Whenever I drift into thoughts about the imperfections of any particular potential or assumed Democratic candidate, I come back to the same thought: SCOTUS.
As you said, all other concerns are secondary.

The Court is already doing terrible things to this country that will endure for decades. If another Republican gets to nominate one or two more justices, the America most of us here believe in will cease to exist for the foreseeable future.

The horror of an even more conservative SCOTUS makes living in Iran start to sound good.

And for the reasons you stated, it would be much better to win then.

Last edited Sun Mar 29, 2015, 01:47 PM - Edit history (1)

Like, the hounds?

the week before Moosing.

and the country would be much worse off. Democrats can afford to lose in 2016, unfortunately a lot of people can't afford for Democrats to lose; women, lgbt, poor people, POC, and people who want to actually work for a living wage.

For those groups you cited, some of whom are on the margins, it would be a nightmare.

viable person from the gop/baggers.

I'm thinking about long term gains. Chances are we agree. I just wanted to throw it out there.

And since we live in the short term, there is no sense in thinking about our goals from a long-term point of view.
May as well say, "well, in a 100 years, it won't matter".
But it does, people are dying and starving to death today because of Republican obstruction to improving the safety nets.

Did you know that some historians have begun referring to the years from 2001 to 2010 as the "lost decade" because of all of the shit that happened when Dubya was President?
Psychologists and sociologists have said that the generation most affected by it were the kids coming out of college at the time, their lives were frozen in time.
That is one reason women are waiting longer to get married, and/or to have babies . . . fear of an uncertain future!

Then there is the Iraq War with all the kids between 28 and 18 joining the military . . . and for what?
One of the major reasons 22 veterans commit suicide each day!
The scars haven't even healed over yet for that generation.
They are the ones that paid the heaviest price.

Since the Republicans seem so gung ho on starting yet another war with Iran, we cannot afford to let some Tea Party-influenced asshole in to the White House.
We suffered 8 years of Dubya Bush, and there is no way this country can step back in time again.
No way!

climbing out of it. No way would I want to see it repeat with some incompetent jerk in the WH.

is the correct answer in my opinion.

If Floyd loses, the rematch would have more appeal.

Floyd's claim to greatness, which is mostly in his own head, rests on the fact he's undefeated...

Last edited Sun Mar 29, 2015, 09:24 AM - Edit history (4)

That's not in his head. That's real.

He'll beat the multiple-times-defeated Pac (the last one left Pac flat on his face in the ring). And that's real too.

But Muhammad Ali beat seven International Boxing Hall Of Fame inductees, four Olympic Gold Medalists, and three other top ten all time great heavyweights with some of his greatest in the ring achievements coming after he returned from being forced into a three and one half year exile which robbed him of his prime.

Floyd is a very good fighter but he hangs on his hat on being undefeated...If he was 46-1 instead of 47-0 he wouldn't be as ballyhooed

Also, Julio Cesar Chavez was 87-0 before his draw with Pernell Whitaker.

There is no long term advantage to losing a boxing match unless it is #2 of a series and you won #1. Now you have to have the "no mas" match. $$$

It can be argued that republicans tanked 2012 to win with more right wing candidates in 2014 and beyond.

They spent over a billion dollars...

A loss in 016 would put the Democrats in their weakest position in over a century...

Romney struggled to win the nomination.

The Right did not tank 2012

The pablum they served to their viewers is another matter:

We don't even have candidates yet, and we already have a one-term president?

Other than FDR...

bunch of nuts to contest anyone?

Latinos and other minorities are going to be the majority by 2050 and will be a force to be reckoned with by 2030. An early start is not inconceivable, especially if women voters are won over.

11 of the last 14,
13 of the last 17, and
15 of the last 20.
Incumbents don't always win, but incumbency is a huge advantage, so it makes no sense to predict that an incumbent will lose more than five years from now.

The Republicans are doing their best to alienate the Hispanic vote and that vote will be a stronger factor in 2020 than 2016

never mind.

Not ready for another shit storm....

........

If we lose the White House in 2016, the GOP is going to do everything in its power - which they would have a lot of, since a Republican president would probably come with a Republican Congress - to enrich the One Percent at the expense of the rest of us.

I really believe a GOP Congress with a GOP president would pass an Obamacare repeal bill quickly enough that the new president could sign it at the inauguration. Their next step would be a national Right to Work bill, and it would go downhill from there.

The TP bunch does not have clue to proper governing.

Imo, if we lose the White House, we probably also won't reclaim the Senate- it would take very low turnout or a major shift rightward in the political winds for them to win this time. I'm not willing to give them the presidency and both houses of Congress on the theory that more Supreme Court seats could open up later rather than sooner.

Democrats and republicans, and though much revolves around the SC, we are also talking about women's rights, gay rights, civil rights, social security and Medicare, the ACA, Repeal of Dodd Frank, and the much higher probability of a Middle East war if a republican wins

and there are a lot more, including global warming

If the republicans win the presidency we are in big trouble because that would also imply we lose the Senate also, and the country will have a set course for decades to come

The consequences of the 2016 election will have more impact than 2000 if we lose

That's just silly.

