Boy, I sure hope John Kerry doesn't run in 08.

[saltpoint]

I sure hope Wes Clark doesn't run.

Or Dennis Kucinich.

Or John Edwards.

Or Chris Dodd.

Or Barbara Boxer.

Joe Biden.

Russ Feingold.

Hillary Clinton.

Mike Gravel.

Evan Bayh.

Bill Richardson.

Tom Daschle.

Al Gore.

Ted Kennedy.

Dale Bumpers.

Jimmy Carter.

FDR.

Thomas Jefferson.

James Madison.

Ben Franklin.

Tom Paine.

Paul Revere.

Harriet Tubman.

Robert Redford.

Chuck Conners.

etc.

[_dynamicdems]

1. You just summed up the whole problem with "our side" in a nutshell.

I remember Chuck Conners, but who is/was Dale Bumpers?

[saltpoint]

3. Bless you for remembering Chuck Conners! THE RIFLEMAN! And he

had a TREMENDOUS cameo role in Robert Altman's near-perfect film, A WEDDING.

I miss ol' Chuck.

Dale Bumpers was the former U.S. Senator from Arkansas, a stalwart Democrat if there ever was one. He delivered the most convincing defense of Bill Clinton during the impeachment proceedings in the Senate -- one of the most eloquent and humane speeches I've ever heard.

[TayTay]

2. There is something wrong with everyone of them

And there is something oh so right with few of them. Don't let DU get you down. The forums on DU are a loud coffee house full of people with, ahm, loud opinions. I am given to understand from posts by people who have been around DU far longer than I have, that the atmosphere was much more poisonous in '03. Sen. Kerry got about 27% in that poll in GD, that more than he got in any polls last year. He also got about 9%, yes buts. Add that up and it's about the winning margin of victory in the Iowa caucuses last time.

I have said this before and I still believe it. There are only about 4 or 5 Dems (and 4 or 5 Repubs) who can truly be serious candidates for President of the United States. The physically and mentally grueling aspects of running rule out a lot of wanna-bees only they just don't know it yet. A lot of people will not be able to compete on the money field. (They might be great candidates, but a Presidential run needs lots and lots of money and without it they are dead in the water.) A lot of people have skeletons in the closet that they have never examined. Some of these skeletons are explainable and would still utterly doom a candidacy. These people don't even know this yet. They will learn.

The other thing you must have is that indefinable quality of being seen as President. You have to have the 'gravitas' or seriousness of purpose or whatever we call it on the Democratic side to be seriously considered. Some of the wanna-bees will make mistakes in the course of '07. Some mistakes will be fatal to their ambitions and cause any sense of gravitas to go away. This happened, fairly or unfairly, to Howard Dean after 'the scream.' (I don't think that was his fault. Life is unfair. Politics is the most unfair game of all.)

The process of running for President is about the most taxing and grinding thing I can think of and some say that is a good thing. It separates out those who really want the job from the poseurs who only think they want to be President but don't have what it takes to get through the actual gauntlet of the pre-primary season and the early primaries. That will become clear, as it always has. And remember, the mistakes made aren't despite the process, they are built into the process, revealing them is an effect of the process itself and is, in and of itself, a test. We shall see who can 'take it' and who cannot. That is part of the unknown things that will affect the next Presidential race.

I think that the 4 or 5 right now who can credibly mount a race are: Kerry (of course), Clinton and Edwards to start. These people have been through the process and understand it. It remains to be seen who else will actually be there in Dec of '07, ready to go into Iowa with an actual shot at getting votes. Sen. Bayh and Gov Warner are not proven on the national scene. They will make mistakes as all candidates do. We shall see if they have the wherewithal to overcome the mistakes. I don't see anyone else with all the ingredients right now, but people and campaigns surprise you every now and then. We shall see.

[saltpoint]

4. Tay-Tay, why aren't you running the Democratic Party?

That's not a slam on Howard Dean. I like Dean and strongly support him as our Chair. The 50-state strategy can always be tweaked, but at heart and essence it's a welcome thing at my house. I believe you are exactly right about what happened to him in Iowa.

Also a good point on the polls. Kerry's political obituary was already rolling on the news press when he turned that final bend into the Iowa caucuses, and he whipped the field. I have nothing at all against Gephardt and thought he would win -- he won Iowa before, was a neighbor, was folksy and appealing, had a good agriculture/labor record like Harkin ... it seemed to be in place for him and he was buried alive with 11%. Kerry and Edwards were in the 30s, with Kerry's come-from-way-way-behind win one of the most breath-taking victories I've seen in a primary.

Agree completely that only a handful of finalists are going to be deep-bone contenders. Only c. 40 people in the nation are anywhere close (I'm counting both parties there, and relative long-shots), but you're right -- the field is likely half a dozen or so. For Democrats, I place Kerry ahead of Senator Clinton, because he has some dough saved up, some IOUs to cash in, and gravitas aplenty. And he's wildly intelligent. If his DU detractors are unable to find immutable virtues about John Kerry, they simply aren't looking hard enough. And it's not his fault that they're lazy.

If Gore runs I'd add him to your list, but I think we should run the same ticket we did in 04. I was mighty happy with that one.

Thanks, Tay-Tay. You totally rock.

[ginnyinWI]

5. Gore would be a contender, certainly,

but he seems really sincere about not being interested. And he won't be tempted into changing his mind as much as someone who had never run might be--because he knows.

It's really kind of amazing that Kerry and Edwards both seem to want to go through that meat grinder again. I don't know about Edwards, but I think Kerry has learned and grown and feels that it would be better the next time. If he didn't think that, he probably wouldn't want to try again, only to be a near-miss again.

What do you think of Chris Dodd? He's another one with a certain amount of gravitas and experience. The money might not be there, though, and stamina (?) is another unknown.

