so much influence with the media, so much access to money and so much contol over the existing party machinary, so much penetration into the think tanks and policy sausage facories, that time is of the essence.  Within a shorter time period than we may think, the die will be cast.

There have to be some honest, idealistic, straightshooting, decent Democrats out there.  I can't take another 8 years of bad faith and wallowing in the debilitating moral cesspool of Clintonian cynicism and dishonesty.  I'm so tired of feeling dirty.  Compared to someone like Obama, for example, Hillary just seems so base.  How can a party that is capable of producing people like the former nominate someone like the latter?

She still has to actually win primaries.

Even if (as you suggest) people aren't willing to say "boo" to her, they can always express their opinions within the voting booth.

How often have we seen the media-appointed early frontrunner upset in Iowa and New Hampshire?

Right now, I'm more concerned about Congressional elections in 2006. 2008 still feels too far away.

Well, they think all Jews and gays are going to hell, too, and you don't hear them griping about Ken Mehlman.

Granted, Ken's not running for office, but Romney is running in support of all the things they support.  He'll say "God" and "faith" and "culture of life" a lot, and they'll think he's plenty good enough for this country, and it's a shame such a good man was born into such a false religion, but at least he believes in Christ, and might still avoid the fiery pit by rejecting his Mormon error before he dies.

He might not be their first choice, but he'd be a perfectly acceptable second or third. 

The Democrats don't have anyone with that kind of credibility.

How about Wesley Clark? I know he doesn't approach Ike in credibility, but at least he, too, is a retired general, with wartime experience. Maybe we didn't take a good enough look at him last year?

"No more Bushes, no more Clintons!  Hillary is the one thing the Dem candidate shouldn't be in '08"

Well, it's gonna be Hillary by default unless thinking people in the Party start vocally getting behind one of the other nominatable candidates in the field.

So start agitating loudly and proudly for Edwards or Warner now.  Otherwise it's gonna be a done deal for Hillary by early 2007.

I'm not keen on Hillary, but I'll rally behind the Dem nominee, whoever s/he might be, because even the Corporate Joes (Biden and Lieberman) would be a thousand percent better than the best possible GOP candidate.

Handicapping the GOP opposition first:

First thing is to remember that the GOP Establishment normally anoints a candidate, and the primary voters ratify that decision.  Somebody might tilt at the windmill, but the anointed one wins.  (The last true exception, Goldwater, was 40 years ago.)

Second thing is a question: why does Jeb Bush's name never come up in the 2008 discussions?  If he's the anointed one, he wins the nomination, hands down.

Third thing: if it ain't Jeb, George Allen will be tapped.  He's the perfect followup to GWB - the big-money boys love him, so does the Religious Right, and he's that positive, optimistic type that they love to put forward.

McCain doesn't have a chance.  Despite having drunk the Kool-Aid last summer, he's still considered too unreliable by the money boys, and still disliked by the 'Christian' Right.

Frist, Romney, Hagel...white noise.

So the Dem will be running against Jeb or George Allen.

Besides Hillary, the obvious candidates are John Edwards and Wes Clark; possibly Bill Richardson.  I don't think there's a lot of demand for Kerry or Gore redux; it's a cycle too early for Obama and Schweitzer; and as a nearly-lifelong Virginian who now lives just across the river in Maryland, I've gotta say I don't understand what about Mark Warner is getting people excited.

With both Hillary and Wes, I don't understand what's driving their respective candidacies.  Edwards' candidacy in 2004 was idea-driven, and I think 'two Americas' was a good way to frame the Dem v. GOP view of the world.  I'd like to see him run again in 2008. 

On the other hand, maybe the GOP will nominate Newt, in which case all bets are off.

 (I kid!)

"One thing should be clear:  Democrats cannot afford to put up a candidate in 2008 with 1) little or no national name recognition, and 2) little or no national campaign experience."

That's not clear in the least.

The last two Democrats elected President had no national name recognition and no national campaign experience when they successfully ran.