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1) He has name-recognition. This carries you very far. Who doesn't know Zuck? He even had a hit movie made about him. 2) He has money. Doesn't need to waste ti

1) He has name-recognition. This carries you very far. Who doesn't know Zuck? He even had a hit movie made about him. 2) He has money. Doesn't need to waste time raising funds. He can also take Trump's line and say he is independent, not in the pockets of big money doners 3) He has access to possibly, the best voter database, and a platform to communicate and drive home his messaging (remember, some say that Trump's win was due to massive FB analytics and targeted ad campaigns) 4) He is likely already in bed with the "establishment". I'm sure he has deep connections to the intelligence agencies and local, state, and federal government. Not to mention of course, the media. 5) He is young and likely more appealing to the millennial generation, who will be more deeply entrenched in society by the time he runs. Certainty more appealing than say Booker or Warren. > And the left is much less friendly to a billionaire with eyes on purchasing the presidency than the right. Why would anyone pick Zuckerberg in 2020 when they could pick someone like Warren or Booker? Warren and Booker are pretty discredited IMO. It'll be hard for Warren to win the Bernie votes, given her disloyalty and lack of action during the primaries. I had such high hopes for her, but she really let the power and possibility of a presidential run corrupt her. Her who shtick was this fearless, independent, populist. That image came crashing down this election. If she would have publicly backed Bernie early on, he might have taken the nomination. It's obvious to all that she only backed HRC to kiss-ass to the establishment and curry favors for either a VP nom or to secure her "successor" status to Hillary. Compare her actions to someone like Gabbard. Booker is similar discredited, given his non-transparent lobbying for a variety of corporate elites. The main problem for Zuck is his young, rich, tech, Jew shtick makes me persona non-grata for alot of blue collar voters in the key swing states. But who knows, the next generation of those voters, who grew up on FB/Instagram, may not find him so unappealing as their parents. I think he has a pretty good shot. I def agree that his main weakness is his lack of charisma and perceived fakeness / always-scheming persona, but thats something that can be changed with the key handlers, messaging, and media campaigns.

