I could have voted for a guy like Kasich in 2016 but unfortunately we know what happened in the GOP primaries. Regarding the current crop, I'm very discouraged. I don't think a moderate candidate has any chance in the Dem primaries. The Democratic Party is now being taken over by an extremist fringe, like the GOP got taken over by the Freedom Caucus, ultimately resulting in the Trump phenomenon. Now it seems like the Dems will make the mistake of going with that moron Bernie Sanders again.
The Dems do have moderates, like John Bel Edwards (governor or Lousiana), the senators Doug Jones, Joe Manchin whom you quoted, Kyrsten Sinema, and Jon Tester, and a handful of House Representatives like Dan Lipinski, Vicente González, Jim Costa, Ron Kind, Henry Cuellar, Josh Gottheimer, Colin Peterson, and Kurt Schrader, among others. The problem is, if you read this list to anybody less informed, people will say, "who???" - which means, they don't have a lot of national visibility. Being a moderate is not sexy. Blue Dogs and the New Democrat Coalition, when do you see them grabbing the headlines? It's all AOC, these days...
Moderate Think Tanks like The Third Way are barely talked about.
Let's just think of recent Democrats, and women. What do we get?
That dumb, naive, and arrogant woman AOC who won in a blue district (big deal), is in the news all the time.
But a much more interesting person, Mikie Sherrill, who is much better educated than AOC (London School of Economics, Georgetown Law), won in a red district, and is a veteran to boot (Navy pilot)... nobody talks about her.
So, it doesn't look good.
Who would I like to see as the nominee? Hard to know. Somebody not named Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, for starters... Somebody with national appeal, but a moderate, willing to run, and able to mount a strong campaign with sufficient support (who? hard to find).
I don't think it will happen like I would like. It will be some radical, this time, since the Dems went with a moderate last time, and didn't win. Sure, Hillary was a horrible, horrible candidate... she shouldn't serve as a case-in-point that moderates shouldn't be selected, this time. But the extremists will make this case to death, and will milk the naive masses like all these Millennials who adore Sanders and AOC, who will fall for this idea.
But then, the silent majority, the moderates, the independents, who in this day and age of close elections are the real swing voters, will be turned off by too much socialism... Next thing, Trump might win again.
Basically, we're screwed.
I don't think I suffer from TDS. But no, I don't like him, because of his irresponsible tax cuts for the ultra-rich adding to the deficit, and the composition of the SCOTUS which is becoming unbalanced.
But I don't want to automatically see him fail in matters that affect all Americans and the world, such as North Korea, or the US economy. I'm not the kind who roots against the duly elected US president to see him fail just to score partisan points. But would I prefer a president more fiscally responsible, and more in tune with the nation's needs and wants rather than his own narcissism? You bet.
