For the dems, who is there besides Hillary?

Absolutely, Engineer.

Or at least that would be my guess.

I think the "he won't be allowed within 100 miles" is both wishful thinking and delusion on Hawk's part.

We'll see.

Gotta mark this for remembering next year when the campaign actually gets going.

He was not allowed near candidates on the last run, but my point here was that if the D candidate does not want Obama around, which is likely, he does not have the power to override them. And it is his own fault that he does not.

I agree that if the candidate doesn't want the President to campaign on his or her account, he won't do it. My point is that Gore didn't want Clinton because of the Clinton baggage and likely lost because of it. IMO, President Obama has a better story to tell than Clinton did and I doubt the candidate wants to be the next Gore.

Again you are talking like you are Obama, it does not matter how good a story he can tell, what matters is whether his seal of approval on net is a positive or a negative. I dont know the answer, but dont assume that it goes positive.

EDIT: in this case the candidate does not look like it will be Biden, so the Gore example does not apply. The problem for Gore was that he communicated that he was running away from his own work, his own partnership. Hillary would slightly have that problem but not much because the perception has long been that Hillary and Obama dont like each other.

We'll see...but my bet is whoever heads the Dem ticket will be more than willing to have Obama's support than who will avoid it.

I think Hawk...and the people who think like him...are all in for a big surprise on that account.

All the more reason that Clinton would benefit from Obama on the trail. There is certainly a segment of the Democratic party that likes him but is luke warm on her. His endorsement would help her there and I doubt it would hurt her with anyone who would consider voting for her otherwise. Obama's approval rating is over 50% right now. That is not likely Republicans, so it is mostly from people who might consider voting for Clinton (or Sanders or Biden). That's the right crowd. Obama crowing about his accomplishments would certainly fire up a friendly crowd. 10,000 screaming Obama fans is an image Clinton wouldn't turn down.

That number has never meant as much as people thought, because even with self reporting people often dont feel free to say that they dont like a black man, no matter the truth, no matter how poorly they think he does his job.



Yes, and there are a lot that go the otherway too, for instance young women who got swept in in Obama 08 but who now think that he totally failed to keep his word, and that he has a lot of asshole in him too. Does Hillary for instance want him on the stage reminding people of how little of his agenda that he promised to work on he actually got done? How little of what he campaigned on that he ever made much of an effort to get done? Hillary needs all of those women to come out and vote for her, if they stay home she has no chance. Hillary might want Obama next to her on stage, but she might not too. However, he will not be there simply because he wants to be there, with the way he has treated people, with as little work as he has gotten done, with as big a prick as he has been, what Obama wants is irrelevant. Obama assumed that he could be a big dick and not work with the party and not work for the party and as the sitting POTUS he would be running the party in 15/16. It was another huge miscalculation from him. Face it, Obama does not even have the power to get Schumer to vote his way on Iran.....that is pathetic.

The President is certainly not going to win you over, but him standing on the stage saying how he inherited an economy spiraling down into ruin and brought back years of growth with 5x the job creation of the Bush years (and he's not done yet), put the US on the path to energy independence, put US businesses on their best financial footing in a decades, and negotiated a historic deal with Iran that represents the first success for US diplomacy since Reagan (a deal so good that while Schumer had to vote against it, he is quietly encouraging all the other Senators to "vote their conscious" instead of whipping against it) could certainly resonate with young independents. I think it would play well to women as well (if Clinton needs help there), but if he wants to spice it up, he could mention he passed a health care bill resulting in record number of insured Americans, and his justices delivered on equal rights and healthcare, both of which would be at risk if the Republicans are allowed to nominate right wing judicial activist judges. He could make one of his moving speeches on race relations and remind the minority voters who's got their backs. The President can get out the minority vote and that will be a key in November, especially when Republican candidates are talking about deporting US citizens with the wrong skin color.

The President isn't going to be campaigning for your vote, he's going to be going after the center and the young. I think he has a good argument for them. The Democratic nominee would IMO be foolish to ignore the value of that. I think the Gore analogy is apt because President Obama represents the Democratic Party's approach to government. That is what the Democratic candidate should run on and if you look at the last two Democratic Presidents vs the last two Republican ones, there is no question which ones had the greatest overall success. You are picking at perceived individual Obama weaknesses while missing the overall picture. The country is in a lot better shape than inauguration day, 2009. No one is missing President Bush. You can dismiss the President's role in that but he gets to claim credit. You can be sure if it was the opposite, he would get the blame.

