The more the merrier.

....representing the Democrats. Who will Sanders be representing?

I don't subscribe to cable. This is an opportunity to unite the Democratic Party. As we saw in 2016, we don't win when we are divided. Let's unite.

Shall we hope he resists the temptation to rebut the Democrats as well? In the interests of unity.

don't need cable, unless you live in a very remote area

I think more and more people are like us. We pay extra for better internet service, but can't really afford both internet and cable. And besides, basic cable includes Fox News, and I refuse to pay a cent to Fox News. On the internet, I can watch what I want.

But thanks for the advice. My husband is pretty good with these things, but it's complicated. We even bought an indoors antenna, but we just don't like to deal with TV. We are retired.

I do appreciate your advice. And it may help some other people.

Representative Kennedy was delivering the official response. I think it was a bad move...don't understand it.

It's scheduled for 10:45 Eastern.

And it doesn't unite the party to have a competing rebuttal.

The problem isn't how many rebuttals we are having. It's the lack of unity and hard work. It's the division.

If the party weren't divided, no one would mind the many rebuttals. Everyone would be excited at the prospect of telling Republicans what is wrong with their president.

It's not the rebuttals that divide the party. It's the division in the Party that is dividing the Party.

We need to unite.

2016 was 2016. Let's get voters to united around candidates, register and vote in 2018 -- this year. Nothing else matters. We have to win the Congress this year. If it takes 1000 rebuttals and everybody speak up against this president, more power to them.

The important focus should be on taking back Congress this year and supporting all liberals and progressives before and after the primaries.

for their ideals and candidates -- mentioning nothing about the party they vote for. This is also trickling down in your posts on this subject, and maybe that's what you are eluding to about giving many voices a platform.

You should be shouting from the rooftops to elect Democrats. It's too divisive and now a proven disaster to promote a third party type who divides people. We should be uniting around Democrats. Promoting many voices only invites con men like Trump to divide. We've already seen this movie. We know how it ends. Let's not do that again.

Vote for Democrats.

Until that system changes we will only elect republicans if we have the fantasy of a 3rd party, as the Democrats vote will be divided. Mr. Sanders, in my opinion, is a spoiler, he has always been a spoiler. If he had had his way in 2012, he wanted to primary Obama, which means we would have ended up with a Romney presidency. Fortunately, he couldn't find anyone to primary Obama.

need to be a lot stronger and clearer in our messaging.

The problem in our messaging is not that we have too many competing rebuttal speakers but that we aren't sure what our most important values really are.

We have a lot of splinter groups in the Democratic Party that want foremost attention. The number of rebuttal speakers reflects and does not cause the division in the Democratic Party.

The Republicans don't have that problem. We do. If we really agreed within the Democratic Party on certain principles that we represent and sell, then having 10 rebuttals would not bother anyone.

What those who don't want the multiple rebuttals really object to is the fact that the Democratic Party is divided now when it comes to what the primary values and ideas that the Party stands for are.

We need to be much clearer about this. We are the party of diversity. But we need a way to sell that idea that is much better than we had in 2016. And having many speakers, LISTENING to a lot of the diversity in our Party is a good place to start to find and sell our values and our ideals.

It would be valuable to run a poll and ask voters what the Republicans stand for and what Democrats stand for. I'd like to know what people think.

But right now, we are finding our direction as a Party -- at least voters are, and it is, in my opinion, good to have a variety of voices representing us.

If voters were delighted and sold on what the Democratic Party presented in 2016, Hillary would be in the White House right now. She isn't. It's time Democrats take responsibility for that fact. She won the popular vote, but did not win in the key states. We need a clearer message. Squelching people who are offering to help find that message in order to push someone "chosen" by the Party leadership is not a good way to find or send that message.

I really liked Joe Kennedy and his speech, and it is wonderful to see someone young speaking on behalf of the Party, but let's don't stop the curve of history. As a Party we need to focus on finding our message, the message that Americans want from us right now. What kind of Party are we in this age of automation and the global economy? That is what Americans want to hear from us.

Republicans are giving an answer that won't work for very long. They are creeping into the past on climate change, on jobs, on so many issues. We Democrats have to offer the values that will work today and in the future. Right now, we are in a stage of "discovery," and we should let it evolve without trying to stop it. If we try to stop or end the diversity in the voices in our Party now, we will fail again in 2018 and 2020, and it will be catastrophic for our country. The Republican way is doomed to failure and perhaps even violence. And that is Russians or not. The Republicans offer marketable slogans that will end in disaster.

