I'd vote for Arnie in a heartbeat.

Also yeah lol at Obama not being centrist. The ACA was the republican counter to Hillary's socialized medicine in 1994. I think that completely undisputed fact is still so ludicrous that conservatives just can't process it.

I dunno her platform is still TBD but ole Wall Street Hillary seems ok to me Sanders/Warren would scare the crap out of me.

They're pretty lukewarm on Christie. Bush would probably be fine with them. Mostly they just want Not Democrat. They'd go nuts over a ham sandwich if it was opposed to every single dem policy. Any amount of pragmatism, realistic expectations or compromise is seen as weakness, which is why they we also tepid on Mittens.

The point is Obama on balance is farther right than Bill was. Rhetoric Obama may sound liberal. But Policy Obama would have been a moderate republican in 1994.

I wasn't contrasting Hillary with Obama I was contrasting my prediction of her economically with the establishment 2016 GOP candidate. I am not sure if I buy your "Obama is too the right of Bill" assertion. My memory isn't great and they had much different economies making that comparison difficult. Obamacare is certainly to the right of Hillarycare.
Clinton's ideology was pretty damn malleable. He took the temperature of the country and get done what he could. Obama has not been able to do the same Maybe the GOP is more difficult (before you react to maybe recall impeachment and the never ending special investigator) but the ability to get things done after the first two years is the legacy difference ime.

Why so scarred? FDR had a lot of people concerned. That worked out ok. Some regulation is ok. Are you scarred of stability? I was listening to his 2nd bill of rights speech on the youtoobz recently. It's unreal how far right this country has gone.

I'd love to see a Warren/sanders ticket. But I'm not to optimistic about their chances, two northeast liberals. She'd probably have to find somebody from a swing state. Maybe Alan Grayson.

Warren/Grayson would be a formidable team. It would be pretty easy to sell their populist views to the masses.

Some of it has to do with my personal economic self interest and I prefer a riskier banking system that provides more growth/return for personal reasons (not granting the policy is wrong just saying that I have a bias) I recognize that income inequality is an issue but competing with China is not the answer. The industries of the industrial revolution are mature and we can't maintain our standard of living competing on low value added manufacturing. Those jobs are gone and we need to adjust our workforce and capabilities. Public sector union strength is great if you happen to get a job in the public sector but we don't want to end up like Southern Europe which is more likely than becoming a Scandy.
Mostly we need to get a government that can accomplish something. The tax code is a disaster and a lot of good can be done if the political will can be found to reform. We can address the boomer entitlement bubble in many ways but it will take political skill to accomplish. There are a ton of wise investments we should make from infrastructure to basic research. Education and Healthcare are too expensive and ineffective.
I am very much an optimist I think our challenges can be addressed with a functioning government. I think the middle and compromise is our best path forward and the extremes on either side are not the answer. I don't care for Sanders/Warren or Paul/Cruz and see the likelihood of those individuals or philosophies becoming mainstream remote.

Good post. I agree with most of this post. The Reagan-Bradley tax reform simplified the tax code a great deal. Many people at the time predicted it wouldn't last and it didn't. Defining income for a diverse set of income earners leads to a complicated tax code. Isn't most lobbying about getting favorable tax treatment?

If we reopen the code you can bet that lobbying costs will skyrocket. The tricks you can play with IP are so lucrative but horribly complex. I was the Treasurer for a middle market international IP firm and when we turned profitable I hired a staff tax attorney. I got a raise so I would make slightly more than him. As the firm grew and our profitability soared we undertook a different tax strategy that required even more talent and hired a specialist who was the sixth highest compensated guy (and a complete staff) in the company. The top 5 had to be disclosed via SEC filings so his contract stated that he would make no less than x than the fifth highest paid person (and the optics of a tax guy being one of these 5 is not good). I performed business risk analysis and outside the founder and CEO he was the most crucial person in the company during the implementation and defense stage. The amount of effort put into this stuff is staggering. Sadly it is money well spent.

Christie is fat.

That a soft centre-leftist like Warren is seen as an "extreme" comparable with far rightists like Cruz or Paul really means that any "middle" course is going to be totally unacceptable to anyone who isn't a conservative.

Clinton was able to get things done because a/ he was a conservative and b/ the Republicans ran a different strategy. No moderate could get anything done now. You're probably right, seattlelou, that a "functioning government" could get things done, but it would be a rightwing government and most people truly would not like what it "got done".

orly?

I don't think the middle can be found by adding up the extremes and dividing by 2. Cruz and Warren are new to the game and don't have fleshed out Presidential platforms but both would dive towards the middle if they intend to make a serious run. Even Rand is more mainstream than Daddy but they are uniquely Paul's and completely unsuited to govern.
I agree with your assertion that the right of the GOP is farther away from the middle then the left. Being the governing party and winning elections constrains the left and the GOP is without a leader or direction. If Bush or Christie is the President in 2021 you can bet that the Dems will look a bit ragged too.

And yet he won a 2nd term in one of our (relatively) less obese states.

Obviously has the ability to bring fat and thin people together, united in their dislike of whiny schoolteachers.

Excellent post and I am not surprised at all. Kind of related, one of the reasons that the 90% etc marginal tax brackets went away was due to the idea that money that could be invested/allocated in economic growth was being put to use in non productive tax shelters to avoid the 90% etc marginal rates instead.

Taxing income is a complex endeavor as what constitutes a business cost is open to debate a lot. As long as the US taxes income I don't see anyway around it. Furthermore I don't believe that people in congress really want to change it.

What democrat would have a prayer of beating Hillary in a primary? She polls off the charts, and it's not like they don't know exactly what that means by now. She almost won the primary vs Barack in 2008, and he was (I think we can acknowledge) a VERY VERY strong candidate for a democratic primary.

Wrap it up, she's dominating the polls in April of 2014. Who was supposed to win the 08 primaries?

The serious answer is: probably someone who has paid attention and tried to learn from Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and others.

She is extraordinarily well vetted and I can't see a surprise stopping her march towards the nomination. She will be a solid, but not spectacular, campaigner. She will raise money like its her job.
Her biggest challenge is probably Warren who won't run and be seen as an impediment to the first women President. Biden is out of time and he can be the fallback guy if her health fails. Sanders can say his piece through New Hampshire.
All this is conventional wisdom but I can't think of anything, other than health and desire, that stops her from gaining the nomination. Even if Obama's popularity plummets (for unknown reasons not a prediction just a hypo) she is insulated enough to get the nom over a Dem governor not as closely associated with the administration.

So, identical to Obama.

Let's hope she can get a honeymoon period that is equally successful to Obama's and she chooses to work on the stuff I care most about.

I think this is the piece of him that the bridge ruined, which is a huge part of his value. He's done.

The field is still more likely to win the nom than Hilldog and not just because you need to factor in age related issues.

IMO she is the default safe choice if they cant find anyone better. Worth noting by this point Barack Obama was a little known senator who had a good speech that got him praise in tiny circles with very little name recognition.

BTW if I were to pick another woman liable to take down Hillary it is Wendy Davis (if she wins the Governorship, which is realistically possible) not Elizabeth Warren. I also think Kirsten Gillibrand has a lot of potential too and she definitely wants it.

If Hilary wins then its more of the same from the GOP, just trade their inflaming the racists for inflaming sexists.

I would predict another speech about how their duty will be to make sure that everything Hilary does crashes and burns.

I would have guessed that she become better than 50/50 upon announcement but I suppose we will see. Maybe the gambling political sharks will opine.

Obama in 2008 might be the best campaign in our lifetimes. Don't count on seeing anything like that again.