Post by Old Badger on Apr 28, 2019 17:59:10 GMT -5
Next week the Democrats will stage a two-night extravaganza “debate” with 10 candidates each night. If that sounds crazy it’s because it is: remember how that went for the Republicans in 2016? I have some thoughts on why the GOP attracted 17 candidates last time, and the Dems 24 25 this go-round, but will discuss those in a future post. For now, here's my thumbnail impression of each and their prospects. I’ve ordered them by their current or highest political office.
VICE-PRESIDENT
Most VPs who've ascended to the WH did so by dint of the President dying, or in one case resigning. The last sitting VP to win a nomination was Al Gore (2000), and the last to win the election George H. W. Bush (1988). Before that you have to go back to Martin van Buren (1836) and Thomas Jefferson (1800). Richard Nixon lost as sitting VP in 1960, but came back to win in 1968, so perhaps Biden's hiatus is good news for him.
Joe Biden (DE) – This is Biden's third try, and his best chance ever after bombing in 1988 and 2008. There are people who insist Biden is really smart, especially on foreign affairs, but I have to confess I've never seen it myself. He does come across as a warm guy but sometimes gets a little too "warm" with women, causing awkward squirming for many voters. He has had a tragic family life, which gets him a great deal of sympathy and helps reinforce his down-to-Earth good-guy image. His biggest asset in addition to that is having been Obama's VP, which is helping him with African-American voters, despite his poor handling of the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill fiasco when he chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee and his occasionally tone-deaf comments about AAs and women (e.g., referring to Obama as "articulate" and "clean" in 2008). His high name recognition (98 percent), plus his deep connections to Democratic politicians and donors, makes him the front-runner—but not the prohibitive favorite that Hillary was by a long shot. His support is wide but shallow.
Bottom line: COULD BE THE JEB! OF 2020
CABINET SECRETARY
Serving in the Cabinet has not been a fruitful way to become President since the early years of the Republic, when James Madison succeeded Jefferson and James Monroe followed Madison, both as Secretaries of State. The last former Secretary to win a nomination was Hillary Clinton (2016), the last to win the White House George H. W. Bush, a former CIA Director and UN Ambassador. Herbert Hoover (1928) was the only one to go directly from a Cabinet job to the Presidency.
Julian Castro (TX) – A former Mayor of San Antonio and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Castro has emerged as an a dark horse early in the campaign. He's well-versed on a range of issues, speaks thoughtfully, and could appeal to Latino voters in a way that Beto O'Rourke really can't. To be honest, HUD is not much of a launching pad for the White House; it's a Department that oversees some big, important government programs, but it doesn't generate much publicity except when things go wrong, unlike State or Defense, or even UN Ambassador. A lot of people seem to be thinking he has a good chance of being the VP candidate, one who could mobilize Latino voters and help the ticket in states such as Florida, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and even Texas, which is drifting toward purple territory.
Bottom line: FIRST HISPANIC VEEP?
US SENATOR
Since the end of World War II the Senate has been a productive source of presidential nominees: Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Barry Goldwater, Hubert H. Humphrey, George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Bob Dole, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barak Obama, John McCain, and Clinton all passed through the Senate before being nominated. This likely reflects the expanded role of foreign affairs for the US Presidency over the period, and the Senate's lead role in that area in the Congress due to its sole power to ratify treaties.
Michael Bennet (CO) – A late-comer to the race, Bennet had to wait to find out whether he's cancer-free before joining; this may be a limiting sub-text as the campaign proceeds. Although he was once Denver's Superintendent of Schools, he has not exactly carved out education as a key issue, and in fact is pretty much "another white male face in the crowd" who's trying to succeed in the more moderate lane where Biden is dominant. Moreover, he’s competing with Hickenlooper for home-state support. His biggest claim to fame is a screed earlier this year aimed at the most-hated US Senator: link.
Bottom line: CRUZ -LASHING MAY NOT BE ENOUGH TO STAND OUT FROM THE OTHER WHITE GUYS
Corey Booker (NJ) – Booker seems to be running as The Next Obama, but he’s not really that. True, he often gives the kind of high-minded, if vacuous, speeches that propelled Obama (remember “We are the change we’ve been waiting for”?), but he doesn’t do it with the same suavity, perhaps because he’s a bigger, more muscular-looking guy, more Gene Kelly than Fred Astaire. And the fact that he was Mayor of Newark (my Native City)--always described without compliment as “gritty” because it’s tough--probably works against him, though he deserves kudos for not following many of his predecessors into the hallowed halls of Rahway State, our vaunted correctional institution.
Bottom line: NOT OBAMA II
Kirstin Gillibrand (NY) – Gillibrand was plucked from House obscurity to take Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat when the latter became Secretary of State. Clinton had convinced her not to run in 2004 in a heavily-Republican Upstate district, but instead in the off-year of 2006. It worked, but to do it Gillibrand took a number of positions, such as opposing “amnesty” for undocumented immigrants and earning an A rating from the NRA, that she’s had to reverse. Asked hard questions by reporters on both issues she’s given almost identical answers, beginning with: “I went down to Brooklyn, and…”, prompting Trevor Noah to ask, “What’s going on in Brooklyn?” Lots of Dems still haven’t forgiven her for pushing Al Franken out of the Senate over “harassment” that barely qualifies in the Age of Trump.
