Hee-haw, y'all. The 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

Politics & Elections
1061

Mulling it over today, I realized to my surprise that my second choice might actually be Joe Biden. Bernie, of course, is my ideal candidate, offering a combination of progressive principles, experience and proven electoral appeal.

Considering the others: Warren would probably make the best President of the lot, but first you have to win. I just can’t imagine a scenario where she walks into a debate stage with Donald Trump and things end well.

Beto and Mayor Pete are nice young men, but I don’t see them as having any qualities so extraordinary that I would overlook their skimpy resumes.

So that leaves Booker and Harris as credible people who are theoretically a bit to the left of Biden. But they haven’t run successful national campaigns, they didn’t get to watch Obama up close for eight years, and current polls suggest they’d be weaker general election candidates than Biden (or Sanders). Do I have reason to feel confident that a Harris or Booker administration would be so much more progressive than a Biden administration that it would be worth giving up that significant edge in experience and electability? I’m open to arguments, but as of right now I don’t see that I do.

Of the also-ran crowd, the only one I’d be especially interested in hearing more about is Jay Inslee.

1062

I agree that the debates should be pretty wide open to start. But hopefully they will ratchet up the requirements for each subsequent round?

Here’s an interesting poll showing the percentage of Democrats considering/not considering each candidate. Bernie is the most polarizing, which should not surprise anyone: https://twitter.com/seanmcelwee/status/1126524794739015680?s=21

FWIW, Biden and Beto poll the best against Trump: https://twitter.com/natesilver538/status/1125798799224516613?s=21

I have been skeptical of Biden’s strength in the primary season, but I did some checking, and it’s been well over a century since a Democratic Vice President (current or most recent) attempted to get the nomination and failed to do so on their first attempt. In fact, I don’t know if it ever happened: I stopped looking once I got back into the 19th century.

Streaks are made to be broken, but that is compelling.

Here he is on Real Time last weekend:

I think he could be physically intimidating to Trump. Which of course should not matter, but…

1063

Biden is this rounds Hillary Clinton, and most of the Democratic party has learned absolutely nothing about elections. Progressives just delivered the house to them, and they’ll toss it all away in a heartbeat to try to coronate yet another wallstreet candidate while trotting out all the same arguments against progressive candidates with slightly different spins (nevermind it failed spectacularly and delivered the nation a constitutional crisis on a golden platter).

Most of the outspoken progressives I know find Biden more repugnant than they did Hillary. If the DNC wants low voter turnout and another disaster on their hands, they’re doing everything right. If not, well… don’t get your hopes up.

Wallstreet Enabling, Skeleton packed closets dont make for good Democratic Candidates in the age of the internet, and until the DNC learns that (and they’d rather throw themselves into the lake of fire than do so), they’re setting the entire republic up for dismal failure.

1064

The DNC is generally an incompetent and ineffective organization. Hillary won the primary in 2016 because most Democrats preferred her. Not because they helped – the DNC’s “help” probably hurt Hillary, because they did it so openly and stupidly. Right now, Biden is leading the polls because a plurality of Democrats appear to prefer Biden. Not because of anything the DNC has done.

I hope Biden doesn’t win the primary (he’s at the bottom of my list among the Democrats running), but he’s not in the lead because of the ineffective, mostly incompetent DNC.

1065

Incorrect. The Democratic House candidates who defeated Republican incumbents last fall were a diverse and disproportionately female group. But ideologically, they were not from the progressive wing of the party.

Bernie’s PAC did put up candidates in the primaries for targeted seats. But they were mostly defeated by “establishment” candidates; and when they did win their primaries, they mostly failed to win in the general election.

The reality is that the progressive wing laid a giant egg last fall, but have decided (as your post illustrates) to simply take credit anyway. They use non sequiturs like AOC to explain the election results, even though her district is overwhelmingly Democratic and was Democratic in the last Congress so therefore had nothing to do with flipping control.

1066

Warning: Rant ahead.

The frustration I’m feeling is from the fact that there are very few 2020 Dem candidates making headlines talking about “lunch bucket” issues right now. We’re not going to beat Trump leading with gun safety, abortion rights, free college/student loan relief, reparations, impeachment cries, climate change/global warming, etc.

