February 18, 2020--The Final Seven

If the remaining seven Democratic candidates for the presidential nomination want to win, they need to make some midcourse corrections.

Amy Klobuchar needs to make a 30 minute speech in which she tells us who she is and why she is running for the highest office in the land. It needs to be what she would do as president beyond working with Congress to get bills passed. At the moment she is making a better case for herself to continue in the Senate than move into the Oval Office.

Elizabeth Warren is the most puzzling of the candidates. Just weeks ago ago she was the front runner and now she is struggling to hang on to fourth place. She needs to figure out how to make herself more likable by showing her human side. Her problem is not that she is pushing Medicare for All and lacks a plausible plan for how to pay for it (this is true for Bernie as well and he is doing fine) but rather that in spite of all her energy, effort, and brilliance she has been turning voters off and her numbers have shown it. 

Tom Steyer has been creeping up. With Biden losing support among African Americans, a surprising number have been turning to him. Many who know the inclinations of voters of color see him to be a practical alternative to the former Vice President. But if he wants to continue to rise he too needs to make a major speech about who he is and why he has such a political fire in his belly. At the moment, he is a more effective critic of Trump than an advocate for himself.

Mayor Pete may be the smartest of the candidates but that very smartness at times makes him sound programmed and robotic.

And then of course there is his on-going problem with voters of color. He needs to take that on directly. Think the speech Obama delivered in 2008 about race and his relationship with his former pastor, the black nationalist, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. 

Then there is Joe Biden. Those counting him out shouldn't do so prematurely. In most national polls he is still in second place. Just 5 or so points behind Sanders. Though he has lost some African-American support, a plurality still say they plan to vote for him. Strong showings in Nevada and South Carolina would put him back in the thick of things.

But he needs some reinvention. He needs to show he has a pulse and the best way to do that is in yet another speech. This one has to put Hunter Biden back in the middle of the narrative. This time not in a conspiratorial one concocted by Trump and Fox News.

Do you remember how back in 1988 Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee was leading Vice President George H.W. Bush by double digits until the the race card was played? During one of the presidential debates he was asked how he would feel about the death penalty (he was opposed to it) if his wife Kitty was raped and murdered. Rather than showing any emotion he spoke with sociological detachment and that did him in.

Biden needs to learn from that. Thus far, when asked about what his son was up to in Ukraine, he has spoken about it dispassionately. This makes it feel as if there are things to hide, that he is trying to finesse the situation, or that he is too over the hill and lacks the energy to take on what will await him if he manages to win the nomination and the general election. Someone this passive and seemingly unwilling to defend his family appears to be too weak for the race and ultimately the presidency. He doesn't feel as if he's ready to be commander in chief.

He too needs to make a speech or grant an interview to Sixty Minutes in which he demonstrates he has the capacity to fight and win with appropriate passion. 

More than anything else Sanders has to buy a half hour of TV time to address the voting public about just one topic--he needs to tell us what he means when he calls himself a "democratic socialist."

I suspect that fewer than 10 percent of the electorate know. But we do know that if he is the nominee Trump and his Fox supporters will turn Sanders into a cartoon. They have already begun to do so. It is essential for Bernie to get ahead of this and address it directly. It is at the center of his political philosophy but he has yet to make a clear case for why he embraces socialism and why it would be good for America. 

Finally, there is the case of the complicated Mike Bloomberg. If he wasn't  compromised in regard to some of his attitudes about race and gender, after decades of philanthropy and public service in support of women's rights and racial justice he would likely win the nomination and even the presidency.

But there is Stop and Frisk, redlining, and too many examples of misogyny.

Thus far he has fumbled his explanations and apologies. He needs to do better, much better. He too needs to address this directly, forcefully, and convincingly in another speech similar to Obama's on race. He also needs to be ready to deal with this during Wednesday's debate.

If the final seven were to do this, we would have a nominee who could win since three or four are viable.

February 6, 2020--Enough Already

Before they do more harm to themselves, the Democrats need to get to where they're going. And fast.

By this I mean to their final two. 

After all the polling, debates, and now Iowa, it is becoming obvious that among current strivers for the nomination only two are viable--Bernie Sanders and Mike Bloomberg.

They are making powerful and effective cases for their ideas and electability. And they are the only two who have all the money needed to run a 21st century campaign. No one else comes even close.

Pete Guttigieg is clearly attractive, has some money, but with essentially no support in the African-American community doesn't have much of a chance to be nominated much less win in November. Bernie also has his own version of this problem. As, in fact, does Bloomberg (recall Stop and Frisk).

I do not understand why Warren's support has been shrinking for nearly two months--perhaps because of her Medicare For All ideas and their cost. Bernie has this problem as well and then some but for some reason is getting away with it. Probably sexism has something to do with that.

