I'd keep an eye on Warner.  Also Richardson (not that he's likely to win, but he could make things interesting).

Gore called the war correctly, has Executive experience, has campaign experience, is a Southerner beloved by the rest of us, and can't credibly be called soft on defense.

Warner can VP, if he wants.

The focus on governors (current and past) makes the most sense to me as a President.  They have executive experience so are better qualified than career legislators.  While I could wish for foreign policy experience, I don't believe you can get everything.

As to Richardson I see him as having some of everthing. Has executive experience as Gov'r, Secretary of Dept of Energy, UN Ambassador. Has foreign policy experience as UN Ambassador and doing periodic special negotiations with North Korea. No doubt in my mind that he is ambitious, but don't know if it is to be President.  I see both smarts but a potentially dangerous freelancing style, which I attribute to his feeling that with his smarts he can do/say most anything and be right.
 
I have a one time view of Richardson in person.  I sat in the audience for a DOE national laboratory speech he gave as Sec DOE t.   He worked the audience of technical types and community leaders in the best tradition of an experienced pol.  From that I can envision that he might be good in a national campaign.

I am not a supporter of anyone person, but I want executive experience in the person I will support. 

If the Democrats nominate any Senator regardless of their position on Iraq I fear they will lose.

electoral brownie points for having been anti-war from the start is ridiculous.

The contrary is far more likely, since it reinforces basic stereotypes about Democrats.

My hope is that one of the various governors who doesn't have a long track-record of statements on Iraq will continue to bide his or her time and start saying the right things when the moment is right

Bill Richardson perhaps? 

"It looks like we're going to have several different candidates splitting the pro-war Democratic constituency (which consists, I think, of a bunch of Democratic Senators, about half the staff of The New Republic, and two dozen other voters) while Feingold stands alone for the doves."
  By the time the elections roll around next year theantiwar position will have the more crowded field. The dynamic just favors the antiwar impulse; the situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate; nothing coming from Bush makes any sense to anyone; the challengers to incumbents will naturally be raising the war issue; and the Democratic base will not support any pro-war candidate. Biden will be laughed out of the primaries even with his bigcorporate/DLC support.

<blockquote>and the Democratic base will not support any pro-war candidate</blockquote>

14 comments, and no mention of Hillary?

What a shocking thread. =)

If the Democrats nominate any Senator regardless of their position on Iraq I fear they will lose.

Probably true. I just hope Feingold has better judgment than to attack Democrats for the Iraq war. It’s one thing for the Republican candidate to, and another thing for a Democrat to legitimize that attack in a national campaign to split the party and moderates.

Feingold’s dissimilarity from Dean is his strength on the national scene. Dean’s appeal was passionate, but really narrow. The rapidity which the vast majority of America dismissed Dean shows how limited his appeal was with the general public. The left fringe Nader supporters didn’t like Dean either.

I tend to doubt Feingold could win against a McCain for example though.

Ain't that the truth. That's a profoundly moderate and mainstream observation. It's hard to believe for many on the left.

Russ Feingold may be Da Man on Iraq, but there's just too much else about him that only some cheesehead from Wisconsin who would have been "Clean For Gene" could like.  This leftcoaster/ex-midwesterner says "No way!"

Back when the majority of the people who post here weren't a glimmer in their parents' eyes, let alone crawling around in plastic pants, the question of going with "the moral choice" over "the political choice" was faced by a few of us here in 1968, when Bobby Kennedy declared for the presidency after the "true believer" Gene McCarthy had blown Lyndon Bastard Johnson out of the water in the New Hampshire primary.

Back in those days, I was dumb enough to be "so radical" that I paid no attention to electoral politics (had me and 50,00 of my fellow leftist moron-dorks voted in 1968, the past 37 years would be DRASTICALLY different than they were).

The truth about Gene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy was that Kennedy really was the "progressive" candidate.  McCarthy was the kind of guy who could have made Nixon's domestic policies 1968-73 his own.  Bobby Kennedy - who so much of the left had come to hate with no good contemporary reasons - had really "gotten it" since his brother had died, and he was no longer the ogre the the doctrinaire Old Left/idiot New Left said he was.   

