The question posed to Dan by Eli about POTUS candidates injecting religion into the Democratic debates: that was Jimmy Carter.

The statement by Katieo that only Warren has policy positions: no, Bernie has policy positions, too. You just don’t like him because he’s not female. Same to Dan.

Regarding Pete Buttigieg: Agreed, he’s Creampuff Casper Milquetoast. Then again, having an out gay man in the White House would do a lot to advance equality, even if he is kind of boring. Besides, after the excitement of the Trump administration, I think a nice, boring eight years sounds okay to me.

Regarding Notre Dame: Ozymandias, fuck the world!

Katie, speaking of weird shit from history found while driving north, do you remember the Hat and Boots?

@1: I think gay and boring pair quite nicely for a chief executive. If you want more pizazz, perhaps he'll appoint Dan to a cabinet post.

Wow, Charles is quite the babbling buffoon; that is eight minutes we will never get back...

3,

Dan Savage for U.N. Secretary would be fucking awesome. I wanna see him tell the King of Saudi Arabia to fuck off.

First of all, Bernie is NOT a member of the one percent. Please, somebody do some research. As of 2017, it took $10 million or more to be in the top one percent in this country. Bernie is in the top ten percent at most. Look it up.

As far as ideology goes, we don't have time for semantics. Centrism is not a viable strategy and the status quo is not acceptable in a world that is being destroyed by humans and climate change. We have less than 12 years to prevent irreversible and life-threatening environmental changes. We need radical action, not discussions on political philosophy.

Bernie has no chance and neither does Warren. Pete does because he's fresh and shiny. Biden does because he's old and comfy. But, nobody's going to elect Communist Larry David or his nagging wife.

Buttigieg is new and very smart, possibly the most well-spoken modern politician I've heard, even when speaking extemporaneously. He would be a welcome palette cleanser to represent America's ideals (even just as VP), especially in the wake of Trump. I stated on Slog in the past that he'll never be on a ticket, but the more I hear from him, the more I invite America to prove me wrong.

That said, every week we get another report from climate scientists that we're exponentially running out of time to keep our heads above water (in some areas, literally), and the only one putting that concern at the very top of the list is Inslee. I'd love to hear Warren or Sanders or, well, ALL of the other candidates make that their primary issue.

@7: I am convinced. It was the maximum saturation of typos that changed my mind. Forget everything I said previously, I am on board with your candidate... Wait, you didn't specify a candidate you support, you only tore down the current front-runner and mischaracterized his policies. Hmm. Now I don't know what to do.

@10 is completely correct. All the "socialist" leaning candidates ensure a Trump victory and four more years of the horror show.

I wasn't impressed with Buttgieg at first. But the more I hear him, the more I like him. He seems young, but by the time he took office if elected he'd be closing in fast on his 40s. Millennials aren't scared off by an LGBQT candidate, but I'm afraid their parents might be. But, if Buttigieg eventually shows himself to be closer to the center, he might be have a chance.

As for Sanders, his age is still a big factor. It is for Biden as well. Age always comes up in conversations I've been in about both, and I'm usually NOT the person who brings it up first. Some of us seriously question they're qualified to run based on their ages.

PS: In case nobody's noticed. today's Socialists are the last century's Liberals. Those on the right have just decided to start calling them by a scarier sounding name. Very little of what they propose doesn't sound to me like much more than restoring the former status quo that existed before the GOP and the far right began incrementally dismantling it in order to favor the wealthy and their corporations.

As for me, I'd much prefer that a younger Presidential candidate took up that baton.

it's all very odd to me. when i first became interested politics decades ago government funded health care and guaranteed employment were staples of liberal policy. in fact putting the force of government behind the goal of full employment was so universally popular that the humphrey-hawkins full employment law passed by an overwhelming margin. today these ideas have become the oh-so scary "S word". how did that happen and what will it take to remember that the democratic party once was not mere republican lite ? take a look around the political scene. today's so called socialists stand where for the things that were traditional democratic goals not so very long ago.it's about time for the real democratic party to make a comeback.

