re: Is it just me or is AOC a viable candidate in 2028?

quote:

---

It's just you. A liberal woman from New York City is not a viable national candidate.

---

Perfectly stated--Dems need to give this up.

Repubs should hope she wins.

[/img]


This really isn’t a question

If she pops the titties out.. I may consider possibly thinking about potentially voting for her.


She'd have to really work em though.

quote:

---

Why not? Hillary was a liberal woman from New York and we sweated that one out.

---

Hilldog had been in national level politics for decades before she ran for President.

AOC only resume accomplishment is paid spokesperson for a group of Progressives in a NYC congressional district. She has never had to think her way out of a paper bag because her appearances are scripted everyday.

This would be as bad as Seattle electing Katie Wilson

She’s definitely a viable candidate to win the nomination. But if those critical voters “in the middle” were repulsed by Harris, what you think their opinion of AOC will be??

Please put her in an unscripted debate with Vance, Rubio, or one of Trump’s sons.

PPV TV right there. Would be like watching prime Mike Tyson fight Elliot Page.

quote:

---

I don’t think Hillary’s base of white women and minorities gave a shite about Bill Clinton.

---

We'll have to agree to disagree on that one point.

But overall I think you are potentially correct and also potentially incorrect. It depends on what you mean by "viable candidate."

If you mean that AOC can run a competitive race, sure she can. I have tried to tell the rightist populists here for 2 1/2 years now that there is no such thing as a Regan-Carter or a Reagan-Mondale-style beating any more. Not as long as the landscape remains so blindly populist and tribal.

Anybody they run will be competitive.

But if you mean, "Is she likely to win?" I don't think so. Not unless something catastrophic happens on the other side between now & then.

Case in point, you brought up Clinton. The cult doesn't like to hear this, but math is undefeated. Trump didn't win in 2016. Clinton lost. Those states that Trump "historically flipped" in 2016 had nothing to do with Trump. Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin...that had to do with Clinton's unpopularity. Trump took those states because around twice as many Democrat voters voted for Jill Stein as usual in 2016. That's why the Democratic Party got the Green Party kicked off the ballot between 2016 and 2020 in those states.

The margin of victory was pretty much exactly the difference between the 1%-1.5% who usually voted Green Party and the 3%-3.3% who voted Green that year.

So even Clinton was an unpopular candidate and she had every advantage in the world going into that race.

The Democrats are so badly out of touch with normal people I don't think anyone can coach AOC to be able to relate to them. This is a party who genuinely thought that they could get Tim Waltz to wear a camouflage hat and fire a shotgun on camera, and white men would vote for him.

They can't help her because they are as clueless as she is. Plus, she has that young person trait of not having enough self-restraint and tact and decorum to navigate the challenges she'll face in a POTUS campaign.

And yes, I realize that Trump also has no self-restraint, tact, or decorum, and his cult base likes that. It's not just not a negative, it's a positive for them.

But I don't think AOC would get away with it the same way. Trump is strangely bulletproof when it comes to that. Whereas he looks classless, she looks stupid. Whereas he looks narcissistic, she looks lost and in over her head.

Finally, I just don't think America wants a chick for POTUS (not the way it wanted a black for POTUS, for sure.). I just don't think we're there. The election is a long way off...who knows? Maybe we will be by then, but the voters have had two chances now to elect a Madam President and haven't done it yet.

quote:

---

Newsflash dude, all politics are basically populism.

---

Nope.

quote:

---

When the people of your district or your state finally realize you are not representing them who elected you, you stand a damned good chance of losing a primary or general election

---

That's not specific to populism.

quote:

---

It is not difficult to understand.

---

You could have fooled me.

quote:

---

One of my idols, Ronald Reagan had to compromise on things.

---

That's correct. That's also not specific to populism. Regan was a conservative, not a populist.

quote:

---

You and the crew would be posting this same shite about Reagan today.

---

Well, they actually DO post the same stuff about Reagan today.

You sound like you are insulted on Trump's behalf by what Roger and SFP supposedly have said. If so, I don't think you get their point.

I think their point is that when you live by populism, you also die by it. When all you are to your base is a vending machine, there's no ability to stand on anything other than "gimmie."

When there are no foundational values that support your policy decisions—when socialism is on the table, when expanding government is on the table, when interfering with free trade is on the table, when overspending (for no good reason) is on the table, when the government picking winners and losers via taxes is on the table—you really have no recourse to tell young people they aren't getting what they want for any good reason...because you don't have one. Like when Trump tried to play both sides of the housing market. You either manipulate the market to bring prices down, which hurts older people but benefits younger people, or vice versa.

If you're a conservative (and have earned trust as such), you can tell both groups, "We stand on the foundational principle that the free market is the wisest controller of where housing prices end up, not the government" and stay out of it entirely.

But when you don't stand on any principle like that in the first place (populism), all you can do is try to distract from the fact that you favored one group over the other. I think that's the point. Not that Trump should favor the younger people.

It's that when your game is "gimmie," you can't please everybody. And the displeased ones are going to go where they can get what THEY want.

quote:

---

She is not a viable candidate at all. She is the definition of vapid and insipid.

---

I don't know what politics you been watching in the US for at least a couple of decades, but the deepest, most profound and smartest candidate is not the one who wins these elections.

Those qualities have become pretty much irrelevant, in fact.