Talk Elections

ok Bush won and the defeat of Kerry is, for me,  the defeat of the "liberals" ideas. Hence, I think (and I always thought) that the futur of the dem party must be John Edwards. In others words, the future must be the working & conservative class (WV, Ohio,...) rather than the rich people who give New York but not the congress, the senate and the white house.

In all of case, a change in the direction of this party must be done

What do you think?

Hillary won't let Edwards invade her turf.

It's her party for the taking.  She "controls" the money in the Dem Party and the power.

I hereby endorse Al Gore for Presidential Candidate 2008.

If it's the case, I think that the dem party will lose the next election.

I hereby Endorse Kerry/Gore '08. He's a good VP ;)


Seriously though, anyone think Kerry'll be back?

Kerry won't be back.  Neither will Gore.  He gave a speech a couple of weeks ago and sweat so bad that it looked like he was having a heart attack.  Another four years of Bush may put that poor guy in the grave.

Some guy on ABC, I don't know if he was a party official or a reporter, said the Democrats did so poorly because they weren't liberal enough (which I think is a big mistake).  George Stephanopoulis predicted a civil war inside the party between moderates and liberals.

Hillary is preferable to Edwards.  What I fear is the Democrats may abandon their relatively enlightened positions on social issues in reaction to this defeat, and there will be no resistance to further loss of individual rights.  Could definitely happen, and more easily with Edwards than Hillary.

Kerry was not enough liberal? lol but the problem is maybe "what's a liberal?". The problem in the dem party is that moderates and liberals have the same opinion about economy. The difference between them is values.

But I think that Hillary Clinton will seem as the party saver and hence, I'm not sure that there will be a civil war between moderates and liberals (behalve of course if John Edwards wants the post but a ticket Edwards-Clinton seems a good consensus).

No he won't.

Edwards problem is that he hasn't an any public position. Lawyer Edwards to the White House! Doesn't make sense.

anti-establishment candidate... I don't think that it will hurt him. And he stays the "VP candidate".

Neither, though Edwards probably has a better chance than Hillary.

I voted for Edwards, even though I can't stand him.

The Democrats need to be able to crack the south in order to win national elections.  It seems that at this point, given the huge cultural divide between the north and south, and the highly negative perception that southerners have of northern Democrats, only a native southerner can attract sufficient support in the south.  Clinton's performance is proof of that.

Al Gore did poorly in the south because of the perception that he abandoned southern values during his term as Clinton's VP.  I think the fallout from the Lewinsky scandal, and Gore's strong defense of Clinton in that matter, took away Gore's advantage in being from the south.

I can't see somelike Hillary Clinton improving upon Kerry's performance in the south.  If anything, she would do worse.  For those who really hate liberals, a liberal woman is always more noxious than a man, for whatever reason.  She's from New York, which is the kiss of death.  I cannot imagine Hillary doing as well as Kerry or Gore did nationally, unless conditions during the second Bush term are horrible.

It may not be Edwards, per se, who will lead the Democrats to victory, but the Democrats in my opinion need to tone down the liberalism and become more moderate on cultural issues to win national elections, and for that it will probably take a southern, or possibly midwestern, moderate, not a liberal from a hard-core Democratic state.

I don't know now, really. The northeast and Pacific coast seem to be going in one direction and Middle America (the midwest, interior west, southwest and southeast) seems to be going in the other direction. The Dems need to find someone who can avoid getting drubbed across the board in Middle America. I think that Bush gets 60-70% in a lot of these states is just indicative of a major problem facing the Dems. I mean the Dems just get killed in these states. And look at the Senate races: Jim DeMint? Coburn? Daschle's gone. I mean this is telling and if the Dems ignore it and either continue with what they're doing now or have some major internal conflict within the party, they're going to keep losing here and these people will continue to drift away from them.

The future of the Democratic Party?
I've got a mind to write a (very) long post on that soon...

But as a sneak preview... have a look at CNN (http://www.cnn.com)'s exit poll wossnames (with all the cool demographics an stuff) for Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Obama

I think the 2008 Democratic Primary is likely to come down to two candidates, possibly three.  They are: Hillary Clinton (which is a near certainty that she'll run), John Edwards (who may now be associated with a losing ticket), and/or Al Gore (who may just be all primed up to run and...win....)

The best question for all three candidates is, who will be best suited to win against Rudy Giuliani?

Niether. Gov. Vilsack of Iowa.

For the Dems to have a chance, they need to run Zell Miller. He could take a lot of votes from Republicans. He is a southerner and not a liberal extremist.

(Yes, that is a joke. I think he would have a better shot at winning the Republican Nomination than the Democratic Nomination.)

Kerry=Kinnock?

I would say neither Edwards or Hillary..i would think the dems would try to run someone from the midwest  for 2008..i see vilsack as a probability for now. Midwest governor an washington outsider it may  work

Yep, and guys like him.

Your characterization of Edwards as somehow the new, more conservative Democrat (and Hillary as somehow the outmoded liberal) is way off base.

What does Edwards' platitudes about the working man have to do with winning an election?

THE DEMOCRATS HAVE YET TO WIN AN ELECTION WITH A POST-VIETNAM FOREIGN POLICY WIMP!!

The fact that they tried to do it in the first post 9/11 election was proof that they are massively out of touch with the American people on the issues of war, peace, and patriotism.

The Democrats don't have the good sense anymore to identify a decent conservative in their midst. The party has removed itself completely from it's twentieth century foundation of the true liberal foreign policy (as in, "liberating" oppressed peoples from despotic enemies) set down by Wilson, FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Henry Jackson, and Ronald Reagan (before he jumped parties).