Bottom line: CARRYING BROOKLYN WON'T DO IT
Mike Gravel (AK) – OK, I don’t want to be unkind, but Gravel was elected to the Senate the same year I entered the US Air Force, 1969, and lost the seat in 1980, the year Reagan was elected. He once campaigned for the VP slot (seriously), and ran for President in 2008 (un-memorably). He’s 89 and somewhat infirm, enough so that he’s not doing any real campaigning. So, why’s he in this race? Because a few kids, most in high school and ineligible to vote, asked him to front their online issues campaign. He says he knows he’s being used to advance their policy ideas—with some of which he disagrees—but it’s OK, as long as he’s helping them get engaged. I think we can leave him to do this citizenship-building work in peace. At least they won’t force him onto the debate stage.
Bottom line: RIP, MIKE
Kamela Harris (CA) – Harris has been in the Senate for only 2 years, half as long as Obama in 2008. But she’s also been elected Attorney-General of California twice, and was a federal prosecutor before that. That’s given her a perch on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where she’s emerged as the Democrats’ star questioner of Trump Administration officials and nominees for judicial and DOJ posts. Recognizing that many Dems are in a prosecutorial mood vis-à-vis Trump and his herd, she saw an opportunity and seized it. She has gotten trapped into taking more lefty positions than she probably is comfortable pushing (e.g., abolishing private insurance under Medicare-for-All) and has had to walk them back, but she’s emerged as a leading dark horse candidate because of her combination of poise, likeability, and toughness, qualities that have gotten her lots of support among Hillary fans, in particular.
Bottom line: TAKE THE OVER
Amy Klobuchar (MN) – Another candidate trying to conquer the same niche as Biden—moderate, white, working class voters—who really should be doing better than she seems to be so far. One problem is that her announcement was overshadowed by charges from former campaign and Senate staffers that she’s not just a tough boss, but a nasty, unfair one. This would not be great for a male candidate, but not disqualifying, either. But for a woman? Public sentiment is much more harsh for women, as Hillary could tell you. Like Harris, Klobuchar is a former prosecutor; unlike her, she does not have a firewall the size of California (on Super Tuesday, no less) behind her. She does have VP potential, however.
Bottom line: CLASSIC VP CANDIDATE, A MINNESOTA TRADITION
Bernie Sanders (VT) – Bernie’s the Democrats’ Trump: a loud-mouthed, self-important native of New York City trying to crash into a major political party to which he’s never really belonged, and with which he disagrees at least as much as he agrees. He gives lip service to “social” issues, such as immigration and women’s rights, while framing them in terms of his real interest: class politics. Like Trump, he is angry, often with the same targets (“elites”), intent on retribution (Wall Street bankers didn’t go to jail under Obama), and focused on the issues supposedly dearest to the hearts of working-class whites. He has a devoted following, but there’s a ceiling: millions of Hillary supporters never will forgive him for carrying on his campaign after he’d already lost, grousing on live TV through the Democratic National Convention, and largely trashing the party during the fall. He’s not going to win, but he can help Trump a second time.
Bottom line: IT’S NOT THE 1930s ANYMORE, COMRADE
Elizabeth Warren (MA) – There’s a somewhat mistaken idea that Warren and Sanders are tapping into the same left-wing vein. This is not quite right. Whereas Sanders cut his political teeth in left-wing movements and parties, Warren was an academic supporter of laissez-faire economics: "I was a Republican because I thought that those were the people who best supported markets." She switched in 1995 because she believed the GOP had abandoned those principles." Her proposals reflect this. For example, she wants to improve medical care in part by measuring hospitals’ performance, shifting federal funding away from those that do poorly, while rewarding those that do well. If this sounds a lot like G. W. Bush’s failed No Child Left Behind solution for education that’s because it is. Perhaps her background in financial regulation explains the stick-oriented proposals she’s been making across many policy domains, but the track record on this approach is not encouraging. And then there’s that whole Pocahontas trap Trump set for her and she stepped right into—ugh!
Bottom line: NICE TO HAVE PLANS, BUT THEY MAY EXPOSE YOUR WORST IDEAS
US REPRESENTATIVE
While a number of Presidents and presidential nominees have served in the House during their careers, only one has gone directly from that body to a nomination: John Quincy Adams (1824), and it could be argued that he was helped immeasurably by the fact that he was the son of the second President. There usually is at least one who makes a try in an open primary such as this one, but six is an astonishing number.
John Delaney (MD) – Delany’s another businessman—he founded a bank—turned politician who ran for Congress in 2012 when the courts forced a change in district lines that turned his district from solidly GOP to modestly Dem. After winning three times, he seemed primed to run for Governor in 2018, but instead became the first presidential candidate, announcing in July 2017—yes, just 8 months after the last presidential election—and gave up his House seat in the 2018 election. His main themes center around democratic reforms, such as ending gerrymandering, popular vote for President, open primaries. He’s been liberal on issues such as same-sex marriage, but generally is seen as a centrist with a strong interest in bipartisanship.
