What kind of person will it take to, not just win but wipe the floor with Donald Trump in 2020

[Le Gaucher]

Because if Dems can't blow the shit out of Republicans with the Orange Buffoon in 2020 ..then shame on us.

Let's just focus on personality type- not specific people.

In my mind, the person who can do that may not make the best president. So let's leave the issue of being suitable and prepared for the job out. Because after Hillary, that is almost a negative when it comes to electability with the fucked up middle of the ballot voters ( they don't Fucking care about true merits). Hillary was qualified for POTUS and Trump is only qualified to lick Putin's balls. He still won.

I think someone with a folksy charm , attractive to look at and no nonsense but fair attitude about him ( yes a guy) will win. He should not be one bit afraid to treat Trump like the criminal he is on the debate stage.

What do you all think?

[highmindedhavi]

1. Trump is different than any other politician

anyone who runs against him will have to deal with a new nickname and a daily barrage of mockings on twitter. No one wants to be the first to throw their name out for that reason.

[Demsrule86]

22. He is not a politician. He is a grifter and a criminal.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. It's hard to know what will get people excited -

but it seems to me that our best chance would be with someone who seems very positive and approachable and who doesn't dwell exclusively on Trump's awfulness, but can clearly explain the benefits a Democratic administration would offer that the GOP has taken away, or wants to take away. I think it would be a mistake to focus too much on Trump. The candidate needs to tell people what he/she has to offer them that they aren't getting from Trump and his misbegotten administration, although he/she shouldn't hesitate to point out the corruption. I think corrupt politicians get under people's skin more than anything else.

[Demsrule86]

23. That is where you are not correct...it is always imperative to focus on the president in a first

mid term...and one important issue...like the ACA...consider the 2010 midterm. Policy 'wonkism' doesn't work in these situations. And we have such good material...Trumps had antagonized just about everyone.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

63. I strongly disagree. A campaign focused on nothing but busting on Trump will fail.

If all you do is slag him, no matter how much he deserves it, your campaign will be perceived as negative and offering nothing except, "Maybe you don't like our guy very much but Trump is worse." That won't sell except among people who have already decided they'll never vote for Trump. You need independents, undecideds
swing voters and non-voters - Dems will never convert the Deplorables but there are plenty of other people who are persuadable. But they have to be offered something more than "not as bad as Trump" to get them off their butts.

[Demsrule86]

64. Consider 2010...one issues and the focus on Obama...not born here and healthcare

a policy laundry list is not effective.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

65. I'm not advocating for a "laundry list."

What I'm saying is that the Dems' candidate will need to tell people that electing him/her will actually benefit them, and not just bitch about what a douchebag Trump is. The people who don't like him because he's a douchebag aren't going to vote for him anyhow. The Deplorables like it that he's a douchebag so they're hopeless. Everybody else needs to know why our guy is better for them than their guy.

[pnwest]

3. I dont know why but Justin Trudeau

Comes to mind. Someone young, smart, unsullied by scandal, not jaded or cynical, and unafraid to call trump on his bullshit...

[smirkymonkey]

15. Yes, we need an American Justin Trudeau.

Maybe someone like Gavin Newsom. Or Joe Kennedy III.

[Demsrule86]

24. I love Joe Kennedy the III and not because he is pretty...he is smart, well spoken charismatic...

[Wwcd]

29. ☺

Thanks

[RandomAccess]

4. Uh, wrong question.

We blew the hell out of Trump in 2016. We'll do it again in 2020 (if he's still in office). So the question becomes: what do we have to do to overcome all the vote stealing mechanisms:

Hillary didn't lose because she was less POPULAR. She lost because of James Comey's letters and because of some even more important factors -- more important because they're not going away. They will be used against us in every election going forward, unless we can stop them.

The big problems are voter suppression, Russian meddling, and targeted voter propaganda through Twitter, Google, Facebook, and other forms of social media. There is no question that the Trump campaign, through Cambridge Analytica, did this -- and that the Russians did this. The only question is how much they conspired together in the propaganda campaign.

