Vanilla candidates...

[Jeebo]

One of our problems in 2016, I think, was that we had an unexciting, uninspiring, vanilla candidate who chose an unexciting, uninspiring, vanilla running mate. IMHO.

-- Ron

[texasfiddler]

1. Is a young gay mayor/war veteran exciting enough?

[gldstwmn]

12. How about a socialist from Vermont?

Or a guy that wants the government to pay you every month?

[texasfiddler]

2. I ask this because his policies are moderate

I am trying to figure out who to vote for on Super Tuesday since Biden appears doomed

[emmaverybo]

4. He is only doomed because that's the word and voters are abandoning him, like stock market

panic. A shame. Does not have to be that way.

[Cha]

3. Bulloney.. our first female candidate who got

66 Million votes was NOT your insult "vanilla".

[Jeebo]

13. Telling what I believe to be the truth is NOT an "insult".

I admit what I said is a judgment call, a matter of opinion, that's why I concluded it with "IMHO". But if it's what I believe, and it is, it's perfectly appropriate for me to try to call attention to it, in an attempt to prevent us from making a similar mistake again in this election year.

-- Ron

[emmaverybo]

5. Our problem in 2016 was that our election was stolen.

[SMC22307]

6. Nope. Our "vanilla candidate" won 3,000,000 more votes than Fat Nixon...

and would be sitting in the White House if her campaign had taken PA, MI, and WI more seriously. People need to accept that Barack Obama's don't come along very often and get off their duffs and vote.

[PatrickforO]

7. Be advised. Not good form to say what you just did.

Many on here will disagree vehemently.

[SharonClark]

8. As they should because of TRUTH.

[Jeebo]

14. Just exactly what does "not good form" mean?

Why is it "not good form" for me to call attention to a mistake that I believe was made in 2016, in an attempt to prevent that mistake being made again? I do not understand what your problem is with what I said.

-- Ron

[PatrickforO]

16. Should be obvious. If you read the rules of this forum, the site is for Democrats. One of the rules

is not to bash Democrats.

By posting, "One of our problems in 2016, I think, was that we had an unexciting, uninspiring, vanilla candidate who chose an unexciting, uninspiring, vanilla running mate," it can easily be construed that you are bashing Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine.

Both Clinton and Kaine are Democrats. Ergo you've bashed Democrats.

Be mindful that 2016 was a bitter primary season, and many people on here still have heartburn because of it. In 2016, Bernie was the leader on this board for months, but there was a minority for Clinton. The battles here became rather rancorous.

Another rule is to not re-fight the last primary.

But that's neither here nor there, I suppose. I will make this observation: Since LBJ strong-armed the Civil Rights Act through in 1964, the Republicans have 'owned' the South. It is called the Southern Strategy, and the GOP became quite accomplished at racial dog whistles. They also paid lip service to being anti-abortion. Since the GOP base tends to be white supremacists and/or bible thumping fundies and/or gun nuts, Republicans have embraced ever-crazier right-wing positions.

At this point, the old GOP is gone, and the twisted monstrosity that has risen from its ashes is the Party of Trump. This party is a fascist group whose positions are straight from Storm Front. Many are actually Nazis in all but name. Couple this with what Rachel Maddow and a number of other liberal pundits have called 'the right-wing noise machine,' and you have a crazy base existing in a fearful bubble.

You know this. Of course you do...

But now consider this: The descent into craziness of the GOP has caused the Democratic tent to become a bit bigger. It now has two basic wings. There are ideological centrists (a slight minority on here) and progressives (a slight majority on here - for example you see Warren is leading with the DU population, which tends to be a bit wonky.

Then you have the largest group of voters - the Indies. According to Wiki, "As of December 2019, Gallup polling found that 28% of Americans identified as Democrat, 28% identified as Republican, and 41% as Independent."

Forty-one percent. Of these, 43% voted Trump and 42% for Clinton. Because Trump ran as a populist, even though he's not, and that was the mood of the people in 2016. Yet, Clinton did beat Trump by 2.9 million votes - it's just that we have not gotten rid of the electoral college just yet.

Now, while I'm a flaming progressive, the centrists on this site, perhaps rightly, point out that a center candidate like Biden, Buttigieg or Klobuchar would draw more Independent votes, while registered Democrats will overwhelmingly vote for whoever ends up as our nominee.

As to bad form - many on this site share your view, and many do not. But how much sense does it make to put such a divisive statement in an OP when what we need is unity? Consider what Gillum said Friday on Maher - IA had a low turnout because 'many voters are agnostic (his word) about who the nominee is since they will vote against Trump no matter what. We'll see in subsequent primaries, and certainly in the general election, if this is true, or if it was your statement that was true.

But again to bad form - don't you think 'I told you so!' is bad form?