Bottom line: BEING FIRST IN IS NO GUARANTEE YOU’LL BE LAST ONE STANDING
Tulsi Gabbard (HI) – Gabbard is a…different candidate. On the one hand, lots of “progressives” like that she supported Sanders in 2016, has endorsed a lot of legislation they like, and is a military veteran who opposes US participation in wars and regime change. On the other hand, however, as the first major Hindu (and Samoan) candidate, she’s opposed letting Syrian and Iraqi refugees into the US, criticized Obama for not calling out “Islamic terrorism”, and gotten cozy with Hindu radicals in India. Moreover, she’s gotten financial and other support from some of the leading pro-Russian intellectuals and activists, including favorable coverage on the Kremlin-owned RT Network. She’s also had to walk back some viscous anti-LGBTQ screeds from earlier in her career (she’s now “evolved”).
Bottom line: PUTIN PUPPET II VS. PUTIN PUPPET I IS AN ECHO NOT A CHOICE
Seth Moulton (MA) – Moulton is another Iraq veteran and war opponent—he voted against the 2014 redeployment. He has recruited many other veterans to run for the House, a number of whom were elected in swing districts last year. Although he was one of the organizers of the failed revolt against Nancy Pelosi after the election, in the end he did not challenge her and ultimately voted for her. He’s one of the most moderate Democrats in the House, often voting with the GOP. And he’s made a name for himself by taking on Sanders with this message: “I am not a socialist. I’m a Democrat.” Alas, he won’t get to do that at the first debate because he failed to qualify.
Bottom line: IF ONLY MORE VETERANS VOTED IN DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES
Beto O’Rourke (TX) – It’s a mystery why O’Rourke, having nearly upset Ted Cruz in Texas last year, is running for President rather than taking on John Cornyn. At best the White House is a long shot, but he’s already proven he’s competitive in his home state; and picking up that seat would do more to advance Democratic policy aims than a failed run for the presidency. In any case, he’s more than slightly flaky (think standing on barroom tables to deliver speeches), comes creepily close to Tom Cruise-level weirdness when on talk show interviews, and had to take a hiatus from the campaign to go off and get re-centered or whatever.
Bottom line: STILL TIME TO FILE FOR THAT SENATE SEAT
Tim Ryan (OH) – Ryan actually did run against Pelosi in 2016, but lost, although he did extract from her a promise to give junior Members more of a role in the leadership. He represents the Akron-Youngstown area that previously gave us Jim Traficant. Basically, his pitch is that he can bridge the gap between mainstream Democrats and working-class whites who voted for Trump. Oh, and he wants to imbue us with a greater degree of “mindfulness” (something my blue-collar family never mentioned around the dinner table—and still doesn’t).
Bottom line: IF YOU’RE NOT MINDFUL ENOUGH TO AVOID A FIGHT WITH NANCY PELOSI…
Joe Sestak (PA) – Just entered this week. See post below.
Bottom line: DO NOT PLAN ON ATTENDING HIS INUGURTION IN JANUARY
Eric Swalwell (CA) – A pretty standard 21st century liberal-ish Democrat who also helped establish the bipartisan United Solutions Caucus as a freshman in 2013, and often works across the aisle. His most important claim is as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, which allowed him to appear on “news” channels a lot as the Trump-Russia scandal unfolded. It’s not obvious that the exposure has made him a real contender.
Bottom line: VOTERS ALMOST NEVER PUT INTELLIGENCE FIRST (SEE 2016)
GOVERNOR
For a long time governorships were considered an excellent route to the White House, but between the death of FDR (who rose to the White House from the Governor's Mansion in Albany) in 1944 until the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976, only Adlai Stevenson (1952, 1956) won nomination as a sitting/ex-governor. After Nixon's forced resignation, governors once more became popular: Carter, Ronald Reagan, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney. That only two are running this time is a bit surprising; Terry McAuliffe (VA) was one of those expected to run who decided not to do so.
Steve Bullock (MT) – Bullock is considered a Democratic “centrist” though most of his views are reliably liberal. There is one glaring exception that perhaps explains why he’s running: coal. Montana is a major coal-mining state, and the first state to pull out of the national Clean Power Plan when the Supreme Court stayed mandatory implementation in 2016 (before Bullock took office). He wants the Dems to do more to appeal to rural and suburban voters. His signature issue, however, is campaign finance reform, specifically aimed at mitigating the damage done by the Citizens United decision of 2010. The problem, as even he admits, is that “people don't wake up each day saying, 'Oh, this outside spending is causing me problems.’” Yep, they don’t. It’s a niche issue, and the people who care about tend not to feel warm and cuddly about coal. So, he’s not invited to the first debate.