When the Democrats (or the Republicans) get a candidate who, like George Bush, is clear-eyed about the need to "pay any price, bear any burden" to defend freedom and our freedom-loving allies in the world (and to act all alone if we must), but who represents more moderate approaches with regard to tax incentives, the environment and social issues, that person will rack up the kind of EV victories that you saw under Clinton.

Joe had the policies, but unfortunately, not the charisma. But he would have been a great President.

Edwards will run (he has nothing else to do now), but in my opinion bad memories of the rather substantial 2000 defeat and his poor performance in the campaign will hurt him.  He'll do better than Lieberman did, though.

The Democrats can go two places from here:

A) We lost 2004 because the Bush base was more energized than ours.  We need to go back to our roots, and pick a real consistent liberal that our base loves and can't be attacked as a flip-flopper.

B) We lost 2004 because our guy was too liberal--we need a (Bill) Clinton-ite candidate to appeal to the independent and undecided voters.  Plus it helps if he's from the South.


If it goes towards B), then Edwards has a good shot.  Especially since he's from the South.  Although my personal bet for the Democrats in category B) is Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia.


For the A) category, there's always Howard Dean, who still sounds interested in running.  Al Gore could try to pull off a Nixon, but I think his career died when he grew a beard.

Russ Feingold might be a possibility here too (?)


Obama's just too young to make the run in my opinion...although Edwards had only one term under his belt when he made the run...might be a potential VP pick.


Of course, there is one candidate I've failed to mention.  Hillary.  As a liberal, she appeals to the Category A folks...and as a Clinton she appeals to the Category B folks.  The only problem with a Hillary candidacy is that us Republicans are standing on the sidelines just waiting for her to clinch it.

If she does run, I think it comes down to Edwards v. Hillary with Warner as a dark horse candidate.

If she doesn't, the field opens up considerably.  Gore and Dean have serious chances, Obama might try a bid, etc. etc. etc.

Warner wouldn't be that bad of a choice.  What this election has shown is, even though I like Edwards, he wasn't ready for the big seat.  Even up to recently he was showing gaps in his understanding of the position which lay before him.  He has 4 years to mature, but with him being outside of the political scene, I'm not sure if he would gain it.

Warner, on the other hand, has a decent chance, at least in the mid-Atlantic states.  He might be a bit too conservative on some issues for the Democratic core (defined loosely since I am still projecting a split in the Democratic party as a result of Kerry losing this election), but should be appealing on the overall.

3 years to wait and see.

Edwards is not Presidential enough, in my opinion. Hillary would not do any better than Kerry, except she would have a better team, and could probably squeak out a few states, based on a better team than Kerry. She has the Clinton War Machine, which is up on the same level of Karl Rove. I think Howard Dean will be back, there are many Democrats who think he'd have been better than Kerry. If they are looking for a Southern Democrat to run, Edwards is not it. Possibly Mark Warner of Virginia, and maybe Mark Pryor of Arkansas for VP. Of course, that would tick off of the Dean branch, unless they realize they need the win so badly to put aside differences.

Warner / Obama would be a heck of a ticket.

Neither if the Dems want to start winning elections.

Obama may be a good choice but I don't think he'll have enough experience to be a major player in 2008.

The only way the democrats can win in the next election is if they pick Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh, or a candidate from the far west for president.  Its as simple as that.  This election proved that faith, moral values, and a connection with your voters really is important.  Northeasterners just dont get it, and they make fun of it.  So many liberals(not on this board) after this loss have done exactly what cost them this election: "The south is stupid, social conservatives are stupid, theyre bigots and theyre stupid bigots at that.  They are especially stupid for voting for bush again."
The democrats must move to the center and become a center left party because the pendulum has swung to the far right irregardless whether Bush won by 3% because he recieved a social values mandate.

I think the best nominee for the dems in '08 would be Senator Bayh.

Warner is popular here. I don't know any of his positions, to be honest.

I know he signed a tax increase into law, but I don't know what his reasons are. I heard he's pro-gun...

You know, MODU?

Is Bayh even half-way interested?

I don't see how a moderate could get the Dem nomination. That rules out Bayh, Warner, Lincoln, etc.

Best prediction is Hillary, but it's early. Richardson is one to watch.

I hope that Warner wins and picks Nelson as his VP. We need a governor in our ranks again.

What are Warner's stances on the issues?

Being from Indiana originally, Bayh doesnt play the games his party plays and is probably the second most conservative democratic senator currently in office...zell takes top honors.  Plus knowing how to win landslide elections in republican landslide states is quite an ability...

Most awesome thread ever.

This is a beautiful relic of a thread from a time when there was hope for America.

Well, at least people talked about Obama in 2004... even if his chances were seriously underestimated at the time.

Its always amusing to go back to old threads like these and see what people were thinking years ago.  I especially love the talk about Bayh and Lieberman being the Democrats only hopes of winning in 08. 

This thread is really quite laughable now that we know what happened in RL.

LOL at the people saying the Democrats needed Bayh or Lieberman to win. In retrospect, the Democratic party didn't go left enough in 2008.

Yes, Democrats were pretty hopeless in 2004.

ROFL

LOL


Did this guy ever accept his accolades? But, I thought nobody knew who Obama was in 2004!!!!11!!!

I love these old threads.

To be fair, there is probably stuff we've predicted about the 2020 election that will be laughable in the future. These were not uneducated people in this thread.

It does seem laughable though that anybody thought a pro-choice crossdressing mayor of New York would be a shoe in for the GOP nomination.

Weirdly, this thread may very well become somewhat more accurate if Hillary wins in 2016.......the people who said she was the future were right, kind of.

They forgot to add Dean as the new future nominee.