Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley is acting like a presidential candidate. He’s checking all the boxes. He is apparently a prodigious fundraiser. He has an impressively progressive record. I am unaware of any major skeletons in his closet. What I don’t know is whether or not he has the discipline, skill, and charisma to be an effective candidate on the national stage.
Obviously, Hillary Clinton would be the equivalent of Mt. Everest as an obstacle to winning the nomination, but she going to have build her team almost from scratch. On the other hand, I don’t think there will be the same kind of progressive resistance to her campaign that we saw in 2008. O’Malley can’t grab a bunch of voters simply because he didn’t vote to authorize the war in Iraq. Most of Obama’s coalition is reconciled with the Clintons at this point, at least on a personal level.
If Clinton doesn’t run, and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo does, I could see progressives rallying around O’Malley as the best option to derail Cuomo.
What do you think?
I think I’ve heard “Hillary is unbeatable” before.
I think you’re right about progressives and Hillary. It’s important to keep in mind the ability of a few extremely motivated people with internet connections to produce a distorted view of overall progressive opinion.
I would vote for HIllary Clinton only in November on General Election Day.
There is no way in hell I’d vote for her during the primary season.
She’s a so-so-candidate surrounded by snakes.
Same here.
Likewise. Unfortunately, I vote for Democrats mostly because I won’t vote for Republicans. H. Clinton is part of national security state. At least Obama was against the 2008 FISA bill before he was for it.
She’s the strongest candidate the dems have – she’s the most admired woman in america, and has the ability to grab some southern dems in the southeast. her poll numbers even now are sort of breathtaking against the GOP.
Clinton is pretty much the only way to guarantee a dem win in 2016. At this point, that’s pretty persuasive to me, as a GOP win would likely be permanently damaging to this country in many, many ways and we might never recover. I don’t have to agree with Clinton on everything to support her. Though we’re probably at 75%.
If you want more progressive options that is going to happen by working on congress for many years.
She has the highest name recognition — not surprising since she’s been around for twenty-one years.
and the whole ‘ Hillary is inevitable’ thing has got to stop.
how come she just can’t fight it out and WIN IT like any other candidate?
She’s pretty popular right now. And she polls very, very well against Republican prospects. She probably doesn’t want to be seen as the inevitable candidate this time around, though, so she’d probably welcome a different narrative.
Part of what did her in, IMHO, in 2008 was that early on she was kind of forced into a frontrunner’s strategy where one avoids volunteering too much info or getting too creative in ideas that an opponent might find something to use in an attack. Some of her foreign policy remarks seemed like safe, conventional 1970’s thinking to me, rather than a fresh realistic appraisal of the world.
I’m thinking of things like the remark she made in a debate when she didn’t think it was wise to do something that might destabilize the Musharrif regime. A weird throwback to the US classic “support any corrupt dude in power as long as we perceive him to be OUR corrupt dude” and ignore what’s going on in that country at the same time.
I guess that framing does work to deny her credit if she eventually wins, as if getting the nomination would just be par for her.
You’re right; if she is to win, she’s going to have to fight and come out on top in a competitive election.
Cuomo represents upper income liberals and the party is plutocratic. An economic populist will not be our parties nominee to the Democratic party is in revolt against places like NYC, Chicago, SanFran, and the tech center… which will never happen.
Socially progressive neoliberals are the only Democrats that will ever get the nomination.
Andrew Cuomo is Chris Christie without the refinement or charm.
AHHHH ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha !!!
Thank you!!!
Perfect.
AG
That is hilarious
Did the Prince visit Cuomo?
Not quite accurate.
Socially progressive neoliberals and/or guaranteed losers.
Watch.
Hillary Clinton is the only Democrat left today would be guaranteed to win in a national election. A couple more years of eroding Obama’s publicly believed stature by the UniParty media and even she might not be a shoo-in.
Then all bets will be off. Whoever makes the best promises to the most powerful controllers will be nominated to the winning party’s presidential campaign and whichever party holds the losing straw in that little race to the top will be tomato-canned the same way McCain/Palin and Romney/Boy Wonder were tomato-canned the last times around.
Obama’s held up his end of the bargain as a neoliberal-sounding front man for the PermaGov. He’ll retire a rich and respected ex-president.
Next?
No telling, except for one thing. It won’t be someone who opposes the PermaGov policies of the day.
Bet on it.
All the other guesses?
Just people playing out their media addictions.
Bet on that as well.
AG
I think that if the current…and future, no doubt…”bipartisan” (Read “PermaGov”) attacks on the Obama are successful enough to seriously wound his administration over the next two or three years it won’t make a damned bit of difference who runs as a Democrat. Hillary Clinton is hip to the game…she’ll find an excuse not to run if the shitstorm is too serious, at which point the new fix-generated tomato can/guaranteed loser is liable to be a Democrat.
O’Malley?
Perfect.
Watch.
Newspeak.
It’s what’s for dinner.
Watch.
AG
If the Cuomo was Mario, I could definitely get behind him.
Andrew is a DINO – I know, I live in Upstate NY.
I could get behind O’Malley.
But I’m kind of partial to Kirsten Gillibrand, if Hillary decides to sit that election out.
Hilary rebuilding her team from scratch is an advantage for her campaign, though, because her old team was so terrible.
