2020 Presidential Primary Candidates - Biden & Bloomberg
Since today is Presidents Day, beginning an overview of the leading 2020 Democratic campaigns seems in order.
I will be voting this week, and although I’ve maintained a fluid attitude about who will get their circle filled in on my California Primary ballot, my political lean has been and is towards Senator Elizabeth Warren.
I’ll wait until after Wednesday to make my final decision.
Wednesday’s candidate debate in Nevada will feature Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and probably Mike Bloomberg, providing he can come up with one more qualifying poll. Tom Steyer is a long shot, in the unlikely event he can persuade the DNC to change its rules in the next 24 hours, and Tulsi Gabbard will spending evening on Fox News complaining about how the system is rigged.
NBC/MSNBC, along with the Nevada Independent, will host the debate, with Vanessa Hauc, Lester Holt, Hallie Jackson, Jon Ralston, and Chuck Todd acting as moderators. Broadcast time is 6 pm PST. It will also air live in Spanish on Universo, as well as the Noticias Telemundo mobile app and website and Noticias Telemundo's Facebook page.
I’m choosing to cover those likely to be participating in the debate over the next few days. Today it’s Bloomberg and Biden,starting out with a quick Bernie reference, since he’s the defining candidate at this point.
Tomorrow’s focus will be Buttigieg and Klochubar. Wednesday will be Warren and Sanders. I’ll come back to Tom Steyer if needed, but I think Bloomberg has taken all the oxygen out of the “billionaire gonna buy my way in” niche.
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Now, on to the overview.
Media pundits wring their hands over whether or not Democrats can select an electable candidate if Bernie Sanders continues to get the most votes and consistently beats Trump in polling.
Stop. Read that sentence again.
A lot of people don’t want to believe that Bernie Sanders is in it to win it. A bunch of people who were horrified by reports about Sanders supporters not voting for Clinton in 2016 are now saying they’ll stay home if Bernie is the nominee.
I say they’re privileged effin’ hypocrites. I’ll say that about any non-vote that helps Trump. And while I’m clear about the current occupant of the White House being a symptom, I also am clear the man is just plain mentally ill.
I’m sure those children in cages will be thrilled to hear about such a high and mighty decision among the anti [pick a candidate] to re-elect Trump. Oh, and, hey, how about those brown and black people unlucky enough to cross paths with the swat-type immigration squads roaming the streets of America’s cities?
I could go on to cover all kinds of groups getting the short end of the stick, but I’m hoping you get the point. It is precisely this kind of self-centeredness that’s got us to where we are. If it comes down to it, hold your nose and vote. The alternative is worse for too many people.
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Let’s talk about the elephant in the Democratic donkey race.
Mike Bloomberg has thrown his resources into the race, collecting on IOU’s gained during his years of political philanthropy, and (seemingly) running tv ads approximately every two minutes on every channel.
He even pissed off President Trump by running an ad amid what was supposed to be the triumphant appearance of the Batmoble, er, Beast, er, new chief executive limo during the warmup for the Dayton 500.
Now if Bloomberg could only come up with a winning message and a groundswell of public support…
I believe (with absolutely no evidence, but still...) his campaign strategists dumped every bit of negative research on their candidate’s background at once over the past weekend, in the hope that the stench of hypocrisy will go away by Super Tuesday.
I'm still wondering if he's gonna get a pass on the nearly 40 sex discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuits brought against him and his organizations by 64 women over the past several decades.
It’s easy to see how some on the left are characterizing Bloomberg as Donald Trump with less but better hair, when his past comments about people of color, women, education, and corporate malfeasance come to light.
I think this viewpoint oversimplifies his politics. Bloomberg has “interests” that overlap with Democratic policy goals. What he doesn’t see is the fundamental dysfunction of the economic system.
When he jumped into the race Bloomberg had the highest unfavorability rating, 25%, of any Democratic candidate among among primary voters, according to a Morning Consult/Politico poll from Nov. 10.
Now, it’s time to look at him as the most serious contender for support of the Democratic party’s centrist elements.
The New York Times profile of Bloomberg’s political and philanthropic influence demonstrates how he successfully wields his influence:
One of the first members of Congress to endorse Mr. Bloomberg was Representative Stephanie Murphy of Florida. Elected in 2016 as a champion of gun control, Ms. Murphy said she had worked closely with Everytown on legislation, and said Mr. Bloomberg had shown his political mettle by backing groups like the League of Conservation Voters and Planned Parenthood.
