The Democratic 2020 Field: Early Assessments

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard

The wide Democratic field for the 2020 presidential run is actually a sign of weakness. Since there is little front bench, everyone has a shot. So everyone is taking it.

Joe Biden.

I hear Republicans fear him as someone who could win the working class Trump supporters. But what about the “#MeToo” thing? There are lots of stories. Maybe Trump gets a bye from his supporters, but would Biden?

Even if he does, I think it is bad strategy for a party in opposition to run a candidate too similar to the incumbent. Those who do not like Trump are going to want someone very different. Those who like him will like him better than a facsimile. It makes no sense to me to run a clown against a clown. I doubt such triangulation of candidate personality works.

Bernie Sanders.

He is not doing as well as many expected in the polls. Many thought a couple of years ago he would have the 2020 nomination in a walk, if he wanted it.

I am not surprised, His appeal last time was because he was a dark horse, and so he seemed fresh and new. The Democrats always crave fresh and new. But he has not worn well. People are tired of his mannerisms. It is hard for someone in his late seventies to look for long like a fresh face. He already looks like yesterday.

Elizabeth Warren

Has established herself as utterly insincere, very much in the mold of Hillary Clinton, and keeps reinforcing the impression. Since everyone is tired to tears of Hillary Clinton, she would be a bad choice, and one the Dems are not likely to want anyway.

She would be immensely vulnerable to Trump’s mockery. I’m sure he would love to face her. I doubt the Democrats want to watch that bloodbath.

Beto O’Rourke

The fact that he is suddenly considered a top-tier contender shows how weak the Dem bench is. Being a congressman is not traditionally sufficient qualification. Having just lost a state-wide contest ought to make him look less plausible, not more. If the Dems run him, they are virtually telegraphing “We’re a bunch of losers.”

Many like him because he’s photogenic, and he’s from the South. So’s Lassie.

And so was John Edwards.

Kamala Harris.

I give her the inside track currently for the nomination. She’s young, she’s new, she’s fresh, she’s photogenic, she ticks the special interest group boxes that Democrats love to tick. She contrasts well with old, white, male, macho Trump.

But she’s relatively inexperienced, and yet be defined in the public mind. That makes her vulnerable to some blunder during the campaign which may derail her, like a Howard Dean, a Gary Hart, or a Michael Dukakis.

Cory Booker.

Rumour says he’s an empty suit. He looks and sounds like one.

Hillary Clinton.

She’s been making noises. It would not look pretty on her legacy. How much respect does anyone have for Harold Stassen? She would be crushed in the early primaries. Everyone is tired of the Clintons.

Michael Bloomberg.

He might make a decent showing in the primaries; enough to be a kingmaker. He obviously has the money to make a good run. But he’d be running up the Democrats’ right side, and that does not seem to work for anyone in the primaries since Bill Clinton. The Democrats, to their downfall, are not in a moderate mood. Didn’t work for Jim Webb, didn’t work for Joe Liebermann, even though Liebermann looked like an ideal candidate.

If he won the nomination, in the general, he would not be a clear contrast with Trump. Two New York millionaires, neither of them strongly ideological. He would be a poor choice for the Democrats.

Michelle Obama

Not necessarily a rap against her personally, but this would be over the top dynastic politics after running Hillary Clinton. I think she could make a good run, in the primaries and against Trump, but I hope she does not do it. Now, everyone loves her. They soon wouldn’t if she got her hands dirty in electoral politics.

There are a hundred others, but I have other things to do. Any one of them, given the Democratic party’s love of fresh faces on dark horses, could suddenly pole vault into contention, just as Bernie Sanders did.

But I have my eye on one dark horse in particular:

Tulsi Gabbard.

Rep from Hawaii. Not traditionally qualified, as a congresswoman, but attractive nonetheless. Young, photogenic, ethnic. She just got herself some exposure by writing an op-ed piece accusing her fellow Democrats of religious bigotry for suggesting membership in the Knights of Columbus should disqualify any lawyer from sitting on the bench.

Yes, it has gotten her screams from many Democrats, the K of C having been suddenly declared, like just about everyone else, a far-right hate group. In the words of one leftist condemning Gabbard for her stand, it is “an extreme right-wing anti-choice anti-LGBT all-male organization.” But Gabbard is perhaps protected from the worst of the left by being female and ethnic—she is Hindu—and having aggressively backed Bernie Sanders against Hillary Clinton last time.

And surely there is still a constituency for sanity even in the Democratic Party. It is traditionally the party that the Irish, the Italians, the Hispanics, voted for. It was, more or less, historically the Catholic party, the party that nominated Kennedy and Al Smith. Do they really want to commit suicide by alienating what was historically their largest constituency outside the South?

I think Gabbard may be making a smart move early. She’s triangulating the way Bill Clinton used to; the way he did with his “Sister Souljah Moment.” The Democrats may well be too stupid now to follow her on this, but if not, Gabbard might have a shot with stands like this at uniting the urban elite with the lunchpail crowd and re-establishing the old Democratic coalition.