In 2012, IF needs be, who would you consider for a new nominee?

[hyphenate]

I'm not saying that Obama needs to be replaced as the Democratic choice, but here are a couple of other potential candidates that I would like to possibly see as alternatives: (There are also some potential candidates that currently are Independents)

[Catherina]

1. Russ Feingold. Howard Dean would be my second choice and as far right (center) as I'll go n/t

[thedeanpeople]

2. Anyone willing to say "Prosecute Torture" can win.

Anyone else, most likely can't.

It's really just that simple.

[No Elephants]

3. On Hardball yesterday, word was, neither Dean nor anyone else would challenge Obama.

And they brought up Kennedy-Carter, as I tend to do.

Primary challenges to a sitting President are very likely to fail. Remember, POTUS is head of the Party, calls the shots at the DNC and so much more. Plus, the POTUS is, well, the POTUS. Contacts, relationships, name recognition, GOTV savvy, and on and on.

And it gets worse: Not only is a challenger unlikely to win the nomination, but, historically, a significant primary challenge to a sitting President has been lethal to that President in the general. And once may have helped bring us Ronnie, where, IMO, many of our modern political problems began to mushroom. A sobering thought.

I appreciate--and have cheered Grayson, but I see him as more of a showboater at this point than a productive liberal. We need both I guess, but I don't see the track record, experience or gravitas for the Oval Office. Yet. Maybe after a couple of terms as Governor?

All that said, I would still support Sanders or Feingold, or any credible liberal in the primary.

On the Republican side, I am not worried in the least by Newt, Sarah or Mitt. I'd watch out for Cantor, though.

[KharmaTrain]

9. Cantor's "Too Jewish"

to use the Mel Brooks explanation. This is the party that was tearing itself apart in '08 with the possibility of a Mormon as their standard bearer...they're not ready for a Catholic or Jew. While Cantor is a slimy weasel, he isn't in the league with Mooselini or the other front runners.

You are right about the history of a primary challenge and I think we're seeing a ton of emotion and not much else on this topic. I also like Alan Greyson but he's definitely not Presidential material at this time. Just like we ridicule Palin's lack of experience (and some now claim this is also Obama's downfall), Greyson lacks experience and has little support outside websites like this. He'll make a very nice talking head.

Even if this utopian candidate were to emerge and beat President Obama in the primary and then the general (quite a feat right there) they'd still have to deal with the same Congresscritters and Senators that are there now and the cause for much of today's messes and would surely be out to protect their turfs and special interests. Without a working legislative, no Presdient can succede.

[Art_from_Ark]

17. Carter would have lost anyway

Iran, especially the failed rescue mission, and inflation sealed his doom. Plus fending off both Reagan and a stealth candidacy by Republican-turned-ostensible-liberal John Anderson.

[aquart]

4. So you don't think there's a single woman capable of doing the job?

Maybe you need to think again.

[No Elephants]

5. Which women would you favor?

[hyphenate]

20. Actually, I considered several women

Being a female myself, I do like the idea of a woman as president. In fact, I was a major suppoiter od Hillary in '08, but noticed that the election itself once again defeated a woman candidate, and that was rough.

Hillary has already said the SS position was going to be her last public office, and that she was moving on fro there. I think she would have made an excellent president, and I therefore would vote for again if she changed her mind.

I also like Claiew McCaskill, or Kirsten Gillibrand, or even Elizabeth Warren--there are a great many women who would likely make excellent presidents, but I face reality, unfortunately, and know that it would be very difficult to elect a women--any woman--president.

It's still the boys' club, and the US isn't as liveral as it should be, especially when there are so many countries who have no problem with a woman in the top seat.

In fact, I think that the conservatives have soundly defeated any progression in the country, and we have gone backward instead of forward. It's not easy to admit this, but it's the truth.

[dylan33]

6. Someone

Robert Kennedy Jr.

[FrenchieCat]

7. Whomever it is, folks should make sure to read their homework assignment......

Wouldn't want to be inept again at hiring the guy that gets to clean up our shit.....
now would we?


