Choice: Senator Bob Kerrey, Senator John Kerry, Senator Tom Daschle, or Senator John Edwards
Present a group of lawyers with a political question and they will approach it strategically, focusing on finding the most feasible, acceptable answer, a professional facilitator once told me. Present a group of clergy with the same question and they'll approach it without regard for strategy, focusing on finding the moral answer. I'm a lawyer, so I'll limit myself to identifying good enough, feasible candidates for 2004, leaving speculation about ideal nominees to the clergy, as well as third party enthusiasts.
Who are the best potential candidates who appear to enjoy the best chances of beating George Bush? Retired Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry probably head my list, in either order (assuming that the latter votes against attorney general nominee John Ashcroft.) Both are quite smart, experienced, and principled and have the intelligence and moral authority to advocate reform of the nation's disastrous drug policies and the justice system, in general. (I can only hope they'd have the inclination. Criminal justice reform is one of my priorities.) Both enjoy the electoral advantages of decorated combat veterans.
Bob Kerrey, I know, is considered a centrist, partly because he favors partially privatizing Social Security; but he's not a centrist so much as an iconoclast, with a solid understanding of civil liberties. He was one of few Democrats to vote against the oppressive counter-terrorism bill, which greatly restricted habeas corpus. (He also voted against the 1996 welfare reform.) I wish him well as president of the New School but will miss him in the Senate. John Kerry has been equally reliable on civil liberties and has remained an eloquent opponent of the death penalty. I realize that capital punishment is primarily an issue for the states, but I've been impressed by Kerry's willingness to run the electoral risk of opposing it. (I am, however, discouraged by his reported interest in joining the Senate's moderate New Democratic Coalition.)
Who else? South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle has been an effective, principled minority leader in the Senate. He operates with quiet passion. (I do wish he were less equivocal in support of reproductive choice.) The year 2004 will be rather early for a presidential bid by John Edwards, freshman from North Carolina; but he is ambitious, intelligent, a good listener, and, in his first term, he's shown a willingness to cast unpopular votes, for the sake of civil liberties.
Why haven't I named any women? I suspect that the first successful female candidate on the national ticket will be a virtual, if not an actual, Republican.
Wendy Kaminer is a senior correspondent for The American Prospect and has been a fellow at Radcliffe College since 1987. Her most recent book is Sleeping With Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety.
David Kirp
Choice: Josiah Bartlett
The comforting-to-liberals conventional wisdom is that W's presidency will be a one-term affair, after which a fed-up public will turn back to the Democrats. It's a cheering thought, but it ignores the adage that you can't beat something with nothing. And nothing -- or no one -- is pretty much what we have.
For the past eight years, Bill Clinton has so dominated the Democratic Party that everyone else has been reduced to a bit player. Who's up next: The policy wonk turned populist who managed against all odds to lose the election to a sock puppet? The junior senator from Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis' righteous heir, or the onetime New Jersey senator who thought intelligence alone would be the ticket to the presidency? The California governor whose first name doubles as his identity or the Missouri congressman whose scripts are written by the AFL-CIO? The departing HUD secretary best known because of his famous father, or the face-man senator from Indiana? The trial lawyer-senator from North Carolina or the junior senator from New York, whose only policy initiative to debate set back the cause of health care reform by years? These are estimable people, all of them , but none of them stirs the passions.
If it didn't brand me as a hopeless suck-up in these quarters, I'd go with Robert Reich, the one public figure who actually possesses what Bush pere called that "vision thing." Fortunately, the perfect candidate awaits. He's Nobel Prize smart, exciting enough to draw crowds in the millions, and politically savvy enough to survive without forgetting what he's surviving for. Indeed, he has already served a term in the White House, and so has the advantage of incumbency. I refer of course, to New Hampshire's favorite son and star of the West Wing, Josiah Bartlett, aka Martin Sheen, master of the country every Wednesday night. While we're at it, how about transporting the whole West Wing crew to the White House -- now there's a cheering thought.
David Kirp is a professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley. His latest book is Almost Home: America's Love-Hate Relationship with Community.
Michael Nelson
Choice: Senator Joseph Lieberman
In 1960 the eminent presidential scholar Clinton Rossiter published a catalog of political "oughts" and "almost certainly musts" for would-be presidents that included the following: "northerner or westerner," "less than sixty-five years old," "more than forty-five years old," "Protestant," "small-town boy," "self-made man," and "lawyer." Rossiter wasn't defending this list; he was just reporting what 170 years of presidential elections had shown the pattern to be.
You're way ahead of me, aren't you? In that same year, a rich young urban Catholic named John F. Kennedy was elected president. He wasn't a lawyer either; nor were five of the eight presidents who succeeded him (all but Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Bill Clinton). He wasn't a southerner, which fit the historical pattern, but five of his successors have been: Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, the two George Bushes, and Clinton. Throw in Ronald Reagan (well over 65) and Rossiter's list -- America's list -- of presidential "qualifications" is a lot shorter than it used to be.