michaelchisari 9y ago
> Warren and Booker are pretty discredited IMO. I disagree, but most importantly, I strongly disagree that they're so discredited that a controversial billionaire can waltz in and capture their voters.
- ithinkinstereo 9y ago
  I could see an argument for why Warren is viable, but why Booker? That dude is solidly corrupt - maybe the most corrupt establishment democrat today!
  - michaelchisari 9y ago
    He represents the DLC/Establishment wing of the Democrats. Now I swing much closer to Warren, but I'm not going to pretend that there aren't people in the party who agree with his centrist politics. He wouldn't have my vote, but he would have a lot of peoples. What do you think Zuckerbergs positions on the issues are? Specifically the things that the left would have a problem with Cory Booker on (charter schools, the medicine import vote, corporate donations, etc)?
    - ithinkinstereo 9y ago
      > He represents the DLC/Establishment wing of the Democrats. Now I swing much closer to Warren, but I'm not going to pretend that there aren't people in the party who agree with his centrist politics. He wouldn't have my vote, but he would have a lot of peoples. That's a fair point. I just don't see him being the one to unite the party between the establishment dems and the bernie dems. The bernie supporters I know absolutely hate the guy. > What do you think Zuckerbergs positions on the issues are? Specifically the things that the left would have a problem with Cory Booker on (charter schools, the medicine import vote, corporate donations, etc)? I think Zuck will be a bit of political chameleon. On the issues you cite specifically: Charter = prob pro charter. Def pro education reform and experimenting with new education models. He's already pretty involved in this via The Primary School that he setup with his wife. I'm not so sure he'll be bullish on charters, but he'll def push for more technology reform in schools (think infusion of more data analytics, student self-directed learning via online resources, etc.) Medicine Import = no clue, but def pro medical reform. His wife will drive his policy positions here and lend him alot of credibility in this arena. Corporate Donations = anti Citizens United and pro campaign finance reform. He's incentivized here to reform the funding/donation scene, since it'll only weaken his foes if it makes it harder to amaze/pool funds. Unfortunately whatever positions he adopts here will prob further entrench billionaire-influence in American politics. The critical asset I see here is he'll be able to unite alot of the big tech billionaires behind him: Cook, Bezos, Page and Brin, etc. By the time he runs, these tech companies will likely completely own American media. It'll be an uphill battle for an opposing candidate to fight this.
maxxxxx 9y ago
"Who doesn't know Zuck?" Outside of tech nobody.
- ithinkinstereo 9y ago
  You'd be surprised. My grandmother knows who Zuck is. She doesn't even have a FB account. Even if people don't know him by name, they've definitely heard of FaceBook, so messaging for the rubes: Zuckerburg, he's the guy behind FaceBook!
  - Danihan 9y ago
    Sure but your grandmother is Meg Whitman..
username223 9y ago
> He even had a hit movie made about him. In which he was the villain. He has more or less zero people skills, but truckloads of money, and creepy amounts of personal information. IMHO his best bet for being elected President would be to straight-up purchase a major party's nomination, then buy the necessary votes in swing states. Let's say it costs $1b to buy a party's nomination. Florida was won by about 100,000 votes in 2016, and he can probably target persuadable voters using FB's data. Can he buy those people's votes for another billion (i.e. $10k apiece)?
- ithinkinstereo 9y ago
  That may be true, but I don't it really matters. Is he more of a "villain" than Trump? I think most Americans understand that you have to step on a few toes (or many toes) to build a global empire the size of FB. Also remember that in American society, might (money) = right. Everyone knows that Jobs was an asshole, people still worship him anyways. It's sad, I know, but it's a fact.
  - username223 9y ago
    > Is he more of a "villain" than Trump? Trump is a chest-thumping buffoon, but he's also a "manly man" -- just look at how he made Marco Rubio apologize for obliquely questioning his penis size, while shamelessly bragging about being well-endowed. He was also willing to tap into America's latent racism, something I doubt Zuck could credibly do. He doesn't have a good story besides "technocrat in chief," and many people will just see the oblivious, arrogant nerd who spent his high school years getting chocolate swirlies.
    - ithinkinstereo 9y ago
      I see your point about the "manly man" but I think that's not as important as you might think. Case in point: Bernie Sanders. Also before Trump surged ahead, Jeb "low energy" Bush was the GOP front-runner. It's true that Trump ultimately won, but I don't think his "manly man" image was the key factor. Recall '08 when Obama defeated the Maverick and his gun-toting mama bear VP.
gnaritas 9y ago
I think you drastically overestimate his name recognition; he's famous in the tech bubble, outside of that few would know his name. Everyone knows facebook, that doesn't translate to everyone knows Zuck. Beyond that, he's on record saying all his users are idiots and he has virtually no social skills; Zuck is not a politician and probably couldn't be. Trump didn't win on name recognition anyway, he won on racism, pure and simple. He tapped into white middle class racist conservative American's anger about losing their place in the world by saying what they think and normalizing their racism. That his opponent was a women also helped due to their misogyny that he also tapped into. This isn't the kind of thing Zuck or any left leaning billionaire can replicate. Zuck has the power and influence to be a king maker, but he'll never be King, he's not suited for it. In fact, Trump nor any business titan is suited for it, government isn't a business and the president isn't a CEO and Trump is only proving that truism; the president is a diplomat and requires a professional diplomat, not a businessman.
- cgriswald 9y ago
  > I think you drastically overestimate his name recognition; he's famous in the tech bubble, outside of that few would know his name. Compare to who? Warren Buffett? I honestly can't think of a single person I know who doesn't know who MZ is, probably by name, but if not, they at least know the face and recognize him as "the Facebook guy." Getting name recognition will not be a problem for him. I'm not sure if he could win or not, but it would not surprise me to see millennials vote in swarms for one of their own. I don't see MZ as a politician, but I'm not sure why you think that means he couldn't win. Anti-establishment sentiment is at an all-time high. Trump won on it. Sanders campaigned on it, and had it not been for his own party's corruption, may have won. > Trump didn't win on name recognition anyway, he won on racism, pure and simple Trump didn't win. The left lost. The left lost on their own corruption, both real and perceived, and the consequences of that corruption. He won on the left's identity politics and the insistence that anyone who disagrees with them is ignorant, racist, misogynistic, homophobic, stupid, or a million other pejoratives. He won on (actual, not reported) unemployment by a class of people who have seen their standard of living in sharp decline under the last two administrations, but who the left does not include in its list of deserving. Edit: Spelling.
SilasX 9y ago
Interestingly, there are FCC restrictions that make it hard to continue as a popular radio announcer while running for office (something like the Fairness Doctrine applies in that case), but that hasn't caught up with someone whose popularity is through a different medium (social media, in this case). http://www.broadcastlawblog.com/2010/02/articles/leaving-the-air-to-run-for-office-what-to-do-with-the-broadcaster-who-becomes-a-candidate/ http://www.broadcastlawblog.com/2010/02/articles/leaving-the...
nilkn 9y ago
(3) makes me deeply uncomfortable. Facebook already has a terrible reputation on respect for its users. How could I possibly trust it if its leader is running for President and now has a huge motive to make sure he's seen positively on his own platform? Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I think I'd need to see Zuckerberg completely divest himself of Facebook before I'd vote for him. Trump already has enough conflicts of interest. The last thing we need is for the next President to actually control the way huge swathes of people receive the news. I'm also very uncomfortable with the notion of Zuckerberg mining private user data on FB in order to very precisely target voters in a way that no other Presidential candidate can. I think this sets a dangerous precedent and creates all the wrong motives for future candidates if it works.
- krick 9y ago
  I doubt I would ever even consider voting for Zuckerberg, but what it's worth? It doesn't matter if you or me like or don't like the idea of voting for someone for some personal reasons: it only matters how publicly-relatable these reasons are. I'm not sure if reasons you named are that much relatable for most.