“All of these are organizations that supported and endorsed my campaign in ’16 and ’18,” Ms. Murphy said. “This is a guy who puts his money where his mouth is.”
Mr. Bloomberg has promised to do just that in the general election, spending aggressively to defeat Mr. Trump no matter who the nominee is. But advisers to Mr. Bloomberg acknowledged the scale and focus of his spending would differ, depending on whether he is the Democratic standard-bearer.
One thing Bloomberg has going for him is the default respect given to people with a lot of money, particularly in media coverage. (See 2016 coverage of Trump, for example.)
Between the cheerleading of people who are (or want to be) financially connected to the former New York Mayor, and the deference he’ll get on cable news, it’s not hard to see him among the final few candidates for the nomination.
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Former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign is going nowhere fast. While much is being made of his support from Black voters, they’re just as interested as any other group in being aligned with a winner.
And Joe isn’t winning. Don’t get me wrong. He’s a nice guy, whose heart is in a good place. But there is no overall fire in his campaigning and not the kind of funding needed to run a dispassionate campaign.
The “billionaire class,” as Bernie likes to call them, has taken a liking to who they perceive as the other moderate candidates willing to accept their money.
The upcoming South Carolina primary is going to be a make-or-break moment for the Biden campaign, but if he doesn’t win big, it’s the beginning of the end for his campaign.
A recent Politico article detailed the diminishing support for Biden in a state considered crucial for his campaign.
No one denies the state has an affinity for the former vice president to Barack Obama. Biden boasts endorsements from nearly 200 black South Carolina community figures and state legislators, a testament to his decades-long relationships with many leaders here. And he’s led in every single public poll in the state over the past year.
But his advantage has gradually eroded. In a state where African Americans cast 61 percent of the primary vote in 2016, a February Quinnipiac poll showed Biden's support among African-Americans at 27 percent — a 22-point slip from before the Iowa caucus. While almost no one is willing to predict a Biden defeat here, many point to worrisome signs about the state of his campaign.
During a get-out-the-vote effort Wednesday in a North Charleston neighborhood just blocks away from Biden’s offices, members of the media rivaled the number of volunteers present. Some prominent black state leaders expected to be firmly in Biden’s camp have migrated to other campaigns, namely those of Tom Steyer and Bernie Sanders.
The one advantage Biden has going into Super Tuesday will be that there are other states voting where he might just surprise pundits. Bill Clinton was, after all, the comeback kid in 1992, and a state like Texas going in big for Biden could make a difference.
Fox News almost-a-Democrat pundit Juan Williams is a big believer in this scenario, pointing out that no other candidate has been pummeled by Trump more than Biden.
Trump is so scared of facing Biden in a general election that the president got himself impeached for trying to get a foreign leader to damage Biden’s campaign.
Despite the ‘anything goes’ political tactics from Trump, Biden remains the Democrat who does best against Trump in most head-to-head general election polls.
Across the nation, Democrats have said defeating Trump is their number one priority. So, there should be no question about Biden’s standing as the candidate who meets the top criteria for Democratic voters.
Yes, Biden is one of several Democrats currently polling ahead of Trump in the general election. But those polls do not take into account that Biden has already withstood prolonged attacks from Team Trump.
Jake Novak at CNBC takes the most pessimistic view, saying Biden’s campaign has already passed the point of no return:
Biden’s lack of persuasive abilities outside of Delaware is what’s always doomed his White House aspirations. A few more years of experience and opposing Trump were never going to change that. More than three decades of history was staring the Democrats pushing Biden’s campaign all along, and they should have seen this coming.
Now, the big question is who will reel in those Biden defectors in the future primary races. So far, it appears the lion’s share of Biden’s voters have swung to former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg with a decent share also going to Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. That development could be enough to derail the path to the nomination for Sen. Bernie Sanders. But Sanders seems likely to pick up all or most of the voters still supporting Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s flagging campaign.
Some Biden supporters may also switch to Mike Bloomberg, but Bloomberg will now have to work harder to snatch them away from Buttigieg and Klobuchar. In some ways, Bloomberg’s challenges have just become harder because he’s squaring off against two Democrats claiming the “moderate candidate” mantle instead of just one.
My take is that Biden will drop out sooner than later.
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Tomorrow: Senator Amy Klochubar and Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
Wednesday: Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
https://twitter.com/DHStokyo/status/1229405641900511233?s=20
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