Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for December 16, 2019

This week’s debate is set, Biden’s back on top in Iowa, the Klobuchar boomlet continues, Delaney waits for the sweet release of death, and Castro is in sixth place…in Texas. It’s your Democratic Presidential clown car update!

Polls

  • Fox News: Biden 30, Sanders 20, Warren 7. Buttigieg 7, Bloomberg 5, Klobuchar 5, Gabbard 3, Yang 3, Booker 2, Bennet 1, Castro 1, Steyer 1, Williamson 1. With Bloomberg already in fifth place with infinite money to spend, the other candidates may already be hearing the Jaws theme…
  • Post & Courier (South Carolina): Biden 27, Sanders 20, Warren 19, Buttigieg 9, Steyer 5, Booker 5, Gabbard 4, Bloomberg 3. Sample size of 392.
  • CNN (Texas): Biden 35, Sanders 15, Warren 13, Buttigieg 9, Bloomberg 5, Castro 3.
  • CNN (California): Biden 21, Sanders 20, Warren 17, Buttigieg 9, Yang 6, Bloomberg 5, Booker 3, Gabbard 2, Klobuchar 2, Castro 1, Steyer 1.
  • Marquette (Wisconsin): Biden 23, Sanders 19, Warren 16, Buttigieg 15, Booker 4, Yang 3, Klobuchar 3, Bloomberg 3, Gabbard 1. What I don’t understand is that they have Yang and Booker each receiving 12 votes, but they give Booker 4%, and Yang 3%. 🤔
  • Emerson (Iowa): Biden 23, Sanders 22, Buttigieg 18, Warren 12, Klobuchar 10, Booker 4, Steyer 3, Bloomberg 2, Yang 2, Gabbard 2. Biden back on top! But sample size of only 325…
  • WBUR (New Hampshire): Buttigieg 18, Biden 17, Sanders 15, Warren 12, Gabbard 5, Yang 5, Klobuchar 3, Steyer 3, Bloomberg 2, Booker 1, Williamson 1, Bennet <1, Patrick <1.
  • Economist/YouGov (page 167): Biden 26, Warren 21, Sanders 16, Buttigieg 11, Bloomberg 4, Yang 3, Gabbard 3, Booker 3, Klobuchar 2, Bennet 1, Castro 1, Steyer 1.
  • Quinnipiac: Biden 29, Sanders 17, Warren 15, Buttigieg 9, Bloomberg 5, Yang 4, Klobuchar 3, Gabbard 2, Booker 1, Castro 1, Delaney 1, Williamson 1, Bennet 1, Steyer 1.
  • Monmouth: Biden 26, Sanders 21, Warren 17, Buttigieg 8, Bloomberg 5, Klobuchar 4, Yang 3, Booker 2, Castro 1, Patrick 1, Steyer 1. Gabbard <1, Williamson <1.
  • Politico/Morning Consult: Biden 30, Sanders 22, Warren 16, Buttigieg 9, Bloomberg 6, Yang 4, Booker 3, Steyer 3, Gabbard 2, Klobuchar 2, Bennet 1, Castro 1, Delaney 1, Williamson 1.
  • Real Clear Politics
  • 538 has a new poll average that they totally want you to know is super duper bestest, for Reasons.
  • Election betting markets.
  • Pundits, etc.

  • In Thursday’s debate: Biden, Sanders, Buttigieg, Warren, Klobuchar, Steyer, Yang.
  • But all seven Democrats who have qualified for the debate are threatening to boycott it over a union dispute.
  • And they want to change debate standards to let more candidates qualify. Because that’s been the big problem with the debates so far: Just not enough candidates on the stage!
  • One barrier to making the stage: fewer qualifying polls. “Most debates have seen anywhere from five to nine polls released in the last two weeks, but for the upcoming debate, it seems as if there will be less than five.” Blame Thanksgiving.
  • The left’s nightmare scenario:

    “We wanted to propel others to jump in,” she said. “We cannot sit on the sidelines as we watch this primary play out and allow a neoliberal be elected. If we stay divided, the corporate Democrats will pick the nominee.”

    That was the left’s nightmare scenario, and it was getting more believable at the worst possible time. The year began with a weak-looking Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) posing no threat to Sanders; by summer, Warren had jumped past Sanders and the rest of the field. Now, with Warren’s momentum fading, the two Democrats most broadly acceptable to the left have been splitting endorsements and capturing separate swaths of the electorate.

    Centrists who had worried about Warren romping in Iowa and New Hampshire are less nervous now, with South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg surging in those states and former vice president Joe Biden holding his lead in upcoming Southern primaries.

    “The far-left bloc is smaller than the candidates expected,” said Jim Kessler, the co-founder of the business-friendly centrist group Third Way, which Sanders feuded with this summer. “They haven’t expanded their base. It feels a lot like 2018: The left was ascendant, and then suddenly, when voters came in, they voted for mainstream candidates.”

    The primary debate has moved further left than Third Way wanted. No leading candidate has embraced the ideas, like a “small-business bill of rights,” offered at the centrists’ conferences. Buttigieg, who has been attracting most of the left’s fury recently, has embraced some of its less economically disruptive ideas, such as banning private prisons and legalizing marijuana while helping victims of the war on drugs. And both Biden and Buttigieg get big applause when they single out Amazon, a target of both Warren and Sanders, to argue for higher, fairer corporate taxes. (Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, owns The Washington Post.)