Limiting the number of speeches Democrats give will not unite us. Offering Americans to do everything possible to achieve the goals and live up to the values that will work in the future will get us elected. And we need to sell that idea to donors who have very questionable special interests in some cases.

We don't have too many speakers. We have too little clarity and direction in our Party.

I can get out and talk to them and tell them about the candidate I like, but if they really don't like my candidate, they won't vote for him or her.

So it is important to pick a candidate people agree with and like.

One mistake we Democrats made in 2016 was to pick a candidate with a long history that made her, unfairly maybe, but nevertheless, made her very susceptible to propaganda and lies against her.

It's best not to pick the heir apparent, the candidate for a major office, too early. If a Party picks the candidate too early, if the Party is too powerful and too determined to make sure that candidate gets the nomination, the research the opposing party has to do to tear down the Party's candidate is too easy.

Having lots of rebuttals diffuses the attention of the opposing party, in this case the Republicans. It confuses them. It makes it a little harder for them to just pounce on and pick on the eventual candidate. That is why it is really good to have lots of contenders, lots of opposition speakers to the State of the Union.

It's a matter of strategy.

The strategy the Democratic Party used in 2016 did not work because it was seriously flawed. It wasn't the fault of the candidate necessarily. Every candidate has faults. It was the fault of the Democratic Party for being too obvious about who it would pick as the candidate and giving Republicans quite a few years to build a nonsensical case against that candidate.

That Hillary won 3 million more votes than Trump is amazing considering the time the Democrats gave the Republican noise machine to build their case against her.

Take the Mueller investigation. Beyond the constraints of the law, there is a reason he is not out here discussing every avenue he investigates and every potential charge he thinks of. He is building a strong case or no case. One or the other.

We Democrats need to learn that you don't just show your hand too early. Trump was a bit of a surprise. A shock even. That was an advantage for him. He could say whatever garbage he wanted, and Democrats were not prepared to tell the truth about him because we didn't even know it.

Democrats need to be smarter in the coming presidential election. Lock-step is a foolish tactic. That's why I am happy that we had more than one rebuttal.

How would you define what Republicans stand for in maybe just 3 short sentences -- the most important issues or stances you associate them with?

Same for Democrats?

That's how people think when they vote. Who do I like? And what really fundamental, simple ideas do they stand for?

Most people vote based on those questions and spend a lot less time and trouble answering those questions in their minds than people think. Democrats stand for a lot of things, and many of them don't particularly appeal or mean much to the average American voter. So we need, at this point, a lot of personalities and ideas so we can pick who states them and represents them the best.

Democrats need short, memorable phrases and a machine to sell them. Republicans are associated with reducing taxes. They have imprinted that meme on voters' minds. It isn't exactly true. Most people don't think of the corollary of that. But Republicans associate themselves with "small government" and lower taxes. A big lie, but they have sold it.

What would you say Democrats are associated with? Equality, rights for the formerly oppressed is one. But what are they? That's how you get elected. By identifying those values that you and your party represent. Making sure those values are really important to voters, more important than the Republican ones. That's the task we have in 2018 and 2020. Arguing over who should give the rebuttal to the State of the Union address and complaining about Republicans is not the surest way to get a Democratic majority in Congress and the White House.

Democrats used to stand with labor unions and working people. Race and gender and those issues were second in my view (and I'm a woman). What is our primary issue now? That's why we need multiple responses to the Republican State of the Union. We are in a state of flux. Voters aren't sure about what our stances really are and how relevant we are to their lives. That's why we have lost so many statehouses, the Congress and the White House.

Another issue we have to respond to is balancing the budget. Basically, if the Democratic Party had as clear a vision as the Republicans do and if it were as apparent and desired by the American people as that the Republicans sell, then we would get elected whether we had 20 responses to the State of the Union or maybe just the few we have.

We Democrats have a serious problem and limiting then number of rebuttals to the State of the Union is not going to solve it.

What do we stand for as a Party? That's the real question.

It's also a not-so-subtle attack on Democrats and the party. This all looks so familiar. You keep pushing for people to vote for "ideals" which is just code for undermining Democrats if they don't tout the world views cultivated by one man. We know that the "Revolution" openly advocates voting for Republicans if they tout the favorite lines of that third party leaning group. Splitting Democrats only opens the door for con men like Trump. We've seen this before. It didn't work.

