Your 2016 Presidential Candidate Speculation Thread

I think Fiorina is probably too close in appeal to Jeb - the business-friendly, moderate end of the Republican party - to get much traction. I have a feeling, given the way the GOP apparatchiks have tightened up the primary calendar to prevent a repeat of the 2012 dog and pony show, once this thing gets going (many months from now) it's going to quickly boil down to a two-way race, so the scramble from now till then will be to see who can define themselves as the anti-Jeb.

She was a fucking horrible CEO and she hasn' a chance.

Well, I don't really know how good she was a CEO, but I kind of doubt most voters will either. She was a CEO of a big corporation, so assuming she didn't get fired amidst a sex scandal or something like that, she'll probably be able to run on her business experience. Still I agree she's a long shot.

Jeb will let the people know.

she laid off tens of thousands of people, tripled her own salary, and spent way too much money acquiring other, terrible companies. HP's stock dropped by 50%. Her own employees booed her at meetings. She was one of the worst tech CEOs of all time.

Running ads against fiorina's record is maybe the easiest thing to do in politics.

She doesn't have a prayer. Gunning for a cabinet post or vp or something.

It will be interesting to see if Jeb will run ads against Fiorina for laying people off and having too high a salary. Seems a bit off-message for a Republican candidate.

Populism works in a recession cycle, even if it's complete bullshit.

I doubt she will become enough of a threat that he'd have to consider that anyway. I mean she lost big in her previous California senate race, didn't she? That doesn't seem like the kind of political trajectory that leads to the White House.

Failed CEO + failed candidate for senate + no real talk radio chops = doom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo_Ejfc5hW8

Only in GOP's Earth-3 can pride in being a "Hewlett Packard CEO" get recognized a a win.

Seriously. Working for HP sounds like something you'd only admit during times of extreme emotional distress, most likely while being tortured

corporate record superficially similar to GWB's

Was going to say, didn't we just have a bad CEO as 2-term president?

current HP marketing focuses on "The Machine," and I have no idea what they're talking about

Kinda convinced Huckabee's only real asset has ever been his disarmingly folksy last name, without which he would really just be a fringier, base-baitinger Lamar Alexander.

Say "President Huckabee" out loud without laughing. You can't. Nobody else can either. He's not gonna get anywhere.

trying saying it while biting down (gently) on your lower lip with your top row of teeth

haha i love all the "why huckabee could be a serious contender" bullshit pieces around

wait seriously?

lol

i've always bought huckabee as a candidate. idk if he can win the nomination but i think he has the right pieces in place (religious economic populism) to make a run for it. obv he can't beat hillary but who can?

Reagan.

my thoughts essentially ^

Huckabee is slightly more credible as a candidate than Sally Langston, the fictional former vice president on Scandal

I would be glad to see him if I was at a Cracker Barrel and something was wrong w my order and he was a manager and came to the table and apologized and gave me a free slice of pie.

i think the ideal president for a lot of americans could be described as a competent cracker barrel manager

that can play the Seinfeld theme song

Thanks for the new dn!

I can totally see Huckabee as a friendly and more than competent Cracker Barrel manager who fucks busboys in the meat locker.

for all-time:

Huckabee is the type of dude who would invite you to dinner, ask you all kinds of sincere, heartfelt questions about your family and your job, offhandedly mention the lethal dose of cyanide he put in your lemonade, and then offer you a nice slice of fresh-out-the-oven homemade pie.

― I loves you, PORGI (DJP), Tuesday, November 13, 2012 1:24 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the demand for billions of 'column inches' over the next 18 months (FOR FUCKS SAKE) means everyone is 'a serious contender'

except Sanders of course, that's been settled.

obv he can't beat hillary but who can?

hillarnixon can destroy hillarnixon

http://i.imgur.com/faO6v7J.jpg

Bernie Sanders is a serious contender and/or lock for me to vote for in a primary, at least. I'm hoping that since he's not actually trying to win, but to force the discussion, that he'll stay in through the whole thing... maybe not spending buttloads everywhere, but just insisting on being in debates, or there being debates. It'll still be treated as a Hillary coronation, but at least there would be a guy on TV arguing the merits of socialism, regulation, taxation to accomplish collective goals, etc.

Like, a Bill Bradley, but better. And maybe more effective than a Kucinich, just because it won't be as crowded of a field and thus hopefully he won't be reduced to getting to say two lines per eight-candidate debate. The news was sort of forced to report on Bradley's campaign, if half-heartedly, and to air long (perhaps unwatched) one-on-one debates with Gore.

at least there would be a guy on TV arguing the merits of socialism, regulation, taxation to accomplish collective goals

and there's the rub. You know what good that ultimately does? ZERO. You know what good Bradley ultimately did in 2000? ZERO. (And I held my nose and voted for him.)

