Politics The 2016 US Presidential Election

And they're off...

Today marks the 'official' start when Ted Cruz decided to run in the Republican primary. Almost 20 months before the election...

Who do you think will do well? Who do you support? Who will you vote against? Who else do you think will run? Is it way too early to deal with this (yes)? What will the big issues be for you and for the country?

Is there anybody else that I should add to the list that you want to see run for office?

Confirmed Democrats:

Possible Democrats:
Hillary Clinton
Joe Biden
Jim Webb
Bernie Sanders
Elizabeth Warren
Al Gore
Jerry Brown

Confirmed Republicans:
Ted Cruz

Possible Republicans:
Jeb Bush
Scott Walker
Rand Paul
Chris Christie
Ben Carson
Marco Rubio
Rick Perry
Mike Huckabee
Donald Trump

Possible Green:

Possible Libertarian:

Possible Socialist:



If you want to wait to talk about this until January 2016, I have no problem with that. I won't be doing much in 2015 except for starting this thread.

 

The Hill has a list of 20 potential Republican candidates. Ted Cruz was the first to declare and the battle is now on to see who can be more conservative and extreme than Ted to appeal to the base, with the exception of Jeb who will rake in the big dollars from the Wall Street Republicans.

20 Republicans who are gearing up to run for president | TheHill

The first Democrat to officially declare will likely be former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley. Others will wait for Hillary to make her move. A few more might jump in, but it will never reach the circus level of the Republicans.

A Borla/Lindy ticket is looking pretty good right now!

 

Ted is a huge "HELL NO" for me. Hillary Clinton is an even bigger one. I suspect this will be another round where I can vote the decent candidate that will get no more than 5 % of the votes or choose which one of two people with an actual chance disgusts me less. Main reason I passed on voting the past few cycles. To quote a wise man -"If you vote you can't complain." (Not that I ever really complain)

 

I think Ted Cruz is very dangerous, and it's foolish to laugh off his chances of getting elected.

 

All I know is that it is a virtual certainty that it will be a feckless douchebag Democrat versus a fascist dirtbag Republican.

I will once again be voting for whoever the Democrat is, because they will surely be the lesser of two evils. How much lesser will be the only question, and the answer is all too likely to be "only a little less."

The only Democrats even lightly being bruited about as potential candidates that I could envision voting for with anything more than the reluctance of inevitable disappointment would be Bernie Sanders or maybe Elizabeth Warren. And I sincerely doubt either will be nominated. They're too progressive, and probably nowhere near sufficiently prone to corporate corruption. Even Al Gore, who I'm not sure actually is too progressive, or insufficiently prone to corporate corruption, probably couldn't get nominated.

If, God forbid, a Republican were to win, my belief is that only Chris Christie would be anything less than an utter humanitarian cataclysm. I still believe he would be a disaster, and would probably lead us even further, and more quickly, into our continuing descent into plutocratic oligarchy. The others would sell us out as quickly as they possibly could: they would trade away our rights for nothing, tread even harder on the necks of the poor, and break such of the middle class as still remains. If not more: Ted Cruz and his Teabagger ilk would make this country's government into the Christian Taliban if they could. And I'm not sure they couldn't.

To be fair, I'm not sure precisely how much better we would be with Hillary, or Jim Webb, or Jerry Brown-- not that I think Jerry Brown could get nominated-- than we would be under Chris Christie. They're all corporate bought dogs.

I'm afraid that the 2016 elections will be a fairly grim affair, much as the 2014 midterms were, and we will be all the worse for it, just as we are worse for the midterms just past.

 

There is a part of me that is almost willing to take the risk of having Ted Cruz being the GOP candidate with all the risks that implies just to see this douchenozzle have to jump.

Rep. Peter King slams ‘carnival barker’ Ted Cruz: I’ll jump off a bridge if he’s the GOP nominee

 

Oh no. I forgot that I only have a few minutes to edit posts on this page. I was going to add names and move them around as things changed or I learned more.

Confirmed Republicans:
Mark Everson

Possible Republicans:
Lindsey Graham
John Kasich
Bobby Jidal
Rick Santorum
Carly Fiorina
John Bolton
Peter King
George Pataki
Jim Gilmore
Bob Ehrlich

Possible Democrats:
Martin O'Malley
Barbara Boxer
Andrew Cuomo
Kirsten Gillibrand
Andrew Caffrey
Willie Carter
Michael Steinberg

Confirmed Libertarian:
Marc Feldman
Darryl Perry

Possible Libertarian:
Gary Johnson

Possible Green:
Jill Stein
Cynthia McKinney


And it looks like there were some other candidates who announced before yesterday, but the national media didn't cover them.

 

You could become a financial supporter of the site, and be privileged with ongoing access to the editing function.

Or, you could simply edit and repost the whole list from time to time. I would prefer not having to page back and assemble it from bits and pieces.

 

I think he will run as a Democrat as a way of critiquing the party and trying to pull it to the left.
He's frustrated (like so many of us are) that the business interests have co-opted the major candidates of both parties.

