I support Elizabeth Warren but, for what it is worth, my second and third choices are Kobushar and BLOOMBERG
Why? I want not only to replace Trump, I want to replace him with someone who is competent. Both Klobushar and Bloomberg … like Warren, have proven their ability to run things.
One measure of competence is the ability to organize a political campaign. Warren has done an amazing great job nationally. However, when we attend Warren meetings in my home state, so far I am unimpressed. We, the Warren campaign, have a lot of young people but not folks who seem to understand our state politics. I suspect this reflects a longer term effort to compete with Bernie, but I am fairly certain Bernie could not take the state if the election were not about Trump.
She could take WASTATE even if the GOP candidate was not a monster. Now comes Bloomberg. Unlike Klobushar, who has not raised a lot of money, Steyer and Yang are two more wealthy guys who have money but do not seem to understand politics. The former New York City mayor and billionaire businessman’s campaign has hired very impressive senior campaign aides in WASTATE:
Grant Lahmann, chief of staff to King County Councilmember Joe McDermott, is Bloomberg’s state campaign director.
Alex Glass, a former aide to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, has been named senior adviser for the state.
Katie Rodihan, who recently worked on Gov. Jay Inslee’s presidential campaign, has been named communications director. She really impresses me. We met her during Kim Schrier’s extremely successful candidacy to replace Dave Reichert. Schrier defeated our candidate Jason Rittereiser, a truly impressive guy who bridges the gap between the liberal part of the district and its rural roots to the east. To win in that District, Schrier needed to compete with Rittereiser … convincing Bernieoids and Seattle lefties that she could win in a purple district with a lot of loyal Trumpies. She did that and went on to defeat Dino Rossi, former big shot in the GOP and nearly successful cnadidate for governor.
Rodihan says, “One of the things I am most excited about is that we will target voters not normally hit during a presidential primary.” She has the experience and the toughness not only to do that, but to help whoever is the Democratic candidate for President in 2020 lead a blue wave across the state!
Wit few exceptions no one who has held the office are truly ready and able. The skills of getting elected are not the same as those when in office. We maybe better served if the office were done by lot and the poor bastard who gets picked must drop everything and serve.
In Washington state whoever wins the Democratic Presidential nomination will get the states electoral votes against any Republican. The only interesting thing that can happen is if at the convention the party splits and there are two candidates, giving Trump or any Republican a shot. It could be amusing if Texas and Florida passes the popular vote and Trump wins the popular vote…sitting Presidents usually do that historically…and Trump gets Washington’s votes.The beehives stirred up that would be amusing.
Frankl y Presidential politics is boring because of the Democratic dominance in the state.And it will be a generation or more before that changes
You are the master of the red herring, Mark. A CFO is more qualified to become a company’s next CEO than a truck driver at the loading dock. Likewise, President of the United States is not an entry-level job. It requires political skills and experience, specific knowledge, a suitable temperament, and good judgment. Trump came into office with none of those attributes and it shows. Very painfully. You also are letting your imagination run away with you. I do not see Democratic primary voters supporting another billionaire trying to buy control of our political system to protect himself and his fellow billionaires from Warren’s and Sanders’ wealth-tax proposals. You are wrong about Washington’s electoral votes; in 2016, 4 of Washington’s 10 electoral votes went to candidates other than Hillary Clinton (so-called “faithless electors”), in defiance of a state law requiring them to vote for the winner of the statewide popular vote. There will not be two Democratic nominees. Trump winning the popular vote is an extreme long shot. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is still 74 electoral votes short of 270, and Texas and Florida have only 67 EVs between them, so even if these states enacted the NPVI in time for the 2020 election (which they will not), it would not be enough to implement it. And if you believe the winds of change in Washington or elsewhere are blowing in the GOP’s favor, I suggest you read the article in the current Time magazine about what the coming of age of millennials will do to our politics — only 17% of the largest age cohort in American history identify as Republican and millennials are decisively anti-Republican. In other words, demograophic change is working against, not in favor of, the GOP expanding its electoral base in Washington state and elsewhere. The question is not whether Washington will go red in a decade or so, but whether Texas and other red states outside the Deep South will go blue.
Our next president needs to rebuild our alliances and reverse the damage Trump did in foreign affairs, and that requires someone with great experience of, and extremely well grounded in, foreign policy. That would be Biden. It also should be someone who understands our military needs and how to stand up against Russian and Chinese aggressiveness without crossing the line to war, and that again is Biden. If you want to defeat Trump, it’s Biden who consistently polls best against him. Some voters are skeptical of Warren’s and Sanders’ taxing and spending proposals, especially those in the electorally crucial heartland states. Klobuchar is running for vice president; even she knows that. I’m looking at a Biden-Klobuchar ticket to beat Trump in November. They aren’t necessarily my personal preferences, but in practical political terms, I think that’s how the Democrats can get from Point A to Point B.