If Hil is elected she'll do whatever the fuck, like Sanders never existed.

I wouldn't say zero but I also wd not locate the value of such a candidacy in some imagined 'shift' it would induce in Hillary. I just think it would enlarge the scope of possibilities for people watching who have never imagined the possibilities of a government not crippled by the naturalization of Reagan tax levels and spending/regulatory priorities, wherein Democrats are permitted to argue over something beyond how to vaguely direct the scraps left over to the 'middle class.' Hillary will obviously remain Hillary.

those possibilities, in this country, are dead and buried.

Bernie's filling a role that's been around at least as long as I've been alive, let's not pretend his candidacy represents any kind of structural change. I'm glad he's there and I'll probably vote for him but this is nothing new.

yes, and i'm sick of it.

everyone watch out, dr morbz is sick of it

https://monkeyvapes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Im-as-mad-as-Hell.jpg

Morbs, that's why it's impossible to engage you in this thread. For years you've yapped about whom you'd vote for in primary challenges when they come up in NY, a serious one shows up nationally, posters on this thread write about him honestly, and you still say WHO CARES.

The Obama administration will likely end with more things I wanted from a Democratic sociopath than any president in my lifetime, certainly more than Bill Reaganton. That's the point of being adult about politics: not believing in messiahs, holding legislators and presidents accountable, forcing politicians left, getting small victories. There is nothing else. And this attitude still entitles you to feel superior to people who are smarter about politics and history than you.

I've realized that the minute someone agrees with your positions you move the goalposts so that you ensure your lonely brave principled stand. I can stand it in the movies thread, but here you come off like a livid Tea Party curmudgeon in Valdosta who hopes politicians disappoint him so that he can demonstrate how right he was to his friends. For those of us donating money and writing emails to make sure HRC is not on the ticket or is at least moved to exploit Sanders and Warren's positions, please stfu.

not believing in messiahs, holding legislators and presidents accountable, forcing politicians left, getting small victories. There is nothing else.

so very otm well said

enjoy the extinction event.

http://cdn-static.denofgeek.com/sites/denofgeek/files/styles/insert_main_wide_image/public/ultron-phalanx.jpg?itok=hVog8Fvn

Xposts Not claiming structural change either, just that it's plausibly a Good Thing that voters born during the Clinton administration, whose political background has been W, Obama, and Fox, could be exposed to something else in their first go-round, or that weary nose-holders be reminded (if for the nth time) that we can ask for more than Clintons. Maybe that reduces the election to a civics lesson, but would it be better if Hillary ran unopposed? Obviously the forces that keep a Sanders from winning ARE structural, so I guess you cd fismiss it as a feel-good ritual rigged to produce the impression that DNC politics are inevitable in the end... maybe I'm just deluding myself in hoping that the momentum of people's enthusiasm doesn't all get dissipated or coopted at the party convention, and that some little bit is left over, even just at the local level, to press for policy and more importantly, constitutional changes.

wait, constitutional changes? not sure what you're referring to there.

Sorry, typing on a dumb mobile device, so, typos

constitutional changes - sorry, pet boring wonkish cause of mine - - - mainly thinking of getting things like instant runoff voting, to try snd reduce the narrowing of choice brought on by first-past-the-post elections. That's also something do-able at municipal and state levels - tho obv not without big, very difficult fights against very entrenched interests - which cd ultimately start to build the ranks of in-office, third-party policymakers. A combination of the National Popular Vote compact with the Maine/Nebraska approach to distributing electors could get us out of the "swing state" hole and enable candidates to appeal to different coalitions, and maybe reduce the chase towards a phantom "middle," though I think IRV would do much more for helping third parties develop, and show, their real bases, without the spoiler effect chasing everybody off just as a movement begins to crystallize into a viable party-politics force.

But I'm also being sloppy and saying "constitutional" when I mean "structural" more generally. Dealing with gerrymandering, e.g. these get bigger and tougher fast; some of the biggest issues, like The Money, the power of subcommittee chairpersons to control everything, snd the absurdity of the Senate's composition, seem basically hopeless. But maybe A can bring B a little more within reach. I dunno. I'm a dreamer, a sad old Poli Sci once-ler, and off-topic to boot.

Got a bit garbled in there, really mean an either/or on electoral college reforms as the NPVIC wd blot out the Maine approach.