How can we get a progressive presidential candidate at the top of Democratic ticket in 2016?

[Spike89]

177. "Top down" isn't going to ever work

If Kucinich had won the presidency instead of Obama in 2008...I submit that he'd have actually gotten much less progressive legislation passed. The reality is that for a president to really be able to make progress in enacting their agenda, they must rely on either extremely active populist sentiment (we just don't riot/protest effectively) or solid support from the legislative branches.
One of the big reasons (IMO) that Kucinich did not gain much traction wasn't that people disagreed with his policies/ideology, but they didn't think he'd be effective in getting any of those things done. To take this to absurd levels to illustrate the point, who wouldn't vote for a candidate that promised to make everyone slim, always youthful, healthy, and happy? The very first question everyone is going to ask is "how?" If the candidate is somehow able to get enough people to believe she/he can deliver, they will win. Nobody really believed Kucinich could get congress to follow him--he had trouble getting anyone in the house to follow him when he was there.
To get a real progressive in the White House, we've got to rebuild the progressive base in both the Senate and the House. We don't need true majorities of progressives in both, but we do need them to expand beyond the fringe.