There's no way to be totally "non-socialist" and non-left and still stand for anything distinguishable from conservatism or offer any policies which help the poor, do anything to get a better shake for working-class voters, or move the world anywhere close to peace. And the voters don't want the Democratic message to be nothing more than "the same, but we won't be QUITE as nasty about it". Why assume the party has to run a just-barely-different program one more time, has to leave the post-1981 transfer of wealth from the workers to the 1% unchallenged one more time, has to keep all the Anti-Muslim Wars going, when the polls show that, whatever people think about Bernie, his ideas are all popular? And why run one MORE campaign where the insurgency is smashed and then the party establishment shakes its fists at the crushed insurgents and demands their votes? Why not accept, once and for all, that 2016 proves that that can never work? Maybe the party can't use the word "socialism" in the fall, but it can use words like "equality" "justice" "fairness" and "democracy". It can treat the Democratic base like they matter in the fall, rather than obsessing on the "centrists" who never actually existed. And, just for once, the party can actually try campaigning against the GOP ticket by defending progressive policies proudly and without apology, and by trying to freaking win the argument for once rather then staying with the defeatist assumptions that the country is permanently right-of-center, that we have to distance the ticket from the base, and that the Democratic campaign can't run on any issues other than defending reproductive choice, who gets on the Supreme Court, and simply stopping the other ticket from winning.

And Dems don't even have to nominate Bernie to do that-just add his ideas on economic justice, healthcare, and foreign policy to the platform and make his supporters and their ideas welcome in the party instead of treating them like vermin.

And tell the big donors to go to hell. 2016 proves they're not worth having and that appeasing them will never get us the votes needed to overturn the Citizens United ruling.

None of this matters. Trump is almost assured a second term. There just aren't sufficient adverse factors to turn out an incumbent. (See Alan Lichtman's 13 keys.) And, as usual, the Democrats don't have a shining light and competent person to rally a genuine - genuine - sober popular revolt. It takes a lot in this deadened, besotted "culture" to get people off their jaded, manipulated mind-asses, and the cast of characters so far generated inspires nada. Amy Klobuchar started to seem a strong maybe, but imploded with revelations of her mental instability. Sherrod Brown was the closest to qualify, but he backed off. I hope it's not because his first wife had gotten a restraining order on him way back when, since it's old news and she has supported him since, and was instead because the field is so crowed with wannabes and the self-inflated and just plain dodo's there's just no oxygen left for a spontaneous rising.

PS I think "crowed" above is a Freudian typo.

It's now too late to ignore Sanders, but PLEASE do ignore TULSI GABBARD.

@17: Well, based on the polls, most people SEEM to be ignoring Congressmember Gabbard. Why do you feel that that's necessary, though?

@17 Oh yeah, Sanders can and should be ignored if the Democrats truly want a viable candidate for the White House. Sanders as the nominee will absolutely guarantee four more years of Donald Trump. And you can take that to the bank.

Odd, I find it, how so many are so quick to dismiss the Dem front runner.
'Specially when Progressives are using the progressive trail, blazed by Sanders.

And, when said Frontrunner goes on FOX to debate the truthiness spewers, FOX's AUDIENCE cheers -- for Medicare for All.

So, there's that...

Perhaps it's Time for America to grow some Balls and take a little risk --
we tried it the "safe" way, and look what the fuck we Got.

Why do liberals expect perfection? We're like 8 year old kids: "I don't LIKE that one...I want the OTHERRRRRRR ONE! waaaa. waaaaa! WAAAAA!"

I guess unless we get a queer POC non-binary (but really a woman, and we'd all know it) candidate, we'll just have to settle for Trump. Anything less would be un-woke, and un-woke literally worse than climate change. Right Rich?

@19: even though every poll shows Bernie leading Trump and shows that all of Bernie's ideas are popular?

Knowing that, how can you possibly still insist that this election has to be about "staying the course" and running one more bland, passionless, anti-progressive, anti-labor warmonger?