Bottom line: COAL AND CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM DON’T MIX
John Hickenlooper (CO) – Being ineligible to run for a third term last year, Hickenlooper, who had been Mayor of Denver before being elected Governor, apparently concluded that the logical extension of his executive career was the Presidency. There’s not much that distinguishes him from the 13 other members of the White Male Pack in this race, and he shares his home base with Bennet. He’s mostly a conventional liberal, but it’s worth noting that another governor, John Kasich, apparently toyed with the idea of the two of them on a “unity ticket” before deciding not to run.
Bottom line: MOST VOTERS WON’T GET PAST HIS LAST NAME
Jay Inslee (WA) – Inslee has made climate change the centerpiece of his run, calling it "a clear and present danger" to us all, and comparing it to terrorism. Presumably, an Inslee Administration would declare a War on Climate Change, and fit most policies into that paradigm. That could cause pushback among advocates for other issues, however. Whether Americans are ready to embrace this as the key issue for government is at best unclear; in Washington his ideas lost badly in a referendum—and that’s a blue state.
Bottom line: JOHNNY ONE-NOTES USUALLY LOSE
MAYOR
No one ever has gone from a mayor's office to the White House. Only three (Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland, and Calvin Coolidge) had served as mayors, but those were early offices for them.
Pete Buttigieg (South Bend, IN) – Unlike Hickenlooper, Mayor Pete decided to skip that pesky Governor stage in his executive development, and go directly from leading a city of 102, 000 to leading a nation of 329,000,000. How much of a difference does expanding your focus by 322,000 percent make, really? After all, Pete is a smart guy, full of the latest ideas for fixing lots of stuff, and he’s making a lot of heads spin. Also, he’d be the first openly gay President. Still, as renowned photographer Fran Lebowitz recently explained to Bill Maher, she won’t be supporting Buttigieg because “More people in my building than in South Bend, Indiana.” OK, a slight exaggeration. But is he really ready for this leap?
Bottom line: RUNNING FOR SECRETARY OF HUD?
Bill de Blasio (New York, NY) – At the opposite end of the mayoral scale from South Bend is New York City, home to 8 million, more than all but 12 states, and a more complex governing job that even most of those 12. NYC Mayors from John Lindsay, to Ed Koch, to Rudy Giuliani have tried running for President—none of whom made it very far. At a time when some Democrats are trying to entice Midwestern small-town voters to split with Trump, is the Mayor of New York the right guy to deliver the message? Is he even the right message in NYC: “76 percent of New Yorkers opposed his decision to run,” according to one poll in the city. Another poll, in Iowa, failed to find a single respondent who picked de Blasio—not one. I guess de Blasio figures he has nothing to lose: he’d have a hard time getting re-elected Mayor in 2021, and there’s no obvious alternative since neither US Senate seat nor the Governorship is up in 2020.
Bottom line: NEW YORK, NEW YORK: IT’S A HELLUVA TOWN
Wayne Messam (Miramar, FL) – You likely never heard of Miramar, but at 140,000 population it’s even bigger than South Bend! Messam, a former Florida State wide receiver who got a brief look from the NFL, has been a City Commissioner and now Mayor for the past few years. Apparently, like Mayor Pete, Messam believes that the experience of running a small city, in this case a built-from-scratch post World War II bedroom suburb of Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, is transferable to running the country while dealing with its bigger neighbors, China and the European Union. He won’t get to explain this at the first debate, either.
Bottom line: THE HAIL MARY PASS USUALLY FAILS, AS A WR SHOULD KNOW
NON-ELECTIVE
Only Zachary Taylor (1848), Ulysses S. Grant (1868), Herbert Hoover (1928), and Dwight D. Eisenhower (1952) ever had been elected President without holding an earlier elective office before Trump, but those were three wartime generals and a Cabinet Secretary (Commerce).
Marianne Williamson (Author, TX) – Nothing better sums up the victory of Celebrity Culture over Civic Culture than the rise of Donald Trump to the Presidency…but this one comes close. Having failed as a cabaret singer in 1970s New York, she became enthralled by the Foundation for Inner Peace’s A Course in Miracles, and in the 1990s became a best-selling author of spiritual self-help books, often pushed on Oprah Winfrey’s TV show. After losing a US House race in 2014, she naturally decided to jump straight to the White House now. She says she supports most of the positions of Sanders and Warren, which raises the question: just why is she running, then?
Bottom line: CAMPAIGNS ARE NOT SELF-HELP EXERCISES
Andrew Yang (Entrepreneur, NY) – A tech entrepreneur with a small but dedicated following who has lots of policy positions, including a campaign against male circumcision (there goes the Orthodox Jewish vote!), Yang is best known (to the extent he’s known at all) for advocating Universal Basic Income, a plan to give every American a “Freedom Dividend” of $1,000 a month out of the enormous surplus generated by our economy, even as automation reduces demand for labor. This idea goes back at least to Thomas More in the 1500s, and is used in Alaska to distribute that state’s revenues from oil drilling; a form of it was debated in the Nixon Administration, leading to the Earned Income Tax Credit. Universality means that everyone, from Jeff Bezos to the woman who cleans the toilets at Amazon HQ gets $12,000 each year from the government, which might be a bit of a stretch for some taxpayers; that’s why the EITC phases out as income goes up.