Now I fully understand that the primary is the time for candidates to speak to the base and win very specific votes in very specific states. But I think, whether you’re an AA Dem in South Carolina, a white Dem in Oregon, a Latino Dem in California, or something in between, you want a candidate that can beat Trump. And NO ONE believes we’re going to beat Trump talking about Climate Change. Or Abortion. Or Guns. Or even decency. We’re going to beat Trump talking about healthcare, wages, retirement, progressive taxation and other pocketbook issues. That will turn people out in the north, south, east, west, and most importantly, in the Industrial Midwest.

I was really hoping Sherrod Brown would get in because he got it. It’s all about wages, healthcare, retirement, jobs training, middle class tax cuts. I’m all-in 100% on the gun safety, abortion rights, college debt relief, et al. But I’d climb across hot glass to vote for a Democrat over Trump, so it doesn’t really matter what I think.

There’s still a lot of people in the Industrial Midwest that either 1) voted for Trump or 2) didn’t vote in 2016, that we need to (and potentially CAN) win back in 2020. The way we’re going to do that is by making waves on those lunch bucket issues. And those issues are important to people all over the country, not just Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. They’re important to progressives and moderates. They’re important to Latinos, African Americans, middle class, the poor, men, women, young and old. These are the issues that keep people up at night, they’re the issues that really and truly motivate people to get their asses to the voting booth and vote for Dems, especially in the states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa and Ohio. Not guns, not reparations, not abortion, not college tuition, not China, not Korea, not Syria, not global warming. Sure, those things are important issues, but why on earth are so many 2020 Dem candidates grabbing onto these things as they introduce themselves to voters?

Every one already fucking knows that Dems are pro-choice and pro-gun safety! People already get that Dems are the party of Social Justice. But what about Economic Justice? What people don’t always understand is how or if Dems give a shit about working class people. I’m afraid the Democrats are going to, once again, give the other side a thousand reasons to turn out voters against the 2020 nominee (abortion, gay rights, guns, reparations, open borders, free college!), while Trump, once again, blows smoke up ass of the Industrial Midwest with lunch bucket lies.

Point of reference: Cory Booker, who I really was leaning toward and thinking could have been the guy, has made headlines for three things in the past month: Gun safety, reparations, and preventing pregnancy-related deaths among black women. All wonderful things. But all pretty worthless to campaign on in the Industrial Midwest, which the DEM NOMINEE HAS TO WIN TO BEAT TRUMP. I feel like he’s desperately going after the black vote in places like SC, but is defining himself in a way that’s going to damage him in places like suburban and rural Pennsylvania.

Bah. Just wanted to get that off my chest. Now I’m off to dream of an alternate reality where Sherrod Brown is in the race and pulling Bidenesque numbers in the polls.

1067

Jay Inslee is about as bland as they come. He has passion, but he does not project it well. He won the governorship in a state whose last Republican governor was John Spellman, whose term ended in 1985. Perhaps he will somehow light fire under the process (one that does not add co[sub]2[/sub] to the air), but it seems very unlikely.

My feeling is that he is already too old to be elected by the Democrats, who have not put in a president older than Jimmy Carter, at 52, in a century. The rank and file, I think, are looking for [del]fresh[/del] new blood, and the D establishment will be fools to try to counter that.

1068

I agree with this entire post. Except about Sherrod Brown — it’s imperative that the Ds get 50 seats in the Senate, and a Brown Presidency would cost a Senate seat IIUC.

Booker only wants to talk about guns, etc. :smack: Biden just wants to talk about Trump. :smack::smack: And Inslee, a worthy long-shot, only talks about climate change. :smack::smack::smack:

Sigh.

1069

I do agree that young is better for Democrats (but not Buttigieg young). And I was surprised to Google just now and find that Inslee is 68: I would have thought him about a decade younger. But I would turn your assertion nearly on its head: the rank and file, based on polls, seem to love Biden (78 on January 20, 2021), Sanders (79), and Warren (71). The “Democrats have been no older than 52 when entering the presidency” argument is more of a hardheaded, savvy, pragmatic insider-type viewpoint.

1070

Progressives delivered some districts to them, and they made news because of it. Many other Democratic wins were by moderates. I don’t know how many times we have to go over this, but if Bernie had been so strong, he would have defeated Hillary Clinton, particularly in some of the bigger races that came later in the primary season. He didn’t. He couldn’t. He most likely cannot beat Biden either, or even Trump for that matter.

I think Bernie’s impact on the progressive movement will be similar to Ross Perot’s on the right. Perot gave a generation of Republicans the issue of the budget and the debt to talk about; Bernie has made his signature issues key talking points for Democrats. But that doesn’t mean the country wants him or even someone like him to be president.

