There are no permanent friends and there are no permanent enemies in politics. There are just temporary alliances that serve as a means to an end. That is how leftists should view the candidacy of Joe Biden when deciding whether to vote for him in November. I have decided that I will vote for Biden, it was not easy.

Joe Biden will be a bad President if he gets his way. He has a policy record nearly a mile long full of war authorizations, working class attacks, and mass incarceration. He is not going to meaningfully compromise with the left, there has been nothing in his long political history to suggest that he will. The party platform doesn’t matter, and his campaign concessions don’t matter, they will disappear after he wins. We’re not going to end up with the kind of society we were fighting for, not this time. The left lost this one, there isn’t a real positive way to spin that. There were insurmountable odds in regard to uniformly negative media treatment, outside party pressure to coalesce around anyone but the left front runner, and an electorate that ultimately cared only about electability and thought the left was a risk despite polling better than every liberal alternative save for Joe Biden. However, losing is still losing and there are now millions of voters who are unsure how to move forward, which will be of enormous consequence in the 7 states which will decide the presidency.

Here’s a question for my fellow friends on the left, “do we want to start winning?” If the answer is yes, the choice must be Joe Biden. That’s not going to be a popular answer, but I’m going to do my best to explain myself.

Joe Biden represents a rapidly decaying, unpopular, irrelevant ideological framing that is clearly in its death throws considering the left defeated 23 candidates representing it and would have defeated 24 if not for the party stepping in to save Biden. Meanwhile Donald Trump represents the beginning of an ideological revolution already seen in US Senators like Josh Hawley. The New Right is adopting the language of working class movements and has allowed its rhetoric to become increasingly anti-elite while pushing a policy that is aggressively conservative on immigration and civil rights. Which will be easier to defeat when the time comes and will do less immediate damage? It’s Joe Biden and neoliberalism. The danger of the New Right is so profound and under examined that we cannot risk it’s further legitimization with a Trump re-election.

As Cornel West said, we have to form an anti-fascist electoral coalition. It will not be a happy task because of the genuine disagreements many of us have with Biden on nearly every policy issue. In some cases, I truly believe his solutions will make our world worse, not better. However, I don’t subscribe to the acceleration mindset that is present in some leftist circles. I don’t believe that it’s in the best interest of anyone to allow the system to become as dysfunctional as possible in the hope that the working class will achieve the class consciousness to finally stand up to industry and party elites. I understand the logic, but there’s several reasons I find it dangerous and irresponsible.

First, the revolution just might not happen that way. Things may get bad or just downright terrible and the working class may simply just learn to live with less as we always have, and a more unimaginable cruelty will become the new standard of living. We may be resigning ourselves to a generation or a century of unrealized opportunities because we mistakenly believed that the powers that be which have actively suppressed the working class would suddenly become allies because the Right won.

Second, and this a more philosophical question, but just how much guaranteed suffering are we comfortable inflicting to prevent hypothetical suffering? We know to a great extent what happens if the right wins. There will be an even more enormous transfer of wealth to the rich from the poor. Civil rights will be rolled back for ethnic minorities, religious minorities, the LGBTQ+ community and women. Climate change will be ignored and there will be hostility towards socialist governments. So, it’s a pretty enormous gamble to suggest that by strengthening the right by giving it access to power that the locked-out left will win. I don’t know that we’re organized enough to win against an animal that is admittedly much smarter and much more politically savvy than the liberals in the Democratic Party who we still lost to.

Finally, if there was any real chance that the New Right was sincere, would act on their populist rhetoric, and actually unite with the left on the few things we agree then that’d be one thing. Josh Hawley for example talks a pretty good game about cracking down on Google and increasing worker wages. However, Donald Trump has been President nearly 4 years now and the time for compromise has come and gone and come and gone again and each time the New Right became more extreme and further removed from anything resembling populism. They are not serious about supporting the working class, they are enemies of working people and only play lip service to our economic anxieties. They are co-opting ideas and language to create a coalition broad enough to enact their actual agenda. Joe Biden is also not a consistent ally, but at the very least he isn’t duplicitous in his true intentions. We know what we’re dealing with and that matters.

I know some of you are thinking “Well what about the Green Party?” and I understand the question. Clearly the Democratic establishment has a deep antipathy towards the left and resents us for questioning why we shouldn’t expect better. There’s obviously an urge to thumb our collective noses at the party and refuse to support a nominee we feel was foisted upon us. Believe me, I get it. Here’s what I don’t get; is the Green Party serious about doing anything except making it easier for Republicans to become President? Because if they were serious about providing an actual left-wing alternative for voters, that would be a noble and respectable goal. However, there does not seem to be an effort to build any actual left-wing political party that can compete in municipal, state, or federal races. There are 0 greens in the US House, 0 greens in the US Senate, 0 greens in Governors mansions, 0 greens in state houses, 0 greens in state senates, just 1 mayor and a smattering of assembly people or trustees to a fire protection district. The Green Party is not serious about politics; they’re serious about publicity stunts including running for President with no intention of winning or even organizing in a serious way. The Green Party isn’t worth anyone’s time.

You might also be thinking, as I did, why not just leave your presidential ballot blank and only vote down ballot. In 2016 despite organizing hard for Hillary Clinton, despite Bernie Sanders holding over 37 events for Hillary Clinton, and despite more Bernie voters supporting Hillary than Hillary voters supported Obama 8 years earlier…she still lost and the left received all the blame. If Biden loses we will get all the blame and if he wins we’ll receive none of the credit. However as with Mrs. Clinton, a Biden loss would not cause the party to become introspective. It would lead the party to double down on an ineffective ideology while simultaneously attempting to strangle the left. The party again will be obsessed with beating the other guys by any craven means necessary as opposed to creating positive policies that will make people’s lives better. Yes if Biden wins, truly awful people will once again have direct access to power. However, those same people have that access now and will retain it win or lose, but hopefully what changes for us is a fever break in the fear that grips Democratic voters that will allow us to be bold on policy next time.

I understand believing there is not an affirmative policy case for Joe Biden. He opposes Medicare-for-All. He opposes marijuana legalization. He opposes the Green New Deal. He is conservative in his outlook and without imagination. I don’t dispute that; I agree with that analysis without objection. However, the few places that he is not bad, not good by any means but devoid of Trump level cruelty, are important.

A bipartisan consensus exists on DACA and would likely succeed with the narrowest possible senate majority. Biden would sign DACA, Trump would not. That makes the difference for 700,000 Dreamers. It’s not nearly enough for them, but it is life changing.

Joe Biden paved the way for Clarence Thomas, something he regrets but we should nonetheless resent him for. Donald Trump appointed Brett Kavanaugh and will appoint other conservative activists. The Supreme Court is at stake, it shouldn’t be, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg unnecessarily put this country at risk by not retiring in 2014 while Democrats had a Senate majority; but here we are. There are also federal courts and US Attorneys and decades of precedent that could be upheld, rewritten, or tossed out. The ACA, which is a dysfunctional and inadequate attempt at moderate healthcare reform, only exists because of a single swing vote. Medicare-for-All will never come to pass with a Trump judiciary. Biden’s picks will not inspire us, but they will support an eventual leftist agenda when the time comes.

