Elizabeth Warren for President

Look.

There’s like 33% of the population who will never vote for Democrats no matter what (as we have seen, based on those who are supporting Trump no matter what). These are almost all the same people who also think gay marriage should be illegal and blacks should know their place and women should be subservient and Christians should run everything.

So Democrats: Stop trying to appeal to them. Stop being afraid to standing up for what is right. It’s not going to work. All it does is discourage the majority of Americans from supporting you, because they don’t think you actually believe in anything.

Elizabeth Warren was recently asked a question about how she would respond to an “old-fashioned” supporter who believes marriage is between one man and one woman. warren
“I’m going to assume it is a guy who said that,” Warren replied, “And I’m going to say, ‘Well, then just marry one woman. Assuming you can find one.”

Ooh, snap. Some people loved it and some Democrats sweated buckets and said, “Oh, goodness gracious! She’s going to alienate some voters with that!”

Well, no, she isn’t. The kind of person who would be insulted by a comment like that would never consider voting for her in the first place.

Republicans know this. They don’t care a bit about trying to appeal to a “middle.” They say what they think. Of course, they are more confident of winning because they cheat (through gerrymandering, voter suppression, voter purges, voting machines that don’t leave paper trails and their buddy the Electoral College, but that’s a separate topic).

Democrats are always advised to “reach for the middle” and that makes them afraid to say anything that may alienate a pretend group that would consider voting for them “if only.” That group does not exist. We are the majority. We are the mainstream.

And we should act like it.

It’s being reported today that Hillary Clinton may announce her candidacy earlier than expected. Or maybe not. No one seems sure.

I’m hoping she decides not to run so that some other rising star in the party could step in. While Hillary would certainly be the front-runner (especially against the current Republican field), she has a lot of baggage. She’s said some pretty stupid things over the years, and despite the crazy conspiracy theories there are indeed legitimate concerns over some of her actions.

Hillary also makes it very difficult for Democrats to attack Jeb Bush as being just another one of those insider families that run the country. We won’t be able to attack political dynasties.

I’m sure she’s considering all this. If she runs, she could lose. She could even lose the Democratic primaries again. Instead, if she doesn’t run, she can be a deal-breaker behind the scenes and be remembered in history as a good Secretary of State. And she can avoid the huge attack machine the Republicans have ready for her.

But also, I don’t want her. I think she’s a political animal who doesn’t really stand for that much. Mind you, I’ll vote for her over any Republican, but I won’t be excited about it. It will be like when I voted for Mondale and Dukakis (or for that matter, Bill Clinton). Meh. Better than the alternative.

The American people like being entranced by someone new. It certainly worked to Obama’s advantage when he ran against her eight years ago. He did not have a long record, and that allowed people to project what they want onto him while also making it harder for anyone to attack him on previous positions.

So who would I like? Ah well, if I’m dreaming, I’d chose Elizabeth Warren. She’s still tie into the “let’s elect the first woman President” vote that Hillary appeals to, but dammit, she’s like the Teddy Roosevelt of our age. We need someone like her. (I like Bernie Sanders too for many of those same reasons but I don’t want him to get the nomination because I think he’d lose the general election.) And there are some other good possibilities, too: Jim Webb. Howard Dean. Tim Kaine. Amy Klobuchar.

Vote for your choice, and give an opinion in the comments!