There's no public support for continued austerity.
Or for keeping the war budget massively high.
Or for keeping our troops in the unwinnable wars they're in.
Or for continuing to cut social programs.
OR for taking an "all-in with Netanyahu" policy on the Israel/Palestine issue.
OR for making a sickening fetish out of speaking in front of bleachers full of cops and being just as pro "law and order" as the GOP.

The voters aren't demanding that there be no real break with the status quo no matter who wins, for God's sakes.

Yes, it is a good thing that Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls. He championed every policy The Stranger pretends to care about, so there is that.

@24 You're so sweetly naive, Occupy. You still think policies matter? They don't. Not one bit. What matters is where and from whom those policies originate. You see, society has to be saved by the person with the best woke optics, the type of person that makes coastal woke liberals feel good about themselves, and an old why guy just ain't gonna cut it.

@25: A non-progressive who takes corporate money like Harris or Booker won't do it, either. You're either with the suites or the streets-it isn't possible to be on the side of both. My proposal is that whoever gets nominated agrees to add Bernie's economic justice and antiwar positions to the platform and to the fall campaign. There's no such thing as an inclusive, egalitarian corporation or(with the sole exception of World War II) a progressive U.S. military intervention. We need to pull our use of force back to defending our own territory from foreign attack and put the "Cops of The World" thing forever in the past.

To actually be a proper, legitimate Democratic president, the 2020 nominee pretty much has to do the following three things:

1) Renounce all corporate donations
2) Explicitly challenge corporate control on politics-which means challenging things like the assumption that social spending has to be continually reduced, even in harder times;
3) Accept that social justice and racial justice cannot be achieved without corporations and the wealthy having to make some small sacrifices to help fund it-that we cannot have social justice WITHOUT economic justice.
4)Welcome the Sanders movement as a legitimate and necessary part of the Democratic coalition-face it, nobody who is to the right of the party on the issues, and nobody who wants the Sanders movement driven away from the party, is going to be part of a Democratic victory.
5) Accept, once and for all, that there IS no such thing as a "center"-that the "socially liberal, fiscally conservative, hawkish on foreign policy" voter doesn't exist.

What terrifies me is that the party establishment will ignore ALL of that, and will insist on running a "We Have To Do It The Same Way ONE MORE TIME!" campaign. We all know that if they do that and if they force Biden in as nominee, a Trump re-election will be certain, and an upset Biden victory, if it did happen, would be meaningless, since Biden's policies are identical to Trump's on all issues other than choice and LGBTQ rights.

Why would anyone even WANT to reduce the party to Bill Clinton's policies again?

@25: You are a sweet troll. @20, I'm with you 100%. Bernie Sanders is gonna take our progressive cause all the way to the White House. At the end of the day, the only person who's gonna defeat Trump is someone who has clear policies, values, and vision of his own. The others are just hiding behind Bernie as he blazes the trail, steals his ideas, and stabs him in the back. So all ya doubters and haters can sulk and caution and hem and haw until next November.

I don't know if Bernie (or Warren or any lefty) could beat Trump. But what continues to seem stupid to me is this idea that we must therefore run a more centrist or moderate candidate since they are more electable. As if that strategy was not what the Dems have been attempting and failing at since the crash. It was especially tested against Trump specifically last election. And all the current new life and popular support in the Dem party (what there is of it) has come from the left. Plus, no matter who wins, shit is going to get worse across the board, so some of our decision has got to be based upon who we want to preside over it. The only people who want someone without a real structural analysis of the decline of US dominance and dollar-based capitalism (and what this means in the context of climate change, endless war and migrant crises) are liberals who can't seem to realize that there is no turning going backwards. It doesn't matter one bit what Bernie's personal life or finances are or what Buttigieg says about religion. If you are thinking that way, you honest to god aren't paying attention to what is going on in the world right now.

@28: (Occupy Seattle) You realize I was being sarcastic and I'm on your side, right?

Re ignoring Tulsi Gabbard, gay centrist The Stranger can learn from plain centrist Vox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD_RGbHXI8U

Can you use the word "gay" in comments? How about "centrist"?