Finally, it’s important to acknowledge the credible allegations of sexual assault against Joe Biden. I believe Tara Reade and I believe Joe Biden should be investigated. This is no different than the Kavanaugh allegation right down to the reporter. I believe Joe Biden should be disqualified from the presidency; I believed that about Donald Trump too yet nonetheless he became President. As a country we are going to have to grapple with what it means to have two accused sexual assaulters competing for the Presidency. It’s disgusting and survivors of sexual abuse certainly deserve better than Trump or Biden. There’s nothing to add beyond that, there is no “defense” or “vote for the rapist with better politics”. If the allegations against the candidates are a bridge too far for you, that is perfectly reasonable and let nobody convince you otherwise.

What the left is fighting for is not about one Joe Biden or even Donald Trump. It’s about defeating the forces that created Joe Biden and Donald Trump. It’s about long term goals for this society and moving the ball forward anyway that we can, understanding that this struggle came before us and will continue once we’re gone.

I’m voting for Joe Biden. Not because I support him or what he believes in. Voting for President in states like Missouri has become a purely symbolic act, it just won’t matter in the end. But symbolism does matter and eventually Donald Trump won’t be President and we’ll be able to take a long distance view of the damage he’s done to our country. I want to be able to say I opposed him in every way possible. I protested, I organized for unions, I organized for criminal justice reform, I donated to organizations doing good work in places I can’t go…and I voted in opposition. We should still demand things of Biden and his eventual administration should he win. We should get even more serious about persuasion and political organizing. We should rethink electoralism and find new ways to achieve our policy goals. Those are all necessary things for the future, what is necessary now is defeating the New Right by voting for Joe Biden. In an election with no good options, we have to fight to prevent the worst possible outcome.

The post The Left Case for Joe Biden appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Whenever anything unexpected happens, there are unintended consequences. Such is the case with the coronavirus and its impact on American politics. Rallies are out, and for good reason. Whoever heard of a rally in which supporters had to comply with six-foot social distancing rules?

Debates without audiences are in. No more pandering to the audience; no more interruption of the natural exchange of ideas because some in the audience has to have their “Whoo” moment.

This is unintended good news for those among us who see ourselves as political introverts, or perhaps those who are not admitted political introverts, but prefer to keep their distance.

There are various terms used to describe introverts. One is “quiet.” Who thought that they would ever get to experience Bernie Sanders with the decibel knob turned down? (Well, I was wrong about that, based on the Sunday, March 15 debate with Joe Biden).

But with the “present normal” of politics, and not withstanding Bernie, we are less physically assaulted by sound waves.  More of his energy can go into putting together thoughtful sentences rather than edgy slogans.

This is an excellent time for all of us to consider how we wish to be approached by those running for office. The Coronavirus has put the plug on rallies. It will be interesting to see if politicians can scale down their intensity and connect with voters in a way that is so vitally needed in these difficult times.

This story is cross-posted on the Political Introverts website.

The post Odd, but Coronavirus Brings Good Karma for Political Introverts appeared first on Occasional Planet.

After Super Tuesday it seems clear that the Democratic Establishment learned a valuable lesson from the Republicans after 2016. You can’t beat an insurgent candidate with a divided field, which necessarily means some candidates are gonna have to take one for the team. That’s what happened in the hours leading up to the grand event when moderates like Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg ended their campaigns to rally around their fellow moderate Joe Biden. The result was what you might expect, Biden picked up the lion’s share of those votes which equaled narrow plurality wins in Texas, Minnesota, and Maine. This was a result that we should’ve been more prepared for and if we think about the Democratic Party as an institution it makes sense.

Democrats are the party of government; they respect its legitimacy to have authority and believe that it can be used as a tool to improve people’s lives. Republicans are the anti-government party; they believe that the private sector is often more effective than government and in fact government limits liberty not increases it. The media watched the Trump phenomenon in awe and believed they recognized something universal in the American voter, an abiding anger at the system as well as a desire to disempower it. This was only reinforced when Donald Trump exceeded all expectations to become President of the United States defeating a candidate who was well financed and well credentialed but nevertheless the human manifestation of Washington. So, the logic went, populism overtook an established political party once so therefore it can happen again.

But what that fails to understand is that Democrats are not Republicans. Democrats have not been primed in the same way for a generation through media and mainstream politicians to have the same distrust of the status quo and our institutions in the way that Republicans have. Some Democrats have, those on the left have been skeptical of our institutions since before Vietnam but they are a minority. Therefore, a candidate running against the systems, systems that most Democrats still fundamentally believe in, was going to have very limited upside. That is unless a disproportionate amount of independents with the same skepticism were drawn into the process. It remains to be seen if that will happen, but so far Democrats are showing that they believe the problem is the Republicans and not any kind of institutional failure. That’s what Biden is running on, that the government isn’t functioning because of Republican obstructionism but it used to work before, and it can work again if Republicans do the right thing. Of course, that erases the experiences of several different communities including but not limited to Blacks, Latinos, indigenous people, and of course most people not identifying as straight or male. Nevertheless, so far it appears to be a winning message because it is consistent with a century of ideology.

But while we’re speaking about ideology, it seems to be more complicated than policy. It also seems to be wrapped up in culture, and if were being completely honest Sanders is the counterculture and Biden is the mainstream. Often the counterculture wins in the long term, but it is still the counterculture and does not win in the immediate term. This is fine if we’re talking about political movements, but it is not ideal for presidential campaigns who need to win elections as they happen. You may be familiar with the “beer track“ and “wine track” analogy used in politics, where beer candidates are authentic outgrowths of the working class while wine candidates appeal to a more suburban educated voter. In most parts of the country, save for areas with more Whole Foods and Nordstrom’s than low income housing, the beer candidate wins. This dynamic plays out fairly regularly in general elections, on occasion two wine track candidates face off and the incumbent tends to fare better. But rarely do two beer track candidates face off which is what is happening with Biden and Sanders. Twenty years ago, perhaps Biden and Sanders would fight to a draw or Sanders would be narrowly favored. However, the Democratic Party is witnessing a rapid change in its coalition to include scores more of traditional wine voters, many former Republicans, and they are wielding their influence. The choice is Sanders who is openly contemptuous of the kind of inequality that wine voters have been able to take advantage of and don’t see as inequality versus Biden who has wine voter sympathies while speaking the language of the beer voter. Wine voters and many beer voters seem to have decided on Biden, the results of that decision will have enormous consequences.

There are a lot of voters with Biden in spite of his policies not because of them. Voters aren’t necessarily with what Biden is saying, but how he says it. Sanders is attempting to combat a problem not totally related to policy with a policy argument. That’s probably not going to work because it hasn’t already, Biden has a very long and very problematic policy history hat is public record. As a Sanders supporter it’s difficult for me to say this, but if you can’t defeat Joe Biden with his many failures of policy and presentation, then it’s hard to imagine you defeating Donald Trump who is a much more capable competitor. Of course, the party and the media and donor class have put up countless roadblocks, but that was always going to happen and Sanders experienced it first-hand 4 years ago so he should’ve been prepared. If Sanders wants to win, if he can win, he will need to stop expecting the party to come to their senses. Sanders is going to need to attempt to talk in ways outside his comfort zone. Sanders has clearly won the party on policy, but ironically not on himself. It is going to be necessary to thread the needle on exposing more voters to what is wrong with the system while proposing a more positive, perhaps less caustic, way forward.

There’s a long way to go until July and many votes to be counted, anything could happen. But there’s a lot of history working against Sanders that he should attempt to understand because that will be pivotal not just for his prospects as a candidate but the overall success of his movement.

The post Why Bernie was always a longshot appeared first on Occasional Planet.

