Democrats don’t want to wander in the Power Vacuum Desert for 2 years, let alone 40 years. They are looking to the youth of their party for their new hopefuls. I guess that means that Hillary Clinton won’t get another chance. Pity. She’s such a fun candidate!

The Democrats are already thinking about the 2028 Presidential Race. They don’t want to autopsy 2024. They don’t want to look at how they got Kamala Harris as a candidate. They want to focus on the future. Humorist Whitney Cummings upped the testosterone on the program and simultaneously wrecked Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen last night on CNN:

Whitney Cummings roasting Democrats and CNN’s viewership tonight on CNN. Enjoy: pic.twitter.com/okybhQbBMk

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) January 1, 2025

The power-mad Democrats don’t do that whole introspection thing. They don’t want to think about Joe and Kamala. They want to focus on building up their hopefuls for the future. Jared Gans has written “7 Democrat leaders to watch” for The Hill. He wrote:

Democrats are scrambling for a new leader to head the party and organize resistance to President-elect Trump following Vice President Harris’s loss in November’s election.

Several top names have been floated as possible contenders for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, or to at least serve as a new generational voice to lead Democrats going forward. Some of those include Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Josh Shapiro is a maybe, but Whitmer and Buttigieg are solid nopes. The Democrats have played fast and loose with candidates for a dozen years now. Even the party faithful, the lock-steppers, have got to throw up their hands at some point. I believe that out of the seven mentioned in the article, these five hopefuls are worth keeping an eye on:

Chris Murphy
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has been a regular presence in the Senate Democratic Conference for more than a decade, but he has become more prominent in pushing for the party to take a new direction following the election.

He declared a few days after Trump won that Democrats need to broaden their tent to win back working-class voters that they have lost and embrace economic populism as their “tent pole.” He circulated these ideas more directly in a memo to Democrats a couple of weeks later.

Chris Murphy is from Connecticut. I lived in Westport and Fairfield and I am not a fan of the whole state. Murphy is also a partisan hack. In this clip, Murphy is attempting to describe the coming Trump Administration but actually describes D.C., all of it.

Meh. Pale, male and stale.

Cory Booker
The first Black senator from New Jersey, Sen. Cory Booker (D) has been a steady presence within the Democratic caucus and is about to become one of its top leaders.

Booker’s Democratic colleagues selected him earlier this month to become the chair of the newly created Strategic Communications Committee. That will make him the fourth highest-ranking Democrat in the upper chamber after Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.), Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.).

Booker already received some national attention for his 2020 presidential run and is viewed as a possible candidate for 2028.

Booker, the former Newark Mayor, is only 55. He’s already run for President, ugh. He looks meh on paper and then he opens his mouth. Ketanji Brown Jackson looks skeptical of Booker’s overacting, but the lady behind Booker is a laugh riot.

Total cringe

It’s hard to watch this without feeling uncomfortable

If overacting were a crime @CoryBooker would be on death rowpic.twitter.com/SaCc0WbtYr

— Gummi (@gummibear737) March 23, 2022

Very little hope.

Ro Khanna
With aging leaders in Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the progressive wing of the Democratic Party also seems to have a top vacancy to fill.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) would be a much younger choice who has demonstrated progressive bona fides. He served as co-chair of Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign and has worked with him on numerous pieces of legislation in Congress.

He worked to get Obama elected and then served as the Assistant Deputy Secretary of Commerce for him before winning his Congressional Seat. Definitely on the 2028 shortlist. Never forget that Khanna was a Biden surrogate and excused Biden’s behavior right up until he dropped out.

Andy Beshear
A red-state Democratic governor, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear was already seen as a rising star in the party after his reelection in 2023.

But his stock rose even higher in 2024 as he was on the short list to serve as Harris’s running mate after she became the presumptive Democratic nominee. With Harris’s loss and Beshear term-limited in 2027, the Kentucky governor may become one of the top future leaders of the party.

Talk about pale, male and stale. And a nepo-Governor to boot. He was awful in Kentucky during the pandemic. Andy Beshear is an empty-headed fool. Forget about him. He would have to be the last Democrat on the planet before they looked at him. The only reason he was on the Veep shortlist for Kamala is the Democrat belief in White racism. The Dems thought if Kamala had a White running mate, White people would vote for him.

Wes Moore
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) sought political office for the first time in 2022 for his successful gubernatorial run, but his name has increasingly been floated when analysts look at the future of the party.

Moore was speculated as a possible running mate for Harris until he said he wasn’t interested in the role. But he has still been included on lists of possible 2028 candidates.

He gained national attention following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore in March and for pardoning more than 175,000 marijuana convictions in Maryland in June.

But wait, there’s more. From the Wes Moore.com website:

Wes Moore, a combat veteran, bestselling author, small business owner, Rhodes Scholar and former CEO of one of the nation’s largest anti-poverty organizations, has devoted his life’s work to a basic principle: no matter your start in life, you deserve an equal opportunity to succeed – a job you can raise a family on, a future you can look forward to.

Wes was born in Takoma Park, Maryland, to Joy and Westley Moore. When Wes was just three years old, his father died of a rare, but treatable virus. His father’s untimely death created instability in young Wes’ life, causing his mom to move the family to the Bronx, where Wes’ grandparents lived.

The family returned to Maryland when Wes was 14, when Wes’ mom found a job in Baltimore – the first job that paid her benefits.

Wes graduated with an Associate’s Degree from Valley Forge Military College in 1998 and then Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins University in 2001. As a teenager, he interned for former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke and then went on to earn a Rhodes Scholarship, which took him to Oxford University.

Inspired by his mentors at military school, Wes went on to serve as a lieutenant and paratrooper with the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne, including leading soldiers in combat in Afghanistan. He also served as a White House Fellow, advising on issues of national security and international relations.

AATW! This is the only one of the hopefuls that has a real chance. Watch Wes Moore. He’s the only one not unhinged.

Featured Collage: Eric Connelly/Wikimedia Commons.org/Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons.org/Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons.org/Public Domain/Kentucky National Guard/Wikimedia Commons.org/Public Domain/Maryland State Government/Wikimedia Commons.org/Public Domain