Bottom line: JUST HOW MANY BILLIONAIRE CEO PRESIDENTS CAN WE AFFORD?
VICE-PRESIDENT
Most VPs who've ascended to the WH did so by dint of the President dying, or in one case resigning. The last sitting VP to win a nomination was Al Gore (2000), and the last to win the election George H. W. Bush (1988). Before that you have to go back to Martin van Buren (1836) and Thomas Jefferson (1800). Richard Nixon lost as sitting VP in 1960, but came back to win in 1968, so perhaps Biden's hiatus is good news for him.
Joe Biden (DE) – This is Biden's third try, and his best chance ever after bombing in 1988 and 2008. There are people who insist Biden is really smart, especially on foreign affairs, but I have to confess I've never seen it myself. He does come across as a warm guy but sometimes gets a little too "warm" with women, causing awkward squirming for many voters. He has had a tragic family life, which gets him a great deal of sympathy and helps reinforce his down-to-Earth good-guy image. His biggest asset in addition to that is having been Obama's VP, which is helping him with African-American voters, despite his poor handling of the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill fiasco when he chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee and his occasionally tone-deaf comments about AAs and women (e.g., referring to Obama as "articulate" and "clean" in 2008). His high name recognition (98 percent), plus his deep connections to Democratic politicians and donors, makes him the front-runner—but not the prohibitive favorite that Hillary was by a long shot. His support is wide but shallow.
Bottom line: COULD BE THE JEB! OF 2020
CABINET SECRETARY
Serving in the Cabinet has not been a fruitful way to become President since the early years of the Republic, when James Madison succeeded Jefferson and James Monroe followed Madison, both as Secretaries of State. The last former Secretary to win a nomination was Hillary Clinton (2016), the last to win the White House George H. W. Bush, a former CIA Director and UN Ambassador. Herbert Hoover (1928) was the only one to go directly from a Cabinet job to the Presidency.
Julian Castro (TX) – A former Mayor of San Antonio and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Castro has emerged as an a dark horse early in the campaign. He's well-versed on a range of issues, speaks thoughtfully, and could appeal to Latino voters in a way that Beto O'Rourke really can't. To be honest, HUD is not much of a launching pad for the White House; it's a Department that oversees some big, important government programs, but it doesn't generate much publicity except when things go wrong, unlike State or Defense, or even UN Ambassador. A lot of people seem to be thinking he has a good chance of being the VP candidate, one who could mobilize Latino voters and help the ticket in states such as Florida, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and even Texas, which is drifting toward purple territory.
Bottom line: FIRST HISPANIC VEEP?
US SENATOR
Since the end of World War II the Senate has been a productive source of presidential nominees: Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Barry Goldwater, Hubert H. Humphrey, George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Bob Dole, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barak Obama, John McCain, and Clinton all passed through the Senate before being nominated. This likely reflects the expanded role of foreign affairs for the US Presidency over the period, and the Senate's lead role in that area in the Congress due to its sole power to ratify treaties.
Michael Bennet (CO) – A late-comer to the race, Bennet had to wait to find out whether he's cancer-free before joining; this may be a limiting sub-text as the campaign proceeds. Although he was once Denver's Superintendent of Schools, he has not exactly carved out education as a key issue, and in fact is pretty much "another white male face in the crowd" who's trying to succeed in the more moderate lane where Biden is dominant. Moreover, he’s competing with Hickenlooper for home-state support. His biggest claim to fame is a screed earlier this year aimed at the most-hated US Senator: link.
Bottom line: CRUZ -LASHING MAY NOT BE ENOUGH TO STAND OUT FROM THE OTHER WHITE GUYS
Corey Booker (NJ) – Booker seems to be running as The Next Obama, but he’s not really that. True, he often gives the kind of high-minded, if vacuous, speeches that propelled Obama (remember “We are the change we’ve been waiting for”?), but he doesn’t do it with the same suavity, perhaps because he’s a bigger, more muscular-looking guy, more Gene Kelly than Fred Astaire. And the fact that he was Mayor of Newark (my Native City)--always described without compliment as “gritty” because it’s tough--probably works against him, though he deserves kudos for not following many of his predecessors into the hallowed halls of Rahway State, our vaunted correctional institution.
Bottom line: NOT OBAMA II
Kirstin Gillibrand (NY) – Gillibrand was plucked from House obscurity to take Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat when the latter became Secretary of State. Clinton had convinced her not to run in 2004 in a heavily-Republican Upstate district, but instead in the off-year of 2006. It worked, but to do it Gillibrand took a number of positions, such as opposing “amnesty” for undocumented immigrants and earning an A rating from the NRA, that she’s had to reverse. Asked hard questions by reporters on both issues she’s given almost identical answers, beginning with: “I went down to Brooklyn, and…”, prompting Trevor Noah to ask, “What’s going on in Brooklyn?” Lots of Dems still haven’t forgiven her for pushing Al Franken out of the Senate over “harassment” that barely qualifies in the Age of Trump.
