The Hill’s Top Opinions: Do Democrats need a past ‘superstar’ to hold the White House in 2024?

View Online  Opinion Monday, March 6 ©  AP Good Monday evening. This is Daniel Allott with The Hill's Top Opinions.   An uncomfortable truth confronts Democrats as they look ahead to the 2024 presidential election, writes political consultant Douglas MacKinnon: The Biden-Harris ticket is deeply flawed, but the party doesn't really have anyone viable on the bench to take its place.   Many Democrats MacKinnon speaks with are looking for "a superstar to emerge as the 'adult in the room' to save the party."   Who could that past superstar be? You know the names — Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama.   "It is a list that may say more about Democrats lacking a deep bench of proven talent when it comes to the recent past," writes MacKinnon. "And it is a list that poses many other obvious problems, too."   The dream of most Democrats (and not a few Republicans) is that former First Lady Michelle Obama decides to run. Not only would she offer generational change, but she'd instantly become the frontrunner. That said, she has consistently and adamantly said she will not run.   As for the other three, they have each already lost a presidential election and are all in their mid-to-late 70s. "While Clinton may still have a loyal core of supporters, neither Kerry nor Gore have a serious substantial base in the party today," MacKinnon adds.   But for those who don't believe a viable candidate can emerge from among this group of presidential election losers (all of whom lost by excruciatingly slim margins), MacKinnon has a two-word retort: Richard Nixon.   Read MacKinnon's op-ed here.    Not subscribed to The Hill's Top Opinions? Sign up here. MORE TOP OPINIONS Twitter discloses another possible government censorship effort By JONATHAN TURLEY, Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at The George Washington University Rather than investigate the full scope of the government's insular censorship programs and efforts, we are told to trust the government. In the meantime, we are left with the same game of whack-a-mole: We strike down a Disinformation Board, and a Disinformation Index pops up … we strike down a Disinformation Index, and a disinformation blacklisting appears. Read the op-ed here Understanding why some in the US don't want victory in Ukraine By BILL SCHNEIDER, emeritus professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University The view that the United States has international interests as well as national interests has been the consensus of the U.S. political establishment of both parties since 1947. The American people have never completely bought into the idea, however. And it is now being challenged by a populist movement on the far right. Read the op-ed here A modest proposal to regulate assault-style weapons — again By BRIAN ATWOOD, senior fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute There are several ways to measure the health of a democracy, but perhaps the most telling test is the capacity of Congress to reflect the will of the people. When it comes to the control of weapons used in mass shootings, that test has been flunked numerous times in recent years.  Read the op-ed here The Fed's trillion-dollar bridge to nowhere By ANDREW T. LEVIN, professor of economics at Dartmouth College The infamous Alaskan "bridge to nowhere" was canceled following a public outcry about its $400 million cost and minuscule benefits. In contrast, the Federal Reserve's latest program of quantitative easing, commonly known as QE4, was never subjected to any public assessment of costs and benefits.  Read the op-ed here QUICK TAKES Dictators stalk the free world again   What if Marjorie Taylor Greene's secessionist fantasy came true?   Religion and the lawbreaking Supreme Court   COVID-19 vaccines won't be free for long. What will they cost? Stay Engaged The Hill's Top Opinions is written by Daniel Allott, an opinion editor at The Hill and the author of "On the Road in Trump's America: A Journey Into the Heart of a Divided Nation."   Views expressed by contributors are theirs and not the opinion of The Hill.   Check out The Hill's Opinion section online for the latest. Interested in submitting an op-ed? Click here. If you find this newsletter useful, please consider recommending it to others: thehill.com/opinion.  Privacy Policy  |  Manage Subscriptions  |  Unsubscribe  Sign Up for Other Newsletters 1625 K Street NW, 9th Floor, Washington, DC 20006 © 1998 - 2022 Nexstar Media Inc. | All Rights Reserved.

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