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Date: Thursday, August 9 2018 10:47 AM
Subject: Fwd: Our May conversation - more thoughts
From: jeffrey E.
To: BS Stern <[REDACTED]>;

Hi all –

I spent some time mulling additional aspects of a third choice presidential run and wanted to run five specific attributes for a candidate by you as a group.

This much we know - the Fall elections are shaping up to be a referendum on the most divisive American President in memory. The battle for potential Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination this fall will only amplify the polarity of the political debate that is already deeply overwrought on both sides. The rising tide of pressure on Donald Trump from the Mueller investigation shows no sign of ebbing.

Unless the underlying political dynamics are disrupted, the outcomes of these unprecedented events will still leave us with the same unsatisfactory two front battlefield of the 2016 Presidential election. Watching these unrelenting, compounding events since our discussion in May, I am guessing we are all asking the same question: now what? For the 48 percent of Americans who believe Donald Trump should not be in the White House, perhaps we too want our own “chaos” candidate in 2020?

Should Trump run again, this could be a “break glass” moment for the majority of Americans who don’t support him. Do we want to break the genteel precedents of two parties running their ceremonious and seemingly illogical nominating process to select a candidate? (Why do Iowa and New Hampshire play such outsized roles? What kind of small-d democratic process relies on superdelegates?) The system failed in 2016, with both parties producing terribly flawed candidates in a race to the bottom. We need to build a back-up plan in the event the system fails again.

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