Heaven help us if the Republicans controlled all three branches of government.

The presidency is important, but regaining control of SCOTUS is even more important!

Not ever. Never a good thing to let the party of Sociopaths control anything.

Really, just wtf.

... might give the Republicans enough rope to hang themselves and guarantee a long-term victory. It could result in them completely destroying their credibility for then next 20 or 30 years.

Another factor is that the economic recovery is fairly delicate right now. Heavy-handed Republicans could send us spinning into a depression. Certainly that's a very bad thing, but the economy is overblown and needs to let of some steam in the form of a serious correction. When that happens, and I think it must happen sooner rather than later, regardless of who is in the White House, it would be best if the Republicans were at the helm so they could take all the flack for it.

On Edit: Chess players who say "it's never good to lose a rook" aren't ready for the big leagues. In the long game, sacrifice is sometimes the best offense.

...and there's absolutely no political benefit in that; just devastation, death, and destruction; possibly catastrophic.

There is NO rational argument about this. We've been there and done that and are STILL living with the worst effects of the Bush regime. Chess? This isn't a game, it's real people's lives and livelihoods.

You are to be commended for your choice of profession Binkie. If your act is as good as your amusing post pretending to be a hillbilly, you are going places.

No. It would be much worse now because the Republicans control the House and the Senate. It would be incomparably worse if they controlled all three branches of government.

And don't forget they are quite capable of election fraud.

Please think this through.

And we spent eight years of pure Hell as a result. The White House is too important to gamble with.

We saw how that worked out, with Bush putting us behind literally a generation (his judicial appointees are still ruling the day).

That is such a ridiculous question that only a stealth republican or someone on mushrooms could be the author.

That's the more important question.

Did I make myself clear?



Just think about it. We could still have Republican majorities in the House and Senate. And then we wouldn't even have a President who could veto bills. There would be no one to stand in the way of dismantling Medicare, Medicaid, environmental regulations, any progressive legislation at all.

You think we'd benefit by hitting bottom? That's what Nader thought in 2000, and so we got Bush. No. Hitting bottom isn't a good option.

So, I guess that would be a no for me.

I don't think we'll retain our democracy. They'll sell every bit of it off to the highest bidder.

Corporate Dem and Republican economic policies achieve the exact same result f-ing over the 99%.

Do I detect a pattern here from Corporate Messaging?


...
Corporatists on both sides sure seem to be working hard to set the stage to elect a Republican next time. IMO they realize that two terms of corporate Democratic rule have opened too many eyes to the fact that we are an oligarchy rather than a democracy now, and that the predatory corporate agenda continues no matter which party is elected.

That awareness is dangerous for the PTB.

I think corporatists on both sides have decided that they WANT a Republican in office for awhile so that that corporate Democrats can pretend to be against corporate/warmongering/police state policies again. If they can get the Republicans back in charge and Democrats pretending to oppose all the corporate and police state policies they have been shoving down our throats for eight years, they hope that the country will forget all this silly oligarchy talk and go back to believing that the only thing wrong in Washington is that a Republican is in office and we need to rally to get the Third Way Democrats back in again.

We saw it in the DCCC "Accept Doom" email campaign. We see it in the attacks on the base every single day by supposed Hillary supporters. We see it in messaging like this designed to demoralize the base. Corporatists in both parties are doing everything possible to enable a Republican win. The corporate elite needs *us* to care which party wins, because our caring shows that we still believe we have a democracy. But the truth is that we live in a largely post-partisan, united oligarchy now, not a democracy. The corporate elite live in both parties, and they care only for beating down the remaining liberal remnants of our party so that the corporate agenda continues, along with the "democracy" scam.

Because he was so great for the world.

The pretending that the OP said something other than what it said.

Revolting, but fascinating...

To call it spin is revolting.

The fervent "2+2=5," even when the post is right in front of us:

Are Democrats better off losing the presidency in 2016?
If we win in 2016, we likely can't hold it for 2020. If we lose in 2016, we're probably back in the game 2020. Of course, winning in 2016 probably gets us at least 1-2 more supreme court justices and cements some liberal policy. Thoughts?

A post that clearly works to depress the vote, a post that doesn't even mention GWB. Yet the denial would be sustained all the way down the page if I cooperated. "War is Peace!" almost always demands the last word...

DCCC email campaigns urging us to accept doom. Relentless insulting of the base. And constant messaging like this OP. I don't believe we've *ever* seen such a relentless, transparent, and coordinated effort to depress the Democratic vote, as we have seen recently from the corporate faction of our party.

We misunderstand our politicians and their messaging machines in 2015 when we assume that their goal is always to win. That was the old system, democracy. The goal in an oligarchy *pretending* to be a democracy is to use the two parties you already own in whatever way possible to ensure continuation of the corporate agenda.