It never occurred to me until recently that the Democrats might have a candidate who generates something akin to the blind loyalty of Trump supporters.

Yes, I knew that Bernie supporters were fervent, but I did not fully sense how many in his base follow the mantra of “Bernie or Bust.” My awareness of this increased in recent days, first when my thirty-six-year-old niece said that she had switched from Elizabeth to Bernie because she was so impressed with the energy and commitment of her peers’ support of Bernie. It was not the transitory type that Elizabeth had, but rather more of the “to-the-very-end” type that Bernie has. Later, another relative told me that much of her life was on hold while she was immersed door-knocking for Bernie in her home state of California, which wisely this year moved its primary from June up to Super Tuesday (March 3).

It is hard to imagine Joe Biden generating deep loyalty and, as good as Pete Buttigieg might be, he seems to have a knack for saying things that gratuitously piss other people off. If Amy Klobuchar gets the momentum that she has earned and deserves, then she may too develop followers who will go to the mat for her.

But as things stand now, Bernie is the one Democrat who has something akin to a cult following, one in which it is virtually impossibly to pry away supporters. Does that sound familiar? Well yes, the fact that Donald Trump’s popularity with his base actually increased during the impeachment process shows two clear things: (1) it is virtually impossible to get his base to waver, and (2) these things called facts don’t mean a whole lot, if anything, to his base.

This is where there is a fundamental difference between the Bernie Cult and the Trump Cult. There is a rational foundation to why Bernie has such a strong following. We can see it in two dynamics:

1. 1. Bernie’s policies are based on reason and empathy. Trump’s are based on insecurity and fear. Bernie wants to finish the work on the social and economic safety net for Americans that Teddy Roosevelt began, his cousin Franklin Roosevelt institutionalized, and Lyndon Johnson expanded. But the United States is unlike other industrialized democracies because there are enough Americans who resent the idea of “security for all.” For an excellent explanation why, I suggest reading Nikole Hannah-Jones’ 1619 Project in the New York Times Magazine. In a nutshell, it is that many white Americans do not favor extending equality to people of color and other minorities. It might be helpful to watch a recent guest appearance of Hannah-Jones on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah.

1. Unlike Trump supporters, Bernie supporters will not give their candidate a blank check to do whatever he wants. While Trump is all over the map, Bernie is consistent, perhaps to a fault. What you see is what you get. In fact, what you see is essentially what you’ve seen from him for the past forty years, with the one exception of gun control, where in his early years he [had to] pander to his gun-loving Vermont constituents. Bernie’s supporters’ commitment extends beyond him personally and stretches to the concept of a fair and just society. If he should waver in his commitments, his base would begin to unravel. If Bernie was one percent as corrupt as Trump, he would offend many in his base, and they would likely leave the reservation.

Last Friday evening, Bill Maher said on “Real Time” that Donald Trump had just had his finest week (in terms of popularity). Maher and others are becoming more scared that the dreaded “four more years” might happen.

The conventional wisdom is that the Democratic Party does not have a candidate who can go toe-to-toe with Trump. I don’t believe that. I think that the intensity of Bernie’s base support gives him a far stronger foundation than other Democratic candidates. Should it become likely that he will win the nomination, the fervor of his support could grow exponentially. It will have to, because the nastiness of his opponents will also multiply. While I have my reservations about Bernie (I don’t like being yelled at), I still think that he is our best bet (along with possibly Klobuchar).

Jim Jones, David Koresh, Marshall Applewhite, these are the cult leaders who can scare anyone who has the ability to engage in rational thinking. Trump may not have reached their levels, but he’s scary and unhinged. But perhaps in this unique moment of 2020, we have a leader who has a semi-cult following who wants to truly improve the quality of life for Americans and all global citizens. It’s odd that things have developed this way, but for the time being, we may want to go with our “semi-cult leader,” Bernie.

This post is cross-published on the Political Introverts blog.

The post Will 2020 be a battle between a rational cult (Bernie) and an irrational one (Trump)? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

There aren’t that many perks to attending a school in northeast Missouri. The winters are bitterly cold, there seem to be more tornadoes, and the nearest calzone is several counties away. I suppose if you like soybeans and Casey’s pizza then this place has all that you could ever want, but for St. Louis natives like myself we’re often left wanting. But if you count yourself among the politically engaged then there’s no place you’d rather be because just a short drive north of campus is the cradle of political civilization, Iowa. Every 4 years the political universe finds its center in Des Moines at the Iowa State Fairground and this August I decided to experience it first-hand. So, I woke up at 6AM and got in my car and began the 2-hour drive to Iowa.

For those unfamiliar, the Iowa State Fair is a political tradition during campaign season and has been visited by candidates for President dating back to Eisenhower. Currently the newspaper of record, the Des Moines Register, hosts an event called “the soapbox” where candidates are allotted 20 minutes to present their ideas to a crowd of onlookers. The event isn’t just covered by Iowan press but also by national outlets like the Washington Post, NBC, Fox, and even international media. The Iowa State Fair is an 11-day event that attracts over 1 million people (only 3 million people live in Iowa) and is an enormous undertaking. The candidates for President are spread out across different dates but they themselves are not the major draw for most attendees as the fair has so many different attractions. Ask yourself, would you rather spend 20 minutes with John Delaney or a deep fried twinkie on a stick? The question answers itself.

The drive through Iowa was rural to say the least, I frankly lost count of how many horse and buggies I passed. I was unaware at how beautiful the landscape was and how comparatively flat Missouri is, Iowa has lush rolling green hills which was a nice change of pace from the all too familiar hundred miles of row crops on I-70. It’s important to note that I’ve never attended a county fair let alone the Missouri State Fair, so I truly didn’t know what to expect because up until that point my largest festival of any kind was “Taste of St. Louis.” So, when it began to rain hard as I approached my highway exit, I figured that my drive had been for nothing and the fair wouldn’t open, but I didn’t account for the persistence of Iowans or the sheer scale of the event.

The first thing you notice when driving into Des Moines is all of the campaign signs. On the day of my visit Iowa was a full 176 days away from the caucus so everything seemed somewhat…premature.  We’re not just talking about your expected Biden, Warren, or Sanders signs either we’re talking about a very prominent “Tim Ryan 2020” which was surreal. There were people in shirts handing out literature for Joe Sestak (yes, the Joe Sestak who lost to Pat Toomey in a Pennsylvania Senate race 9 years ago is running for President) and there’s a man on a lawn chair waving a homemade Tulsi flag at the cars waiting to enter the fairgrounds. It’s very reminiscent of a college tailgate actually, right down to people with signs in their grass offering to let you park on top of their child’s slip in slide for cheaper than you’d pay to park at the fairgrounds. There were not so surprisingly a lot of takers for off street front lawn parking as the line to get into the fairgrounds was several city blocks long. After waiting for about half an hour in line my car was rushed into the fairgrounds by a team of volunteers who were parking what seemed like a dozen cars a minute and there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of rows of cars requiring a shuttle for people parked at the furthest expanse of the greenspace now turned parking lot. Thinking about the rain earlier, I’m not sure that an approaching tornado could’ve cancelled the fair.

