While the ranks of Democratic Presidential candidates swell seemingly on a daily basis, the two big elephants remain slightly outside the room. Both men have been acting like Presidential candidates pretty much since Hillary wrapped up her concession speech, but still have yet to formally announce.
Any ideas what’s going on here? Granted, they both have name recognition and large bases of supporters, so it’s probably not hurting them to declare late in the way it would a more obscure candidate. But it seems they might be making things at least slightly harder for themselves by allowing the field to expand. If Bernie had hit the ground running around Thanksgiving, for instance, does Warren even bother running? Do Klobuchar and Booker decide to wait until next time if Biden gets in early? If both of them are running, is anyone talking about Sherrod Brown?
Is it possible that one or both of them might actually be undecided about running? If not, why the delay? Is it a tactical decision, and if so, is it likely to work out well for them?
There’s little gain for them since they already have name recognition, as you mention. Declaring early means they have to catch flak from Trump, the GOP and its sympathizers for a longer amount of time. Pre-emptively discouraging long-shot candidates is probably not a priority compared to being left alone to prepare until they’re ready. As soon as they declare, every little slip-up will get magnified several fold.
That comes with the ability to raise funds as well, though. It’s not much of a big deal for Sander. He is currently leading on money available for the 2020 Democratic primaries as of campaign finance reporting through the end of December. He’s got $9.1 million in his Senate campaign fund and $4.7 million leftover in his 2016 Presidential campaign. Both can be legally transferred to a 2020 Presidential campaign. He can also legally raise funds through his Senate campaign committee so that’s one less pressure to declare.
Full disclosure: everybody on this forum knows I despise Sanders. There’s a couple of things that I think maybe be holding Sanders back right now. First, there were allegations of sexual harassment during his 2016 campaign. Second, this is going to be a very wide field and he simply won’t get the kind of coverage that he knew he’d get in the very narrow 2016 field. If he was running in 2016 to bring attention to his issues, that simply won’t happen with such a large field. Thirdly, he’s got to know that Clinton treated him with the most gentle kid gloves possible, especially after the delegate math fell into her favor after Super Tuesday. That won’t be happening in 2020.
With Biden, he seems to be the ultimate Hamlet. My money says he doesn’t run, the guy first got into office in 1972 and his first two presidential runs were flops. He also hasn’t been particularly active on the cable and Sunday news shows and you’d expect that of a potential candidate.
And Biden has to know that the world he’s living in now—when at least 90% of mentions of him are warm and approving and admiring—will change radically if he runs.
He won’t be ‘good-old Uncle Joe’ anymore. He’d become ‘the guy Democrats have rejected time and again’ and ‘the really old guy’ and ‘gaffe-guy’ and much, much, much worse.
He may ultimately want to live out the rest of his life as The Loved One. (And who could blame him?)
Biden is also clocking serious dollars on the speaker circuit. He’s a sudden millionaire at 72. Maybe it’s time to work on the golf game and his Trans Am rather than a Presidential campaign. He hasn’t really made a lot of “I might run” moves, has he? Other than reported private conversations where he’s said that he is the best shot the Dems got.
Plus, he is already 76 years old. When I am that age, I am going to spend time spoiling my grandkids and yelling at other kids to get off my lawn. To take on the responsibility of being President of the United States at that age would be very taxing. It would be taxing for a 35 year old. I can’t imagine someone wanting that responsibility at that age.*
*I mean to get into it. I understand that Reagan continued his service past that age and Trump, if elected to a second term might, but to start, when one has other choices seems to be silly to me personally.
I like Bernie Sanders and I hope he does run. I think he might not if there is a better, younger candidate that has the same policies that he supports that he can endorse, but I’m not going to speculate on any candidate just yet.
He would have to either: run as an independent which most people would hate since it could split the democratic vote and Trump wins again - OR - He registers as a Democrat again, which most Democrats would hate because it looks opportunistic. I think he would hesitate to register as a Democrat again because of the Debbie Wasserman-Schmidt/DNC fuckery where they did their best to rig the primary so Hillary would win. I hope Tom Perez is above all that next time around. Hillary pretty much bought the DNC in 2016. Some folks think Bernie was too slow to endorse Hillary after he lost the primary, I’m surprised he endorsed her at all. (just for the record, I’m not insane, I voted for Hillary in 2016).
Then there are people who equate the bad behavior of the Bernie Bros with the man himself which to me is just plain wrong. Same with the sexual harassment allegations, he didn’t even know about it, but apologized anyway.
Some folks believe the crap that Trump is spouting about Socialism and equate his policies with Venezuela, that’s wrong too. Bernie is what they call a Democratic socialist, and the policies he wants is more in line with how Scandinavian countries are run.
No, but putting all partisanship aside, I would be concerned about a guy stepping into the oval office to start at age 78. He would complete his first term at age 82. If you are looking for a guy to do the customary two terms, he would be 86 when he finishes.
Not to be macabre, according to the stats, it is very likely that he could become severely ill and/or die in office, especially with the added stress at that age. Of course, none of us are guaranteed another minute on this earth, but why inject a probable succession scenario into the mix?
I have no doubt that elderly people can still be active in their communities and do great things even late in life, but we are talking about the demands of being President. I don’t care if he is Abraham Lincoln or George Washington. I would have serious concerns for the age reason alone.
Now’s not a great time for Biden to announce anyways; he recently had a pretty bad news cycle when people heard that he took money to campaign for a republican in 2018. With any luck that, and the subsequent “bipartisanship” nonsense coming out of his mouth, will dissuade him from running.
Then there’s also the matter of not making the mistake of presenting candidates “annointed” on the basis that “it’s their turn”. Which this time around *would *apply to Sanders on his wing. Let *both *the New Leftists and the Neoliberals each side churn up their pool to see who among them can step forward as a proper standardbearer with the kind of message the people need to hear.
If the concern is that such a process will leave the Party wounded, than that would seem to me to mean there’s a problem with the Party. What bigger trainwreck than the GOP race in 2016, and in the end they won where and when it counted.
Calling it a “bad news cycle” sort of overstates it. So does “campaign for a republican” - it was one private speech. I can see it being a point he has to address in the primaries but this was not really big news.
As a person moving forward in time rather than backward, I’d love to be able to say “age doesn’t matter” about the Presidency. It would be satisfying to cast aside limitations and denounce bias–ageist bias definitely exists, and is often a great injustice.
But I can’t really say that about the Presidency. I tend to agree with what you’ve written here—though I’d reserve the right to feel differently about a different candidate. It’s possible that some ‘young for his-or-her age’ candidate might appear, but frankly, I just don’t think that description applies to Biden.
I don’t think that Sanders wants to compete with Warren: Their platforms are very similar, and he’d rather see his platform implemented under someone else than fall apart from factional disputes.