https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...didates-for-2020-ranked/ar-AAzEXf9?li=BBnbfcL
We have talked about this before and thrown out a few obvious names, but this article, while short on detail, looks to be pretty comprehensive. FWIW, I am so far underwhelmed with most all of these, but it its still a long way to the next election and things could change. FYRP (for your reading pleasure).
That list (with a couple of exceptions) is as bad as the 2016 GOP version.
Oprah - not gonna run and seriously - how can anyone who bashed Trump for "no experience" even say this with a straight face? I also think she's "above" it, in that I don't think she would even want it.
Mitch Landrieu - really, we now take mayors seriously as candidates? Let's apply what I call "the obvious test" - why in the hell would you nominate a guy who would not even be able to carry his home state? (And yeah, I know all the names you can bring forward, including the current Cheeto).
Sherrod Brown - interesting, a possibility, got passed over for VP by Hillary because he would have been replaced by a GOP
Andrew Cuomo - not sure how his "New York persona" would play out (this IS the Democrats we're talking about, remember). I think he would have a decent enough shot at it, but who knows?
Chris Murphy - a gun control narrative joke
Michael Bloomberg - see Landrieu, and I think he'd run into the Bernie Sanders problem in that he hasn't been a Democrat "for real"
Eric Holder - don't make me laugh
Terry McAwful - ah great, the Clintonian candidate, utterly worthless
Deval Patrick - don't know how well he'd wear, don't know if he wants it, but I do think you have to take (almost) anyone who has been a MA governor seriously as candidate
Gillibrand - another joke, another Clintonian robot
Cory Booker - this one I find quite interesting and possible. Up and coming.
Biden - probably the most stature of anyone in the party, but I don't think he runs; he would, however, be a formidable foe as an adult in the room; he's more of the pragmatic liberal than the idealist, and when he was in the Senate he was well-liked by both sides of the aisle
Kamala Harris - a disgusting left-wing joke who wouldn't take long to say something stupid (just follow her on Twitter and you'll have plenty of ammo with how out of touch she is with anyone NOT in CA)
Liz Warren - the modern McGovern, I have no doubt that if Bernie didn't run she'd collar a huge portion of the vote. The question is whether the party is going to collapse to the left (in which case she can win) or if the centrists can reign it in enough to run someone else.
Bernie - advantage is he's been around the track before, disadvantage is he's so ancient and looks it
But a reminder - at this same time in 1990, just look at the names who were on the "front runners" list:
Mario Cuomo - didn't run, although his Hamlet act in late 1991 was rather amusing to watch
Bill Bradley - didn't run because he said he didn't know enough about it
Al Gore - didn't run, his son was hit by a car outside an Orioles game and spent a month in the hospital in 1990 (I'll set aside the fact he did run as the VP, a different animal tbf)
Sam Nunn - didn't run and was too conservative to win if he did
Lloyd Bentsen - see Sam Nunn
Dick Gephardt - then the House Majority Leader and a failed candidate from 1988
It was also feared, er, I mean assumed that Jesse Jackson would likely run again in 1992.
Bob Kerrey's name was well down the list, though as a Democrat who won the Medal of Honor AND got elected governor and later senator in Nebraska, his name was being touted the night of the 1988 elections as a possible future nominee.
Bill Clinton, the eventual winner, WAS known from his 1988 keynote address to the DNC that was the equivalent of the Energizer bunny of the time - it kept going and going and going. But he was not AT THAT TIME considered a front-runner, although I did find a couple of Arkansas local yokel papers touting him. I should note that in 1990 when he ran for AR governor again, his opponent (Sheffield Nelson) charged that he was only using the job as a stepping stone to the White House, so Clinton pledged to serve his entire four years if re-elected (and didn't tell the truth then, either). Clinton, however, was being touted for the White House not long after he first won the governor's house in 1978, although his national profile didn't really exist until the 1988 speech.
There MIGHT be another "below the radar" candidate out there. And the Dems might also find themselves with the same problem the GOP had in 2016, where a bunch of candidates split the vote and a far out of the mainstream candidate gets the delegates for the nomination. The Ds - unlike the Rs - have a mechanism in place (super delegates) to override such an occurrence, but at what cost to the party?
I suspect we'll have a ton of candidates if Trump survives Mueller, for no other reason than it doesn't take much coaxing to convince folks that Trump is easy to beat. However, the wild card in the deck is if either Pence takes office or the GOP puts all their chips behind an establishment candidate (Romney or Kasich) to throw Trump overboard. That, too, is fraught with peril for the Rs, more so than the Ds with division. After all - you're still stuck with Trump's record, good or bad.