michaelchisari 9y ago

> Warren and Booker are pretty discredited IMO. I disagree, but most importantly, I strongly disagree that they're so discredited that a controversial billionaire can waltz in and capture their voters.

ithinkinstereo 9y ago
I could see an argument for why Warren is viable, but why Booker? That dude is solidly corrupt - maybe the most corrupt establishment democrat today!
- michaelchisari 9y ago
  He represents the DLC/Establishment wing of the Democrats. Now I swing much closer to Warren, but I'm not going to pretend that there aren't people in the party who agree with his centrist politics. He wouldn't have my vote, but he would have a lot of peoples. What do you think Zuckerbergs positions on the issues are? Specifically the things that the left would have a problem with Cory Booker on (charter schools, the medicine import vote, corporate donations, etc)?
  - ithinkinstereo 9y ago
    > He represents the DLC/Establishment wing of the Democrats. Now I swing much closer to Warren, but I'm not going to pretend that there aren't people in the party who agree with his centrist politics. He wouldn't have my vote, but he would have a lot of peoples. That's a fair point. I just don't see him being the one to unite the party between the establishment dems and the bernie dems. The bernie supporters I know absolutely hate the guy. > What do you think Zuckerbergs positions on the issues are? Specifically the things that the left would have a problem with Cory Booker on (charter schools, the medicine import vote, corporate donations, etc)? I think Zuck will be a bit of political chameleon. On the issues you cite specifically: Charter = prob pro charter. Def pro education reform and experimenting with new education models. He's already pretty involved in this via The Primary School that he setup with his wife. I'm not so sure he'll be bullish on charters, but he'll def push for more technology reform in schools (think infusion of more data analytics, student self-directed learning via online resources, etc.) Medicine Import = no clue, but def pro medical reform. His wife will drive his policy positions here and lend him alot of credibility in this arena. Corporate Donations = anti Citizens United and pro campaign finance reform. He's incentivized here to reform the funding/donation scene, since it'll only weaken his foes if it makes it harder to amaze/pool funds. Unfortunately whatever positions he adopts here will prob further entrench billionaire-influence in American politics. The critical asset I see here is he'll be able to unite alot of the big tech billionaires behind him: Cook, Bezos, Page and Brin, etc. By the time he runs, these tech companies will likely completely own American media. It'll be an uphill battle for an opposing candidate to fight this.

maxxxxx 9y ago

"Who doesn't know Zuck?" Outside of tech nobody.

ithinkinstereo 9y ago
You'd be surprised. My grandmother knows who Zuck is. She doesn't even have a FB account. Even if people don't know him by name, they've definitely heard of FaceBook, so messaging for the rubes: Zuckerburg, he's the guy behind FaceBook!
- Danihan 9y ago
  Sure but your grandmother is Meg Whitman..

username223 9y ago

> He even had a hit movie made about him. In which he was the villain. He has more or less zero people skills, but truckloads of money, and creepy amounts of personal information. IMHO his best bet for being elected President would be to straight-up purchase a major party's nomination, then buy the necessary votes in swing states. Let's say it costs $1b to buy a party's nomination. Florida was won by about 100,000 votes in 2016, and he can probably target persuadable voters using FB's data. Can he buy those people's votes for another billion (i.e. $10k apiece)?