Everything else you've written sounds very familiar. More generalized and never-ending unrealistic complaints against Democrats who have to actually have to deal with the day to day realities of politics. Not just slogans. The Revolution group touts ideas over party, and they don't commit to voting for Democrats. It's not authoritarian to highlight a third-party leaning group and all the damage they have done.

Your screed against Hillary is also very familiar. When anti-Hillary messages were spammed here, that just perpetuates the unncessary negativity and the result is more division. You allude to some advantages to be gained by that, but in reality from what we've already seen, the result is just more hopeless division.

I've seen this tactic now being used here on Biden and in some other ways, Kennedy. In the Video forum, I think you were alluding to some DNC conspiracies about how the rebuttal speakers were chosen. That is very divisive and not helpful. We don't need another rehash of the endless DNC conspiracies. Those have all failed in court, btw. We're done with that, finito.

I doubt your concern about "rebuttals" was really about the multitude of them, but more about favoring one person in particular and introducing the now-familiar conspiracy that he is being again conspired against. Why would you keep worrying about how a rebuttal speaker is picked. Kennedy is a Democrat, and he's a fine one.

Dividing Democrats with this constant drone of undermining and actually distorted views intended to favor a third party leaning group are very disingenuous. I really hope the anti-Biden spam will not be allowed here.

Did you vote for Hillary? Anyone who didn't vote for Hillary just enabled Trump. It's no longer enough to revel in protest votes or to convince people they shouldn't vote for the Democrat so they can register some obscure point that means nothing in the long run. Actually, the only thing we got out of all that is Trump.

edit-if you're concerned about the opposing party tearing down our candidate, then we should also refrain from tearing them down. The GOP got a lot of ammo against Hillary that way...

voters.

In recent years, Democrats have lost statehouses and utterly lost the majority in the federal government.

It's a disaster. I've worked hard at my local level as have many of my friends in my local Democratic Club, and we in California have Democrats in our government in the majority. It's elsewhere in the country that Democrats seem to be perpetually in the minority.

The Democratic Party is in the minority in so many places because it is not speaking to the needs and dreams of the voters.

People can blame me all they want, but I'm just describing the reality. If Democrats were winning, if Hillary had carried more states in her presidential run, I would not be saying what I am saying.

Reality bites. It bites hard. The fact is that my Democratic Party would be winning if it were speaking to the fears and dreams and hopes of the voters. It is not. And that is why it is losing.

A lot of Democratic voters lost their homes in the 2008 crisis. What has the Democratic Party offered to voters to make good on that Republican fiasco? What solution are Democrats offering to those who worked for years and had their factories and jobs moved to Mexico or China or somewhere else? Really, have we made our solutions to the problems of Americans, our way into the future, clear?

I don't think so. When we do, we can win. But you can't command unity. You have to create the desire to unify by finding the right keys to inspire voters. Democrats have not done that well. In Virginia and Alabama and some other states, recently, we have won. That's may be partly a fluke. It may be that Republicans didn't come out.

We have a chance to recoup and win in future races, but we really have to have a strong economic statement without losing our strong stances on race, gender, etc. How do we do that?

So many Americans lost badly in the 2008 recession. And while the economy improved drastically during the Obama years, the improvement did not necessarily lift a lot of the boats that formerly Democratic voters were in.

Here in Los Angeles, home ownership is not high enough. Wall Street and landlords are in charge of much of the housing. That may not be a problem yet in rural areas, but home ownership is something Democrats should be emphasizing, and we are not. There are lots of areas, like student loans, housing, healthy food, lots of areas in which Democrats can, following a set of strong and easily expressed values, work to improve Americans' lives. All those regulations the Republicans complain about, many of them are necessary for our health and well being. We need to answer the Republicans' attack on regulations with a program and plan of our own to simplify but stress health. The Republican destruction of regulation is a program destined to disaster. We need to answer it.

Just some suggestions for the way forward.

the message of Democrats. This sounds more like slogans from 2016. We need to move on. Those didn't work. If there is an actual losing message, it is that of the Revolution. They are a third party leaning group because they openly tout turning against Democrats if they don't parrot lines from one Senator's stump speech. Now we have Trump. Independents had a losing message against Gore. Then we got Bush.