Well then those outspoken progressives are probably morons, because we’ve seen how stabbing themselves in the eye with a pencil has turned out. I say good - they can just stay home, sit down, and shut up.

1071

Inslee is struggling just to get recognized, which is a shame because being a successful state governor used to mean something, but not in 2020. Ditto for Hickenlooper.

1072

It’s early yet. The candidates are trying to create their own brand, which is the real challenge for the candidates with poll numbers below 5% right now. I think that if Cory can come out of the first two debates with poll numbers above 5%, he could catch fire. He has a very charismatic personality, and just a likeable bloke.

1073

Sharp analysis by Harris, NYT, and Slate. It may prove impossible to stop Biden regardless, but at least we may have reached the end of the stage of the race where all the Democratic candidates keep trying to outflank the others on the left (emphasis mine):

(cue vomit emoji for the progressive wing)

1074

Biden’s selling point in the primaries more than anything else is that he thought by many to be the most likely to beat Trump. Of course he’ll talk about Trump.

Everyone else has to find a way to get attention. Sanders and Warren suck the oxygen out of those wanting attention on a wealth inequality campaign. So they need to claim some other issue as theirs and then with that attention grab other themes as well.

This is not the general, this is a crowded primary race. Messaging for the general can and likely will shift.

1075

One thing that’s interesting to note is the primary schedule itself. Super Tuesday is huge this time, including the states of California and Texas. And I think that’s by design. If you recall last time, some of the biggest races were toward the middle and end of the primary season, which gave Bernie Sanders reason to stay in the race longer, and as some might suggest, create divisions within the party. This time around, it’s easier to deliver a first or second-round knockout.

It could obviously change a lot depending on what comes up in the race, but currently, I envision Biden leading after Super Tuesday, with Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren trailing. Harris would then be a possible natural pick for Biden’s Veep.

1076

Definite possibility. And then she can go for the presidency after being VP. I always thought this made a lot more sense as a way to get a woman as president, to have a female veep first.

1077

According to this NBC News opinion the presence of both Biden and Sanders in the campaign means none of the other candidates has a chance! Anti-Bernie folk are rallying around Biden as the best chance to stop Bernie, while left-wing Democrats will rally around Bernie as the best chance to stop Biden!

By late summer of 2016 it became evident that Hillary was a weak candidate, but it seemed that any post-convention coup would have to appoint Bernie. I fear something similar may happen in 2020 if Biden stumbles, e.g. due to a health problem.

1078

I may be wrong, but I think Elizabeth Warren’s recent surge in the polls is her positioning herself between Biden and Sanders, and I think it’s probably hurting Sanders more at this point. The reason why Sanders’ polling numbers post-Biden’s announcement should worry Sanders is that it is pretty strong evidence that the voters in the Democratic party want to beat Trump more than it wants a socialist revolution. Moreover, Elizabeth Warren may be a satisfactory alternative to Bernie and consequently, may fill up some of that space in the eyes of voters.

1079

In 2016 Carly Fiorina was promoted from the “2nd string” GOP debate group to the main debate after she did well in the 1st debate. The Dems are assigning the guys/gals at random to the groups but it’s possible one of the lesser known candidates does well enough to move up in polls.

1080

Most analyses have Sanders with a narrow range between his ceiling and his floor but I’m suspecting we will see his floor tested more than his ceiling. Recent polling in NHis ominous for him. This is his backyard and it’s Biden 36% to Sanders 18%, with Buttigieg, Warren, and Harris clustered with 6 to 9% behind them. And for second choice its Warren number one, then Harris; Sanders is tied with Biden behind them.

Also interesting is the recent Morning Consult national poll. Second choice of Sanders supporters in Biden by far then Warren. Biden is second choice for the supporters of most candidates (notably not Warren supporters).

No question Sanders is ahead of Warren but the game is also expectations. Those choosing him expected him to be neck and neck if not solidly ahead of Biden. His current second place is such a distant second place that is a failure of expectations and support may sputter as a result, while Warren’s campaign was essentially left for dead within a few weeks of her roll out. Her exceeding expectations may indeed have her becoming the champion of those who want a more progressive standard bearer.

The others need to somehow connect big in an early state poll and crack the double digit mark in at least one of those states to drive the media cycle to them … and so far they are not making those connections.