For myself, I'm a bit sad to see the leading minority candidates are gone. I could very much have gotten behind Booker, and Harris was OK, though I felt her to be weak on monetary and fiscal policy. Economics in general.

So there you have it. I gave you a thoughtful answer, though you will probably reply TLDR. Not many people really read stuff these days.

[Jeebo]

21. I was not "bashing" any Democrats.

The word "bash" connotes a level of harshness that was not present in my original post. Please do not read things into my words that are not there. And it is perfectly appropriate to do what you call re-fighting the 2016 primaries if it is in furtherance of the goal of avoiding a repetition of mistakes made then. There were Clinton/Kaine supporters who were enthusiastic about that ticket (I was among them), but their enthusiasm derived not so much from the personalities of Clinton and Kaine but from a general ideological identification with the policy stances promoted by those candidates, and also from the awful alternative to Clinton/Kaine. I supported Clinton/Kaine enthusiastically, both with my pocketbook and at the ballot box on election day, but that enthusiasm was DESPITE their rather bland personalities. Recognizing that blandness does not constitute "bashing" those candidates, but merely realistically (I believe) describing their attributes. I was a Bernie supporter and voted for him in the primary. A ticket that included Bernie would have been a very exciting and inspiring and interesting ticket. But once Hillary got the nomination, I supported her enthusiastically. There was nothing "divisive" about my comments or the intent behind them, only a desire to do it better this time. And I wasn't saying "I told you so" because I did not say that at that time. Again, please do not read things into my words that are not there.

Also, what was the point of your history lesson? It has nothing to do with the issues we are discussing.

And finally, you used two abbreviations that I do not understand. What does "OP" mean (in the fourth from the last paragraph) and what does "TLDR" mean (in the last paragraph?

-- Ron

[PatrickforO]

22. OP is the post that begins a thread.

TLDR is 'too long did not read.' I try to give people thoughtful answers on here, especially when opinions differ, and have actually had one person on here use TLDR with me, which I found pretty insulting. I mean, I can see that on a place like The Hill, but not here.

The point of my history lesson is that all this ties together and the central powers in our party, such as the DNC and the DCCC, sometimes frustrate me through being too cautious, not bold enough, not progressive enough. So when you said the thing about the vanilla candidate, I noticed that one person on here disagreed vehemently with you. I personally don't disagree. We ran a candidate who, rightly or wrongly, was perceived as an 'establishment' candidate against a dirt-bag who was presenting himself as a populist. The mood of the American people was clearly towards populism (Bernie being the populist on the left), and so Trump ended up cheating out a victory with Russian help.

I think now that many of the independents who voted Trump are horrified at what he has done, and the hard-core Nazi right is firmly behind him. So we'll see how it goes and who we put forward. It looks like it is going to be a face off between two septuagenarian white men, though, and to me that is a bit uninspiring.

[Jeebo]

23. I hope one of those septuagenarian white men...

...chooses Stacey Abrams as his running mate. I think that would balance that ticket wonderfully!

And in the future I will try to be very careful when posting comments that somebody might misinterpret as too critical of any Democrat.

I might vote for Bernie Sanders in my state's primary. I'm torn between him and Elizabeth Warren.

-- Ron

[highplainsdem]

9. You do realize that people disagree, a lot, on which candidates are unexciting and uninspiring?

And as others here have pointed out, in 2016 our glass-ceiling-shattering first female presidential candidate for a major party, who was anything but uninspiring, got millions more votes than Trump.

[Jeebo]

10. Hey y'all, I voted for Hillary...

...enthusiastically, and I made multiple donations to her campaign, a lot of money for an old retired guy living on a fixed income. She had experience, intelligence, integrity, competence, and it has been said she was perhaps the most qualified candidate ever, and I don't disagree with that.

But, let's face it, she WAS kind of bland. And her running mate was bland-squared, bland on steroids, a TERRIBLE choice, I thought then and still think now. I hope whoever our nominee this year is, s/he will choose somebody interesting this time as a running mate. I would LOVE to see this choice: Stacey Abrams.

But whatever our ticket is, I think we all will agree, WE'VE GOT TO GET THAT CON MAN OUT OF OFFICE. That's more important than anything else!

-- Ron

[Zolorp]

11. I could not disagree with you more about Hillary.

[Skidmore]

18. Loved our ticket last time,

which Sanders trashed and sabotaged up to and during the convention. Revisionist history won't change that. So the answer shouldn't be to replace one cult of personality with another.

[oasis]

15. Scale of 1 to 10, how much of a "wonk" is the candidate you support?

[uponit7771]

17. K&R, on the running mate point

[betsuni]

19. Wrong. You don't know who Hillary Clinton is.

[Renew Deal]

20. Have you looked at the candidate in your sig line?