That is a hilarious description of home ownership in Los Angeles -- Wall Street????? Please, it is hard to take this seriously anymore. You can't just keep injecting "Wall Street" into every situation on earth and then say Democrats don't have a winning message because they don't utter "Wall Street" as an ad nauseam answer.

This spamming is really tiresome. You say Democrats haven't won, and they have. Did you vote for Hillary? Your message is confusing when you keep saying that Democrats are losing but then say it's okay not to vote for Democrats because of some elusive ideals or some distant socialism ideals.

This all sounds very familiar. None of it worked. Looks like it's not fooling anyone anymore. This is a two party system, Republican or Democrat. If you refuse to vote for the Democrat, then you enable Republicans. And by now, you should be absolutely frightened by what Republicans have done. Blaming Democrats for what happens when you give your vote away is disingenuous.

Is it about the value of labor?

Is it about home ownership?

Is it about education?

Is it about racial justice?

What in the world is it about?

Republicans have a unifying message: small government and low taxes. It's a lie. It won't work in the end. Trump's infrastructure plan is devious and destructive.

But they at least present a unifying message. Democrats have so many state of the union rebuttals because we are a divided party. That's the reality.

I'm just curious how you can't see that undermining Democrats with contrived and confusing messages like this doesn't make it become a reality in itself.

For instance, if you didn't vote for Hillary, then that enabled Republicans. I know there were a few people here before the election with these same messages, but they swore they would not vote for Hillary so they didn't sign on to those terms of service after the election.

It only took about 74,000 people nationwide to turn away from Democrats because of all the negative messaging. Let's quit the negative messaging.

"What in the world is it about?" Really? This sound disingenuous, as so many of those third party criticisms do. See also: Nader.

Because if California voters votes counted equally with the votes of voters in other states, Hillary would be in the White House.

Those 3 million popular votes cast for Hillary rather than for Trump? Many if not all of them were in California. Cast for naught because the votes of Californians like me don't mean much. I could vote for Mickey Mouse and it would not change the outcome of a presidential election in most years.

Get rid of the electoral college. Keep California blue. And Democrats will be in the White House.

So how I voted is my business just as how each American votes is that American's business, but my vote basically doesn't count.

We need a direct vote for president. We would bring out a lot of Democratic voters in otherwise red states for presidential elections if we amended the Constitution to institute a direct vote for president.

California is a blue state, and I and many Californians have worked to achieve that.

promoting these kinds of negative and undermining messages about Democrats is really nasty business. This is literally why we have Trump. All it took was 70,000-something people nationwide to be turned off to Democrats.

I take it from your response that you did not vote for Hillary. That is probably why your posts sound very familiar. I remember these exact posts almost to the words from someone who admitted she could not bring herself to vote for Hillary and left. That type of messaging is why we have Trump. Don't hide behind California to make excuses as to why you are not promoting Democrats.

And more pipe dreams about changing our voting system. It is what it is. We need to encourage people to work within the system we have instead of implying that they are being virtuous by rejecting it with some undermining messages that result in throwing their votes away.

This exact kind of undermining is really divisive. I think that's why it says to "support Democrats" here.

If, as you insist, I did not vote for Hillary, then the Democratic Party has a big, big problem.

Who else would I have voted for?

A lot of people who voted for Obama did not vote for Hillary. Was it because she was a woman? (I'm a woman.) Was it because they disagreed with the Democratic message? Was it because the Democrats were wrong in their approach to the election?

These are the questions that the leaders of the Democratic Party should be asking themselves. It is not enough to belast the "disloyal" Democrats who did not support Hillary. Democrats in leadership positions need to ask what they can do to attract independent voters and voters who did not vote for Hillary to vote for a Democrat next time.

Whether I voted for Hillary is now irrelevant to whether I will vote for the Democrat in future elections. The only elections that matter now are those in the future. I have voted a couple of times already since the 2016 election -- both times for Democrats. I am a Democrat.

If how I or others voted in 2016 is relevant to the Democrats, it should only be relevant it order to figure out how to encourage more voters to support Democrats in the future.

If our Party cannot accommodate voters who did not vote for Hillary in 2016, we are in sorry trouble. We are then forgoing the outreach we need to make to all potential Democratic voters in the future.

