During the weekend of the South Carolina primary, the landscape of the Democratic race for the party's nomination took a transformational turn. Although Joe Biden after embarrassing performances in Iowa and New Hampshire did win South Carolina to keep him in the race, Bernie Sanders was still favored to win the nomination at that time.
In addition to Sanders having a sizable polling lead in California with its rich delegate haul on Super Tuesday only three days after South Carolina, Biden's campaign was just about broke and therefore had no presence in any of the Super Tuesday states. Biden neither campaigned there nor had any significant number of ads on the air. Along with the other moderates he had to compete against in Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, there was also Mike Bloomberg who belatedly entered the race when it looked like Biden's hopes were slipping away.
The Democratic establishment did not want to see their nomination go to Sanders who is not even a member of the Democratic Party. So they did an intervention. Magically, the day before Super Tuesday, both Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg dropped out of the race to endorse Biden. The path had been cleared of moderates except for Mike Bloomberg who understandably stayed in the race to see what the results of his hundreds of millions worth of ads would achieve. In addition, Sanders' progressive competitor, Elizabeth Warren stayed in the race so he did not receive the same benefit of the thinning out of his competition.
Biden, spurred on by his victory in South Carolina and the dropping out of most of his moderate competitors caught fire and won 8 state primary races. Sanders did win California but Biden most unexpectedly emerged with a lead in delegates and that all important momentum. Bloomberg and then Warren dropped out after Super Tuesday setting up a one on one battle between Sanders and Biden for the nomination.
So let's talk about Bernie.
Bernie is a candidate who is addressing the grievances of those who think that the top economic 1% along with corporations, the health insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, etc. are screwing us. He is calling for a revolution to enable the common voter to regain control of government instead of those other guys. Biden by comparison, just wants to return to the days before Trump came along.
Although, I am a progressive who admires Sanders, there are two long term strategic decisions that he got very wrong if he was ever to have ambitions for the presidency.
One, he should have joined the Democratic Party long ago. Although he prides himself as having that Independent label, his ideology has always fit within the Democratic Party albeit in its very liberal wing. He truly passes the duck test in that he figuratively looks, swims, and quacks like a Democrat. Why not just call himself a Democrat and be done with it?
Although the Democratic Party allowed him to compete for their nomination, a great number of party regulars do not accept him as one of their own. If it's a choice between established party regulars supporting Sanders or one of their own, Sanders is going to lose every time! This has proven to be a sizable impediment to his chances of gaining the Democratic Party nomination in both 2016 and this year, 2020.
Second, he needed to lose the 'democratic socialist' label long ago. As I argued in a previous posting, Invasion of the Socialists!, Sanders is NOT a socialist but is instead, an FDR Democrat or alternatively, a social democrat who admires the extensive safety net programs of Scandinavia and other European countries. If you listen to his standard stump speech, he is clearly channeling FDR and not advocating for government takeover of all private industry - with the exception of Medicare for All which would replace private health insurance with public insurance. But all of the Democratic candidates were in favor of greatly expanding Medicare in one form or another.
Every time somebody calls Sanders a socialist, I try to correct that person to say he is NOT a socialist but a social democrat. "But that's what he calls himself!" is the reply. How do you argue with that? Not only do the Republicans shove the pejorative socialist label down his throat, but also many of his Democratic opponents. Interestingly, I don't recall Elizabeth Warren who had similar progressive policies being constantly labeled a socialist.
Speaking of Elizabeth Warren, how did she go from being the leading candidate to going down in flames? I think she made a fatal mistake in trying to give a detailed answer to how Medicare for All would be paid for. The professor in her thought that coming out with detailed estimates would satisfy her critics. But then her figures were criticized. Interestingly, nobody else was really pressed to come out with figures. The correct response to those who argued that Medicare for All was not affordable would have been to point out that Canada along with every other industrialized country can afford universal health coverage for its people. If they can all afford it, certainly America with all of its wealth also can. Case closed!
In addition, every female candidate has to deal with sexism on some level. It is most notable that many male personality characteristics exhibited by females in a presidential race would be frowned upon. For example, even those who love Bernie will acknowledge that he has a gruff and grumpy demeanor about him. But ask yourself, how far would a gruff and grumpy female get in a political campaign?
However, there is a more prosaic argument that with Bernie and Elizabeth occupying the same progressive lane, one of them had to lose. As a progressive, I backed Bernie in 2016 when he was 74 but was hoping he would bow out to Elizabeth in 2020 at age 70 instead of running again at age 78. But that didn't happen. When both of these good friends were doing well early on, there was the nagging question of how they would eventually settle the score between them. It can be argued that Bernie won because he kept a lot of his supporters from the 2016 election.
When it comes to Joe, it's first and foremost about electability.
This was put forth most bluntly by Joe's wife, Jill Biden.
So yes, you know, your candidate might be better on, I don’t know, healthcare than Joe is, but you’ve got to look at who’s going to win this election, and maybe you have to swallow a little bit and say, 'Okay, I personally like so and so better,' but your bottom line has to be that we have to beat Trump," Biden said.
Indeed, there are many voters who have said they would favor someone most likely to beat Trump over someone who best aligns with their views. But the message is in my view, weak. It says in effect, don't vote for whom you like best but who you think most others will vote for!
As for electability, yes Biden had a strong performance in South Carolina and on Super Tuesday. But do we now get amnesia over his weak performances in the previous weeks? Alexandra Petri has this humorous take in her Washington Post op-ed I just remembered Joe Biden is fine.
This is a little awkward, but better late than never! I suddenly remembered that Joe Biden is a dynamite candidate, something I had forgotten over the past few months of watching Joe Biden campaign. Joe Biden is the best hope of the party and its logical standard-bearer! I am embarrassed that I forgot this for so long. I am here with Joe Biden now!
A much more serious treatment is Michelle Cottle's New York Times op-ed The Resurrection of Joe Biden.
No matter how super Mr. Biden’s Super Tuesday, it did not magically erase all the factors that kept his campaign becalmed for so long. Joe is still Joe, with all his charms and foibles. And even as his team prepares for external threats, they also recognize that a key part of their job going forward is to protect the candidate from himself.
But most cringeworthy is this video showing a comparison of Biden back in 2012 on top of his game taking it to Paul Ryan in their VP debate and his more recent stumbling and bumbling on the campaign trail. Calling it cognitive decline may be going a bit too far. But he will definitely have to raise his game to keep from falling behind again!
At the time of this posting, Biden has a number of things going for him. He is ahead in delegates and as mentioned before, has that all important momentum. His poll numbers in Florida with one of the larger delegate counts ahead in the race show him with a massive lead there. He is undeniably the favorite to win the nomination at this time.
But Bernie is above all, a fighter! With the two men going at it one on one, it's going to get rough. And there is nowhere to hide, especially on the debate stage where more at length responses will be required instead of the quick timed responses because of what was a crowded stage. To take the fight analogy further, Joe is ahead on points and wants to nurse his lead until the final bell at convention time. As we get later on in the fight, Bernie may only have one way to win. So you know that Bernie will be swinging for a knockout!
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