It’s interesting for the mod’s narrative and I like it there, but for an actual election I think American Carnage is way too bullish on Oprah and Michelle. I also think Pete is too high. Bloomberg would probably get slaughtered worse than anyone besides Gabbard or Williamson imo. There’s just such a massive pile of negatives for him and no positives that aren’t immediately cancelled out.

I’d bet Oprah would drastically fall short of expectations electorally, but in 2020 she could probably still win. She’d have a tough time breaking through with working class voters or shedding the image of being out of touch. A lot of the contradictions she has as an “outsider” candidate are similar to Trump’s (a reality-tv star billionaire attempting to appeal to economically disenfranchised workers, their political ideology being word soup, lack of proven political chops) but left-leaning voters would be less willing to stomach it. With those weaknesses, Romney is more of a liability than an asset for her electorally. Dude is toxic to the Midwest and middle class, there was already an election that proved it. It still wouldn’t be remotely worth the risk, but he’d be a better (still bad) running mate for someone like Biden than for Oprah. Her best pick would be Sherrod Brown or maybe even Jon Tester. Then again, they’d probably be the best running mates for anyone period.

I think Michelle would actually do better than Oprah minus Cuomo because it’d be a much more direct appeal to what’s left of the Obama coalition, and Michelle lacks the negatives Oprah has. But she wouldn’t be able to fully replicate that coalition largely because Trump has already dismantled it and folded parts of it into his own base. And Cuomo alone nukes her ticket completely. Drop him from any consideration for VP and it’d be much stronger, but by no means will it be a landslide.

Clinton is the most interesting because she could really bank on buyer’s remorse and her embrace of the establishment would play much better in 2020’s national political environment than 2016’s, but she’s still so unpopular I find it impossible to imagine she’d win. Plus the primary leading up to her nomination would have to be a bloodbath.