Bottom line: CARRYING BROOKLYN WON'T DO IT
Mike Gravel (AK) – OK, I don’t want to be unkind, but Gravel was elected to the Senate the same year I entered the US Air Force, 1969, and lost the seat in 1980, the year Reagan was elected. He once campaigned for the VP slot (seriously), and ran for President in 2008 (un-memorably). He’s 89 and somewhat infirm, enough so that he’s not doing any real campaigning. So, why’s he in this race? Because a few kids, most in high school and ineligible to vote, asked him to front their online issues campaign. He says he knows he’s being used to advance their policy ideas—with some of which he disagrees—but it’s OK, as long as he’s helping them get engaged. I think we can leave him to do this citizenship-building work in peace. At least they won’t force him onto the debate stage.
Bottom line: RIP, MIKE
Kamela Harris (CA) – Harris has been in the Senate for only 2 years, half as long as Obama in 2008. But she’s also been elected Attorney-General of California twice, and was a federal prosecutor before that. That’s given her a perch on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where she’s emerged as the Democrats’ star questioner of Trump Administration officials and nominees for judicial and DOJ posts. Recognizing that many Dems are in a prosecutorial mood vis-à-vis Trump and his herd, she saw an opportunity and seized it. She has gotten trapped into taking more lefty positions than she probably is comfortable pushing (e.g., abolishing private insurance under Medicare-for-All) and has had to walk them back, but she’s emerged as a leading dark horse candidate because of her combination of poise, likeability, and toughness, qualities that have gotten her lots of support among Hillary fans, in particular.
Bottom line: TAKE THE OVER
Amy Klobuchar (MN) – Another candidate trying to conquer the same niche as Biden—moderate, white, working class voters—who really should be doing better than she seems to be so far. One problem is that her announcement was overshadowed by charges from former campaign and Senate staffers that she’s not just a tough boss, but a nasty, unfair one. This would not be great for a male candidate, but not disqualifying, either. But for a woman? Public sentiment is much more harsh for women, as Hillary could tell you. Like Harris, Klobuchar is a former prosecutor; unlike her, she does not have a firewall the size of California (on Super Tuesday, no less) behind her. She does have VP potential, however.
Bottom line: CLASSIC VP CANDIDATE, A MINNESOTA TRADITION
Bernie Sanders (VT) – Bernie’s the Democrats’ Trump: a loud-mouthed, self-important native of New York City trying to crash into a major political party to which he’s never really belonged, and with which he disagrees at least as much as he agrees. He gives lip service to “social” issues, such as immigration and women’s rights, while framing them in terms of his real interest: class politics. Like Trump, he is angry, often with the same targets (“elites”), intent on retribution (Wall Street bankers didn’t go to jail under Obama), and focused on the issues supposedly dearest to the hearts of working-class whites. He has a devoted following, but there’s a ceiling: millions of Hillary supporters never will forgive him for carrying on his campaign after he’d already lost, grousing on live TV through the Democratic National Convention, and largely trashing the party during the fall. He’s not going to win, but he can help Trump a second time.
Bottom line: IT’S NOT THE 1930s ANYMORE, COMRADE
Elizabeth Warren (MA) – There’s a somewhat mistaken idea that Warren and Sanders are tapping into the same left-wing vein. This is not quite right. Whereas Sanders cut his political teeth in left-wing movements and parties, Warren was an academic supporter of laissez-faire economics: "I was a Republican because I thought that those were the people who best supported markets." She switched in 1995 because she believed the GOP had abandoned those principles." Her proposals reflect this. For example, she wants to improve medical care in part by measuring hospitals’ performance, shifting federal funding away from those that do poorly, while rewarding those that do well. If this sounds a lot like G. W. Bush’s failed No Child Left Behind solution for education that’s because it is. Perhaps her background in financial regulation explains the stick-oriented proposals she’s been making across many policy domains, but the track record on this approach is not encouraging. And then there’s that whole Pocahontas trap Trump set for her and she stepped right into—ugh!
Bottom line: NICE TO HAVE PLANS, BUT THEY MAY EXPOSE YOUR WORST IDEAS
US REPRESENTATIVE
While a number of Presidents and presidential nominees have served in the House during their careers, only one has gone directly from that body to a nomination: John Quincy Adams (1824), and it could be argued that he was helped immeasurably by the fact that he was the son of the second President. There usually is at least one who makes a try in an open primary such as this one, but six is an astonishing number.
John Delaney (MD) – Delany’s another businessman—he founded a bank—turned politician who ran for Congress in 2012 when the courts forced a change in district lines that turned his district from solidly GOP to modestly Dem. After winning three times, he seemed primed to run for Governor in 2018, but instead became the first presidential candidate, announcing in July 2017—yes, just 8 months after the last presidential election—and gave up his House seat in the 2018 election. His main themes center around democratic reforms, such as ending gerrymandering, popular vote for President, open primaries. He’s been liberal on issues such as same-sex marriage, but generally is seen as a centrist with a strong interest in bipartisanship.