The first candidate to speak was former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld who you’ll remember from 2016 as he was the other half of the doomed libertarian ticket lead by Gary Johnson. At the time Weld was the only Republican challenger to President Trump but he has since been joined by Mark Sanford of Appalachian trail fame and Joe Walsh, a favorite of “resistors” despite his unabashed racism and Trump support as recently as last July. Again, despite how the media presents it, the political element of the Iowa State Fair is not the largest draw and so it’s not in any location of particular prominence that is easy to find. You can tell a lot about people by looking at what they value and while the soapbox was in some less obvious location of the fair, there was something prominently displayed…the butter cow. The butter cow is the stuff of legends, it is a 600-pound sculpture made of butter which is often accompanied by additional butter sculptures ranging from John Wayne, Elvis, and this year Sesame Street (and a working television set). The butter sculptures are housed in the agriculture building, which is furnished by prize winning crops, blue ribbon corn, the largest pumpkin (over 700 pounds!), and so on. Meanwhile the political soapbox is stationed outside the administration building, it’s a little raised stage with a couple hay bales on top for full Iowa effect and it’s across from novelty fair food stands. Not a whole lot of pomp accompanies the soapbox, just a few folding chairs next to the stage for people willing to show up early and rows and rows of press gorging themselves on fair food while sweating in the heat waiting for the next candidate to arrive (and they do wait, sometimes hours in between speeches).

After visiting with the butter cow, I made my way to the soapbox and I passed the WHO 13 corn kernel polling outfit where all the candidates had their pictures and an attached mason jar for fairgoers to “Cast their kernel” to signal support. Only 4 candidates had broken double digits, Biden, Buttigieg, Warren, and Harris in that order. Some jars were more popular than others, Marianne Williamson and Mayor Wayne Messam had only gathered a handful of kernels. It was unclear whether the voting was for anyone at the fair or just Iowans, but I left a kernel in Bernie’s jar and kept moving towards the soapbox. I made it to Bill Weld during the middle of his remarks and the crowd was…small to be polite. For reference on the GOP side, Trump had 97% of the kernels to Weld’s 3%. Ouch. Watching Weld was a lot like watching Morning Joe in the sense that I was seeing a Republican who was very mediocre in his presentation given an outlet simply because he loathes Donald Trump. Weld repeated the usual lines we’ve come to expect from NeverTrumpers, Russia this and Deficit that but there was a point when Weld lost the audience. On a question about gun control Weld said that he didn’t support universal background checks, a broadly popular position even in Iowa, and he was booed by the crowd to the amusement of the bored press forced to cover his speech. After Weld left the stage an assortment of characters presented themselves who would continue to reappear throughout the day. The first was an older gentleman in a sleeveless camouflage shirt wearing a trucker cap who was weirdly belligerent and seemed to have been at the fair for multiple days. He approached the press requesting to be interviewed and his question was the same “why do the Democrats have to disrespect our president?” There were also a group of young women wearing shirts for a non-profit related to Alzheimer’s research who occupied a block of seats and asked every candidate about Alzheimer’s research funding. Finally, there was an unnamed Democratic Party county level official with an overinflated sense of importance who talked as if he was the king-maker of Iowa politics and every candidate, including Barack Obama, owed their fortunes to him.

When Weld stopped speaking the rain stopped which probably isn’t a good omen for his campaign. I had a few hours to kill before the next candidate spoke, so I decided to embark on trying fair food. There were hundreds of food stands, some of them franchises and many serving similar items but there were some unique experiences that I have to share. First was the deep-fried bacon wrapped rib on a stick which was probably as close to a religious experience that any of us can hope to experience on Earth. Next was the classic fair food, the deep fried twinkie which was covered in powdered sugar and drizzled with chocolate sauce. Then there was a Canadian import, poutine which is French Fries sprinkled with cheese curds and served with hot brown gravy. Finally, there was the apple eggroll from Applishus which can only be described as everything you love about apple pie with the handheld mobility of an egg roll complete with cinnamon caramel dipping sauce. When I finished eating and exploring the fairgrounds it was time for the next candidate to speak, Tom Steyer. Money can’t buy you happiness, but it seems to be able to buy you one hell of a campaign organization because Steyer arrived with some fanfare to the soapbox. The type of swarm that surrounded him was unexpected given the fact that he’s polling in the low single digits nationally and I’d almost forgotten he was running.

Before he spoke a woman from the Des Moines Register gave a very practiced speech that she would repeat a number of times throughout the day. She told the audience to be “Iowa Nice” which was obvious code for “shut the hell up when the candidate is talking” and she also requested that we keep our signs down if we had any. Steyer walked out and gave an impassioned speech about the threat of climate change and the importance of defeating Donald Trump. He saved time for questions, much of which was eaten up but the Alzheimer’s group and the sleeveless wonder defending Trump’s honor. Then as quickly as he appeared, he was then gone again, disappearing behind the administration building to the press scrum to be questioned. The main event had yet to arrive, waiting through this cast of background characters in the 2020 was a formality for myself and many fairgoers who were waiting for the late afternoon when Sen. Bernie Sanders would speak. But admittedly I was disappointed at the day thus far. No of course I wasn’t going to vote for Weld or Steyer, but I would like to be heard and ask a question and so far, the opportunity had presented itself, perhaps because at every event I wasn’t directly in the candidates eyeline. Therefore, I resolved myself to be heard so I decided I was going to wait the 90 minutes between Steyer and the next candidate to make sure I got a prime position.

The next candidate to speak was Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado who had amassed a very large crowd but likely not because Iowa is Bennet country but rather directly following his remarks Bernie would take the stage. Bennet looks like what would happen if a company market tested what people think a politician should look like and then they created him in a lab. Bennet came with wrangler jeans and a blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the standard uniform for a politician running for office. He was the first candidate I saw to bring his family; he brought his teen daughters and wife who stood at the side of the stage watching as Bennet spoke. He placed one leg on a hay bale and began to speak and although I’m no fan of Bennet I will say that he had the best delivery of the day so far. Then came the questions, I raised my hand and to my surprise we locked eyes and he pointed to me. Then some of the cameras pivoted to me in the crowd and the pressure was on and I knew that I needed to ask him about healthcare. So, I asked him about Medicare-for-All and why he opposes it and wouldn’t his plan for a public option necessarily lead to means testing. It was clear that he did not appreciate the question, nor did he appreciate the positive audience response. At first, he tried to deny that his plan would lead to means testing and for some reason that answer in addition to having the crowd on my side lead me to heckle him. He said it wasn’t means testing I yelled “Oh yes it is!” and then he said he said Medicare- for-All was dangerous and I yelled “Says the guy with a government healthcare plan” and when he said that he appreciated what Bernie brought to the debate my comment of “Well drop out and endorse him!” got the crowd laughing and Sen. Bennet started to get worked up. At one point he was basically screaming into his microphone and the crowd of onlookers just looked dazed as he wrapped up his remarks.

Then the main event arrived. A plane flew overhead with a banner that said “Sen. Joni Ernst…WHAT THE FLOOD? – League of Conservation Voters” and there was pandemonium in the street. There were suddenly thousands of people, some hanging in trees, others banging makeshift drums, there was a sea of red MAGA hats yelling into the crowd, screaming throngs of college students, and an army of young frazzled volunteers handing out signs to the roaring masses. Then in the distance there was the sound of a hundred cameras shuttering all at once, a ball of mass slowly working its way through the crowd and in the middle just barely visible was a tuft of uncombed white hair. It was Bernie.

