Time for Dems to shine a light on our younger members. This is a perfect choice! I've been following Joe Kennedy on social media and he's impressive!

Do we seriously need to have a white male deliver this statement?

"We" should exclude him because he is male & Caucasian? What better way to demonstrate racial and sexual equality than to make gender and skin color a prerequisite.

Such utter tripe people come up with!

Joe will make us proud!!

but this I want to see and hear. He is impressive.

We are 68 and are working to make sure our doctors, lawyers, financial advisers and politicians are sharp and looking toward a future that will be good after we are gone. We appreciate experience but also know we need new ideas, new enthusiasm and energy in all parts of life.

New ideas and experience are valuable. When i hear folks say they are going to take over the Dem Party, it makes me mad. Those of us who support the Dems have been here and support what these taker overs want. I don't get them at all. Join us. Make the Dem Party better, but don't think I am at fault for the last 20 years. The country shifted right and the Dems had to do what they could to survive. Now the country has shifted left. A dream come true if you ask me. Vote for the Dems in November so we can move forward!

Pretty vicious replies to it. Irritating how Twitter has become a message board for every last angry thought by right wing bots. We are more than the sum of our anger. And tweets by thought leaders and news organizations are more important than rabble drivel.

Wish Twitter would prevent replies to some extent to hard factual news. Or limit the number of posts per day. I get posts 40-50 times a day from some members. Is it necessary to post the same thing twice an hour?

They are angry white males or russian bots. They are clueless as to how the majority of the country feels about trump and the repubs. They live in a RWNJ bubble.

The Dotard, OTOH, is not allowed in my house.

great news.

Rep Kennedy is an excellent choice. I follow him and he has been out there fighting for us all from day one.

Joe Kennedy is our future. The sooner we get him into the national zeitgeist the better...

And other non-white non-male voters.

It is past time to recognize the reality of the debt owed by this party to folks who are not white and not male.

Do the various minority communities in the Democratic Party, and in particular African-American women, deserve and demand more inclusion in party policies and positions, leadership and direction?
Absolutely. That is true for white women as well. And it is true for African-American men and Asian men and women and Hispanic-Americans of both sexes too. Expanding the roster of decision makers to include more varied voices, races, genders and orientations is always a positive. Always.

Does the primary factor have to be chromosomal make-up or melanin-content of skin alone?
No. Auto-exclusion of ANYONE is a non-starter to me, even if that person checks boxes that many would readily agree have been provided and great number of historical and contemporaneous advantage.

Deciding, in advance, that only non-white, non-males may bring forth ideas and proposals and aspire to leadership positions is an insane position to base a political party on. If your argument is for more inclusion, more seats at the table and more opportunities to demonstrate the best ideas and leadership for all - regardless of source or gender or station, then I am with you and I agree on principles. If you are really saying, no whites and no men need apply, then I disagree completely and will sadly watch the party dissolve under such directives and insanity.

We are only as strong as our ability to propose new ideas to vexing problems. If not, then we become something more akin to the monolithic GOP and that is anathema to me.

Our future is not one group. Wake up.

Perhaps I was misinformed.

Our future is BLACK voters and BROWN voters of BOTH genders and the white women AND men whose conscience guides them to stand for the oppressed.

Gender has little to do with it. While white males vote against us by the largest percentage, white females are not that far behind. Suggesting (by lumping them in with women of color to hide their pro-Republican numbers) that white females are somehow more "our base" than white males has almost no basis in fact.

Leaving half of us in the black community out of the discussion is a recipe for a repetition of what happened in 2016.

comes from a storied family of public service.

Plus, youthful and I guarantee his response will overshadow 45's SOTU

The Democratic Party needs to remember its base.

or vice versa. Both are considering 2020 runs but it looks like Joe is too young this time around and thus not a contender. That might have been part of the calculus. It's also kind of a thankless gig that could invite unwelcome political attention from Trump's base.

I just want to remind everyone that there are other black voices out there beside Kamala and Corey.

I'm white and a woman. At my district monthly meetings there are folks of all colors. You need to stop this kind of stuff.

I love him and will watch him, although I won't watch Hair Furor's lying hate filled spews.

I will not watch the State of the Union (because you KNOW that dumbass is going to immediately tweet out the ratings numbers as "evidence" that people love him, so let's make them as low as possible), but I WILL tune in to hear the rebuttal now. How great would it be if the rebuttal got higher ratings than his speech? LOL

I would love to see a woman or a person of color as our next president, we have to consider what kind of voters we are up against.

The important thing is that he is on the right side of the issues, he has vision and he is charismatic. Other than Obama and Bill Clinton, we have not had a charismatic candidate in a while. I think he is someone who can bring the apathetic voters out of the woodwork and into the voting booths. He is refreshing and passionate about what he believes in. I have never been a big Kennedy worshiper, but this family understands the concept of public service and there are very few politicians out there today -especially republicans - who do.

I would be behind him 100% if he decided to run.

I'm really, really, starting to like him as a candidate on the Democratic ticket.

Will he?