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

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I really cannot understand anybody thinking this way any more.

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Here’s how I see it:

1. Obama is the only dem from a northern blue state to win the presidency in this century. Before him, you have to go back to JFK. Obama ran waaaaay to the right of AOC, stuck to their middle class values script, and stayed away from controversial social issues in his campaigns.

2. AOC will not do that, and for that matter the dems will not pull back on all the crazy policies that keep losing them elections: LGBT fixations, reparations, anti border security, anti police, and pro Ukraine involvement.

3. Trump won’t be running, and whoever the nominee is has time to pivot away from whatever this administration’s vulnerabilities will be.

So I think that if they run AOC, all the dem craziness will elect whoever the GOP nominee is.

Two caveats:

1. If Iran goes south and we become hopelessly mired in another ME cluster, all bets are off. Dems will run on that and win.

2. Same if the economy crashes. That’s a hard headwind for whoever the republicans run.

Here's how I see it.

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Obama is the only dem from a northern blue state to win the presidency in this century. Before him, you have to go back to JFK. Obama ran waaaaay to the right of AOC, stuck to their middle class values script, and stayed away from controversial social issues in his campaigns.

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Obama is not relevant in this context any more. The right had not given way to populism during Obama's campaign and first term. The seeds were there, but they were still underground. By the time his second term ended, the seeds were in full bloom, watered by the internet, social media, and basking in the warmth of the sun of the anger toward Republicans who continued to forget their conservative promises despite the Tea Party Movement.

It's a whole new ballgame now, and not just because of what happened on the GOP side. Obama—once elected—pushed the party FAR to the left, and Bernie Sanders took that momentum and pushed it even farther.

So from 2016 on, nothing that Obama campaigned on matters.

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AOC will not do that, and for that matter the dems will not pull back on all the crazy policies that keep losing them elections: LGBT fixations, reparations, anti border security, anti police, and pro Ukraine involvement.

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And I said that upthread. I agree, AOC has neither the tact nor the intelligence to be dishonest enough about her real agenda to win.

The party as a whole has a problem.

They've given way to populism for a lot longer than the right. So their entire coalition plays the "gimmie game." So they have to maintain their stance on lots of those things. Not doing so might gain them some "undecided" voters, but it will cost them a huge portion of the base.

And they are probably too far out of touch to navigate a decent path through that minefield.

However...none of that = a double digit assbeating a la Reagan beating Carter or Mondale. Those days are over.

Like I said earlier, it's more about voting against candidates now rather than it is for them.

I'd feel good about AOC being the candidate. A lot better than I would if Newsome was the candidate. But I still wouldn't expect to win. Because I know that as long as we have two populist mirror images of each other competing, it can always go either way. Yeah, the Democratic party is out of touch and that helps. But the media still totes all the water they can for them, and that (still) hurts.

Again, I remind us all that people like us (people who pay attention more or less to politics) are not the ones who elect the POTUS. We cancel out the guaranteed Democratic voters. The "undecided voter," the uninformed voter, the unsophisticated voter, that's who actually elects the POTUS.

That's why substance doesn't matter.