Bernie couldn’t stop moving or else he would’ve been swamped and perhaps he would’ve never made the stage. He didn’t stop for pictures and people reached out their hands to touch him and he let them often grabbing hands but there were always more coming at him in a constant stream, the scene reminded me of old pictures of Bobby Kennedy out on the trail. The Bennet people were quickly pushed out and Bernie’s people were hustled to the soapbox area. Bernie stood next to his wife Jane, both peering out at the massive crowd that stretched out in all directions while they waited for the woman from the DMR to finish her “Iowa nice” speech. When she did, he took the stage and there was an audible boom from the crowd and chants of “Bernie!” with signs waving and horns blasting, the rules of Iowa nice abandoned for the Senator from Vermont. The crowd took a long time to be settled but they followed Bernie’s remarks closely, on time for every applause line and with a vigor that is usually reserved for rock stars. Bernie spoke straight for 20 minutes about healthcare, the environment, wages, and the fundamentals that his campaign has been built around. He didn’t take a single question and the crowd didn’t care, when he began to leave the stage the crowd rushed behind the building scrambling to get into the press scrum which had been roped off in anticipation of the crowd reaction to Bernie. Hundreds of people lined the area behind the cameras clamoring for a chance to see Bernie up close, they stood quietly as to not interrupt their candidate during his interviews but there was a hum among those gathered.

Finally, the candidate finished his interviews but whether it was because of the heat, a prior engagement, or the daunting task of giving time to so many enthusiastic supporters, Bernie simply waved said “Thank You!” and left the fair. There wasn’t a person standing who wasn’t a little disappointed they couldn’t meet Bernie, but they still chanted his name as he walked away. It was truly unlike anything I’ve ever seen. After some time, the crowd dispersed, and I thought very briefly about staying another hour to listen to New York Mayor Bill deBlasio but that wasn’t a particularly appealing idea, so I decided it was time to call it a day. I left the fair, but I haven’t stopped thinking about it. There was something charming about the entire experience that I would recommend to everyone regardless of their political engagement.

I’ve often questioned whether Iowa ought to be the first in the nation primary. After all it is much whiter, older, and rural than the rest of America. There are states that are certainly more representative of not just America but the Democratic electorate, like Illinois or New Jersey. But there is value in Iowa, to win it you need more than name recognition or money, you need visibility and a strong field program. Developing those things can help a candidate win a national election and if you can’t do well in Iowa, you probably don’t have the campaign skills to become President. With bigger states and lower-information electorates, it might be enough to just buy $50 million dollars of TV ads. But with Iowa candidates must go to union halls, VFWs, churches, rotary clubs, universities, people’s living rooms, and engage every part of the electorate. That’s good and it gives underdogs the chance to compete. Without Iowa we may not have known the strength of Barack Obama or the weakness of Hillary Clinton or have ever seriously changed the political debate with Bernie Sanders. Iowa encourages candidates to remember the grassroots and see voters as something other than numbers, and the Iowa State Fair for all its wackiness is an important part of the process.

The post I Went to Iowa So You Don’t Have To appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Now that Bernie Sanders is officially in the 2020 Presidential race, all of the old criticisms about him have resurfaced. Here are my responses to 11 of them:

1. “He’s not even a Democrat.”

Sanders has raised literally millions of dollars for Democratic candidates for local, state, and federal office. Sanders campaigned for Barack Obama extensively after he clinched the Democratic nomination in 2008. Sanders has had his legislation co-sponsored (and often co-opted) by several major candidates currently running for President. Sanders has voted against the Trump agenda more often than 42 current Democratic senators and 1 independent, meaning only three senators have voted against Trump more often.

Also, is it simply enough to be a Democrat? Are we seriously making the argument that we’d rather have Joe Manchin as our nominee, as opposed to Sanders, simply because Manchin has a D behind his name? Most serious people wouldn’t argue that, because we understand that it’s policy that matters. Sanders has been supporting Democratic causes and candidates even when much of the party establishment has chosen not to support him.

2. “He divided the party in 2016. Hillary lost because of his supporters.”

Somewhere between 6%-12% of Sanders primary voters ended up supporting Donald Trump in the general election. That’s inexcusable given that the differences between Trump and Sanders were much more significant than the differences between Sanders and Clinton. That said, about 25% of Clinton primary voters ended up voting for John McCain over Barack Obama in 2008. Sanders actively campaigned for Clinton after the convention and his supporters almost uniformly got behind her during the general election, albeit begrudgingly. After the election, Sanders went on a literal unity tour across America with DNC Chairman Tom Perez.

Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 because of a mix of outside circumstances including a poorly timed letter from the director of the FBI, but also because her campaign had a fundamental misunderstanding of the electorate.

3. “He took time from Stacey Abrams’ State of the Union response.”

Bernie Sanders didn’t upstage Stacey Abrams. If anybody upstaged Stacey Abrams it was Kamala Harris (who is also running for President), who decided to deliver her remarks before Abrams. Which is especially bad when you consider that Harris actually is a Democrat and therefore didn’t have any real ideological reason to have her own response. Sanders gave his own response to the State of the Union for last year, too, and this year he waited to deliver his remarks until after Abrams concluded hers. He even began his remarks by praising Abrams, saying “let me thank Stacey Abrams for her extremely effective response. Now, we all know why she would have been a wonderful Governor of Georgia.”

4. “He shouldn’t be running when we have so many other qualified candidates who are women and people of color.”

I’m sensitive to this argument because I was especially disappointed that Barack Obama was succeeded and Hillary Clinton was defeated by the human manifestation of racism and misogyny. I want to see a woman elected president, and I recognize what that would mean for the history of our country. It is truly amazing that we have several experienced women seeking the presidency, and two of those women are minorities. But let’s be clear, it would be disrespectful if we elevated a candidate or placed them under special consideration because of the color of their skin or their gender.

Every candidate has a long record we can look at to understand their vision for America, and we should not minimize any candidate’s accomplishments to their cultural identifiers. I believe Sanders is the best candidate because of his policy ideas, and that’s the only responsible way to approach this primary. Anything else will lead to a further debasement of our politics.

5. “He voted against the Brady Bill, and he didn’t have an F rating from the NRA,”

Bernie Sanders did in fact vote against the Brady bill a number of times, and very early in his career he held a fairly moderate stance on gun regulation, a position that is very much out of step with today’s Democratic party. However Sanders has had a much more progressive record on guns over the last decade and the president of the Brady campaign has said that Sanders is not a “gun lobby lapdog” and has shown evolution in his positions.

Over the last few years, Sanders has voted to ban assault weapons, ban high capacity magazines, and to strengthen the national instant background check system. Sanders has maintained an F rating from the NRA for several years. Democrats have been willing to forgive prosecutors with fairly conservative records, like Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren, who was literally a Republican, and ultimately that’s a good thing. We should encourage our politicians to evolve and end up on the right side of the issues.

6. “He voted for the omnibus crime bill in the 90s, while criticizing Hillary for supporting it.”

An important provision of the crime bill that is often missed is its inclusion of the Violence Against Women Act. When Sanders was explaining his vote for the bill at the time, he specifically referenced his opposition to mass incarceration but his support specifically for the VAWA. Sanders said, “I have a number of serious problems with the crime bill, but one part of it that I vigorously support is the Violence Against Women Act. We urgently need the $1.8 billion in this bill to combat the epidemic of violence against women on the streets and in the homes of America.”

Throughout his tenure in the house and senate, Sanders has opposed bills that were presented as “tough on crime.” Of course, Hillary Clinton’s support of the crime bill was specifically because of its “tough on crime” approach, as was true for Joe Biden and many other Democrats at the time.