 

I dont think he is a threat at all. He is Sarah Palin on steroids....all fluff and no substance, with an unabashed reliance on over-the-top rhetoric (lies and gross exaggerations) that plays to the fears, intolerance, extremism, and conspiracy theories that appeal to the overlapping Tea Party and religious wings in the party. He has no interest in reaching out to those "undecided" independents that are crucial in many states. He is also despised by many fellow Republicans in Congress (and among Wall Street Republicans) who see him as the grand stander he is and will not be shy to make that known. (see post about Peter King above).

I would worry more about Scott Walker who has proven he can win (three times, including a recall election) in a purple state like Wisconsin.
--- merged: Mar 24, 2015 at 5:57 PM ---

I agree. He has made clear that he wont run as a third party candidate and be a spoiler, but he has not ruled out running as a Democrat (even though he is not a registered Democrat) and has already made the mandatory trips to Iowa and New Hampshire. But I dont see it as anything more than a protest candidate. I think Elizabeth Warren would be a more viable option for the more liberal wing if she could be convinced to run.

 

I am not sure that's quite the case. I think he has more of a chance than Sarah Palin, although I will be somewhat surprised if he actually gets the nomination. I think he is probably too extreme right-wing and divisive to get elected, but I am not 100% certain. The voter apathy and disconnect in this country is empowering a deeply threatening swing to the extreme right, and I am not really certain what is out of the question.

That's fair. And he is an insidious bastard. He even got my father-in-law to vote for him (who is 100% consistent as a small businessman in voting his pocketbook), which incensed my mother-in-law (a retired teacher).

I tend to agree, though if he could actually get nominated, I would not only contribute to his campaign, I would volunteer time for him. I would probably contribute for Warren, maybe volunteer for her. Unfortunately, I doubt either one is likely to get the nomination. The DCCC wields far too much power, and they are Hillary's, lock stock and barrel. No one will be more pleased than I to be proven wrong, if we could actually nominate someone remotely progressive. But I doubt it will happen. The "moderates" and "neo-liberals" (read: conservative lite) in the party have all the power and money (which is probably two ways of saying the same thing).

 

Um, what? Yes, Hillary is in a very strong position right now, but I'm kind of baffled at how the DCCC is even vaguely relevant.

The D-triple-C is the campaign committee for Democratic U.S. House candidates. They certainly weren't powerful enough to gain seats last time, and are not expected to win back the House in 2016. I doubt they are taken very seriously at this point. They don't normally play any role in presidential campaigns.

If you mean the Democratic National Committee, they're not exactly a pillar of strength for any presidential candidate, no matter how "establishment". You get delegates by winning caucuses and primaries, and if you can't do that, the relative handful of DNC superdelegates aren't going to be there for you either.

 

I saw an article a while back that opined that the DCCC, having a lock on major funders, was essentially manipulating funding to the DNC and thus extending its influence into Senate and Presidential races. Of course, I now cannot recall where I read said article, so I'm going to have to do some research to try and find it and reference it.

But even if the article was erroneous, the point would remain the same since Hillary's supporters seem awfully awfully strong in the DNC, and the Clintons have always had super funding magic.

 

In general......

In the 2016 presidential race I see voter backlash against what turned out to be a mostly ineffective Obama administration. The Republicans blew their chance to defeat a vulnerable Democrat president in 2012, they won't make that mistake in 2016. Since the Republicans won't have to run against an incumbent POTUS, and there most likely won't be a surge among black voters supporting the Democratic candidate, the Republican candidate won't have to be a "superstar."

I don't like Ted Cruz on any level, but his 'outsider challenging the status quo' image might just work .

Back in 2000 Jeb Bush came across as being even more cognitively challenged than his better known brother; now he actually sounds like a worthy presidential candidate. Which of course doesn't mean that he'd make a good POTUS.

The Democrats, so far, don't appear to have a candidate strong enough to negate the voter backlash against eight years of Obama. Hillary has the experience but with experience comes baggage, and she has baggage in abundance.

 

Hillary is strong because she is supported by a large percentage of the entire party. But her support is very shallow. If a lot of Democrats abandon her, mere money won't save her. She has money because she is expected to win, not vice versa.

I keep pointing this out: Money is enormously overrated as an independent force in electoral politics. The more important the office, the more attention being paid, the less money matters.

All that cash in Hillary's campaign treasury is a mouse burp in a hurricane -- look how little good it did her in 2008. Those "major funders" will vanish in an instant when somebody else stronger comes along.

As to anti-Obama backlash, the year for that was 2014. The dynamics of the 2016 campaign will be completely different. Lame-duck incumbents rarely drive the outcome. People will be more interested in hearing about the future than the past, just as they were in 1988, 2000, and 2008.

The seeming "backlash" effect has to do with the presidency as the balance-wheel of American politics. Historically, the party that holds the White House gets steadily weaker, losing congressional seats and governorships, while the opposition gets stronger. Generally, that leaves the opposition party in a good position and many strong candidates to win the next presidential election -- but not always.

And a non-incumbent presidential election is a whole new roll of the dice.

All that said, the US party system has changed a lot in the last 25 years. Essentially we have switched to European-style ideological parties, but without a parliament. What this is going to mean for political dynamics going forward is unclear. So far, the main impact has been policy paralysis in Washington.