Well folks, the clown car keeps getting bigger over at the 2020 Democratic Primary. If this trend continues, pretty soon there will be more Democrats running for President than will be running for the Senate. Good job, Chuck Schumer! It shows you that running for Senate has now become harder than President, otherwise O’Rourke would be trying to take out Cornyn instead of Trump. Running for President means you get to travel! You get to see the country! You get to go to Iowa! You are invited onto CNN for town halls! You get to live on a bus! When you lose you’re considered for a cabinet post, or ambassadorship! You might even get a gig on TV or a chance to sell another book! Lose a senate election though and what do you get? Obscurity.
Although maybe that’s changing with O’Rourke…
Anyway, there’s 24 candidates running with any real shot of winning. By “shot” I think it’s helpful to visualize a basketball court. There’s the candidates standing on a ladder next to the hoop and those right under the next. Then there are candidates aiming from the free throw line, as well as those shooting for a three-pointer. Finally you have people in the stands, who could in theory still make the shot. In total, there are 24 of these candidates in the primary so far. There are of course people running who have no name recognition at all, no money, no presence, no experience, and lack a decent website to boot. These candidates are too numerous to bother with. They are beyond the court and outside the arena. There’s no chance of them getting the ball inside the net.
I’m going with 24 because it seems Steve Bullock and Bill DeBlasio are running. There’s also people have said they are forming exploratory committees but haven’t filled out that final ream of paperwork to “officially” say they are in the race. Regardless I’m putting the number at 24. That’s who I’m going to deal with in this blog post.
24 candidates, sounds crazy, no? Well, yes, this is a rather large batch. What’s surprising is how little separates most of the people running. The number of White moderates (Dr. King’s favorite people) is extremely high. I guess that’s par for the course. That’s who the party treasures and nurtures, telling them they represent “the real America” (wherever that is). So why not run for president then, since you represent the heartland and you bleed apple pie?
However we can’t let these MWGs (mediocre/moderate White guys) make us too cynical about this field. It does include the most diverse crowd of candidates for either party to date. Several minorities are represented for sure: African American, Hispanic Americans, LGBT Americans, Asian Americans, and Jewish Americans (and no, I’m not going to include Native Americans for Warren). We also have a record number of women running, who in fact, are not a minority. I know that may surprise some people, given how women have been historically excluded and oppressed, but rest assured it wasn’t because of a lack of numbers.
In terms of experience, there’s diversity too. We have gurus and governors, senators and Silicon Valley tycoons, and Congress critters and Mayors. I think that’s good. You don’t want just a bunch of senators, or a group of governors on the stage, because the problems facing this country require action at all levels. So feedback from a local state, house and cabinet perspective is good. Now, that doesn’t mean all that experience is the same and that everyone on the stage should be president if they’ve been in government for years. Only that a little perspective could be welcome.
That said, the debates probably won’t provide us much discussion, or any real debate. It’s not that I’m bemoaning the end of some golden age of public discourse, only that there’s too many people on stage for anyone to say anything of note. If everyone running manages to qualify, there will be 24 people up on the dais, and how much time realistically will each one of them get? Realistically how much have anything to say too? Perhaps we’ll get the first Twitter-style debate. Each candidate will only get to make statements and respond to questions and attacks using 280 characters or less. The jabs and jests might be worth it.
One thing that will have to go is the audience. First, because they’ll have to make room for all the candidates. Second, the candidates will just end up playing for an audience reaction. That’s how the lower-tier ones will try to get to the front of the pack. The Trump strategy. If we have to have a debate (personally I think the Town Halls should just be enough) then let it be someplace without obnoxious hooting and hollering. Part of the reason Trump was able to dominate in the debate was ability to manipulate the audience and their reaction, even when it didn’t agree with him. That and his ability to use an air horn .