It is time to get over the loss in 2016 except to analyze it to learn where the mistakes were made. Certainly trade and jobs are two areas in which voters did not feel that the Democratic candidate was speaking to their interests and needs.

Voters do not have a duty to vote Democratic. The Democratic Party has to attract voters and make it clear why they should vote for the Democrat and make it attractive to vote Democratic.

If someone did not vote Democratic, it's the responsibility and job of Democrats to find out why and create a message and a reality that causes that person to want to vote Democratic in the next election.

Politics is not a game for scolders. It is a game for persuaders.

are glaring, but it doesn't fit your support of third party distractions. Those third party distractions are why we have Trump, so they are their own self-fulfilling prophecy. You don't need to keep undermining and scolding Democrats for your very conscious decision to refuse to support our candidate.

Yes, it's time to get over the 2016 loss. I hope your anti-Biden spam is not allowed. Promoting third party rhetoric is divisive for Democrats.

"If our Party cannot accommodate voters who did not vote for Hillary in 2016" Yes, this type of nastiness is why we have Trump. If you can't have someone else, then we get nothing. It's very obvious what is going on here. You might think it's priestly, but it ain't....

I've seen your spam about Biden is starting, too, so it goes beyond Hillary. JPR website also promotes these notions. Spreading this type of negativity is why we have Trump.

Especially when one of the people giving a competing rebuttal is not even a member of the party.

which makes it all the stranger that Democrats object to their speaking.

If they aren't Democrats, why are Democrats concerned?

Our problem as Democrats is that we are not presenting the values that will guide America successfully into the future well enough.

Republicans talk in terms of their values. We are not clear enough about ours.

How would you state our values in language that a) is true, b) appeals to enough Americans to get our candidates elected everywhere, and c) unites the country behind us.

Because Republicans lie about their values but present them in a way that makes voters think that Republican values will improve their lives.

What are the Democratic values for our time? And how will they improve Americans' lives? The speaker who can get our message across so that Americans vote for us in larger numbers than they did in 2016 and in previous years is the right candidate for 2020 (or locally for 2018) and what the Democratic Party hierarchy thinks if it doesn't back that or those candidate(s) is irrelevant.

Unity is something that comes about when you agree to agree. Right now, Democrats have agreed (actually for quite some time now) to agree to disagree. But we need broad statements about what we stand for that speak more to the needs and hearts of ordinary Americans. If we find those statements we will win elections.

Republicans have utterly misrepresented the effect their tax bill will have on most of their voters, but they get by with that because we don't have an alternative statement or bill. We just have lots of uhhhhhhmmms, that's difficults, and no really succinct slogans. Slogans win. As we see with Republicans, even when they are lies. Let's be the Party of slogans that are true and that win. Having more than one rebuttal is a step toward finding our slogans. Cause right now, we're not there.

We've already lost 2 presidential elections because of this type of fragmentation. There is only one viable party that can take on the GOP. That is the Democratic party. So either be part of the solution or part of the problem.

message that speaks to all Democrats.

The fundamental problem is the weakness in the message.

The message is not unified. The Party is not unified. Thus many have the feeling that something is not being said. The Democratic message is not unified. It also does not speak to everyone.

What would you say is the Democratic message?

I don't honestly know. There is something about equality, but not really much about economics. There is something about healthcare, but since healthcare insurance prices seem to go up every year, just what is the Democratic message?

is not the path to unity.

from better messaging.

As a voter, I don't think Democrats are as clear in the messaging as Republicans are.

Democrats are more honest, but much less clear. The Democrats don't state their message clearly at all.

the path to unity.

states and on the federal level, we are close but don't have the Senate and are far from having the House. The White House -- we would have won were it not for the electoral college.

We Democrats need to do a lot better.

All this talk about the Democratic Party as if it exists as an entity separate from Democratic voters is the problem. Democratic voters ARE the Democratic Party. To view the voters as separate from the Party, as obliged to follow Party leadership is a losing strategy.

It's the job of the Democratic Party to respond to and communicate with Democratic voters. Listening to and responding to the needs of voters who are independent or Democratic should be the goal of the leadership of the Democratic Party.

I am a bit of an introvert and so don't care much for the Democratic Party conventions. I attended one in California some years ago. The Democratic Party leadership in California listens more to Democratic voters than the leadership in some other states. That is because at some point in the 1960s, the local Democratic Clubs actually got a say in what goes on, a sort of voice that is formalized. A lot of other states should look at the California organization of Democratic Clubs that influence what goes on at the state level so that they become more responsive to the grassroots.