Thank God. Can anything be dumber than for a country to shrink its talent pool of potential leaders by eliminating whole classes of people on the basis of irrelevant social characteristics? But the United States still has a long way to go in this regard. We have yet to elect our first woman as president, or our first African American.
Or our first Jew. That's one reason why I hope the Democrats will nominate Joseph Lieberman for president in 2004. This isn't special interest pleading -- I'm a Christian. And it's far from the only reason to nominate Lieberman. He is thoughtful, articulate, likeable, hardworking, accomplished, and, thanks to Al Gore, experienced at waging a national campaign. As a presidential candidate, Lieberman will take away the faith-and-values issue from the Republicans in the same way that Clinton took away crime, welfare, and fiscal responsibility.
But I especially look forward to hearing the dam that has kept Jews out of the presidential talent pool break on the day Lieberman becomes the Democratic nominee. And I can't wait to see which woman or African American will succeed him in 2012.
Michael Nelson is professor of political science at Rhodes College. His latest book is The Elections of 2000, which will be published in March by Congressional Quarterly Press.
Peter Schrag
Choice: Bill Clinton
I don't know who I would realistically prefer, but if we are to get into political fantasy, how about a ticket of . . . Al Gore with VP Bill Clinton. Al Gore could run again, but with a major change. Following the pattern (tradition) established in the Bush administration (sometimes referred to by cynics as the Cheney Regency), Gore (or perhaps some lesser figure) could run with Bill Clinton (who, by the Constitution's two-term limit) would nominally be the second man on the ticket. The understanding, of course, would be that Clinton would be the real president and, also following the Bush pattern, but amplifying upon it, Gore would rarely appear in public, and rarely speak on any issue of moment, except for ceremonial occasions on which only platitudes and sanctimonious pronouncements are expected. This would allow voters to try to make amends for their neglect and indifference and for what they will (correctly) perceive as the gross injustice of the 2000 election. The presence of Clinton on the ticket would, of course, drive the right wing frantic, thereby re-energizing the Democrats, but by then the American people, having been buffeted by a series of scandals in the Bush administration, will have largely forgotten Lewinsky.
Peter Schrag is the former editorial page editor of the Sacramento Bee and the author of Paradise Lost: California's Experience, America's Future.
Cass Sunstein
Choice: Al Gore
It's too soon to say, of course, but at this point my top choice would be: Al Gore. The most important reason is that he'd probably be an excellent president. He's experienced; with respect to governance, he seems to have good judgment. He's smart; and he's connected to a number of first-rate people. He also has a good sense of priorities, focusing as he does on the plight of the disadvantaged and on environmental protection. His reinventing government initiative was a big success and is greatly underrated. In the environmental area, for example, he emphasizes low-cost solutions. He knows a lot about foreign affairs and is much respected abroad. It's unclear if he would be a successful candidate four years hence, and it's not clear if Americans would really enjoy or even could bear Bush v. Gore: The Sequel. But he would be my first choice, because he's most likely to be an excellent president if elected.
Cass Sunstein teaches law at the University of Chicago and is author of Republic.com.
Jon Margolis
Choice: Senator Dick Durbin
The Democrats should nominate Dick Durbin in 2004. He's been somewhat restrained since getting elected to the Senate in 1996, but the smart money says he's about to perk up and speak up, and not just because he has to run again in 2002. At this point, no Illinois Republican looms as a serious challenger. So when the 108th Congress opens two years hence, Durbin is likely to be the easily re-elected second-term senator from America's sixth-largest state, a soft-spoken but articulate and incisive speaker, a pro-choice Catholic, a pro-labor free-trader, a liberal who appeals to corn farmers, a proven fund-raiser not afraid to take on big tobacco or the gun lobby, a Midwesterner who understands Western land issues, a clean-living home-body whose unruffled disposition both hides and softens his healthy ambition. So what's not to like?
Well, a few things. His antipathy to smoking is so intense (he was only 14 when his father died of lung cancer) that he can sometimes come across as a preachy moralist. He may be a little too close to Archer Daniels Midland for some tastes. He's not exactly exciting at the podium. Outside of Illinois, who knows him?
But none of this is politically fatal. In inverse order: Money can buy name recognition, and Durbin can raise it from California environmentalists who love his support for Western wilderness, from Jews still delighted that he defeated Yasser Arafat's favorite congressman, Paul Findlay, in 1982, from Chicago. He's no less an exciting speaker than Al Gore, Bill Bradley, Richard Gephardt or whoever, and he may be a better debater than any of them. His ability to get along with the regional corporate movers and shakers proves that he's no partisan ideologue (and helps raise even more money). As for the tendency to seem preachy, again one must ask, Compared to whom? Gore or Bradley? In fact, there is a puckish, Midwestern, aw shucks joking side to Durbin. He just has to work on letting that show. Oh, and he might even turn out to be a good president.