ithinkinstereo 9y ago
That may be true, but I don't it really matters. Is he more of a "villain" than Trump? I think most Americans understand that you have to step on a few toes (or many toes) to build a global empire the size of FB. Also remember that in American society, might (money) = right. Everyone knows that Jobs was an asshole, people still worship him anyways. It's sad, I know, but it's a fact.
- username223 9y ago
  > Is he more of a "villain" than Trump? Trump is a chest-thumping buffoon, but he's also a "manly man" -- just look at how he made Marco Rubio apologize for obliquely questioning his penis size, while shamelessly bragging about being well-endowed. He was also willing to tap into America's latent racism, something I doubt Zuck could credibly do. He doesn't have a good story besides "technocrat in chief," and many people will just see the oblivious, arrogant nerd who spent his high school years getting chocolate swirlies.
  - ithinkinstereo 9y ago
    I see your point about the "manly man" but I think that's not as important as you might think. Case in point: Bernie Sanders. Also before Trump surged ahead, Jeb "low energy" Bush was the GOP front-runner. It's true that Trump ultimately won, but I don't think his "manly man" image was the key factor. Recall '08 when Obama defeated the Maverick and his gun-toting mama bear VP.

gnaritas 9y ago

I think you drastically overestimate his name recognition; he's famous in the tech bubble, outside of that few would know his name. Everyone knows facebook, that doesn't translate to everyone knows Zuck. Beyond that, he's on record saying all his users are idiots and he has virtually no social skills; Zuck is not a politician and probably couldn't be. Trump didn't win on name recognition anyway, he won on racism, pure and simple. He tapped into white middle class racist conservative American's anger about losing their place in the world by saying what they think and normalizing their racism. That his opponent was a women also helped due to their misogyny that he also tapped into. This isn't the kind of thing Zuck or any left leaning billionaire can replicate. Zuck has the power and influence to be a king maker, but he'll never be King, he's not suited for it. In fact, Trump nor any business titan is suited for it, government isn't a business and the president isn't a CEO and Trump is only proving that truism; the president is a diplomat and requires a professional diplomat, not a businessman.

cgriswald 9y ago
> I think you drastically overestimate his name recognition; he's famous in the tech bubble, outside of that few would know his name. Compare to who? Warren Buffett? I honestly can't think of a single person I know who doesn't know who MZ is, probably by name, but if not, they at least know the face and recognize him as "the Facebook guy." Getting name recognition will not be a problem for him. I'm not sure if he could win or not, but it would not surprise me to see millennials vote in swarms for one of their own. I don't see MZ as a politician, but I'm not sure why you think that means he couldn't win. Anti-establishment sentiment is at an all-time high. Trump won on it. Sanders campaigned on it, and had it not been for his own party's corruption, may have won. > Trump didn't win on name recognition anyway, he won on racism, pure and simple Trump didn't win. The left lost. The left lost on their own corruption, both real and perceived, and the consequences of that corruption. He won on the left's identity politics and the insistence that anyone who disagrees with them is ignorant, racist, misogynistic, homophobic, stupid, or a million other pejoratives. He won on (actual, not reported) unemployment by a class of people who have seen their standard of living in sharp decline under the last two administrations, but who the left does not include in its list of deserving. Edit: Spelling.

SilasX 9y ago

Interestingly, there are FCC restrictions that make it hard to continue as a popular radio announcer while running for office (something like the Fairness Doctrine applies in that case), but that hasn't caught up with someone whose popularity is through a different medium (social media, in this case). http://www.broadcastlawblog.com/2010/02/articles/leaving-the-air-to-run-for-office-what-to-do-with-the-broadcaster-who-becomes-a-candidate/ http://www.broadcastlawblog.com/2010/02/articles/leaving-the...

nilkn 9y ago

(3) makes me deeply uncomfortable. Facebook already has a terrible reputation on respect for its users. How could I possibly trust it if its leader is running for President and now has a huge motive to make sure he's seen positively on his own platform? Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I think I'd need to see Zuckerberg completely divest himself of Facebook before I'd vote for him. Trump already has enough conflicts of interest. The last thing we need is for the next President to actually control the way huge swathes of people receive the news. I'm also very uncomfortable with the notion of Zuckerberg mining private user data on FB in order to very precisely target voters in a way that no other Presidential candidate can. I think this sets a dangerous precedent and creates all the wrong motives for future candidates if it works.

krick 9y ago
I doubt I would ever even consider voting for Zuckerberg, but what it's worth? It doesn't matter if you or me like or don't like the idea of voting for someone for some personal reasons: it only matters how publicly-relatable these reasons are. I'm not sure if reasons you named are that much relatable for most.