Last year, the Bernie supporters elected a lot of representatives to the state party. There was some kind of conflict that I was not involved in. I mention that only to say that in times of change, it is extremely important to remain patient and listen very carefully to everyone. When Democrats lose elections, it is probably because the leadership is not listening and responding to the currents that are moving grassroots activists and voters.

That is not to say that every whim of every voter can ever determine the direction of the Party. But it is so important to remain open to new ideas and new people and new directions. I don't think that the Democratic Party did that very well in 2016.

Joe Kennedy could be a sign that the Party is willing to listen to new ideas and voices. I don't know. We shall see. But the record of the Democratic Party in most state elections and in Congress has been dismal over recent years -- and we have to change that. So we have to listen more carefully than we have in the past.

I note that there is so much hostility and pain on DU. That does not attract voters. It reads like anger and turns people off. We need a new message, one that attracts new voters without offending the old. I think that can be created if the Democratic leadership really listens to voters rather than just rattle off its own ideas and organizational tactics.

Jerry Brown has, I must add, done a terrific job as governor of California although there are some issues on which I do not agree with him.

Total agreement is not the goal and is not needed. But voters need to have a sense that their ideas and opinions are heard and appreciated. Then they feel themselves to be a part of the process and a part of the Party. I don't think that happened in 2016 although Hillary actually won the popular vote. But somehow a lot of Democrats felt left out of the process and did not feel heard. I say that because I saw the turmoil in California's Democratic clubs and Party.

I'm longwinded as you see.

You can't really put your finger on them, but they are just wrong. "We need a new message", -- hating billionaires is not really message, though. Blaming Wall Street for housing problems in Los Angeles is also just ridiculous. When all these negative vagaries are presented to others, it's no wonder you find little support for Democrats as you've described happens so often. I find a lot of support for Democrats, and I'm in the Los Angeles area.

The rest of the country is nothing like California and encouraging competing responses to the SOTU will only confuse and divide voters

Hating Billionaires

Isn't that "the message"??

the short versions I prefer of speeches for their chosen figures.

to watch this on social media will be those who supported Bernie in 2016. Most of the public will be viewing this on television, which means if they will watch the Democratic response from Joe Kennedy only

But I will eventually watch all the rebuttals.

people will start looking at him more closely, and where he stands on the issues.

I married the year he was assassinated.

So the name "Kennedy" has a certain power in the older generation.

as usual

getting tired of hearing the same speeches rehashed and tortured to try and fit the new situations.

That’s the only change I’ve seen.

JK I don't wonder at all.

2 by DEms and one by an Independent might... but from what I hear and the little I've seen, Mr. Kennedy will be able to shine and hold his own, not to mention the spotlight.

At this point, I don't care. Let them all rebut the orange menace. Let as many voices as possible be heard. Let 45 be beset by so much criticism that he does not know which way to turn.

Let's give every single rebuttal as much media exposure as possible.

Actually, my guess is he will. This is the SOTU, after all. Tomorrow he may need to recover from whatever strain this discipline puts on his principles by getting back to his usual.

I can't be sure of that. I know what usually happens.

At this point, I am beginning to regret that I said that. We need unity. We don't need a lot of side shows by attention seeking politicians. Joseph Kennedy III is giving the response. We should unite and respect his response as the legitimate one.

Let's see what happens.

It's good. Diversity is good, in ideas and speakers as well as in other things.

between responses by figures hostile to/in competition with the Democratic Party and by those who are part of of our party and/or represent one of the factions in our great tent. Maxine is both one of ours and represents an important faction in our coalition. Win-win.

If a viewer is not inspired by one of the responses, he/she will hopefully be inspired by one of the other responses.

It's all a matter of how much you love Democrats.

If you have a feeling of love and acceptance toward other Democrats even when you may disagree with this or that thing they think, then you will enjoy all the rebuttals.

If you are feeling anger or disappointment with this or that Democrat, then you will not like to hear all the rebuttals.

I want everyone who is liberal or progressive to add to the wealth of ideas and reactions to Trump's speech because I love liberals and progressives even when I don't always agree with everything they think or say.

It should have been me not Kennedy so I'll do my own. Shhhheesh the arrogance in this!!!!!

