May 15, 2017--The Democrats' Bench

Mike Pence is not the only one who goes to sleep at night dreaming about becoming president. Dozens of Democrats are doing the same thing.

In Pence's case, obviously, he's thinking impeachment and resignation. Nixon redux.

In the case of the Democrats, they're thinking about the 2020 primaries.

Most preposterous are Hillary Clinton, who is thinking the third time around might be the charm; Joe Biden, who has been running for president for almost as long as the legendary Harold Stassen; and Bernie Sanders, who more than anything else has come to love the sound of cheering crowds and his own voice.

Preposterous because in 2020, in the aggregate, these three will be 230 years old.

My guess is that Al Gore and John Kerry are stirring about and probably--if he's still alive--Michael Dukakis.

Enough with the jokes. Let's get serious and see who is really in contention.

Other than Bernie and Joe, everyone agrees that Elizabeth Warren is the clear frontrunner. I can see that though it is hard to imagine an east coast liberal Democrat Harvard professor winning the general election. But it's a long way off and Trump is already looking so vulnerable that even she could win.

Then again, if Trump manages to make it through four years, decides to seek a second term, and we're deep in a war with North Korea, Trump could be reelected because of the natural inclination not to want to change leaders when the country's at war. On the other hand, tell that to Lyndon Johnson.

So, the Democratic nomination is a valuable political asset and thus we have a large field of potentials already circling while denying any interest. Except, again, poor old Joe Biden who has all but announced he's running.

If Elizabeth Warren and the three septuagenarians are the top tier, the second tier includes--

New Jersey senator Cory Booker; New York governor Andrew Cuomo; Minnesota senator Al Franken; newly-minted California senator Kamala Harris; two-term Washington governor, Jay Inslee; former Virginia senator and 2016 Veep candidate, Tim Kaine; current Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe; Connecticut senator Chris Murphy; Ohio senator Sharrod Brown; and New York senator Kirstin Gillibrand.

Longer shots include--

Steve Bullock, governor of Montana; Eric Garcetti, mayor of Los Angeles; Colorado governor John Hickenlooper; Minnesota's other senator Amy Klobuchar; New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu, Representative Seth Moulton from Massachusetts; Oregon senator Jeff Merkley; and Martin O'Malley, former governor of Maryland and 2016 Democratic primary candidate (remember him?).

Much more interesting are four corporate types who haven't ever run for anything--

Mark Cuban, popularly known as a regular on the reality TV show, Shark Tank; Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks (best know for caffeinating America and much of the rest of the world); Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook COO best known for teaching women how to "lean in"); and her boss Mark Zuckerberg (best known for not owning a suit).

There you have it--the Democrat's bench. There are others. This is just the off-the-top-of-my-head list.

One thing most have in common, and it's a potential problem--no one knows who most of these folks are or even recognizes their names. Probably the best known is Mark Cuban. If true, doesn't that tell us something?

On the other hand, in 2007 who ever heard of Barack Obama?

October 19, 2016--Hillary's Gender Problem

It has been widely reported that Hillary Clinton and her team are distressed that polls show she is doing less well with young woman than among middle-age women who form the heart of her base.

Madeleine Albright summed up these feelings back in February when she said something in public that she had been saying in private--that there's "a special place in Hell for women who don't help each other" i.e. who don't vote for Hillary.

It is understandable that she and Hillary Clinton would feel a version of this--

Why weren't the younger generation of women grateful for the changes Albright and Clinton have helped to bring about? Fair question because it is true that they both, and now especially Hillary, broke and are breaking through the most important and formidable glass ceilings.

Why were so many young women flocking to Bernie, a late-middle-age white man who is more like their fathers or grandfathers than feminist movement leaders such as Albright and Clinton?

Partly because he is a sort of grandfather type (though a bit strident and know-it-all in my view) and many young people seek grandparents who often understand them better than their own parents. Partly because Hillary's has a schoolmarmish public speaking style that sets off unpleasant bells and whistles and on the stump and TV can sound more preachy than empathetic.

But more profoundly, many professionally successful young women feel that much of the struggle is either over or what's left of it should be focused on the kinds of issues they face in their careers and family lives and which they feel Hillary doesn't understand or "get."

They are less interested in equal-pay or affirmative action, for example, then what Sheryl Sandberg wrote about in Lean In--how women should no longer doubt their ability to combine work and family and thus do not need to avoid demanding assignments in anticipation of having children. And that, as the result of the positive outcomes of "leaning in," put themselves in a better position to ask for what they need and to make changes that could benefit others.

But this may be about to change. And, if I am reading the situation correctly, it will ironically be because of Donald Trump ever-more-disgusting misogyny.

The so-called Billy Bush open-mike tape where Trump joked so graphically about his sexual stalking is hopefully the last in a long list of last straws that should have much earlier doomed his candidacy. But somehow didn't.

From his slander about John McCain, to his boasting that his supporters would stay with him even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue, to his mocking and abuse of female reporters, Mexicans, and people with disabilities, to egging on "Second Amendment people" to "take care"of Hillary, to his . . .

Many of us have our list of his worst calumnies that should have brought him down, but up to now, in spite of what he has said and tweeted, no matter how offensive he has been, he wiggled free and in some cases perversely seen his poll numbers rise.

But not this time.

Young women especially, very much including those who have fought on campuses against date rape and other offenses directed at women, are now seeing support for Hillary Clinton coinciding with their feminist agenda.

They also are seeing that the agenda is not in fact completed and that it is important to work on that and to do so in solidarity across generations. Equal pay, for example, may now be seen to be very much a practical and symbolic issue.

Young women may not feel fervent about Hillary for some of the reasons noted above, but because of what she would do about court appointments and pressing a gender-aware social policy agenda as well as the metaphoric power of what having a female president would mean, I am sensing that this generation of women will now vote heavily for Clinton and likely contribute to a landslide.

There will be no more examples of Trump wiggling free. This is the last straw.