Bottom line: BEING FIRST IN IS NO GUARANTEE YOU’LL BE LAST ONE STANDING
Tulsi Gabbard (HI) – Gabbard is a…different candidate. On the one hand, lots of “progressives” like that she supported Sanders in 2016, has endorsed a lot of legislation they like, and is a military veteran who opposes US participation in wars and regime change. On the other hand, however, as the first major Hindu (and Samoan) candidate, she’s opposed letting Syrian and Iraqi refugees into the US, criticized Obama for not calling out “Islamic terrorism”, and gotten cozy with Hindu radicals in India. Moreover, she’s gotten financial and other support from some of the leading pro-Russian intellectuals and activists, including favorable coverage on the Kremlin-owned RT Network. She’s also had to walk back some viscous anti-LGBTQ screeds from earlier in her career (she’s now “evolved”).
Bottom line: PUTIN PUPPET II VS. PUTIN PUPPET I IS AN ECHO NOT A CHOICE
Seth Moulton (MA) – Moulton is another Iraq veteran and war opponent—he voted against the 2014 redeployment. He has recruited many other veterans to run for the House, a number of whom were elected in swing districts last year. Although he was one of the organizers of the failed revolt against Nancy Pelosi after the election, in the end he did not challenge her and ultimately voted for her. He’s one of the most moderate Democrats in the House, often voting with the GOP. And he’s made a name for himself by taking on Sanders with this message: “I am not a socialist. I’m a Democrat.” Alas, he won’t get to do that at the first debate because he failed to qualify.
Bottom line: IF ONLY MORE VETERANS VOTED IN DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES
Beto O’Rourke (TX) – It’s a mystery why O’Rourke, having nearly upset Ted Cruz in Texas last year, is running for President rather than taking on John Cornyn. At best the White House is a long shot, but he’s already proven he’s competitive in his home state; and picking up that seat would do more to advance Democratic policy aims than a failed run for the presidency. In any case, he’s more than slightly flaky (think standing on barroom tables to deliver speeches), comes creepily close to Tom Cruise-level weirdness when on talk show interviews, and had to take a hiatus from the campaign to go off and get re-centered or whatever.
Bottom line: STILL TIME TO FILE FOR THAT SENATE SEAT
Tim Ryan (OH) – Ryan actually did run against Pelosi in 2016, but lost, although he did extract from her a promise to give junior Members more of a role in the leadership. He represents the Akron-Youngstown area that previously gave us Jim Traficant. Basically, his pitch is that he can bridge the gap between mainstream Democrats and working-class whites who voted for Trump. Oh, and he wants to imbue us with a greater degree of “mindfulness” (something my blue-collar family never mentioned around the dinner table—and still doesn’t).
Bottom line: IF YOU’RE NOT MINDFUL ENOUGH TO AVOID A FIGHT WITH NANCY PELOSI…
Joe Sestak (PA) – Just entered this week. See post below.
Bottom line: DO NOT PLAN ON ATTENDING HIS INUGURTION IN JANUARY
Eric Swalwell (CA) – A pretty standard 21st century liberal-ish Democrat who also helped establish the bipartisan United Solutions Caucus as a freshman in 2013, and often works across the aisle. His most important claim is as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, which allowed him to appear on “news” channels a lot as the Trump-Russia scandal unfolded. It’s not obvious that the exposure has made him a real contender.
Bottom line: VOTERS ALMOST NEVER PUT INTELLIGENCE FIRST (SEE 2016)
GOVERNOR
For a long time governorships were considered an excellent route to the White House, but between the death of FDR (who rose to the White House from the Governor's Mansion in Albany) in 1944 until the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976, only Adlai Stevenson (1952, 1956) won nomination as a sitting/ex-governor. After Nixon's forced resignation, governors once more became popular: Carter, Ronald Reagan, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney. That only two are running this time is a bit surprising; Terry McAuliffe (VA) was one of those expected to run who decided not to do so.
Steve Bullock (MT) – Bullock is considered a Democratic “centrist” though most of his views are reliably liberal. There is one glaring exception that perhaps explains why he’s running: coal. Montana is a major coal-mining state, and the first state to pull out of the national Clean Power Plan when the Supreme Court stayed mandatory implementation in 2016 (before Bullock took office). He wants the Dems to do more to appeal to rural and suburban voters. His signature issue, however, is campaign finance reform, specifically aimed at mitigating the damage done by the Citizens United decision of 2010. The problem, as even he admits, is that “people don't wake up each day saying, 'Oh, this outside spending is causing me problems.’” Yep, they don’t. It’s a niche issue, and the people who care about tend not to feel warm and cuddly about coal. So, he’s not invited to the first debate.
Bottom line: COAL AND CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM DON’T MIX
John Hickenlooper (CO) – Being ineligible to run for a third term last year, Hickenlooper, who had been Mayor of Denver before being elected Governor, apparently concluded that the logical extension of his executive career was the Presidency. There’s not much that distinguishes him from the 13 other members of the White Male Pack in this race, and he shares his home base with Bennet. He’s mostly a conventional liberal, but it’s worth noting that another governor, John Kasich, apparently toyed with the idea of the two of them on a “unity ticket” before deciding not to run.