Jon Margolis was a national political correspondent for The Chicago Tribune. He is the author of The Last Innocent Year: America in 1964.
Russ Baker
Choice: Unknown
My choice of challenger is someone we don't know -- or someone we don't know we know. Let's face it: Congress and the statehouse needn't be the only sources of future presidents. If those establishments can't do better than "name-brand-with-main-street-manner beats experience-and-brains-doing-business-as-pinocchio," it's obviously time to widen the prospect pool. I propose a nationwide talent search for someone not currently on the national scene.
I run into people every day with the smarts, energy and capability to make a good candidate. A dragnet for attractive figures with real management expertise, integrity, worldliness, and strong communication skills ought to turn up possibilities in scores of venues, from academia to corporations to unions. Lack of national policy experience is clearly no longer a disqualifier -- everyone can get his or her own Dick Cheney to lay in the structure and the team. Add money, and viola! You've got a winner.
New York-based Russ Baker is an award-winning journalist who covers politics and media.
Rick Perlstein
Choice: Jesse Jackson, Jr.
I'll leave it to others to proffer the Gores and the Gephardts, the Daschles and the Davises. It is time to sin boldly. Our times have yielded us a great moral issue: the bad theories and naked lies of corporate managed trade. This is, of course, debatable; great moral issues -- slavery, civil rights, Vietnam -- always are. But for those of us who believe that there is little in the dominant nostrums of "globalization" that isn't explained in the epigram that the law in its majesty forbids both rich and poor to sleep under a bridge, the spectrum that stretches from NAFTA to "not this NAFTA" is an insult to the imagination. And that leaves out the Gores and the Gephardts, the Daschles and the Davises.
I'm struck by something Barry Goldwater said at the 1960 Republican convention after a rump group, unbidden, almost sabotaged Richard Nixon's centrist nomination-by-acclamation on his behalf. "Turn your group into a permanent organization of young conservatives," he advised. "The man is not important. The principles you espouse are." At that particular historical juncture, he was right: Daring them to lead their leaders, so that their leaders would lead them. I don't know Jesse Jackson Jr.; I haven't picked through his record with even a rough-toothed comb. But what Jackson, barely old enough to run for president in 2004, has already done is courageous, astringent, and visionary: When the Clinton Administration adopted Representative Phil Crane's NAFTA-ish African Growth and Opportunity Act thus making it a shoo-in, Jackson bucked his president with a counter-bill that is a textbook model of what globalization should really look like. In a model of anti-DLC coalition building, he found 74 fellow Democrats to sponsor it; then, presciently for the time, he unleashed 11,000 citizen activists registered with his Web site to lobby for it. (Just this is a record of actual accomplishment far to surpass what Barry Goldwater had in 1964, much of whose outlandish politics would in but 30 years find their way to the Democratic center.)
Will Jr. fail to honor the confidence I thus place in him? Almost certainly: no less than that flawed vessel Barry Goldwater; or, for that matter, Jesse Jackson Sr. Is he radical? If not, let us lead him to it. Will he sell out? If so, let us lead him from it. Or someone else. The man is not important, the principles are. Let us dare a political imagination equal to our hunger for victory. The former may well turn out, in decades if not quadrennials, to vindicate the latter.
Rick Perlstein's new book, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, is due out in March from Hill & Wang.
Hans Riemer
Choice: Maryland Governor Parris Glendening
I'm looking forward to a vigorous and exciting 2004 Democratic primary. Some candidates will have advantages: Al Gore already beat George W. Bush once, Gray Davis will have $100 million, and so on. Still, I don't think any one candidate will be anointed -- it will be a contested, and very constructive, primary. And the winner will be well suited to face Mr. Bush.
The person I want to challenge Bush is someone who understands that, just as the DLC once plotted a course to the White House by leading the Democratic Party away from its constituencies, the next Democratic president will get there only by leading with them.
This means remaking the Democratic base strategy for the future. True, it failed miserably in the 80s. But times have changed, our candidates are better, and now what was old is new.
I'm a Gore supporter -- I think he understands where the Democratic Party is at this point in history and where we need to go. He has worked hard to earn the trust of key constituencies, and he has succeeded. In this new progressive era, the need for a leader who can unite, mobilize, lead, and manage the Democratic base is crucial. Gore has the stature for the job.
That said, it sure is early to go on record in favor of any particular candidate. As Jimmy Carter recently noted, the field is far from clear -- a young governor could still emerge as a national leader. So I'll hedge a little bit -- Parris Glendening, get cracking!
Hans Riemer is the director of 2030 Action, a public policy advocacy group for young adults.
Who would you like to see challenge George W. Bush in 2004?
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