Dems: Would you be mad at Hillary if she didn't run?

[Mr. Morden]

I fully expect Clinton to make her official announcement, whether in or out, by Valentine's Day. If she doesn't, either way, it's irresponsible to the party.

It doesn't sound like she has any intention of announcing by Valentine's Day, since she's still scheduling paid speeches for as late in the calendar as Feb. 24:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=164982.msg4400435#msg4400435

[HAnnA MArin County]

I'm sure her haters (a.k.a. the so-called "true progressives"), many of whom are on this forum, will be ecstatic if she doesn't run and then will waste no time blaming her for not running when they nominate a Sanders/Warner candidate and end up with a President Jeb Bush or God forbid Rand Paul.

[CountryClassSF]

I believe if she doesn't run or win the nomination, the progs will takeover

[HAnnA MArin County]

Of course not. The idea that she's some magical savoir for the problems in the party caused by her husband is ridiculous.

Yeah leaving office with a balanced budget and a surplus at a time when the economy was strong and adding jobs and the average American saw their median household income increase and gas prices and unemployment rates were low and the world was at relative peace was SUCH a terrible thing! How dare Bill cause so much damage to our country! I also don't seem to recall Democrats being an endangered almost extinct species in the South when Clinton was in office, either. [Insert typical, nonsensical "Well Bill was white and Obama is black, you see" responses here]

Bill did great things for our party and our country, a heck of a lot more than the current occupant of the White House.

And let me guess, you probably think that the self-described socialist Bernie Sanders or his Massachusetts companion Elizabeth Warren is the party's savior? Maybe in the Berkshires and Vermont.

[IceSpear]

I'm sure her haters (a.k.a. the so-called "true progressives"), many of whom are on this forum, will be ecstatic if she doesn't run and then will waste no time blaming her for not running when they nominate a Sanders/Warner candidate and end up with a President Jeb Bush or God forbid Rand Paul.

I dispute your username.

[Mr. Illini]

No (doesn't pray at Hillary shrine each night)

[MATTROSE94]

No (doesn't pray at Hillary shrine each night)

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Of course not. The idea that she's some magical savoir for the problems in the party caused by her husband is ridiculous.

Yeah leaving office with a balanced budget and a surplus at a time when the economy was strong and adding jobs and the average American saw their median household income increase and gas prices and unemployment rates were low and the world was at relative peace was SUCH a terrible thing! How dare Bill cause so much damage to our country! I also don't seem to recall Democrats being an endangered almost extinct species in the South when Clinton was in office, either. [Insert typical, nonsensical "Well Bill was white and Obama is black, you see" responses here]

Bill did great things for our party and our country, a heck of a lot more than the current occupant of the White House.

And let me guess, you probably think that the self-described socialist Bernie Sanders or his Massachusetts companion Elizabeth Warren is the party's savior? Maybe in the Berkshires and Vermont.

Your magical savior lost to an unpopular Donald J Trump, while Bernie is quite popular.

[Shadows]

Of course not. The idea that she's some magical savoir for the problems in the party caused by her husband is ridiculous.

Yeah leaving office with a balanced budget and a surplus at a time when the economy was strong and adding jobs and the average American saw their median household income increase and gas prices and unemployment rates were low and the world was at relative peace was SUCH a terrible thing! How dare Bill cause so much damage to our country! I also don't seem to recall Democrats being an endangered almost extinct species in the South when Clinton was in office, either. [Insert typical, nonsensical "Well Bill was white and Obama is black, you see" responses here]

Bill did great things for our party and our country, a heck of a lot more than the current occupant of the White House.

And let me guess, you probably think that the self-described socialist Bernie Sanders or his Massachusetts companion Elizabeth Warren is the party's savior? Maybe in the Berkshires and Vermont.

Your magical savior lost to an unpopular Donald J Trump, while Bernie is quite popular.

Nice.

[Mr. Morden]

I stand by everything I said in this thread.  E.g., this looks to be right on:

To be perfectly honest, it's not clear to me that there would be any damage to the party if she "abruptly" announced that she's not running.  There would be a wide open Democratic field, and a mad scramble among numerous candidates to get in the race, but I don't think the resulting contest would necessarily damage the party, nor (as I said in this thread) do I think that whoever would emerge from such a primary would necessarily be a weaker general election candidate than Clinton.  She looks like the strongest now because her name recognition is near 100% while most of the others are below 50%, but it seems plausible to me that some other hypothetical Democratic nominee would turn out to be just as strong.

[GoTfan]

I stand by everything I said in this thread.  E.g., this looks to be right on:

To be perfectly honest, it's not clear to me that there would be any damage to the party if she "abruptly" announced that she's not running.  There would be a wide open Democratic field, and a mad scramble among numerous candidates to get in the race, but I don't think the resulting contest would necessarily damage the party, nor (as I said in this thread) do I think that whoever would emerge from such a primary would necessarily be a weaker general election candidate than Clinton.  She looks like the strongest now because her name recognition is near 100% while most of the others are below 50%, but it seems plausible to me that some other hypothetical Democratic nominee would turn out to be just as strong.

Name recognition didn’t do much though. She nearly lost the nomination to a 75 year old Jewish socialist, possibly athiest, man who probably doesn't comb his hair.

[Mr. Morden]

I stand by everything I said in this thread.  E.g., this looks to be right on:

To be perfectly honest, it's not clear to me that there would be any damage to the party if she "abruptly" announced that she's not running.  There would be a wide open Democratic field, and a mad scramble among numerous candidates to get in the race, but I don't think the resulting contest would necessarily damage the party, nor (as I said in this thread) do I think that whoever would emerge from such a primary would necessarily be a weaker general election candidate than Clinton.  She looks like the strongest now because her name recognition is near 100% while most of the others are below 50%, but it seems plausible to me that some other hypothetical Democratic nominee would turn out to be just as strong.

Name recognition didn’t do much though. She nearly lost the nomination to a 75 year old Jewish socialist, possibly athiest, man who probably doesn't comb his hair.

No, what I mean is that name recognition in the general election is a non-issue, because everyone knows who the two major party candidates are by election day.  But in the discussion above we were talking about the fact that non-Clinton potential Democratic candidates weren’t doing nearly as well as she was in hypothetical matchups against the Republicans (as of ~December 2014), and *that* is because of name recognition.

Even by Dec. 2014, Clinton’s national favorability was just ~+3 or +4 or so, and I don’t see why a Gillibrand or Klobuchar couldn't have been in a similar position if voters actually knew who they were.  But because voters *didn’t* know who they were, they were inevitably not going to do very well in polls that matched them up against Bush or Rubio or whoever.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

I guess we should be mad she ran.

[Beet]

Here was my conclusion in March, 2015. Alas, by then the die was cast:

Just what I have been saying all along. Just as the media destroyed DWS, they will destroy Hillary. Hillary should not run. Repeat. She should not run.

[bagelman]

I guess we should be mad she ran.

I am

[100% pro-life no matter what]

No, because the difference in her running or not, is really a difference between a landslide defeat for Democrats, and a 2000 type election defeat.

Wow...