We need to figure out how to defend the democratic process from fake news and micro-targeted AI propaganda -- or lose our democracy. https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029576691

Here is how they stole the election, well this and KGB operatives V Crosscheck in action:
Trump victory margin in Michigan: 13,107
Michigan Crosscheck purge list: 449,922

Trump victory margin in Arizona: 85,257
Arizona Crosscheck purge list: 270,824

Trump victory margin in North Carolina: 177,008
North Carolina Crosscheck purge list: 589,393
http://www.gregpalast.com/election-stolen-heres/

23:00 6/25/2017
PALMER: Rigged election: Donald Trump won every surprise swing state by the same 1% margin
http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/rigged-election-donald-trump-won-every-surprise-swing-state-by-the-same-1-margin/118/

The most commonly posited explanation of Donald Trump’s shocking election victory was that every professional pollster in the nation – despite each working independently and using differing methodologies – somehow managed to overlook the same pockets of Trump voters in these states. If such pockets did exist, they would have existed in varying sizes in each of the four states, thus resulting in different sized wins in each.

Ask any statistician and they’ll tell you that a reasonable distribution of the results would have been Trump winning one of the states by one percent, won one of them by perhaps three percent, won one of them by two percent, lost one of them by one percent, or something along those lines. But instead the voting tallies looked startlingly different from any natural distribution. In fact they looked startlingly the same.

According to the New York Times, the voting results broke down like this: Trump won Florida by just over one percent of the vote. He also won Pennsylvania by just over one percent. He won Michigan by just under one percent. And he won Wisconsin by precisely one percent. That’s not how numbers tend to work in the real world.

On its own, this kind of suspiciously consistent numerical dispersion across the four states that decided the election would be something that could be written off as a mere fluke. But when you put it within the context of the numerous other ways in which the voting tallies make no mathematical sense, it points to the numbers having been rigged or altered.

MikeFarb @mikefarb1
#unhackthevote
Did Trump win Michigan? I don' think so.
Won by 10,704 but wait
75,355 Ballots Thrown Out
87 Machines Broke Down in Detrioit

Link to tweet

[tonyt53]

7. Facts are hard to dispute, aren't they!

[Sophia4]

28. Don't forget! End the electoral college.

We don't need it.

It is an anachronism.

It cheats Californians of an equal vote in presidential elections.

End it.

[RandomAccess]

61. +1

[mr_lebowski]

66. No doubt ... and I say this seriously ... STATES are an anachronism in fact ...

Random lines on the ground with no real 'meaning' to them w/as much as people move around these days ...

I'd be fine with the way the Federal Gov't is run being much more parliamentary and basically the entities of 'States' having no meaning the context of the Feds.

I mean we can have States and State Govt's but we should get rid of the Senate and just have one (much bigger) House, with like 8-10 'parties' and power-sharing and coalitions and such, no more of this "Our (1 of 2) party has ONE more guy than yours, so ya know, our side has 99% of the power in this Chamber" bullshit.

And no more EC! Everything should be 'one person one vote', period. We should have a DEMOCRACY.

Pretty damn annoying fact that a Wyoming voter wields overall something like 25X more power than a voter in CA.

WAAAAY too many people are essentially disenfranchised with our current system. Other countries have come up w/fairer systems. We just need the will to change the system. The Amendment system allows for it, so ...

[Sophia4]

69. States probably make governance in some areas like education (organizing schools)

easier. But when it comes to electing our president, each vote should be equal to every other vote.

[ProfessorGAC]

70. I Agree Pretty Much With Everything You Said

This is particularly true in some specific instances. Why are there two Dakotas? Are they really that different? Now you have 4 senators and 6 EC votes distributed among fewer than half the number of people who live in Chicago.

I know this goes back way farther, but why two Carolinas? Why both Vermont and New Hampshire?

Probably not a popular sentiment you and i share here, but i agree with you.

The only thing i'd change in your post is that if we still have state governments than we should restructure the states too.

[mr_lebowski]

71. I'd be fine with like 10-20 'state-like' regions, aligned on general political lines ...

And maybe not 100% contiguous. Try to come up with groupings for areas that are likely to want to be governed similarly .. much of the West Coast in CA, OR, WA for example

[Hekate]

52. THIS. Thank you.

[Glorfindel]

5. Someone richer and more abrasive than tRump

Also, younger, better-looking, and totally unafraid to "mix it up."