7. “He has no accomplishments.”

Here is an entire article about Sanders’ long list of accomplishments. This is from 2016 by the way, since then we can add “introduced Medicare-for-All into mainstream political thought,” among other things.

8. “He’s just too old to be President.”

If Bernie Sanders were to be elected President of the United States, he’d be 79 on inauguration day. Admittedly, that’s not especially young, in fact it’s historically old. But are we arguing that people should stop contributing to society once they reach a certain age? When do people lose their value and ability to participate? Is it at 80? Is it at 75? Is it at 70? That’s a hard question to answer (although for some people I’m sure the answer is “however old Bernie is at any given moment”).

The fact is that Sanders is a unique candidate, and his credibility on many issues is unique to him. So while it might make us more comfortable to have a younger candidate, there is nobody in political life today who has the record of Bernie Sanders.

9. “He’s not electable.”

We don’t know who is and who isn’t “electable.” For example, Donald Trump didn’t poll within 3 points of Hillary Clinton until September 2015. We think we know a few things about Presidential elections. The first is that incumbent Presidents typically have the edge when it comes to re-election. The second is that the public perception of the economy matters less than the actual state of the economy. The final thing is that Presidents who get re-elected typically pivot to the center to broaden their base as Reagan, Clinton, and Obama did after suffering midterm defeats.

Trump being an incumbent works in his favor, however he seems to be a fairly weak incumbent. While it’s true that a few Presidents have suffered worse approval ratings by this point in their term, no President in the history of polling has failed to even once achieve majority support from the voters as Trump has. The economy should in theory work in Trump’s favor, consumer confidence is as high as it’s been since the Clinton boom years. However again Trump isn’t a normal President, with several objectively good economic indicators Trump’s handling of the economy is only approved of by 49% of voters. As for pivoting to the center to broaden his support, declaring a national state of emergency over the southern border suggests that Trump will continue to play to his shrinking base. All of this is to say, it’s still very early but it’s easy to imagine a scenario where most Democrats would be able to defeat Donald Trump.

10. “His campaign was connected to Russia, just like Trump’s.”

Vladimir Putin hated Hillary Clinton. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that he used his cyber-power to weaken Clinton wherever he could, first during the primaries and then during the general election. The difference between Sanders and Trump however is that it seems that members of the Trump campaign (and perhaps Trump himself) were aware of these efforts and actively sought the support of Russia to defeat Clinton. The Mueller team has been diligently investigating Russian collusion during the 2016 election, and up to this point, no members of the Sanders team have been indicted.

Sanders, unlike Trump, has been willing to criticize Putin and his actions in Syria, Ukraine, and his human rights record in Russia. The US Intelligence agencies said it best: “We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.”

11. “ I just don’t like him.”

This is fair. Maybe you’re not supportive of lefty policy ideas like Medicare-for-All, or free 4-year public college, or the Green New Deal. Maybe you don’t like the style of Sanders or some of his more toxic supporters. Maybe you’re still hurting over 2016, and despite knowing what you know, can’t forget what happened during the primaries. All of that is fair. However, if Bernie Sanders is our nominee for President, then in order to defeat Donald Trump it’s gonna be necessary to come together and support him. A similar message has been preached to the left since before Nader ran against Gore in 2000, and now it’s your time to accept that for the greater good you might have to support what you consider to be “the lesser of two evils.”

Our most important goal must be defeating Donald Trump and down ballot republicans in 2020.

The post 11 tired criticisms of Bernie Sanders appeared first on Occasional Planet.

When 28-year-old, first-time, Latina candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pulled off a stunning primary upset against 10-term Democrat Joe Crowley in New York, it was cause for celebration. At least that’s how I saw it. But, apparently, I had a different reaction than that of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill.

Pelosi downgraded Ocasio-Cortez’s surprise victory calling it a random outlier and saying, “It should not be viewed as something that stands for everything.” And McCaskill, asked what she had in common with Ocasio-Cortez, said, “Not much.”

I view these dismissals of Ocasio-Cortez as both offensive and counter-productive. I can’t understand why leaders of the Democratic party aren’t celebrating the success of a candidate who is doing precisely what the Democratic party should be encouraging: coming off the sidelines, getting engaged in politics, putting herself on the line for progressive ideas—and representing the exact demographic that the party needs to move forward and to regain its mojo.

Well, actually, I think I do understand why Pelosi and McCaskill are distancing themselves from Ocasio-Cortez, but the reasons aren’t  pretty. It’s all about the internal politics of the Democratic establishment. Ocasio-Cortez knocked off a big name, a party insider who was on the short list to replace Pelosi as House Minority Leader [or possibly majority leader, if the blue wave actually hits in November]. The party elite had a succession plan—it was Crowley’s “turn”—and now Ocasio-Cortez has messed up the pre-determined order of things. That’s a no-no.

I’m afraid, too, that Ocasio-Cortez also carries with her—in the narrow view of the Democratic party apparatus—the “taint” of being an organizer in Bernie Sanders’ bid for the Democratic nomination in 2016. His candidacy was viewed by the party power elite as an insurgency, an assault on democratic centrist orthodoxy, and a threat to the prescribed order of things, in which the presidential nomination rightfully belonged to Hillary Clinton. They’re still mad about that, apparently, even though Sanders’ ideas remain popular–as demonstrated by Ocasio-Cortez, who describes herself as a Democratic Socialist, like Sanders. So, while America retreats into the 19^th Century on social and economic issues under Donald Trump, the Democratic party seems to be re-litigating its 2016 internal battle between Bernie-ites and Clinton-ites—and taking it out on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

As the party of Trump increasingly moves to the right, espousing radical, retrograde ideas that were once too extreme to talk about in public, it’s clear to me that the Democratic party must offer a choice as the party of the progressive ideas that have made life in America better for a wide range of people. They should be standing up for the New Deal ideas that Republicans, in their current orgy or power, are assiduously tearing down, day by day, one by one.

Democrats are not going to win by pandering to the right—as McCaskill did in her dismissive comment delivered on a conservative, St. Louis-based talk show. [Question: Would she have said the same thing on MSNBC?] Hasn’t the Democratic party learned that we can’t out-Republican the Republicans?  Democrats need to go left, as Ocasio-Cortez did—and won doing it. Instead of putting Ocasio-Cortez down and downgrading as a “fluke” a victory that should be seen as an energizing event, they should be asking her for advice.

Pelosi, McCaskill and other higher-ups in the party hierarchy are wishing for blue wave in November. They’re desperate to find strategies that will increase voter turnout, especially among younger voters. So, here’s a candidate who has the potential to do exactly that,  who may be a role model for others, and whose improbable victory could offer an object lesson in the perils of complacency. Dissing her is just plain dumb.

The post Pelosi, McCaskill dis Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after she beats entrenched NY Dem. WTF? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

There’s nothing particularly sexy about what’s happening above the radar in Democratic politics. Primaries for Congress and states don’t start until well after the calendar flips to 2018, so the bitterness and nastiness is only being planned rather than revealed. The campaign professionals remind all candidates of the motto of Emily’s List: Early Money Is Like Yeast.

So, t ’is the season to receive the invitation to all the fund-raisers. Somewhat akin to the way in which Republicans have flag-flation at public events, Democrats have diarrhea of the name-dropping at their semi-secret fund-raisers. I recently received an invitation to a fund-raiser for a state senate candidate which had over one-hundred co-hosts. Even though I ran for Congress twice in a district that includes that state senate district, I was extremely honored to not be on the list of the hosts, and in fact, to never have been asked.