But experience or not, Joe Biden hasn't the gravitas. He's way too much of a ham, always talking about himself. Sec. of State maybe--he is a bit of a gadfly, gregarious.

[saltpoint]

6. Dodd? I like him. A couple of those legislative initiatives I'm not

crazy about, but taken in full, Dodd is a pretty sharp customer and would make an excellent president.

He'd have my vote.

Biden would too, although I'd kinda prefer a certain other New England Democrat first!

[whometense]

8. I like him too.

At this point he's my second choice, and I think he would be a superb VP. Except that we can't afford to lose his seat in the senate.

He's a serious man - not liberal enough for me, but serious, intelligent, and solid. I'd trust him.

[ginnyinWI]

9. yes! I'd trust a Kerry-Dodd ticket, too. n/t

[ginnyinWI]

10. Dodd bio info

He was born May 27, 1944. I thought he was older than Kerry. Must be the white hair. And he's married and has two daughters.

What is with politicians having only two daughters--LOL. Kerry, *, Cheney, Dodd--probably more!

[TayTay]

11. Wow! May 27th is John F. Kennedy's birthdate

But back in 1917. (Ahm, I know this off the top of my head because it's in the water in Massachusetts. I know tons of stuff about Kennedy's that I don't actually remember going out to acquire. It just got into my brain through Mass osmosis, I guess.)

Dodd is 18 months younger than Kerry, but looks a bit older. I think Biden looks older than Kerry as well. Then again, I think Sen. Kerry has been reverse-aging lately and is actually looking younger than he did in '04. (Must be the good clean living and the 'giving hell' to the Repubs. I think this works nicely for the Senator.)

[ginnyinWI]

12. it's clean living and having a pure heart.

:)

But I think your math is wrong. Kerry was born Dec. '43, right? That's only five months before May '44.

[TayTay]

13. I sit corrected

and will forthwith sign up for remedial math. (If I can find the time, sigh!)

:blush:

[TayTay]

7. I saw an excellent presentation on the 50 State Strategy

back in March at the Democratic Campaign Institute ("DCI") seminar in Worcester, MA, that was jointly given by former Dean and Kerry staffers from the last Presidential cycle. It is a shame that we spend so much time on DU on what divides us and so little time on what we hold in common belief. I know for a fact that Sen. Kerry believes in this strategy and thinks it is extremely important for the future of the Democratic Party in America. (I heard too many Kerry-Staffers, current and former, at this seminar speak of the necessity of doing this to believe otherwise.)

People learn as they go along. I don't trust people who never change their minds when presented with new situations and new evidence. I think that Sen. Kerry learned a great deal in the last run and has already put a lot of what he learned into practice. So did a lot of other people who supported Kerry in the last cycle. This is why we have a Patriot Project now, not just for this Congressional midterm election, but as a strategy going forward to defend Democrats from smear campaigns and to have a ready mechanism in place to fight the nasty rumors, innuendo and just plain lies that 'the other side' routinely uses to win the argument before our side even takes the stage. Fore-warned is fore-armed and Max Cleland and others at the Patriot Project completely understand that. We have to have efforts put in place that anticipate the attacks before they happen and present ways to fight back. (Ways that can engage even a disinterested national press corps, who will cover something if they think it's a fight.)

The 50 State Strategy was explained to me as a fighting and very active way to not concede the fight to the other side before it even begins. We cannot write off whole regions of the country; that is political suicide. It may take a generation (30 years or so) to rebuild the Democratic name and brand in the South. So be it, it will take 30 years then, let's start the effort. We have to get away from letting 3rd party interest groups speak for 'our' interests. That model is not working and can be easily turned against us as Democrats are picked off on small issues and held to be equivalent to these 'special interest groups.' (We, as a Party, have to stand for something. We can't outsource 'our issues' to 3rd Party groups and expect them to do the ground work and muster the troops necessary to fight for these issues. That model doesn't work and is too prone to it's own forms of drift and corruption.)

We also cannot, under any circumstances, continue to outsource GOTV efforts to 3rd party sources. This was a real disaster in '04. The talk about the machine fraud and the very real efforts made by some to block the Democratic vote in '04 takes up a lot of oxygen. We haven't discussed how ACT (America Coming Together) viewed it's own efforts at increasing the progressive vote as a mixed bag. This organization, which existed to get more progressive and presumably Democratic voters to the polls, was forbidden by law from mentioning John Kerry/John Edwards by name. They could only advocate for the general goal of 'Vote tomorrow.' That is one of the biggest planning failures of the Democratic Party. We cannot rely on people who cannot even speak the name of our candidates to GOTV. That is insane. The Republicans have a much, much better working model for this, even if I think much of it skirts a legal border. (Repubs use Churches to organize. Not good for the Republic, in my opinion.)

The 50 State Strategy seeks to remedy this by rebuilding the Democratic Party from the ground up. We control our message, we control our GOTV effort, we control our image. We also make every effort to personalize the Democratic Party to the people we are talking to. The Democratic Party isn't the Senators and Congressmen on Capitol Hill, it's you and me and how we talk to our own friends, relatives, neighbors and co-workers. We are the Democratic Party. We are the best advocates for what this Party believes in. We have to be our own messengers and political evangelists in getting out the word on what we believe in. We have to be the face of the Democrats to the people we want to reach out to, not the interest groups. That's why this is so important. The 50 State Strategy brings 'We the People' back into the Democratic Party and it is a must-do, at all costs. It is the only way to go forward. We have to reclaim the fight, for the good of the Democratic Party and for the good of America.

[saltpoint]

14. Beautiful. Just beautiful.

Thank you.

:toast:

:thumbsup:

:hi:

:dem: