#michael bennet

michael bennet 

omg, i love him. LOVE him. he is america’s Tired Stepdad and he is FED UP and he just desperately wants us to make better choices. his whole vibe is so done, he acts like a guy who never wanted to be president but felt a sense of duty to be a voice of reason and now by god, he’s going to say what he thinks. do i want him to win? no. but i want him to keep ranting because i enjoy his vibe. idk if he’ll make it through the year, and boy is he a middle aged white dude, but when he’s done running for president he’ll still be that guy who yelled at ted cruz about being a hypocrite once and i respect that.

joe biden 

god, joe. i’ve loved him ever since he ran with president obama, because when he debated sarah palin my spouse and i watched it in a hotel room during a rare break from living in our car and i liked the way he talked about his history, and the way he argued. my feelings for joe biden have always been wrapped up in that terrifying, stressful time of my life, when just watching someone be a democrat and proud of it was kind of comforting. 

but i was so fervently wishing he WOULD NOT RUN this year. and unfortunately he hasn’t given me any reason to feel differently yet. would he be a good president? yeah, probably. i don’t think we’d all end up dead. but he’s not good at countering valid criticisms, and his entire case right now for why we should pick him is because if we do, we can all go back to the halcyon days of ten years ago and pretend none of this ever happened. that’s not good enough! it all DID happen, and we need to face the reasons why it did so we can try to improve things, and i just genuinely don’t think making the exact same argument as trump but choosing a different era to turn back the clock to is going to beat him.

i’m not a moderate voter, so what do i know? there’s a reason he’s the frontrunner. but i’d feel better about him being the frontrunner if he was actually dealing with the fact that he has a long record, not all his past positions make him look good to voters now, and with so many candidates up against him this time, a lot of us need to know that he’ll fight for our lives the way that others would because they have backgrounds more like ours.

cory booker 

i like him, but i don’t think he’s the strongest candidate. his philosophy of love is noble, just not where a lot of the party and the country is at right now. and i’ve heard he’s a great speaker if you’re in the room, but i think other candidates connect more successfully with voters so far. i really do like him!! i hope he’s around long enough to stand out a bit more!! because so far i think he makes a better senator than a presidential candidate–but i’m willing to be persuaded otherwise.

steve bullock

is he a governor? a senator? is he one of the ones that didn’t quite make it into the first debate and complained about it? i feel like he’s that guy. also one of the ‘i have republican supporters and am therefore the party’s best hope for the future’ guys. idk, i’ve heard of him but have only the vaguest picture in my head. it’s not an impressive picture.

pete buttigieg

MAYOR PETE.

look. LOOK. i’ve said it before and i will say it for the rest of his political career, there is nothing that fills my heart with joy the way pete buttigieg does whenever he talks about his HUSBAND or being in the closet or being gay in the military. he is a middle america white guy and i still absolutely fucking love him because in my whole life so far i have never been able to watch an openly gay candidate run for president and be listened to.

do i wish he was something other than a slightly moderate white guy? i really do. i’m desperate for every kind of representation. but if we’re ever going to get our first openly gay president, i accept that it probably HAS to be somebody who’s otherwise as palatable to majority america as possible. and as a millennial there’s also something great about watching him go. if he’s the future, we could do worse. 

he’s very clearly smart, and a good politician, i get the sense that he genuinely thinks (probably overthinks) about details and complicated issues, and unlike some frontrunners he’s capable of saying ‘yeah i fucked up and i’m sorry and there’s no excuse, i want to do better’ and we need SO MUCH MORE of that in politics, even if it’s politically motivated. he’s capable of at least seeming like he cares about people and will change his mind when he learns new things.

i honestly don’t know if he has a chance in hell in the general, and i think it’s probably too soon for him to actually win the nomination. but he’s young!! and he’s doing so well already!! it feels like joe biden’s been running for president longer than i’ve been alive, so i’m hoping pete bows out gracefully if that time comes, and then tries again in a future primary. 

julián castro

i know he’s an underdog candidate, and lots of people don’t know who he is or get him confused with his congressman brother. but i have loved him since 2012, and of everyone in the field, he’s literally the only one i fervently hoped might run someday. i’ve been waiting nine years for this to happen!! 

i’m biased. just soooo biased. my best friend, my favorite person in the world, who i married, is a latina twin, the eldest just like he is. so watching his keynote address in 2012 stole my heart and he has yet to give it back. he’s got snark, he’s got no patience for white privilege or politics that neglects policy, and literally every time he speaks i’m grateful he’s in public service. 

he would make a good president. i don’t doubt it. i thought he did really well in this first debate, and i appreciate the way he’s both in it to make a difference with the other candidates no matter who wins (see: trying to get them all to agree to decriminalize border crossing) but also not running as a guy who knows he can’t win. he’s still going! he’s gonna fight til the end! that’s pretty cool of a guy running against an incumbent who viscerally hates people who look like him.

i have multiple favorites in this race, but again, i wished he would run nine years ago and never really expected he would. so he has a special place in my heart.

bill de blasio

meh? he’s fine? new yorkers have strong, experienced opinions about him i think, but i’m not from new york so i just don’t know him that well. he was okay in the debates, one of those guys trying to interrupt a lot from the edges of the stage, which is not an endearing trait but also not an automatic strike against him, since when he did speak i liked his positions fine. i’m just not sure why he’s the guy, he hasn’t convinced me that he’s somehow better than the others in this race just because he’s worked hard in new york. unless something changes, i don’t see him breaking out into the front anytime soon.

john delaney

OH. MY. GOD. i went into the debates with an open mind, because he was the only candidate on that night that i’d never heard of. 

he did not impress me. 

i just…i don’t really have words. he was so annoying!!! lol. that’s not a political take, but he just so was, i couldn’t get over it. 

honestly i don’t even remember what i thought of his policy positions so i must not have been impressed by them. he’s at the very top of my ‘why are you even running’ list.

tulsi gabbard

i think the only thing i knew about tulsi gabbard before the debates was her military background, that she’s a woman, and something about her family being in a cult? i read an interesting story about that a month ago and promptly forgot she was the one it was about until recently.

she did really well in the debates, i thought. grading on a curve of ‘she just needed to stand out’–i still only know that she’s got a military background and that informs her big issues, and i would need to hear about more than just her war views in order to really support her, but she did exactly what she needed to at the debate–she answered the questions she was given, and got at least one memorable moment by taking out tim ryan at the knees. 

and like, that’s not the best reason to love a candidate, but as someone who hasn’t served and therefore knows she knows way more than i ever could about it, i respect the way she was not going to give some dude an inch when he was wrong about basic facts.

watching her make her case to be president reminded me that we used to have presidents who were really there to be ‘commander in chief’ first and ceremonial leaders second, and i’m not sure that’s what i want from a president but i can see how she would be able to do that and it got my attention.

kirsten gillibrand

i keep misspelling her name as kristen and i feel bad about that. along with amy klobuchar, she’s here to make the case for moderate female leadership, and i would prefer that to moderate male leadership because those are two different things…but it’s not what really appeals to me. 

she’s done okay so far, i just think that she’s running in the wrong race? because if she weren’t also up against elizabeth warren and kamala harris and there was more room for her to be an appealing female alternative, she’d have a bigger impact. 

if she stays in the race, she may be able to carve out more of a space. we’ll see.

mike gravel

i….don’t know who this is. his name is vaguely familiar? but so vaguely that i genuinely have no idea why. he’s probably still trying to make it into the next debate. hmm.

kamala harris

kamala came for joe’s head in the first debates and she had a good time. i’m still impressed by that and it was weeks ago now. 

okay, so i didn’t know who kamala harris was a couple of years ago, i’m pretty late to this party. she landed on my radar after trump was elected, with her work on different committees. then i knew she was somebody people were talking about, and i knew she was from california and we live there now so i paid a little more attention.

she’s been kind of overlooked so far in the giant field of candidates, for reasons ranging from racism and sexism to her prosecutor history and making her case primarily on issues but avoiding getting personal. i heard her speak maybe twice, and both times was like ‘whoa, okay, she knows things and takes no shit’–but i was still genuinely stunned by her debate performance. 

she arrived knowing that she wasn’t doing as well in polls and fundraising as she wanted, she came prepared, her attacks and her standout moments were PERFECTLY executed, and the fact that they were obviously rehearsed didn’t lessen the power of them at all. 

i have no trouble imagining her up against trump in the general, and i would fucking love to see it. she is a prosecutor AND a mom AND a woman of color and i’ve never in my life seen someone so done with sleazy white male crap. the fact that she’s good at the political performative stuff (that to me, shouldn’t matter, but of course does) means she really might have a chance. 

i don’t agree with all her positions, but she’s absolutely a fave and her rise in the polls is well deserved.

john hickenlooper

he is in this race to tell all the other democrats to stop being so liberal and make conservatives respect them again. 

i’m not a fan.

every time he insists that it’s the democrats’ fault that their opponents are calling them socialists, as though republican and/or trump insults have anything to do with factual reality, i just need him to shut up. 

i need him to shut up so hard.

JOHN. PLEASE LISTEN TO ALL OF THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE TOLD YOU THAT DEMOCRATS WILL BE TAGGED WITH THAT LABEL NO MATTER WHAT POLICIES THEY DO OR DON’T SUPPORT, BECAUSE IT IS AN INSULT THAT GETS ATTENTION. YOU ARE PLAYING THEIR GAME. STOP.

i probably don’t disagree with everything john hickenlooper stands for, but i wouldn’t know because he won’t stop calling democrats socialists so i cannot take him seriously.

jay inslee

has a good message, ran my home state and made a lot happen on his watch. i have a ton of respect for that and he’s good at explaining why we should care about what he cares about, which is one of the political skills that matters the most to me. 

he’s not standing out that well just being The Climate Guy, but i could see him winning the nomination in a broad appeal sort of way, and i’d be fine with it. not as excited as i would be for other candidates, but i think he’d do a competent job, he has executive experience, and maybe he’d save the planet, who knows.

amy klobuchar

she’s here to represent the common sense midwest, and i don’t remember a single thing she said in the debates. i like her fine, i always have, i’m just not moderate and i’m not sure i buy into the idea that democrats can win back trump voters. so idk if she’s likely to make it out of the primary. 

she seems smart and capable, again, i think anybody would be an improvement in 2020…but she hasn’t really stood out for me. idk if she can.

wayne messam

this one’s NAME isn’t even familiar to me. i didn’t know he was running, because i don’t know who he is. i’m guessing he’s the reason this list has 25 people on it when i thought we had 24 contenders, but who the heck is he???

seth moulton

he wasn’t in the debates and i was grateful. he’s the only candidate i actively dislike. i wasn’t paying much attention tbh when he was part of the campaign to take out nancy pelosi, cuz all i cared about was that it didn’t work.

but i was paying close attention when rachel maddow gave him an opening to explain that challenge and speak to female voters who might not have appreciated it. and he was so SMIRKY and DISMISSIVE and gave off the biggest entitled white dude vibe i’ve seen in this entire primary so far. 

i don’t expect male candidates to appeal to me the same way female candidates do, but i do want at least some attempt on their part? running for president because you just expect that people will see that you’re great and deserve it makes me feel really grossed out. and that brings us to…

beto o’rourke

i really really wish he was in ted cruz’s senate seat right now. not just so ted cruz wouldn’t be in it, but also so beto wouldn’t be running for president at this particular moment in time. 

i like him. i genuinely do. he would be a GOOD senator. and he ran an interesting campaign, in texas, and did it well. 

but it’s way too soon for this presidential run, and his senate campaign strategy isn’t translating super effectively to a presidential race, and as much as i personally enjoy his wandering-through-life livestreaming-his-thoughts aesthetic, he’s not even ready to make a concise case for why he would make a better president than the other 200 people running. 

in a decade, maybe he’d be better prepared and be a stronger candidate, but he’s running too much on name recognition and not doing his homework enough (this is also my main problem with joe biden tbh). 

if beto doesn’t show us something more, i don’t see him making it in the long run, not when he has julián castro coming for his texas votes and multiple women who have no fucks left to give ready to outplan him.

tim ryan

i don’t think i’d heard of tim ryan before the debates. he did better at arguing his positions than some of the ‘forgettable white guys’ he’s with on the margin of this contest…until tulsi gabbard got her chance at him. 

challenged by a veteran on his terrorism argument, he did not hold up well. i suspect he’s not long for this world, campaign-wise. honestly it’s a fluke of him answering the specific question he did and sharing the stage with the people he did, so that’s his bad luck.

but it was also an unforced error and this primary absolutely should weed out the guys who really have no reason to be here in the first place. no great loss, that.

bernie sanders

oh, god, bernie. 

he’s not actually a democrat? so i give him credit where credit is due for managing to pull the party left with his popular arguments and yelling indoor voice. 

i’ll keep it short and just say that he’s not my favorite for a lot of reasons, some of which involve relitigating the past, thus why i don’t feel like getting into it because that’s not productive or helpful. also i know that the obnoxiousness of his supporters is not entirely within his control.

the most important thing to me about bernie is that he knows his stuff, he really does. he has his positions and he’s willing to fight for them and he would be able to lead the country, i don’t doubt that. so if he manages to win the nomination i’ll support him. 

i’m so tired, though. just so tired and ready to move on. 

joe sestak

who is this. interesting name, but seriously, who is this? i don’t know you.

eric swalwell

eric, god love him, is also on my ‘why are you running’ list. he’s the epitome of a long shot, a random guy with some political experience who under normal conditions would have to wait decades more before he’d be considered a serious candidate.

but, yknow, here we are. 

and i actually like him, as a congressman. he’s great. i was just surprised when he jumped into the race, it felt like a really funny joke because it was so random. dude, what are you doing?

then he made it to the debates, and it became very clear why he’s here. 

he has no chance, and he KNOWS he has no chance, and he’s here to shout ‘let younger people take over’ as many times as he’s allowed to before he goes back to congress and returns to sparring with the gun lobby.

seriously, i’m a fan of eric swalwell!! i like him. i want him to keep fighting the good fight in congress for a long time. 

but until they throw him out of this primary, he’s gonna keep grabbing the mic to tell joe biden he’s old, and i kind of respect his moxie. i will probably continue to do so until he messes with the candidates i like more. then i’ll want him to go away. 

elizabeth warren

oh i love her. i have always loved her. i’ve loved her since she was still just a law professor talking about the economy and fighting for the CFPB, so i’ve believed she would make an excellent president even longer than i’ve felt that way about secretary castro. 

i was so happy when she ran for the senate. i was sad i’m not in her state. 

honestly, i didn’t expect her to run for president this year and i didn’t actually need her to, i liked watching her be a badass in the senate. but she has my support, and she’s doing even better than i expected at this point.

she had a great debate night, she’s showing off her ability not just to bring big ideas, but also explain them in ways that grow her support. she’s too smart to play along with anyone else’s rules, she brings the fight to where she wants it.

she can’t avoid the hillary comparisons, yay sexism, but i wouldn’t bet against her given what i’ve seen so far. she’s kind of what i think joe biden THINKS he is. i’d be thrilled if she were our next president who could make room for younger leaders after that.  

marianne williamson

THE MEME-IEST CANDIDATE. 

i mean, i love her because she’s freaking insane, but that’s so not relevant to anything.

i in no way want her to be president because i have no fucking idea what she would do if she were and that’s already what we have in the white house right now. but she seems very sure of herself. 

i don’t know…what can you even say about marianne williamson? 

she hates plans. we need to stop it with all the plans. we need to fight him with love. but not like cory booker wants to because that guy has plans, and her accent is cooler. 

i knew nothing about her before the debate and i will never be able to forget her now.

so maybe she won?

andrew yang

i also knew nothing about him before the debates, and i thought he did well actually. 

if the point of the debates for unknown candidates is to make a case for what sets them apart and make sure you leave knowing something that’s important to them, honestly he did that better than even my faves. 

he got very little talking time, and he used all of it to sell his universal basic income plan, and staying on message that well is so impressive. 

i’m not a big fan of his tech-focused independent voter thing, but i absolutely know what he wants to do as president and he didn’t spend the debate yelling out of turn, so at least i can also say i respect him. 

if he sticks around, i’ll keep listening.