Bottom line: MOST VOTERS WON’T GET PAST HIS LAST NAME
Jay Inslee (WA) – Inslee has made climate change the centerpiece of his run, calling it "a clear and present danger" to us all, and comparing it to terrorism. Presumably, an Inslee Administration would declare a War on Climate Change, and fit most policies into that paradigm. That could cause pushback among advocates for other issues, however. Whether Americans are ready to embrace this as the key issue for government is at best unclear; in Washington his ideas lost badly in a referendum—and that’s a blue state.
Bottom line: JOHNNY ONE-NOTES USUALLY LOSE
MAYOR
No one ever has gone from a mayor's office to the White House. Only three (Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland, and Calvin Coolidge) had served as mayors, but those were early offices for them.
Pete Buttigieg (South Bend, IN) – Unlike Hickenlooper, Mayor Pete decided to skip that pesky Governor stage in his executive development, and go directly from leading a city of 102, 000 to leading a nation of 329,000,000. How much of a difference does expanding your focus by 322,000 percent make, really? After all, Pete is a smart guy, full of the latest ideas for fixing lots of stuff, and he’s making a lot of heads spin. Also, he’d be the first openly gay President. Still, as renowned photographer Fran Lebowitz recently explained to Bill Maher, she won’t be supporting Buttigieg because “More people in my building than in South Bend, Indiana.” OK, a slight exaggeration. But is he really ready for this leap?
Bottom line: RUNNING FOR SECRETARY OF HUD?
Bill de Blasio (New York, NY) – At the opposite end of the mayoral scale from South Bend is New York City, home to 8 million, more than all but 12 states, and a more complex governing job that even most of those 12. NYC Mayors from John Lindsay, to Ed Koch, to Rudy Giuliani have tried running for President—none of whom made it very far. At a time when some Democrats are trying to entice Midwestern small-town voters to split with Trump, is the Mayor of New York the right guy to deliver the message? Is he even the right message in NYC: “76 percent of New Yorkers opposed his decision to run,” according to one poll in the city. Another poll, in Iowa, failed to find a single respondent who picked de Blasio—not one. I guess de Blasio figures he has nothing to lose: he’d have a hard time getting re-elected Mayor in 2021, and there’s no obvious alternative since neither US Senate seat nor the Governorship is up in 2020.
Bottom line: NEW YORK, NEW YORK: IT’S A HELLUVA TOWN
Wayne Messam (Miramar, FL) – You likely never heard of Miramar, but at 140,000 population it’s even bigger than South Bend! Messam, a former Florida State wide receiver who got a brief look from the NFL, has been a City Commissioner and now Mayor for the past few years. Apparently, like Mayor Pete, Messam believes that the experience of running a small city, in this case a built-from-scratch post World War II bedroom suburb of Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, is transferable to running the country while dealing with its bigger neighbors, China and the European Union. He won’t get to explain this at the first debate, either.
Bottom line: THE HAIL MARY PASS USUALLY FAILS, AS A WR SHOULD KNOW
NON-ELECTIVE
Only Zachary Taylor (1848), Ulysses S. Grant (1868), Herbert Hoover (1928), and Dwight D. Eisenhower (1952) ever had been elected President without holding an earlier elective office before Trump, but those were three wartime generals and a Cabinet Secretary (Commerce).
Marianne Williamson (Author, TX) – Nothing better sums up the victory of Celebrity Culture over Civic Culture than the rise of Donald Trump to the Presidency…but this one comes close. Having failed as a cabaret singer in 1970s New York, she became enthralled by the Foundation for Inner Peace’s A Course in Miracles, and in the 1990s became a best-selling author of spiritual self-help books, often pushed on Oprah Winfrey’s TV show. After losing a US House race in 2014, she naturally decided to jump straight to the White House now. She says she supports most of the positions of Sanders and Warren, which raises the question: just why is she running, then?
Bottom line: CAMPAIGNS ARE NOT SELF-HELP EXERCISES
Andrew Yang (Entrepreneur, NY) – A tech entrepreneur with a small but dedicated following who has lots of policy positions, including a campaign against male circumcision (there goes the Orthodox Jewish vote!), Yang is best known (to the extent he’s known at all) for advocating Universal Basic Income, a plan to give every American a “Freedom Dividend” of $1,000 a month out of the enormous surplus generated by our economy, even as automation reduces demand for labor. This idea goes back at least to Thomas More in the 1500s, and is used in Alaska to distribute that state’s revenues from oil drilling; a form of it was debated in the Nixon Administration, leading to the Earned Income Tax Credit. Universality means that everyone, from Jeff Bezos to the woman who cleans the toilets at Amazon HQ gets $12,000 each year from the government, which might be a bit of a stretch for some taxpayers; that’s why the EITC phases out as income goes up.
Bottom line: JUST HOW MANY BILLIONAIRE CEO PRESIDENTS CAN WE AFFORD?