I like warren plenty and think she would be great but she has same problem as Bernie in that she clearly doesn’t give a **** about foreign policy. Why neither of them try to run as clear anti war doves is beyond me

I question if Warren actually wants to spend the effort of 2 years of chasing donors, holding stump speeches in god knows where that are required for a national campaign. Seems like she’d be much better at being President than running for President, which is a problem.

Warren seems pretty convincing when she says she doesn't want to run. Could be bull****ting I suppose, who knows.

Warren is wicked smart.

She has her (multiple) reasons for not running.

Skeletons in her closet will not remain a secret.

Warren knows that.

Is being dumb a ban worthy offense?

Asking for a friend.

strike two

If Bernie runs, he's gotta be the favorite (at 30-40% equity) in the Democratic primary for a couple of reasons:

1) He dominates the portion of the party he's drawing support from. Others will be splitting their chunks up. This is similar strategically to the advantage Trump had in the GOP primary in '16. But most of the other frontrunners chop up the establishment support, whereas Bernie will just crush it in the progressive/Bernie wing of the party. I mean, that wing is named after him now. He can also now draw some from the typical establishment/moderate Dem voters who are more familiar with him than in '16.

2) He is in the early lead in terms of name recognition/polling, and almost everyone who pays any attention to politics knows exactly what he stands for. He doesn't have to struggle at all to define himself.

3) He's by far the most charismatic amongst the front-runners.

4) He can draw on his '16 experience and run a more effective campaign. He has immense grassroots support, e-mail/donor lists, etc.

5) He can get more free media than most Democratic candidates based on his rallies. (a la Trump '16)

The obvious drawback is his age, but I don't think it bothers his supporters and obviously he crushes it with young people. So his age is a governing issue, not an electoral math issue. I think most people who like Bernie more than trust him to make a wise VP choice, and view him as the best shot they have for a while of achieving any semblance of their political ideals.

tldr; He took 46% of pledged delegates against Hillary, and was suffering from lack of name recognition early on. Start him off at 40-45% in the polls, and nobody else in a large field even comes close in the first few states. By then, it's his to lose once the field narrows.

Bernie isn't going to start at 40%+ in the polls, though. He was at 31% in a NH poll a few months ago. Clearly he should be lower than that nationally given NH is his neighboring state and is super white.

Also, if Warren runs, she will split at least some of his vote. She already had a good chunk (13%) in that NH poll.

Agree with much of your post, though. Bernie has about as good a shot as anyone, but I think he'll need a few breaks to win. Warren not running would be huge. As would a news focus on economic issues instead of race/gender issues.

He enjoys a benefit of association with Obama. Plenty of people who like Biden couldn't tell you anything about his pre-Obama administration career.

First, huge LOL at your claim that you are center left.

Second, nothing in Warren's work history makes it likely that she has skeletons in her closet. Law professor isn't exactly the profession of choice for grifters.

All that said, Warren is not my preferred choice.

The only chance for Warren or Bernie to win is if one of them does not run. And this is probably the best chance that a Bernie-style candidate will ever have to win.

It will be interesting to see how important this issue is for Gillibrand. Off the top of my head and after looking up an old court filing, I know that the following large firms were heavily involved in defending tobacco litigation:

Skadden
Davis Polk
Arnold & Porter
Crowell & Moring
Covington & Burling
Williams & Connelly
White & Case
Kirkland & Ellis
Dechert Price
Jones Day
King & Spalding

I'm sure there were many others. I remember hearing that Arnold & Porter had 175 lawyers working for Philip Morris at one point. I am unaware of any large, defense-side firm that turned down tobacco work in the 1990s on moral grounds. It would have been pretty much unheard of in the 1990s for a young lawyer at a large firm to refuse to work on tobacco cases.

Finally, allow me a bit of nittery. Gillibrand was not a corporate lawyer. Corporate lawyers work on mergers, securities offerings, reorganizations, etc. Gillibrand was a litigator.

The first time I saw Biden was in an interview in the run-up to the Iraq war. He explained the divide between the Sunni, Shia amd Kurds in the country and that anything but a tri-partition was going to end in chaos. He really seemed to know what he was talking about. It was a stark contrast to the idiocy of Bush and his flunkies. At that point I thought he‘d make a great president but I think that ship is sailed. He is too old now and I am afraid he might not have kept his hands to himself. Only Trump can get away with pussy grabbing.

I know someone who knows Biden. In this person's view, Biden understands foreign policy because he has spent a lot of time on it. But like a lot of olds, he has a short attention span and limited patience for being briefed.

Biden presumably would play better in the Rust Belt than most other candidates, which obviously is a plus. Only he knows how many women he has fondled.

A serious Bernie presidential bid might encourage Hillary to take another shot.

I certainly hope Warren and Bernie don't both run and split the Warren/Bernie vote.

That's fair, that he won't start out at 40%+, but he'll start out way in the lead with a big plurality if there are 10+ candidates in the field (which I view as a near-lock). I don't think Warren chips into Bernie's vote as much as others do... But perhaps a little. I am not entirely convinced she will run, at least not seriously. I think she understands that she's not as charismatic, and that it limits her ability to run nationally. I also don't think she's at all as narcissistic as most politicians - and I'm talking "normal" narcissism, not Trump-level, diagnosable disorder. So I think she would be more of a reluctant candidate, as someone upthread mentioned.

I actually think a Sanders/Warren ticket would be amazing. I think she might be open to running as VP for Bernie, if he basically goes to her and says, "Listen, I'm old, you're by far the best VP candidate in my view who has similar beliefs and a lot of credibility behind them, will you run as my VP?"

The energy from the rank and file of the party behind that ticket would be immense. Trump might punch himself out going after her, too. Granted, sexist attacks on her will stick a little more than on Gillibrand (only because conservatives already hate her since she's already been smeared - so she'll rile up Trump's base a bit and increase their turnout slightly), but I think she'd be very effective at essentially deflecting, firing back, and having a measured/responsible response that still says, "Bring it on."

Obviously there's no way to know for sure, but I grew up in Delaware and know some women who have run into Biden and interacted with him in close proximity, and he was nothing but polite and appropriate.

I am liking the field for 2020. Bernie and Warren would be good. Kamala Harris seems OK. Gillibrand is decent. The only one I don't want to see is Booker.

I think it would be ideal if both ran initially but dropped to one somewhat early.

Let them run together and announce it from the start.

Given this is a gambling website, can we make a rule that, when you say crazy, forward looking stuff like "no woman can beat trump other than Ivanka", you have to either back it up with a $5k bet or face a ban? Would greatly improve quality of discussion.

This is a good post but I think Booker has the charisma factor locked down. Dude is smooth as marble.

I assume this has been their plan all along. They appear together regularly on UToobz.

How many potheads that voted for trump will not vote for him if that idiot sessions cracks down on legalized states ?

They would all vote for Bernie.... right ? (wink)

Kamala is interesting. I think that would depend on how many of those facebook memes with her saying incredibly stupid things are fake and how many are real.

Libs need someone without the hint of corruption who never says or does anything stupid and they should be ok. Someone who cares about social issues and will take care of social issues when elected but during the election just runs on the issues most prevalent to the swing voters.

Oprah's running. She has to after this speech.