I am a Democrat....

.... after all; my views on most topics correspond more closely to the editorial pages of the New York Times than those of the Wall Street Journal. I am angry about policies that consistently favor the wealthy and powerful over average Americans, and insist that government has an important role in opening up opportunity to all. I believe in evolution, scientific inquiry, and global warming; I believe in free speech, whether politically correct or politically incorrect, and I am suspicious of using government to impose anybody’s religious beliefs–including my own–on nonbelievers. Furthermore, I am a prisoner of my own biography: I can’t help but view the American experience through the lens of a black man of mixed heritage, forever mindful of how generations of people who looked like me were subjugated and stigmatized, and the subtle and not so subtle ways that race and class continue to shape our lives.

But that is not all that I am. I also think my party can be smug, detached, and dogmatic at times. I believe in the free market, competition, and entrepreneurship, and think no small number of government programs don’t work as advertised. I wish the country had fewer lawyers and more engineers. I think America has more often been a force for good than for ill in the world; I carry few illusions about our enemies, and revere the courage and competence of our military. I reject a politics that is based solely on racial identity, gender identity, sexual orientation, or victimhood generally. I think much of what ails the inner city involves a breakdown in culture that will not be cured by money alone, and that our values and spiritual life matter at least as much as our GDP.

Undoubtedly, some of these views will get me in trouble. I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.

As such, I am bound to disappoint some, if not all, of them.

The Audacity of Hope
http://books.google.com/books?id=k1mVYHvsDpQC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=I+am+a+Democrat........+after+all%3B+my+views+on+most+topics+correspond+more+closely+to+the+editorial+pages+of+the+New+York+Times+than+those+of+the+Wall+Street+Journal.+I+am+angry+about+policies+that+consistently+favor+the+wealthy+and+powerful+over+average+Amer&source=bl&ots=kk-tn5bBWz&sig=t6wDWqu3W1Tpfhdo55ckwL1xJSs&hl=en&ei=_poATfWrLZGusAOAhN2vCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

[Hawkowl]

8. Dean or Wesley Clark. .nt.

[lamp_shade]

10. I'm amused by all the recent posts and polls suggesting that the President s/b primaried. Who, in

their right mind, would even consider it?

[hyphenate]

21. I don't know

that's why I did this poll. I'm less sure that we could launch a campaign for a new president, but I think we have one great redeeming factor, and that is we DO have a compelling roster of potential candidates on our side, many who would make excellent leaders. I can't help but look at this array of candidates, and compare them with the GOP list, with Newt, Palin, Romney, Huckabee, and another half dozen usurpers. It's sobering to compare them in general, but the US is definitely on the downward slope in electing competent and intelligent people, with the GOP swinging to the edge of reason. We can't help but notice that this year's election has swept into office many people who are dumber than shit into the House and the Senate, and I fear for the country that it shall lose even more ground come 2012.

[cali]

11. no one. it's utterly pointless except as a protest.

[WinkyDink]

12. Howard Dean, who it will be.

[TexasObserver]

13. Howard Dean makes more sense that any of those.

[martymar64]

14. Brian Schweitzer

[MoonRiver]

15. Would love to see Feingold run.

But I think Obama will be the nominee.

[Earth_First]

16. Other: Dennis Kucinich

We've tried it 'their' way for too damn long.

Let's try the PROGRESSIVE way for a change!

[Le Taz Hot]

18. You've got Jon Stewart and no Dean?

Really?

[hyphenate]

23. Yeah

sorry about that. I think Howard Dean could be a competent contender. Jon and Keith would make better press secretaries, if they don't mind a cut in ay. Press conferences would be a helluva lot more fun with Jon, and Keith would provide excellent and true news. :)

[TorchTheWitch]

19. I don't want anyone already enmeshed in this government

No more senators or congresspersons. The whole damn congress is corrupt. No more DC insiders... they're part of the problem.

[Swamp Rat]

22. Bernie Sanders, Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, Alan Grayson, Barbara Boxer

Tom Harkin, Patrick Leahy, Russ Feingold .... any one of those over Obama.