You see, names are the currency that precede the dollars when it comes to fund-raising. Well, more accurately, they are the teasers to get big bucks. For those who are part of the Bernie donor base (average $27 a pop), they really don’t care who else is giving, or what their titles are, or where their kids go to school. They just want to support a candidate who will do their bidding for them and all they expect in return is that the candidate will honor their faith. They don’t care about getting their names or photos splashed all over the place.

Last time I checked, the winners of elections are normally determined by who gets the most votes, not who raises the most money. There are plenty of candidates who were successful in filling the coffers but not pleasing the voters.

I was very disappointed when I saw several months ago that California Democratic Senator Kamala Harris, a 2020 presidential hopeful, was making inroads with the Democratic Donor Base. My fear was that she would follow the footsteps of Hillary Clinton and remove herself from her natural base while spending her evenings and nights offering plastic smiles and insincere promises to the folks with big bucks.

While it is essentially true that all big donors come from the wealthy, the reverse is not true. It’s surprising how many wealthy people are not political donors. If a candidate wants to be inclusive and address the interests of the wealthy, he or she can do so without dialing for their dollars. It has been repeatedly shown that moving people out of poverty and improving the living standards of those in the middle class is beneficial to the wealthy – primarily because more money is in circulation.

So even while it is true that to achieve a more just and fair economy and society, the wealthy will have to sacrifice in the short-run, in the long-term it will probably help them.

It is essential to recognize that over 97% of households with income over $200,00 do not make donations of $2,700 or more to political candidates. When we’re talking about donations to Democrats, the number is closer to 99% of wealthy people who do not.

Ninety-four percent of the population of the United States lives in households with incomes less than $200,000. That’s where the votes are. That’s how Bernie Sanders did so well.

There are many wealthy Americans who are not ostentatious. Their political views are largely private, or at least devoid of large donations.

Democratic candidates can be inclusive of the wealthy if they are willing to be honest. It’s much easier to do that with someone from whom you are not asking for money.

Democrats who insist on sucking up to the donor class will always be at risk of the disconnect that befell Hillary Clinton. They can raise money and win if they have compelling arguments for the natural constituencies of the Democratic Party. It is time to diminish the role of the Democratic Donor Base in the groupism fabric of the Democratic Party. Candidates are more likely to win more and feel good about it.

The post Dems: Let’s try politics without the donor class appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The race for the 2020 Democratic nomination began at 11:30 PM, November 8^th, 2016 when the networks projected that Donald Trump would carry the state of Florida. Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and New Hampshire were all still too close to call. Hillary Clinton was not going to be President, and one has to wonder what was going through the minds of Democratic governors, senators, congresspersons, and business leaders across America. At first maybe there was anguish over the loss, but there must’ve been a bitter-sweetness to it all. Dozens of Democrats had been sidelined by Hillary Clinton in 2016, and expected to wait until 2024 before looking at the White House. But now President Trump provided them an opportunity that another President Clinton couldn’t have.

A previous article mentioned 44 possible democratic contenders for 2020, but if that number sounds ridiculously large to you, that’s because it is. If you recall in 2016, at one point there were 17 candidates vying for the GOP nomination, but sources listed up to 55 possible candidates. Of course, all of those people didn’t run, but even if they did, just because a candidate runs does not mean they’re likely to secure the nomination. George Pataki, was never going to win the Republican nomination. As for the Democratic side, something tells me people were not exactly fired up about Lincoln Chafee.

In a previous piece we devised a metric for measuring not necessarily who is the Democratic front runner, but who in a vacuum should have a better than average chance of being nominated. Listed below are the seven most likely Democrats to be nominated, not according to any particular poll or bias of mine, but according to their scores. I don’t agree with a few potential candidates who have earned top spots, but I’ll explain their attributes and potential weaknesses nonetheless. You can find my article explaining these scores here.

1. Tammy Duckworth (Senator from Illinois 2017-): If Duckworth ran, she’d be an interesting foil. Voters already have a largely negative view of President Trump, but his lowest rated moments were the mocking of a disabled reporter and his attacks on the Khan family. Duckworth is both disabled and a veteran, so assuming Trump is Trump, that could serve as a boon for her potential campaign. Like Barack Obama, Duckworth is a senator from Illinois, and would still be in her first term if she decided to run. Duckworth has relatively few questionable donors, and her largest contributor is EMILY’S List which works to elect pro-choice female candidates. Duckworth is currently rather unknown, but so was Barack Obama at this point in 2005. Her greatest strengths as a candidate are her age (which would provide a stark contrast to the aging Trump) and her confidence but lack of arrogance.
2. Keith Ellison (Deputy DNC Chair, Rep from Minnesota 2007-): In theory Keith Ellison could be a tremendous candidate. He is from a swing state (Clinton won Minnesota by less than 2 points), he is fiercely progressive, he’s relatively young, he represents the diversity of the party, and he’s well versed in the issues. But in Trump’s America, and frankly in Obama’s America, I doubt that a Muslim candidate could win the presidency let alone the nomination of a major political party. If Ellison weren’t a Muslim, I think it’s also conceivable that he’d be DNC Chair. However nearly 4 in 10 voters say they couldn’t support a Muslim candidate, it’s unclear if Ellison can overcome that much prejudice. His greatest strengths as a candidate are his progressiveness and age.
3. Michelle Obama (Former First Lady of the United States 2009-2017): When I was scoring the candidates, this was very unexpected. I love Mrs. Obama, most Americans do, but I do recall another former first lady’s presidential bid not resulting in a landslide victory. Michelle Obama however has none of the baggage of Hillary Clinton, but she also lacks the political experience. If she ran there’d critics would decry dynasty politics and elitism, and perhaps those critics would be right. That said, Michelle Obama has high name recognition, is reportedly to the left of her husband on most issues, and seems to be more genuine in her emotions than he was capable of being. Mrs. Obama, assuming her potential campaign could survive the first primaries, would likely benefit from high turnout among African-Americans who came out in record numbers for her husband in 2008 (who nearly swept southern black voters). It’s not unreasonable to foresee a scenario where either Mrs. Obama runs for governor of Illinois in 2018, or she starts publicly challenging the President on policy issues and she garners legitimacy among democratic voters. Her greatest strengths are her age and the level of comfort she has in her own skin.
4. Elizabeth Warren (Senator from Massachusetts 2013-): If there is one person on this list who could have defeated both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in 2016, it’s Elizabeth Warren. Democrats tried to draft her to run, she refused, and ended up not endorsing Bernie Sanders before Super Tuesday (a move that is still unforgiven by many in progressive circles). I would argue that might’ve irreparably hurt her star power, had it not been for the fact that she’s stayed active in opposing the Trump Administration. The Democratic party doesn’t have a face as of yet, but being shut down by Republicans while trying to read a letter from Coretta Scott King and her being racistly branded as “Pocahontas” by the President, have made her even more of a household name. If Warren runs, she’ll be viewed as the establishment friendly progressive. Which is to say that she Sanders-lite, liberal enough to satisfy most Sanders voters but not a socialist enough to scare away Clinton donors. Her greatest strength is her progressiveness and her psychological fitness.
5. Sherrod Brown (Senator from Ohio 2007-): Brown has a net approval rating of 23 points in a state that Hillary Clinton lost by 8 points. Brown was against TPP before it was fashionable, and as early as March 2015 Brown was saying “Why not, at some point Medicare for the whole country? It’s simpler”. Brown is a rust belt progressive with a voice like steel wool and hair like Rand Paul, which might be endearing if not for one thing. Brown is not a young man, he’ll be 67 in 2020, but if the enthusiasm young voters had for Bernie Sanders is any indication, that might not be as much of a disadvantage as it once was. Brown, more than any other candidate, has the potential to win back Obama-Trump converts and perhaps the Bernie or Busters because of his authenticity and his history of fighting for the working class. Brown’s greatest strength is his progressiveness and his abundance of confidence and lack of arrogance.
6. Al Franken (Senator from Minnesota 2009-): I want Al Franken to be President, full disclosure. I think he’s underrated and he’d be the best nominee we’ve had since Jimmy Carter, save Barack Obama. Now, Franken has only recently made himself more visible in the Senate with his intense questioning of Trump’s nominees, Jeff Sessions in particular. Franken is progressive, not as much as Elizabeth Warren or Keith Ellison, but nobody will be accusing him of being a “neoliberal shill”. Franken also is very funny, and that is something that Trump lacks and voters want. In my totally biased opinion, the funnier candidate has won in every election since 1992 (Ross Perot was genuinely hilarious). Franken’s greatest strengths are his psychological fitness and his lack of questionable financial ties.
7. Kamala Harris (Senator from California 2017-): If I had to guess who will be the next President of the United States, I’d probably pick Kamala Harris and I’d probably be right. Unlike with Rubio, when people draw parallels between her and Barack Obama they actually exist. If I know former Bernie supporters, and I do because I am one, she’s going to run into a lot of trouble for her connection to the establishment donor base and her perceived political opportunism. Harris does have the unfortunate habit of creating a minor political moment and turning it into a desperate fundraising email that same day, so maybe the political opportunism is real but no more extensive than any other democrat. That being said, her greatest strengths other than her age, is that she is progressive.