With as poorly as this government functions that claim on the stump is a sure vote loser. The last thing Hillary wants to say is "I will be as good as Obama at running this government" because the very first thing people will think is "oh, that is the guy who did not care enough about Obamacare to make any effort to see that the all important sign up website worked". Next will be the EPA putting toxins in a river, the Air Traffic control system that is brand new and sucks, and what ever other calamities the government causes between now and then.

a possible 15 year pause in Iran getting the BOMB is not game changing and it is a stretch to call it a success. It is less bad than the alternatives, maybe. He can call it a win all he wants and it will not matter, Nixon called the Vietnam peace accords a win but he knew that it was not and it was not, we all agree on that now. Nixon gets some credit for not wasting anymore lives in Vietnam, but not much, because we agree that he should have done it years before. If Obama believes that this deal which gives as a 15 year pause in Iran Nukes as we use that time to fully exit the region will be a legacy builder then he has miscalculated again, legacies are not built upon failure to project and execute American power around the world. And the American people are not stupid, we know know that we mucked up the MId East, and that Obama giving away the wins that we so painfully and expensively won in Iraq was his contribution to the failure. This Iran deal changes his legacy not at all, because it was driven by our failure, by our need to leave the region spending a little more money and as few more lives as possible.

You are not the target audience. No, the President is not going to convince his hardcore critics that we are better off than in 2009. I'm sure they will say the country has gone to hell in a handbasket. For undecided voters, I think he can make a good, a very good, argument that the last 14 years under Democrats has beat the hell out of the last 12 under Republicans.

As for Iran, I will take a 15 year and 3 month minimum timeline for Iran over a three month timeline anytime and I'm shocked (but only mildly so) that anyone thinks we "so painfully and expensively" won anything in Iraq other than to create a massive power vacuum that we never had any intention or desire to fill. If you want a candidate who will station an occupation force there for the next few decades, there is a full slate of Republicans, any one of which will be happy to send someone else's children and tax dollars.

Dems have totally abandoned any sort of thought about winning in the marketplace of ideas or anything like that in favor of gangsterism and "identity politics". One of the problems with that is that it produces a sort of a dearth of talent since a dem pol doesn't really need brains or talent in that scheme of things.

Yeah! Maybe just anybody who ever slept with a president! I mean - that's was the primary criteria for Hillary's appointment to Secty of State - married to a guy who really knew how to raise money.

And, now look. Catapulted to presidential candidate.

Let's just make a rule: all future presidential candidates have to have the same last name as previous presidents. Let's just have dynasties.

Actually, it would likely remind a LOT of people that Obama sank Hillary's battleship pretty soundly last go round. Reminds them that she's a loser in the primaries to better progressives.... (grin). They actually feel something for Obama....but never Hillary. Hence the name of this thread.

And no one wants Biden either, and I cant think of why anyone would want him. I am very disappointed that Howard at Starbucks is not interested.

Gore?

Is Petraeus a D?

I have a hard time seeing the Democrat Establishment going for anyone other than Hillary unless or until they become convinced she may lose in the National election. As the incumbent party their in place establishment is relatively strong compared to that of the opposition Republicans. Hillary's fall, of course could happen, but it isn't evident yet.

Bernie continues to rise in the reported polls among self-reported Democrat voters, but I still have a very hard time seeing a self-declared socialist as a likely winner in the National elections. That, in my view, will likely keep him from getting the support of the party establishment, even if he does well in some Democrat primaries. They want to hold on to the Presidency more than they want Bernie.

Hillary continues to characterize the questions about her Bengazi and e-mail capers as "politically motivated attacks". Of course they are politically motivated, just as are her attacks on Republicans regarding the supposed "war on women". We have an election going on here. There's not a lot else she can say without adding to the baggage she is carrying, so I think the question is whether the current adverse (for her) trends continue or level off.

With as hostile to the press as the clintons have usually been dont count on that. The theory is that she can do a reset once she wins the D nomination because the liberal press will not be able to stomach doing her in and letting an R win, but I am skeptical. The clintons have treated the press as idiot lap dogs for so long that they might be motivated by their dislike of Hillary to practice the craft of journalism and let the facts take them where they may.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/19/politics/donald-trump-chris-cuomo-cnn-interview/index.html

I believe that if Hillary can hold on until the Democrat Convention she will have the full support of the party including current supporters of Bernie Sanders. I think the real issue is whather she is seen as likely to prevail in the national election.

Sure, but the party has to ask themselves just how bloody will she be by the time she shows up to take on the R's? There is still enough time to fix the mistake of only running Hillary, for fucks sake go get somebody RIGHT NOW and make sure that hey have enough of an operation to be able to fill in for Hillary if say next march she gets charged with a felony.

This is a no brainer. How stupid can these people possibly be?

I think it looks like a Hobson's choice for them.Hillary still looks like a winner for them and, in those circumstances, it's very hard to endorse an alternative with apparently lesser initial prospects. They do face the possibility that she may crater after there no longer is time to field a strong alternative. It's a choice between hope and fear.