Red versus Blue = Oligarchy Theater for the Masses

Mass spying on Americans? Both parties support it.
Austerity for the masses? Both parties support it.
Cutting social safety nets? Both parties support it.
Corporatists in the cabinet? Both parties support it.
Tolling our interstate highways? Both parties support it.
Corporate education policy? Both parties support it.
Bank bailouts? Both parties support it.
Ignoring the trillions stashed overseas? Both parties support it.
Trans-Pacific Job/Wage Killing Secret Agreement? Both parties support it.
TISA corporate overlord agreement? Both parties support it.
Drilling and fracking? Both parties support it.
Wars on medical marijuana instead of corrupt banks? Both parties support it.
Deregulation of the food industry? Both parties support it.
GMO's? Both parties support it.
Privatization of the TVA? Both parties support it.
Immunity for telecoms? Both parties support it.
"Looking forward" and letting war criminals off the hook? Both parties support it.
Deciding torturers are patriots? Both parties support it.
Militarized police and assaults on protesters? Both parties support it.
Indefinite detention? Both parties support it.
Drone wars and kill lists? Both parties support it.
Targeting of journalists and whistleblowers? Both parties support it.
Private prisons replacing public prisons? Both parties support it.
Unions? Both parties view them with contempt.
Trillion dollar increase in nuclear weapons. Both parties support it.
New war in Iraq. Both parties support it.
New war in Syria. Both parties support it.
Carpet bombing of captive population in Gaza. Both parties support it.
Selling off swaths of the Gulf of Mexico for drilling? Both parties support it.
Drilling along the Atlantic Coast? Both parties support it.

Thank you woo.

Bookmarking.

Anyone answering otherwise is simply out of touch.

and loose big in 2016 do you think that would invalidate the movement and bring the republicans back from the edge the tea-party pushed them towards?

If a democratic win in 2016 means a return to the republicans of the past then that alone would make the victory worthwhile. Turn the Koch brothers into pariahs and bring back a saner congress.

to get the so called moderate GOP voters.

It is a losing scenario for the 99% but a winning one for Wall Street

The GOP will pass all sorts of legislation to restrict voting rights. They know their biggest threat is the inevitable demographic shift.

about Reagan and in 2000 about GW Bush.

Dangerous and stupid to even suggest this.

The parallel would work if the American people has been zombified overnight.

once gave GW Bush an 80+% approval rating.

A substantial portion of the American people thought Sarah Palin would have made a great president. Some still do.

A substantial portion of the American people don't believe in either climate change or evolution.

Glad to hear you have such confidence in the unerring good sense of the American electorate. I look at the history of the past fifty years and am not quite so sanguine.

Whackjob POTUS + Whackjob Congress = We're screwed.

winning the White House because of the Supreme Court. We cannot afford to have anymore SC Justices like Alito, Thomas, Scalia, and even Roberts.

Can anyone not imagine the further damage to be wrought?

With that, the tea-party extremists would push through the sorts of things they've done in WI, MI, OH etc.

Based on presidential election history, and the degrees of freedom present in each circumstance, it's a lot bigger challenge to hold the presidency than it is to grab the senate.

The senate does have some say in supreme court justices.

Next question

FUCK NO.

and depends upon variables such as the amount of overreach Republicans might attempt and perpetrate if they were to win the WH, and how vigorous of a backlash might then ensure to sweep them out of power in both Houses of Congress. Remember also that simply getting them out of power isn't the end of the story - you've got to work on undoing the damage they caused while in office, AND not simply squander what mandate you have from voters but sitting back and going all 'bipartisany' for years on end after retaking the WH. So while a victory that turns on them might ultimately be more good than harm, it requires Dems who are committed to doing more than just cleaning up afterwards, and who, when they likewise take back the WH and Congress, won't just sit there, but actually pass solidly LEFT of center legislation. Not retread RIGHT of center stuff from decades ago.

First, if Jeb or Walker win, they will have a leg up for 2020. It is very hard to unseat a sitting POTUS. Look at 2004

start thinking about that honestly, it is good for the Democrats since prochoice GOP women will be forced to vote to defend abortion rights. That means they can't vote GOP anymore. We would probably win the state houses and many governorships back. We would also win back at least one of the houses of congress.

The biggest danger is another war, but Hillary is pretty neocon, so I can't honestly say she is less likely to bomb Iran. She is like Joe Lieberman was. Joe was Gore's vp so I don't think Nader made the difference, with respect to the Iraq war. Gore only became an idealist when his career was over.

And the Republicans have it all, you can kiss this country good bye.. We will end up looking like some big third world nation, with other nations having to send us care packages.. for all the starving homeless the Republicans will have created.

You don't explain that in any way. Anyhow, it's never better to lose the presidency to Republicans. You provide at least one reason why. What you're suggesting makes no sense whatsoever. Truly.

NO

immigrating to Canada.