It is impossible to know where Klobuchar or Bennet or Gillibrand would be polling in a normal, two-or-three person primary race. I don’t really see how you can make the comparison.
I think there is a lot of truth to this. Bill without Hillary probably doesn’t become President running against a popular incumbent. Hillary without Bill lacks the platform to run for the Senate.
Personally, I’d amend the Constitution to bar immediate family members of Presidents from being eligible. I think it’s a bad precedent to have strings like Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton. Not healthy.
magnet
4000
Why? It seems like a good way to me. It’s too early to divide candidates into upper and lower tiers based on popularity.
Usually at this time there are about 6-8 candidates at 2% or above at this point in a primary cycle. We’re not that far off the mark, we just have a bunch more clowns in the back this year- which is a function of Trump’s and Biden’s weakness.
magnet
4002
Do you think Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump is healthier than Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Clinton (or even Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Bush)?
I’m going to award one internet point to magnet for that exchange.
CraigM
4004
Adams, Roosevelt, Harrison, Bush all had multiple family members hold the office.
It’s been going since the beginning. And most people who held the office have some family relation to another holder.
This century we’ve had at a least a dozen or so “serious” candidate run for the nomination except against an incumbent presidency. The people rather than party insiders at the convention started in the 1960s (Nixon in 1960 was probably the last party selected candidate), and most of the elections since then have had at least 1/2 dozen and most a lot more… For instance, the 72 Democratic primary had 15 candidates, the 68 Republican had 17 candidates. I think what’s changed is a lot more formal debates early in the process.
538 had an interesting exchange on this subject. (link below) I’ve seen PoliSci papers persuasively argue that how people choose who to vote for (outside political partisans) is essentially random. The hope I’m holding onto for 2020 is VA 2017 (record Republican turnout swamped by record Democratic turnout) and 2018 (ditto.) as prelude. Honestly I don’t think it’s going to matter all that much who ends up as the nominee, I just hope whoever it is can turn out the occasional voters. I don’t believe it will be that hard to beat trump assuming slightly better turnout (in the right places!) than 2016.
(Unrelated, I’m officially old now because referring to politicians as ‘the Squad’ makes me cringe but that’s how AOC et al refer to themselves. Millenials, whaddya gonna do.)
Did 538 manage the to quantify the “I’d like to drink a beer with [person X] factor”? I have a feeling that presidential races and nominating the prom king/queen probably have very similar underlying models for enough of the voter population for it to be significant determinant of the election.
Matt_W
4009
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, writing from Birmingham Jail:
Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood.
Edit: That MLK quote is so much better. Thanks @Matt_W
What a garbage op-ed.
I was shocked that so many candidates in the party whose nominee I was planning to support want to get rid of the private health insurance covering some 250 million Americans and have “Medicare for all” instead. I think we should strengthen Obamacare and eventually add a public option.
Who actually cares about which insurer they have? I wager they care more about keeping their doctor. (That said the eventual legislation will need to get vetted through Congress and realistically private insurance isn’t going anywhere, scare mongering from the likes of Friedman aside.)
I was shocked that so many were ready to decriminalize illegal entry into our country. I think people should have to ring the doorbell before they enter my house or my country.
I was shocked at all those hands raised in support of providing comprehensive health coverage to undocumented immigrants. I think promises we’ve made to our fellow Americans should take priority, like to veterans in need of better health care.
Oh no, treating people humanely and taking care of them if they get ill is so fucking radical, but not you know taking away their humanity and acting as if they’re hardened criminals.
“Gosh, all these candidates are advocating for social programs I disagree with. Guess I’ll have to go vote for the racists again.”
No, of course not. I just refuse to believe that there are so few other possible candidates out there that we have to rely on spouses, siblings and children of other Presidents.
Tom Friedman is usually wrong about everything, but it’s ok because it’s his taxi driver’s fault.
Hillary was elected in the bluest of blue states (mine). This was not much of a test.
And yeah, if I were to question the choice of Warren as our candidate, it would be on that exact point. I like her and her ideas a lot, but I wonder about her campaign experience,
That cuts both ways. One of her crucial errors was in believing that hunkering down and playing it safe would deliver some very close and under-polled states, because she so obviously had the support of more than 50% of the voters.
There is one thing which can’t wait, which is climate change mitigation. We have 12 years to keep warming under 3c, and the next presidential term is a third of that.
There are several problems with this. First, that you’re making subjective statements, not objective ones (was she ‘hunkering down, playing it safe’?). The second is that it is a counterfactual supposition to say that she could have won votes in those states had she done something else. The third is the failure to suggest what that something else would be in concrete terms.
The best evidence suggests that Comey lost her the race. Maybe it was too close before Comey, and maybe that is her fault, but I don’t really see how you can demonstrate that to anyone’s satisfaction.