[blake2012]

9. Uh, no

We don’t need more abrasive.

[Glorfindel]

10. I probably should have said "assertive" instead of abrasive

I was thinking along the lines of FDR: "They all hate me, and I welcome their hatred."

[blake2012]

11. True. We need someone who can deftly throw Trumps crap in his face

But politely and yet assertively as you say.

[Mopar151]

25. FDR could say "FUCK YOU" in elegant and patrican tones

So that any thoughtful person could understand it, and all the haters said "Huh, wut?"

[smirkymonkey]

16. I would replace "abrasive" with "wittier and quicker".

Someone who can smack down Trump in a New York minute any time Spanky throws an insult his way.

[poboy2]

49. 'We go high'? We'll lose western civilization over that. We're fucked if this thinking prevails. -nt

[Wwcd]

32. BEZOS!! He's a real billionare...you hear that President Chump

Depends who Sinclaire gives the most airtime to.

24/7 Trump or the most qualified person to lead all of America forward.

[Shemp Howard]

6. A younger Joe Biden type

One reason Trump won in 2016 is that he was attractive to mill and factory workers. That gave him the edge in states like Ohio and Michigan. Counter that in 2020 with someone who is also attractive to mill and factory workers. Someone who is like Biden.

[Le Gaucher]

44. Agree. A younger Joe Biden would be perfect.

[blake2012]

8. Barack Obama

Just kidding. Sort of.

Thinking someone who is currently a governor.

Or maybe the Repukes can primary that crook after Mueller revelations and GOP congress refuses to act.

[Le Gaucher]

14. Barack Obama would destroy Trump. And Trump knows it.

It's terrible that we can't run him.


Maybe we should amend the Constitution to say 'no more than 2 consecutive terms' .. but the person should be able to come back for a third term after a gap

[StevieM]

12. Someone who is not targeted for destruction by the FBI. (eom)

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. Someone with most but not all of the attributes of Jimmy Carter.

My dream candidate would be without a whiff of scandal, who promised never to lie to the American people, and practiced the policies of unity and not division.

[DavidDvorkin]

17. Not Bernie Sanders.

[Wwcd]

33. Really. NOT him again. Why? He can't even decide where his loyalty lies.How are we suppose to know

[DavidDvorkin]

35. I predict he'll start off strong in the primaries

And then fade quickly. That's assuming he does run.

Well, that's how I hope it will go, anyway.

[NightWatcher]

18. I think we should already know whom that person is and they should already be running

trump was running well before he announced he was running. All of his birther shit was campaigning to the masses. We need someone who can start this informal campaigning to at least get name recognition out there before formally submitting campaign documents.

[monmouth4]

20. Adam Schiff is a very smart guy and seems to fill all of the above needs. n/t

[kacekwl]

59. My choice exactly.

[lunamagica]

19. It doesn't matter if "Perfect Rockstar Candidate" is nominated. As long as the issues with Russia

meddling and voter suppression aren't fixed, they will get away with stealing the election.

Let's not forget that Hillary received almost four million more votes than he did, but it wasn't enough.

The first and most important factor in winning is to have a clean process

[Wwcd]

34. There it is. The process has been dirtied up for so long

That's how the GOP came to be in full power today.

They dirtied the process little by little.
And they aren't about to hand it over.

[retread]

21. While I will derive satisfaction from anyone defeating Spanky. I would take special joy

if they were a minority woman!!

[Squinch]

55. Tammy Duckworth: Thai mother, American serviceman father, wounded vet, mom, bad ass.

[oberliner]

26. An African-American woman

Let's start there.

[NanceGreggs]

27. Trump won't be running in 2020. n/t

[bearsfootball516]

30. Well, I'd say...

Someone who doesn't have much in terms of skeletons in the closet, young, charismatic, and has the ability to appeal to minority voters.

I like the idea of Cory Booker, personally.

[bettyellen]

42. I like Kamala Harris for exactly those reasons, and she is as quick witted as it gets.

[Amimnoch]

31. If Trump is still there Tom Hanks/Dwayne Johnson.

If we're running against a President Pence or President Ryan - Sherrod Brown.

