January 22, 2019--Democrats: How's It Looking So Far?

How's the 2020 campaign shaping up for you now that five or six of the 35 Democratic candidates who will eventually join the race are announced, sort of announced, are out and about in Iowa, or haunting CNN and MSNBC?

I just listened to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand who was being interviewed by Jake Tapper. He popped the Roger Mudd question--the one in which Mudd asked candidate Teddy Kennedy, "Why do you want to be president?" Kennedy's stumbling response ended his candidacy on the spot. 

Gillibrand said, she's a mother of young children and wants all children in America to have the same opportunities as hers. So she's the Mommy Candidate.

Earlier in the week Chuck Todd asked former HUD secretary Julián Castro the same question. He said he wanted all Americans to have the same opportunities he had. He has children and wants the same for them. So he's the Daddy Candidate.

Beto O'Rourke is on some sort of Jack-Kerouac stream-of-consciousness road trip from which he occasionally sends out videos. One was while he was having his teeth cleaned. Another where he said he's doing this to "clear my head." Explitives included. I guess he's the Existential Candidate. 

Let's see, who else? Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown got a new, very kempt-looking haircut. His signature tousled mop some consultant must've convinced him didn't look presidential. Senatorial? Fine. But Oval Office? Not so much, especially considering the hair mess currently occupying it. So he's looking lean and all moussed up.

Three candidates last week who are on the Senate Judiciary Committee--Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, and Kamala Harris--had opportunities to demonstrate gravitas when questioning Attorney General designee Robert Barr during his confirmation hearing.

Each had prepared written questions and mumbled them, not able to look up from their papers and pretty much all failed to make eye contact. So he came off feeling more presidential than they.

Then poor Bernie Sanders is under pressure not to run--he had his turn, some are saying, and should turn his supporters over to 69 year-old Elizabeth Warren, who wasn't impressive last week while trying to look comfortable away from the Harvard Faculty Club when out in Iowa hanging with "ordinary" Americans. 

Bernie was forced to be in Vermont for three days of confrontational meetings last week about how his campaign is apparently riddled with sexual abuse. That should finish him off especially since, oblivious, he seemed to be hearing about this for the first time.

I don't know about you but thus far I am not impressed. 

Am I missing something? Does 100 year-old Joe Biden feel like our best option? Or will this gaggle of undistinguished candidates encourage John Kerry, Al Gore, and Hillary to jump into the race? That way there could be a subset of geriatric candidates while Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and her gang of Furies (too young to run) bop around the Capital in search of Mitch McConnell. I know he's looking forward to hosting them. At the moment, though, he's hiding from them and Trump.