On the other hand, I think I know why Biden is turning out not to be viable. Mainly because he feels like a fragile old man whose time has come and gone. In addition, recall, the other times he ran for president. Though he was far from old, he was an unsuccessful candidate, securing 0.5 percent of the votes in Iowa and New Hampshire and never rising above 5 percent in the polls. When he aspires for the presidency there is clearly something about him that deters voters.

All the other candidates are mired in or close to one-digit territory. Amy Klobuchar is the one exception, now hovering in the 10 percent range.

In other words, the Democratic candidates are either flawed or politically weak. All the more reason to clear the field and let the final two hone their messages, get out of the business of self-destructive bickering, and compete meaningfully with each other. An on-going crowded field is not helping.

As to ultimate electability, can a 78 year-old Jewish socialist who wants to eliminate private health care insurance win a national election? 

Then, assuming by some version of a miracle Bloomberg can win the nomination (the process is rigged to undermine an outsider's chances to do so), can another 77 year-old New York Jew who is fervent about protecting a woman's right to choose, can he win in enough blue-collar swing states to achieve a majority in the Electoral College?

Bernie versus Bloomberg could turn out to be a great contest with clear and stark ideological differences separating them--can Bernie, the representative of the anti-capitalist ninety-nine percent defeat one of the most successful capitalists in American history (whose most profitable product is financial software) with enough wealth to place him in the top one-tenth of one percent?

I know my friends who are eager supporters of Mayor Pete or Elizabeth Warren will not welcome this ultra-practical suggestion. But we're in a dog fight with Trump, who is very good at this, while  also busy shooting ourselves in the foot.

April 5, 2019--Plenty Gay

In a must-read opinion piece in the New York Times, openly gay columnist Frank Bruni writes about how some gay activists are asking if openly gay presidential candidate Pete Guttigieg is gay enough to garner support among homosexual voters to win the Democratic nomination.

The concept of "gay enough," Bruni pushes back, is anathema to gay people of his generation who spent their formative years fighting the homophobic perception that gay people display stereotypical mannerisms that mark them, stigmatize them as something abnormal. 

Bruni writes--

"I’m worried because there was an actual mini-debate on the left recently over whether Pete Buttigieg is gay enough. Do his whiteness, upper-middle-class background and Harvard and Oxford degrees nullify his experience as a minority and undercut his status as a trailblazer? This question is out there, in both senses of that phrase."

He continues--

"It’s nonnegotiable that Democrats hold their presidential aspirants to high standards on issues of racial justice, gender equality and more. It’s crucial that the party nominate someone who can credibly represent its proudly diverse ranks. But it’s also important that the party not demand a degree of purity that nobody attains." [My italics]

Bruni chides those on the left who consider Guttigieg, just "another white man" because it is alleged "he doesn’t come across as particularly gay, meaning . . . what? That he lacks stereotypical mannerisms? That his voice isn’t high-pitched? I’m kind of floored, because I and other gay people around my age (54) or older spent most of our lives educating people about the bigotry and inaccuracy of those very stereotypes and trumpeting the message--the truth!--that gay people can be every bit as buttoned-down and strait-laced as, well, Pete Buttigieg! Now his divergence from those stereotypes is deemed remarkable and in need of dissection?"

He continues--

"Democrats should reclaim the word 'freedom' from Republicans, who have tried to reserve it for their brand."

In an interview, Guttigieg told Bruni--

“You’re not free if you have crushing medical debt. You’re not free if you’re being treated differently because of who you are. What has really affected my personal freedom more: the fact that I don’t have the freedom to pollute a certain river, or the fact that for part of my adult life, I didn’t have the freedom to marry somebody I was in love with? We’re talking about deep, personal freedom.”

Bruni concludes--

"He sounds sufficiently gay to me. His powers of empathy seem plenty informed by his sexual orientation. And we need to stop making assumptions about how well someone can understand and address what minorities go through based on his or her looks or vocal inflections or anything of the sort. That’s the quintessence of prejudice. And it’s the antithesis of enlightenment."

Then, the question is, viewed from 30,000 feet, how do Democrats properly vet their presidential aspirants without cannibalizing them? 

Absolutist Dems are afflicted by a propensity to consume those with whom they disagree. Especially this election cycle, that is a ruinous strategy. If we can't figure out how to avoid this intraparty self-sabotage, get ready for four more years of Trump.

March 21, 2019--Mayor Pete

I didn't have enough time yesterday to write something. But I did have time to get to know more about South Bend, Indiana's mayor and Democratic challenger, Pete Buttigieg.

I did some reading about him and indulged myself by watching on YouTube his appearance on "Morning Joe" and his town meeting on CNN via CNN On Demand.

If you haven't seen these I urge you to do so and after that tell me if there is a better candidate for Democrats to nominate to run against Trump, of for that matter serve as president.

And, if you agree, urgently send him some money.

I know he is a very long shot for various reasons, but so was Barack Obama.