[Yavin4]

36. A person with a vision of America after Trump is gone.

You cannot run against Trump. You have to run through him. Going negative against him won't work. That will only bring you down to his level and depress turnout.

[Binkie The Clown]

37. A young, charismatic, fully Democratic version of Bernie. nt

[Wwcd]

40. Bernie has none of those qualities. Bernie is a socialist & has been most of his life.

America doesn't need to become a government of dead end socialism.

[Binkie The Clown]

50. That's why I said "Fully Democratic"

We need someone with his energy, commitment, and charisma, not his ideology.

[Wwcd]

57. Exactly. Democratic values & platform.

Bernies& Trumps need not apply.
They've proven who they are & who they are not.

[brewens]

39. I didn't even know who Bill Clinton was at this stage of the game when he first ran.

We should be in no hurry to anoint someone. I don't care who thinks whose turn it is.

[Wwcd]

41. +++. Bill Clinton or Barack Obama for that matter.

How bout someone who believes in the value of all people & a free & fair market system.

Someone who wants to make our govt better for the future of American citizens rather than tear it down and build a whole different one in its place.

No comminists, no socialists, no dictators, no foreign control of our gov't.

[brewens]

56. Obama was at least on the radar screen compared to Clinton. If you lived out

here in the NW anyway. Clinton, never heard of the guy. Obama I knew well from his previous convention speech, and the hype that he might be a prospect.

[NCTraveler]

43. "So let's leave the issue of being suitable and prepared for the job out."

Lets not.

Wow.

[ecstatic]

45. One other person besides Putin that trump is afraid to clap back at is

Mark Cuban. Not necessarily interested in him running, but it's an interesting thing to note. FWIW.

That being said, I pray that he's removed long before 2020. I know I can't handle another 2 years of his lies & drama king act, and neither can the nation.

[COLGATE4]

46. 2 words: Joe Biden nt

[apnu]

47. Honestly? Anybody but Hillary.

That's not a knock on HRC as a human being. She came with so much unearned baggage from Bill's years and the highly successful propaganda campaign against both her and Bill, it made it easy for the rubes in the rust belt to believe Donnie's con.

Anybody without that unfair baggage would have beat Trump in 2016.

[lpbk2713]

60. George Clooney

No, he is not a skilled statesman. But he would get a lot of votes and he would have
the wisdom to surround himself with talented people. And he is not so asinine that
he would be putting his foot in his mouth at every turn.

Edit: Sorry, meant for this to be a reply to the OP.

[poboy2]

48. One thing is certain, if we play that 'we go high' bullshit, then western civilization is OVER. -nt

[librechik]

51. I want Oprah, and I don't care who knows it.

[Squinch]

53. TAMMY DUCKWORTH!

[dameatball]

54. I would prefer to see what the landscape looks like after 2018, but I understand your premise

[kacekwl]

58. In a normal world anyone

with a pulse. Too bad about all the easily fooled dolts in America who really drag down the curve and too bad about all those too lazy or self-involved too vote.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

62. Same kind who could win in 2008. Any old yellow dog.

I think Trump and his party are toast in 2020. Like in 2008, whoever wins the Dem nomination, will win the general.

It might be tougher than I think, because of bots, super-pacs, citizen united, talk radio, and voter suppression efforts. But I still think the win is locked. As of now.

[syringis]

67. Hi Le Gaucher

I Might be wrong, but Michael F. Bennet (CO) would be great.

He has a great experience and his positions on many subjects are very pertinent.

[Orsino]

68. It will take the kind of voter who can see through the bullshit.

No matter how magically delicious our Dem nominee is, it will come down to ballots.

[OnDoutside]

72. I think one of the younger Democrats will emerge from the pack in the next 15 months, and the great

thing to me is that there seems quite a few who have the ability to step up to the plate.

Do you remember a year ago when MSM were complaining that the Democratic Party was rudderless ? Well now it has been the best thing because the party has been able to get back together without taking sides (apart from the Franken knifing), and no one person has become the target for the right.

[jalan48]

73. Someone like Jerry Brown. He tells it like it is and doesn't back down. No "Reaching

across the aisle" with Jerry.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

74. The opposite of Trump. You can't beat him by being a bigger asshole.

He will always win that contest.