What about 2032?

— Tom Grey

2032?! We haven’t even gotten to 2026 yet!

Trying to handicap Presidential nominations, much less elections, this far ahead is a mug’s game at best. Let’s review a little history.

The last time a Presidential election nominated both the candidates the conventional wisdom expected, and then the election itself turned out as conventional wisdom predicted, was 1996. IIRC Dole was more or less the favorite for the GOP nod and of course Bill Clinton was the incumbent, and everyone expected Clinton to win, popular and electoral, which he did (though not by as big a margin as expected).

GWB was more or less conventionally expected to get the GOP nod in 2000, and he did. But he then went on to win an upset victory over Al Gore, who was predicted to cruise to victory on the back of Clinton’s supposed popularity, like Bush I in 1988.

‘Of course’ the GOP would lose being in 2002, it was an off-year election after all, and ‘of course’ everyone hated them (at least according to the media)…and they gained seats.

In 2004 ‘everyone knew’ Howard Dean would get the Dem nod, right up until the first primaries, where he melted. It ended up being John Kerry, who everyone knew was going to beat Bush I, and who won a second upset November victory.

In 2008, ‘everyone knew’ it was going to come down to Rudy Giuliani against Hillary Clinton. It ended up being John McCain vs. Barack Obama.

In 2012, all the excitement was around Mitch Daniels for the GOP nod, until he self-destructed with a call for a ‘truce on the social issues’ in a print interview before the first primary vote was cast.

Then of course in 2016, this time it was for sure, it would be Hillary Clinton for the Dems and The Inevitable Jeb for the GOP, and of course everyone hated the Bushes so Hillary was a guaranteed lock in November. We all know how that turned out.

Predicting this stuff ahead of time, before a single vote gets cast, is mostly just guesswork.

Bill Clinton personally, IMHO, is basically just a self-interested grifter. His own principles are ‘whatever is best for Bill Clinton’. I do think he loves Chelsea, but I suspect that’s about the limit of his caring for others, except conditionally.

But his Administration was packed with rad-Lefties. Remember that his first 2 years was dominated by Hillary, who IMHO was the functional President from 1993 to 1995. They tried to implement a lot of the same stuff the Dems want now, and it cost them control of the House of Representatives for the first time in ~40 years.

Bill immediately pivoted, pretending to moderate, but behind the scenes they were still pushing the anti-American, anti-freedom, anti-Christian, anti-human agenda. All the damage done by Obama, Biden, Pelosi, etc. since then was made possible by the Clintons.

So Emmanuel can be assumed to be a Trojan Moderate.

I do know, at least based on anecdotal evidence of a friend of mine, that there are indeed voters yearning for moderate candidates and willing to vote for them. How numerous this voting group is I do not know.

— neo

Numerous enough to be dangerous. That’s part of how Spanberger pulled off her deception. I’ve pointed out before that there is a notable group of voters who are, at heart, Truman/Kennedy Democrats, and who hate the modern Dem radicalism and anti-Americanism. They are a significant chunk of Reagan and Trump’s voting power.

But they still hate the GOP business wing.

At heart, what they want, desperately, is for the Dems to drop the 60s liberalism and progressivism and return to that they were before the 1970s. When a Democrat comes along that appears to be a move in that direction, they often lunge for it in desperate gratitude. It worked for Spangberger. It helped Bill Clinton get a second term. It’s part of Biden’s appeal ‘lunch pail Joe’ in 2020.

So yeah, Emmanuel could be dangerous as nominee. Fortunately, I doubt he can get the nomination.

What about 2032? If not him, who’s both a dancer (thx R2L) and a policy wonk (as am I), then another. The Dems need to lose so big that reps actually do lots of Rep things, before the desire to win overrides the desire for moral superiority (in their own heads). Seem unlikely 2026, but I really don’t know. It’s too early until we have a more stable Iran. It seems Venezuela is stable now.

Ditto for Gov Josh Shapiro of PA.

What’s incredible is that both of these guys know that the Dems hate Jews, and still they are dems and vote for Dems.

Unbelievable.