Presidential Pre-Primary Pissing Matches We Don’t Need to Have
Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders went into the lion’s den at Fox News and lived to fight another day. Good for him. By the end of the town hall, the Vermont Senator led the audience in call-and-response to the greatest hits of his platform.
Moderator Bret Baier obviously hoped to turn the audience against Sanders over his Medicare for All program by asking for hands to show support for “a government-run system.” It didn’t work out like he wanted, as the place erupted in cheers.
Although candidate Sanders clearly won over the in-house audience, the morning propagandists at the network have already spun out-of-context video snippets into a web of fear. I’m sure their target audience of One Special Person is pleased.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1118155023849017345
Elsewhere, lamestream media pundits are twisting themselves into pretzels, hoping to sell a “Democrats divided” narrative. If Cory Booker passes gas, it’s taken as proof that he’s ready to smoke out the socialists leading the party of FDR into oblivion.
The only winners in the played out version of this spin are Republicans.
The reality for the current batch (19 & growing) of candidates is that the first primary is nine months away. The Democratic convention doesn’t convene until July 13, 2020. Lots of front runners have fallen by the wayside much later in the process, as former Vermont Governor Howard Dean can attest.
https://twitter.com/People4Bernie/status/1117934813539786752
The sheer number of candidates makes it likely there won’t be a front runner with enough delegates in Milwaukee to win on the first ballot. Democrats, unlike Republicans, don’t run winner-take-all primaries, and delegates are selected by proportional votes (of candidates getting more than 15% of the vote) in Congressional districts.
Once the initial round of voting is over, the much-maligned superdelegates can cast ballots.
It’s been my observation, based on polls and activists I know, most Democrats are ready to united behind whatever candidate wins the nomination.
At this point we’re still looking mostly at name recognition rather than campaign performance. Partisans are lining up behind candidates based on emotional as well as political considerations.
And the all-too-often vaunted ‘electability’ factor is based on pre-existing biases (some of which spill over into racism and misogyny), which as Barack Obama proved in 2008, are prone to change as the campaign wears on.
There is one cleavage I fear, namely aggrieved Bernie supporters versus donor-centric Democrats.
Despite their candidate’s high ranking in early polls, and his huge fundraising advantage, the smoldering resentment of a certain class of Berners is manifested via unprincipled commentary worthy of the spawn of Satan Republican-type tendency toward any other candidate whose name appears before their eyes.
The converse is also true. Let any expression short of hosannas for Bernie get expressed, and the outrage machine is primed and ready.
As Oliver Willis put it in a (slightly edited) series of tweets this morning:
I won't lie, there's a certain part of me that likes how irritated people get when you critique their candidate who they are convinced is The One True One Who Can Win…
...They’re all big boys and girls and if they can't withstand criticism from Some Fat Guy On The Internet they were never going to win…
...‘i think Pete's too smartypants at times, Beto's not deep enough, Kamala not loose enough, Liz too wonky, Kirsten isnt connecting, i don’t know why Amy's running, Cory's living in the past, Bernie's too abrasive, Julian's not selling a thing… and i dunno the point of Andrew or Tulsi or Eric or Jay or John or the other John or Tim...’
...They'd almost all be better than Trump. I hope I have gored your sacred ox. They can take it. lol.
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Some members of the Democratic donor class have been busy plotting, looking to put their stamp on Anybody But Bernie, as the New York Times pointed out this morning:
Howard Wolfson, who spent months immersed in Democratic polling and focus groups on behalf of the former New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, had a blunt message for Sanders skeptics: “People underestimate the possibility of him becoming the nominee at their own peril.”
The discussion about Mr. Sanders has to date been largely confined to private settings because — like establishment Republicans in 2016 — Democrats are uneasy about elevating him or alienating his supporters.
The matter of What To Do About Bernie and the larger imperative of party unity has, for example, hovered over a series of previously undisclosed Democratic dinners in New York and Washington organized by the longtime party financier Bernard Schwartz. The gatherings have included scores from the moderate or center-left wing of the party, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader; former Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia; Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., himself a presidential candidate; and the president of the Center for American Progress, Neera Tanden.
The fact of this story appearing in the Times signals the desperation of these would-be kingmakers.
Perhaps not-so-coincidentally, there’s another front for this anti-Bernie trope, as described at the Daily Beast with the headline: Bernie Sanders Brings a Gun to a Democratic Primary Knife Fight.
The root of the latest blow up was a video produced by ThinkProgress noting that Sanders had stopped maligning millionaires—leaving his criticism for billionaires—when he became one himself. The news site is part of the CAP umbrella, which gave the video the veneer of a sanctioned attack. But it also claims editorial independence from the think tank, though the degree of that independence is difficult to define.
Sanders’ campaign was initially uncertain of how it should respond to the post. But a day after it had been up—and shared gleefully by Republican operatives—they chose to push back in a way that, Democrats said, redefined disproportionality.
Over the weekend, Sanders’ campaign sent a letter to the board of CAP and CAP Action Fund saying that the “counterproductive negative campaigning needs to stop.” The letter referenced content written about Sanders and two close colleagues who are also in the 2020 race: Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Cory Booker (D-NJ). It also explicitly called out CAP president Neera Tanden, an ally of Hillary Clinton, who has been critical of Sanders in the past but has attempted to mend bridges.
There are so many misconceptions and mischaracterizations (New York Times, again) going on with this story that I’ll pass on sharing further details. Suffice it to say this whole deal is a massive waste of time.
Anything not addressing the wrong-headedness and immorality of policies of the current administration at this stage in the game amounts to gift for Donald J. Trump.
https://twitter.com/ameseh/status/1117996742828417024
Regardless of what Democrat wins the nomination, the only tool left for Republicans is the ‘socialism’ branding iron, the same one they used in 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016.
This is not to say it’s wrong to discuss or amplify policy differences. We need to have those discussions. More than anything, now is the time to seize control of the political narrative with a vigorous debate about what Democrats can do for the future.
With the short time frame available to address the most destructive impacts of climate change, we got to take our best shot this year. Kamala Harris’ record as a prosecutor (for example) won’t make much difference to the people being displaced in a decade or two.
For the record, I have not made a decision about which candidate I like for 2020. Bernie is on my short list, as are about a half dozen others. And that short list is written in pencil.
One thing I know for sure, spending time personally attacking primary candidates is not on my agenda.
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Also, for perspective...
https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1118173564312666112
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