Not sure about that. She fought like hell in the primary against obama. Obama was just a great candidate with an incredible team. Her team was slightly less incredible.
if Hillary does. I do think he’d have a chance to pull of an upset with Hillary if he gets some great strategists from Obama’s campaign and can debate Hillary well. He has a long list of progressive accomplishments and can point to implementing DREAM Act and gave marriage in Maryland. He’s got an argument to make that he’s done more for Hispanics and LBGT than Hillary has done.
I met him last summer when he spoke at our Democratic Convention and I was very impressed. Far preferable to HC in my estimation.
Well your note about Hillary having to rebuild her team strikes me more as a positive than a negative. Look at 2 of the 4 people listed in your link: Mark Penn and Patti Solis Doyle. I think it’s obvious Hillary would be better off without them.
But I am also tired of hearing Hillary is inevitable. Her work as Senator, her campaign financiers from 2008, her campaign stances from 2008 all really turned me off.
I would be happy to see new faces including O’Malley run.
It’s way too early to presume anything about 2016, from the likely candidates to their health to upcoming political events to the mood of the electorate to the fundraising climate.
Way too early.
Haven’t yet met any of these Dems you say who have reconciled with the Hillary. I certainly haven’t. I think she’d be a disastrous candidate. Totally want O’Malley; I want him to challenge her. Pretty sure I read recently that he said he wouldn’t. Sigh.
I was going to say that I think a lot of Obama supporters will say complimentary things publicly about HC–but privately not so much.
No Cuomo, no way. Bloomberg before Cuomo. Christie before Cuomo and you know what I think of Christie.
O’Malley all the way. Let’s send Mayor Carcetti to the WH. Hillary only if she is the nominee.
O’Malley is my governor, and I think he’s been excellent. However, I don’t know that he’s all that great as a campaigner. He’s not likely to commit too many errors, but he’s not a tremendous public speaker and will need the help of a really good campaign staff. I think he can beat anybody the Republicans put up, but I’m not sure he could beat Hillary if she got into the race.
I still have my qualms about Hillary, like many other commenters. But in the end I don’t think she’s as important as Congress. If Hillary is elected with strong majorities in both houses of Congress, we will have lots more progressive legislation (maybe even a cap and trade program). If not, it won’t really matter if the President is Hillary or O’Malley or Cuomo.
Hillary isn’t exactly a great public speaker either. She’s average at best. O’Malley should have no problems holding his own with her. And O’Malley has shown he can actually get legislation through a congress. Hillary has yet to do that, so I worry that she’d be a disaster like she was during Hillarycare or do nothing like she did in the Senate.
I don’t disagree with any of that. But unlike before where people often described Hillary as “divisive,” she is widely admired now and hopefully wiser about campaigning. I thought she was very vulnerable in 2006. I don’t think so any more.
If it was a matter of winning debates, giving good policy speeches, and taking the right positions, I think O’Malley would have a very good shot. But that’s not all you need to win a campaign.
Hillary certainly isn’t her husband or Obama when it comes to giving speeches, but she is a top-notich debater, probably better than either of them.
He may also be the most hated governor in the US. Think of the anger of the opposition he and his legislature stirred up with their gun control measures. The crazies were frothing at the mouth.
I am interested in knowing what Hillary’s position on climate change/energy extraction and returning public schools to the public. Those have been two of the worst of Obama’s policy positions for me. Even worse than the security state continuation and the de-fanged Justice Dept. They have inflicted permanent damage to our country. They have got to be reversed.
In the past sixty years there has been sixteen presidential elections. In only five cases was the winner over the age of sixty:
The last four GOP losers ranged in age from 65 to 73. Appears that they’ll be going for someone much younger in 2016 as they did in 2000. Don’t like the odds of a 69 year old Hillary against a 54 year old Christie.
It’s as if Joe Biden didn’t exist. But he does exist. I think he decided his best bet is to keep his powder dry. 2016 is still a long way off.
At 74 years of age, that would make him the oldest POTUS ever elected. Not gonna happen in an open seat.
34 comments and nobody has mentioned Liz?
How fast they fall.
If you’re ready for another Catholic white guy in the White House, sure.
Do you think the PUMA’s are?
What about the black caucus?
What happens if, disappointed at the return to white-as-usual, black voters stay home in droves in the general?
Can the Democrats ever run another white guy and win, even a young and handsome white guy for the groupie voters who used to want Bobby Kennedy to take them to his hotel room for a quick, refreshing fuck, having decided to bet the farm on minority voters and angry women?
Just wondering how deep that hole is they’ve dug for themselves.
And how much deeper it will be with this amnesty.
It is a gamble, you know, betting the Democrats’ non-white and non-male vote will grow faster than their white vote shrinks.
And that white vote is apt to shrink faster the more obvious it becomes that, for the role of Democratic candidate for high office, old and even not so old white guys need not apply because too many Democratic voters won’t show up for them at the polls.
Wait wait wait. You think black voters are going to stay home in droves? When have they ever done that?
I think by staying home in droves he means 98% turnout instead of 99%
Ha!
There are still people out there (McAuliffe for example) who would probably be able to gin up some progressive opposition, but I think it really depends on how she runs her campaign.
I’d prefer not-Hillary since Obama’s positions are essentially the same as hers.
I think you are right. He’s a fighter.