Will the debates be a make or break moment for the candidates? Undoubtedly, they have to be. If a candidate wants to break out from the lower tear of no–names and has-beens (and those who have never-been) they have to speak out and say something, or forever hold their peace. That should make for a little entertainment. The real interesting thing to see is who has already given up on the White House and is trying to position themselves for a VP slot, or a spot in the cabinet. There will be candidates who go after Sanders in order to endear themselves to Biden and the DNC. Watch out for them. Bernie will turn the Blue Dogs into snakes on that stage. Whether he’ll be able to drive them out of the party is another matter.
Then there will be those candidates who realize they have to go after Biden, since there’s no chance of them winning over Sanders voters, and because there’s no chance they’ll be on the ticket with him. Beto, Warren, and Gillibrand are part of this group. To a lesser extent, Gabbard is too. It’s highly unlikely Biden would want any of them as VP. Beto is too male and too White (and his youthful Punk cross-dressing notwithstanding, too straight). Meanwhile, Warren has feuded with Biden over the banks. Gillibrand could be selected, since she balances out the male at the top of the ticket. However, she represents a solidly blue state, can’t win over progressives, and burned her bridges with Hillary Clinton at the height of #MeToo. Her treatment of Franken also makes her a liability in getting the support of party loyalists.
Of course who ends up becoming VP might not have anything to do with the desires of the candidates. If Biden’s current lead collapses (a guy can dream, right?) and nobody has a majority of the pledged delegates, then some serious horse-trading will have to commence. Everyone wants to avoid a contested convention. It makes for great television and a terrible campaign. We haven’t had one since 1976, and the party who had it lost (although maybe shots of Tony Orlando dancing with Betty Ford were what really sank the Ford’s chances of reelection). At that stage it’s quite likely that one of the two front-runners will try to convince one of the mid-tier candidates to come on board and bring their delegates over. Otherwise, the superdelegates will get involved and when they do, that will further split the party.
That’s why if I had to bet on who will be VP, it’s going to be someone like Kamala Harris. Now it’s possible she’ll break out from her position in the current polling and start winning primaries. She’s relying on California’s early start to try and propel her forward with a homefield advantage. If that falls through, she could still end up with a decent pool of delegates that will be necessary to get a majority. She will provide generational, racial, and gender balance against either Biden or Bernie, who seem to be the likely front-runners at this point. She would also provide a balance with Warren too, if she takes the lead. Harris provides a regional angle as well. The Democrats haven’t had a Westerner on the ticket since…well…really ever. The farthest west candidates have been from Texas or South Dakota.
It’s still too early to see who will be at the top of the ticket. Biden is certainly polling in the lead but the debates could cut that down, especially as people realize what he was actually doing before Obama nominated him for Vice President. Remember, Biden ran twice for president on his own merits in 1988 (before AOC was even born) and 2008. Each time his campaign went nowhere. The only person who likes the real Biden is Biden. For everyone else, it’s either misplaced nostalgia for Obama, a desperate desire for normalcy, mistaking Biden for a meme, or thinking he’s in the middle of the party when in reality he’s on its right. By himself, he’s completely unappealing. Who knows how long his campaign can keep up the illusion that hides the real candidate?
There’s also no telling what will happen in the news between now and the primaries, or what will happen during the primaries as well. Party shenanigans could cause issues with delegate allotment. Plus the instability of Trump means a foreign intervention or a recession that throw a wrench into things. It’s hard to say who benefits from that sort of situation. If we invade Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, or all three, it could make an explicitly anti-war candidate look better by comparison. It might also entice voters to try and put someone more stable in office for its own sake. A recession might lead the party to support someone with a business background, then again, our current president has such experience and look at Trump’s legacy of unnecessary tax cuts, feuding with the Federal Reserve, trade wars, and subsidizing coal plants.
On the other hand, a recession could make the party faithful see red, in a good way. Not in a let's bail out the banks one more time kind of way. Again, a boy can dream.
No comments:
Post a Comment