Your 2016 Picks Round TWO

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Feingold
Clinton

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I personally cannot support Schweitzer for his record (or lack thereof) on gay rights.  I want to support the first president who's unapologetically pro-marriage equality in the next election.  Democrats have beat around the issue for too long.

I wouldn't say he's moderate. Sure, he loves guns and comes from a very conservative background (rancher in rural Montana), but he supports single-payer health care, supports legal medicinal marijuana, and wanted Bush to pull Montana's National Guard out of Iraq to deal with Montana's wildfires at the time. He's more of a left-libertarian.

This is actually why I wouldn't mind having him as a nominee or president.  There's just that lingering issue.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I personally cannot support Schweitzer for his record (or lack thereof) on gay rights.  I want to support the first president who's unapologetically pro-marriage equality in the next election.  Democrats have beat around the issue for too long.

Democrats need to move away from focusing on liberal social issues like that; its hurting our prospects with working-class voters. If anything, we should be moving more towards the center. Schweitzer has been a super-popular governor; I don't think one issue, especially one as divisive as that, should be a deal breaker.

America as a whole is becoming more socially liberal by the year.  If we don't capitalize and lead consistently on these key issues, we will fall behind and lose that part of the base.  The Democrats don't have to sacrifice the economic message by appealing toward equal rights, as well; Scott Walker and John Kasich have already done a good job boosting that.  And personally, I would rather support the Democratic candidate that would pursue social equality than the candidate that only gets elected because they say whatever people want to hear.