If someone actually "electable" - as Kennedy was and McCarthy wasn't 37 years ago - came along, as John Edwards has shown with what he has said in the WaPo this morning, as Dianne Feinstein (who I have cordially opposed here in California since she was first elected to the SF Board of Supes in 1969, tho I have respected her all along and have voted for her since 1992), showed when she said "I was wrong" last week (If I wanted to vote for a woman for President, I'd go for her or Barbara Boxer before I will ever go for that war-loving moron Hillary Clinton, who I won't vote for in a primary or the general election EVER) - I would vote for them in a New York minute over someone like Feingold.

I'm fine with politicians who can say "I was wrong" - which is why I will not vote for Hillary/Billary, beyond the fact that the current moron has proven we don't need presidential dynasties unless we've decided to become an Empire and call the Emperor "President" - I wouldn't have voted for the Gracchi (he @#$%$#@!!!! Clintons of the old Republic) over the Caesars.

No Hillary, no Feingold, and stop the madness.  Let's vote for a winner (for once).  And the "purists" can go join the Maoist morons oF ANSWER.

Regardless of his talents, does anyone really believe that a Jew could be elected President of the USA?  The only non-Protestant (except the Founders) elected to the Presidency was Kennedy and he just barely made it (or didn't if you believe the mob gave him Illinois and LBJ fixed the election in Texas). 

Regardless of his talents, does anyone really believe that a Jew could be elected President of the USA?  The only non-Protestant (except the Founders) elected to the Presidency was Kennedy and he just barely made it (or didn't if you believe the mob gave him Illinois and LBJ fixed the election in Texas).  

I doubt very much that very many people care about Feingold being a Jew (Is he even observant?).  The media might make a big deal out of it looking for some kind of angle to hype, but most people just won't care.  Nobody cared about Lieberman's Jewishness.

What I'm curious about is how well Russ Feingold, two times divorced, will play in "The Heartland," where "family values" are important.    

My feeling is I knew Bush was full of crap us about Iraq during his "mushroom cloud" marketing campaign leading up to our March 2003 invasion. Many of the 9th and 10th graders I worked with in 2002-03 could figure it was bull. Edwards either wasn't as perceptive as some of the 14 and 15 year olds I worked with or he was a moral coward afraid to disagree with Bush during the post-9/11 hysteria that swept the USA. Either way - pass on that guy. Give us Feingold or perhaps a governor who didn't have to vote on Iraq in October 2002.

The American public at large is much more receptive to the anti-Iraq war message now than they were when Dean ran. Katrina has also stripped away the belief that so many held that W was a strong leader. If the one issue is one that has killed 2055 Americans so far and innumerable Iraqis and will continue to do so, of course it's going to be primary in people's minds.

"Brownie" is not my favorite word - especially after "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

If Feingold is the next Dean, then we can expect the centrist Democratic onslaught soon.

We see it here already: he's a Jew, he's divorced.

Unelectable.

Better play it safe, go with the electable guy again. It's worked so well in the past...

Re: the flip-flop comment, pro-war Democrats have no choice but to flip-flop on this one.

Hillary -- we're waiting...

If / when it is McCain, I hope that picture of him snuggling in Bush's arm at the rally in 2004 is the only picture you ever see in any and every ad.

... but Gore ain't electable. Who can forget the scene in Fahrenheit 911 where no one supports the African-American House members who want to challenge the bogus 2000 election and not one Senator - not Kennedy, not Gore - will support them. Al was the one gaveling them down. Sorry, he's not electable

Are you joking? Because Gore had the gavel he is unelectable? He wasn't a senator, and he couldn't support a protest / challenge (and couldn't, politically, anyway).

Sorry, tlee, that is the silliest post ever. I don't know if Gore can be elected, but he is clearly the best person to save the U.S. 

I also would liketo see Gore run. He was speaking out in the dark days when it was hard to find a Democrat with vocal cords.

Bobby Kennedy declared for the presidency after the "true believer" Gene McCarthy had blown Lyndon Bastard Johnson out of the water in the New Hampshire primary.

McCarthy's performance in New Hampshire was very significant and was one of the factors influencing LBJ to bow out. 

But he hardly blew Johnson out of the water.  In fact, LBJ won the primary as a write-in candidate.