Some articles have suggested that there are front-runners: Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Joe Biden, and others. But I’m not so sure there is a front runner at the moment, it’s important to remember we are as close to the first debates of 2019 as we were to the debates of 2015. This time last cycle, the conventional wisdom was that Chris Christie and Jeb Bush were the GOP frontrunners. So, with that in mind, take my estimations and of others with a grain of salt.

Notable Absences & Discrepancies

1. Bernie Sanders (Senator from Vermont 2007-): Let me briefly address the elephant in the room. Bernie Sanders won 13 million votes in the 2016 primaries after being ridiculed as a fringe candidate, he greatly influenced the platform, he’s maybe the most popular Democrat in America, and I think it’s probable that he would’ve outperformed Hillary Clinton. But Bernie will be nearly 80 by 2020, and say what you will about it being ageist to bring up his age, but voters care. Bernie’s behavior after the New York primary when it was clear he was going to lose, and his commentary on the election didn’t behoove him. So, he’s lost some points in the “Confident but not arrogant” category. I love Bernie and even if he’s right on the issues, he lost the primaries decisively (I know, Hillary had the party establishment behind her) and he shouldn’t presume to be the face of the party. All things considered, I think the window for Bernie to be a viable candidate has passed.
2. Joe Biden (Vice President of the United States 2009-2017): Perhaps Joe Biden doesn’t remember his 2008 campaign for President, but I do, it was a spectacular failure. Biden consistently failed to poll outside of the margin of error, he was gaffe prone, and he ended up with an abysmal 1% in Iowa. Biden if he were to run wouldn’t suffer from name recognition or gaffes (we love the gaffes now), but he comes with baggage. Biden has family baggage, his son’s affair with his dead brother’s wife might not play so well. Biden has political baggage, he represents the old Democratic Party of Obama and Clinton, and the new progressives won’t be eager to elevate that after our devastating loss last year. Biden also has financial baggage because he and Hillary have the same questionable donor base and connections to big money. So as much as I love Joe, I don’t know that his potential campaign could withstand media attention and progressive activists.
3. Bill DeBlasio: Why does Bill DeBlasio, an older white man, have such a relatively high demographic score? DeBlasio’s wife is a black former lesbian, they have two biracial children, and together they are a perfect representation of the melting pot. Interracial couples are rare in the political world and I think DeBlasio, should he run, would find it easier to make inroads to communities of color.

The post 2020 Potential Democratic Contenders: A Closer Look appeared first on Occasional Planet.

There are two key reasons why mainstream media must be talking about Medicare-for-All. First, it is sound policy, something that all Americans should hope for in truly finding affordable and accessible health care for all. Second, it is the Democrats’ position (though often muted) which stands in opposition to the Republicans’ “Repeal and Replace” Obamacare, or even simply “Repeal.”

Democrats acknowledge that the Affordable Care Act requires fixing. Most of what needs fixing is what was initially left out if the bill in 2009-2010 because (a) President Obama did not think that he could ask for that much, and (b) Republicans stood in firm opposition to it. The first step would be a public option, a proposal to create a government-run health insurance agency that would compete with other private health insurance companies within the United States. Because the public exchange would not need to charge consumers (taxpayers) the twenty percent overhead for private insurers’’ profit, it would immediately reduce costs and by its very nature, apply to everyone.

Presidents Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson both supported some form of Medicare-for-All. But without presidential leadership, it took until 2003 for Representatives John Conyers (D-MI) and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and others to introduce H.R. 676, a simple six-page bill which would establish a single-payer or Medicare-for-All system. But as we have previously reported, the media paid scant attention to the proposal when Dennis Kucinich ran for president in 2008 against the likes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, both of whom were offering “universal-lite” coverage.

In the 2016 presidential campaign, Bernie Sanders forced the media to cover what was the linchpin to his health-care program. Unfortunately, for many in the media Sanders has become “yesterday’s news,” and along with his partial black-out is a silencing of many of the progressive proposals that he advocated. In fairness, very few Democrats in office have taken up his mantle, even though it was clearly more popular with voters than Hillary Clinton’s milquetoast.

An example of neither the media nor a mainstream Democrat adding Medicare-for-All to a conversation was on CNN’s “New Day” on Monday, July 3. Guest host John Berman was interviewing Maryland Senator Ben Cardin about the question of whether Democrats were willing to work with Republicans on health care reform. [I wish that I could give you a link to this interview, but CNN is notoriously bad in providing access to recently-aired clips or interviews.]. Berman asked Cardin whether Senate Democrats were willing to work with Republicans and the Maryland senator gave the requisite answer that in theory Democrats would collaborate, but it did not seem realistic presently because of the huge gulf that separates the two parties on health care. But what Cardin did not say, and what Berman did not ask about was exactly what Democrats stand for. Had he been asked that, I am not sure whether Cardin would have proposed first aid for ACA, or even mentioned that government subsidies needed to be greater to meet escalating medical costs.

All of that is confusing. Medicare-for-All is not. It is something that should be asked about and talked about.

When the main issue before us was gay marriage, members of the mainstream media did not hesitate to ask politicians whether they were for marriage equality. That was a clear question which lent itself to clear and precise answers.

The media has not done so with Medicare-for-All. It is time they do so because (a) it is good journalism to do so, and (b) their personal lives and that of the society in which they live will be better off with it.

UPDATE: On Sunday, July 9, 2019,”The Hill” reported “Single-payer healthcare gains traction with Dems”

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