Kennedy will speak on TV. And the others will speak on the internet.

It's great. I love them all.

I agree

Limburgers, Hannitys, etc.

when he isn't even a member?

He's always happy to use the Party's platform for exposure, and yet he never passes up an opportunity to crap all over it.

specifically by his rhetoric, though. He needs Democratic Party funding and other resources, and we need a chance to expand these new people's exposure to the Democratic Party. Their finally getting the experience to look at us two elections from now wouldn't do any of us any good on November 6, 2018.

in the country. People will listen to what he has to say.

very notoriously dishonest subject, you know.

Bernie ran for president as a Democrat and so became a nationally recognized name.

Let's agree that he's very popular with those he's very popular with AND also that he gets a check from a significant number of others if he is the ONLY non-Republican name who's run for president on the questionnaire.

Our Democratic Party choices for president:

I listen to a few. Bernie was always a good guest. Always answered caller's questions politely and thoroughly, even hostile questions. That's how I got to know Bernie Sanders.

Both my sons are active in their unions, and that's where they got to know Bernie Sanders. He's been out there for a long time, talking to working people and they've been listening.

I believe in Socialism. I believe in socialized medicine. I believe in education and that higer education should be available to all who want it. I believe in unions. These are my core beliefs that I was raised with in a Democratic family who never voted for anyone but Democrats.

There are plenty of Americans like me.. we need to reach them. They did not vote for trump, they just didn't vote. They're out there and they should be ours voters.

he's very popular with. And that Americans got lots of exposure to him during the election.

I like you, Mountain Granny because I think we have a lot in common, and I sure don't want to offend you, but let's face the reality that he is not famous for his achievements, or for his competence, or (very important to me) his respect for the will of the electorate.

I strongly feel that moving to a mix of socialized functions and capitalist energy where each works best is what we need right now, PLUS a strong, immediate commitment to destroying the new billionaire classes (even if not officially declared). I did sincerely look at him when he first presented to see if I should support him for president, but wishes aren't horses.

He "reached" me and many millions of others when he ran for president, and that was the end of that for I'm guessing more than you realize.

This horror show is just devastating. I used to love the tradition and majesty of the SOTU no matter who was president. Tonight I won't even watch. We are living the unimagineable. I'm seriously wondering if America will survive.

Bad night to argue. Just too depressing. One year down, 3 to go.

in spells. We skipped him also. Hear Ruth Bader Gingberg wasn't there, privilege of age maybe.

in the 20 primary; I did vote for him in 16. Of course he has my vote should he be the Democratic nominee...but I think it will be unlikely. We need new blood and new faces...I don't want either Sec. Clinton or Sen. Sanders to run in 20.

I think he would be a great VP Candidate with Tammy Duckworth.

Joe Kennedy may well run.

the country needs for the rocky road ahead.

able to win with the amount of sexism out there...and 2020 is so crucial...that I am torn.

His demeaning bullshit would blow up in his face I believe. I think she is the woman who could be our first female President. I hope she runs.

his barber shop, many said they would not vote for Hillary because she was a woman...we need to win. I like Tammy...thinking a VP slot might be best. He said he argued with them and they just laughed.

woman. I know a few that didn't vote for her because of other reasons but not because of gender.

woman. He of course voted for Hillary...he is a smart young man...He and my daughter will marry when he gets out of school.

We can't stop trying.

elect a woman president.

Clinton had her own unique qualities and deficits. Remember, she won the popular vote.

Comments about ther "cackle" "shrill voice" "shrill laugh" . If she was calm, she was "cold" if she was excited she was "emotional" or ever hysterical." The comments about her appearance, how she needed to go home and be with her grandkids (or more recently, how she should be knitting). Those are things that no man has to endure.

IMO, those who think that the next woman candidate is not going to face sexism, and that sexism is not going to play a role in the way people vote are going to face a rude awakening, just as I did on '16. Boy, my eyes were opened to a brutal reality of how prevalent misogyny still is. We have no come a long way, baby.

Accomplished at more than just being re-elected. Is this the Green Party response?

Never forget that he was instrumental in blocking a pathway to citizenship for millions. He sided with Republicans over democrats.

On the news today it was pointed out that Democrats can't even come together enough to have one unified response.

He's running for POTUS in 2020. Why else would he try to upstage the official rebuttal??

Link to tweet