I think there was some discussion about 2020 candidates at the end of the last thread, and I wanted to chime in...
Warren is perhaps my first choice. She knows how to get a crowd excited - in that regard she's perhaps better than any female politician I've seen and also better than a lot of male ones too. I have two concerns though:
1. We have two-year election cycles now, and I don't know if I can stomach two years of Drumpf calling her Pocahontas every day for two years. It's nauseating to think about. I hate the misogyny that permeates his base.
2. The governor of Massachusetts is a Republican. If we don't take back the Senate in the midterms, we'll have another chance in 2020, and if Warren were to run and win, the Republican governor would fill her seat with a Republican. Something to think about. In contrast Harris and Booker are both from states with Democratic governors(I'm assuming Gavin Newsom will win his governor's race in California in November). Speaking of which...
Harris & Booker are both similar in that they are young, African-American, relatively new to the Senate, and both are excellent politicians who can get a crowd going wild(Booker blew the roof off the place at the 2016 Democratic convention). They are both eminently likable I'd be able to support either wholeheartedly. Though it should be mentioned that the far-left Bernie types are going to tear Booker apart for his connections to Wall Street.
Gillibrand doesn't interest me much. Too much like Hillary. I had no problem voting for Hillary, but I don't love her, and I feel like Gillibrand would present some of the same problems as a candidate - too reserved, too buttoned up, unable to really light a fire under the base. Then again, she's the one I know least about here, so maybe I'll change my mind.
Biden. There isn't a bigger fan of Biden than me. I love the man. Back in 2008, after Obama locked up the nomination and the media was speculating about who he would pick to be his VP, the whole time I was saying Biden, it's gotta be Biden, he's clearly the best candidate, the best person, the most qualified, etc. I think he was a great VP. I love him. But I'm weary of him running. Because he's 80. Because I fear that while he'll appeal to people in Ohio/Pennsylvania/Michigan/etc who may have voted for Drumpf, I feel that the increasingly liberal base may seem him as too centrist. That said, I could get on board, if he were to, say, commit to serving one-term only, and select a younger home-run VP candidate to basically have the nomination served up on a platter in 2024, i.e. Booker or Harris maybe.
Sanders. I'm sorry, but I've decided that I don't want him to run. He's just too divisive. I started as a Bernie supporter in 2016. I voted for him in the Ohio primary. But I became increasingly uncomfortable with him and his supporters as time wore on. With him, because he talked about one thing only and appeared to have no mental agility - nothing to say about anything else, especially foreign policy, he was one-note - he was too lax about gun-control, and he didn't appeal enough to minority voters who are vital to getting Democrats elected. With his supporters, because to them Bernie was the only honest progressive. Even now, they call Warren, Harris, and Booker faux-gressives. Because Warren didn't support Bernie in 2016. Because Harris
didn't bring charges against Steve Mnuchin's company when she was the AG of California. Because of Booker's aforementioned ties to Wall Street. For them, Bernie is the only one. That's not support of a candidate, it's worship, similar to how Drumpf's supporters worship him, and it's not a healthy relationship to have with a politician. There's no perfect progressive, we can't let 'good' be the enemy of perfect, and I don't want to have to have that argument for the next two years.