    But the left began this year with its eye on the nomination; the movement’s gatekeepers, strengthened during the Trump years, wanted to pick the nominee. That has been getting harder. Groups that grew out of electoral politics, and close combat with the Democratic Party’s establishment, have generally sided with Warren, who combined populist politics and good relationships with Democrats. The Working Families Party endorsed her. MoveOn members have preferred her to Sanders in their straw poll, as have readers of the Daily Kos. While the Progressive Change Campaign Committee has endorsed Warren, the similarly aligned Democracy for America has stayed neutral, explaining that its membership is enthusiastic about both candidates.

    “A supermajority of our members support both Bernie and Warren,” DFA’s Charles Chamberlain said. “They’re competing against a corporate wing that has all the money and power and can’t get more than 25 percent of voters behind one candidate. Let’s be clear: They have more candidates than us splitting the vote. If I were Third Way, I’d be more concerned with their side than ours.”

    (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • After Harris drops out, Democrats panic over diversity:

    Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. An Asian guy, two black guys, three white women (one of whom spent much of her life claiming to be Native American), a Pacific Islander woman, a gay guy, a Hispanic guy, two elderly Caucasian Jews (one a billionaire, the other a socialist), a self-styled Irishman, and a few nondescript white guys walk into a bar, and the bartender yells, “Get the hell out! We value diversity here!”

    I didn’t say it was a good joke, but it’s kind of funny all the same, because some folks in the press and the Democratic party are freaking out over the shrinking diversity of the Democratic field.

    The diversity panic was set off by the withdrawal of California senator Kamala Harris on December 3. In the words of Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page, “The famously inclusive party wasn’t looking very inclusive anymore.”

    The real issue is that not many people of color [Here’s an example of linguistic drift from Trump-skeptic Jonah Goldberg; “of color” is a SJW neologism designed to assign everyone who’s not white into a single category for the benefit of the Democratic Party, and is thus best avoided. -LP] qualified for the December 19 debate in Los Angeles. As New Jersey senator Cory Booker, an African American, complained, “There are more billionaires than black people who’ve made the December debate stage — that’s a problem.”

    It’s debatable whether it’s a problem for anyone other than Booker himself, which is why he’s been raising this alarm vociferously. So has former HUD secretary Julian Castro, who is of Mexican descent.

    “What we’re staring at is a DNC debate stage with no people of color on it,” Castro complained. “That does not reflect the diversity of our party or our country. We need to do better than that.”

    Since Castro made his remarks, Andrew Yang, a Chinese-American entrepreneur whose parents immigrated from Taiwan, has qualified for the debate.

    Perhaps a broader perspective would help. All of the first 43 presidents were white men. About half were Episcopalian or Presbyterian, most of the rest belonged to other prominent denominations, and three were Christians of no formal affiliation. Then, in 2008, Barack Obama (of the United Church of Christ, for what it’s worth) became the first African-American president, winning two terms. In 2016, Hillary Clinton became the Democrats’ first female nominee. She won the popular vote but lost the election to Donald Trump.

    Given these facts, it’s hard for me to see a diversity crisis. The top four candidates right now are Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, and Elizabeth Warren. Biden would be only the second Catholic president. Sanders would be the first Jewish president and the first socialist one. Buttigieg would be the first openly gay (and youngest) president. Warren would be the first female president (and if her DNA test had gone another way, the first Native American one).

    What a devastating blow to diversity!

  • Chronicle of a death foretold:

  • On the same theme, see this piece from two days ago.
  • Veepstakes. Don’t think much of the list, because I doubt any likely candidate wants such a bad campaigner as Kamala Harris on the ticket. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • For Democrats, there’s no One Punch Man.
  • Now on to the clown car itself:

  • Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: In. Twitter. Facebook. Billionaires backing Bennet, including a Walton heir. “U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet from Colorado was being talked up by former Clinton whisperer James Carville and influential journalist Al Hunt on their popular podcast, 2020 Politics War Room. Both are bullish on Bennet, even though the guy can’t seem to move north of the 1% neighborhood in the polling.” Plus some Joe Biden Authentic Frontier Gibberish.
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: In. Twitter. Facebook. Funny how none of Biden’s Democratic competitors are going after him on Hunter Biden and Ukraine. Almost like they don’t really want to win. CBS has Biden ahead in Super Tuesday projected delegates. “Joe Biden Wants To Allow States And Localities To Issue Immigration Visas.” What do you want to bet the Democratic locales would start issuing them like mad? One term Joe?
  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: In. Twitter. Facebook. How Bloomberg created a network of friendly mayors through grants. Bloomy on Boris: “”Maybe this is the canary in the coal mine. I think that beating Donald Trump is going to be more difficult after the U.K. election. That to me is pretty clear. The public clearly wanted change in the U.K. and change that is much more rapid and greater magnitude than anyone predicted.” The change they wanted was for politicians to keep their freaking promises, which is, granted, a pretty radical change. #BloombergStyle:

  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. He’s scaling back his campaign in New Hampshire to go all in on Iowa and South Carolina. A rational decision, but he’s probably toast in Iowa; going all in on South Carolina would probably be a slightly-higher-percentage desperation play. Here’s a piece that outlines his “hail Mary” chance to win…but also discusses his “strong ground game in New Hampshire.” Oops! Gets a Chicago Tribune profile.

    Three key attributes:

    1) Big donor ties: Booker’s early candidacies for mayor and U.S. Senate were heavily backed form big-dollar donors on Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Booker also famously reeled in a $100 million donation to Newark schools from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg that was announced on “The Oprah Winfrey Show”. Booker also drew criticism in 2012 when he defended Bain Capital against attacks during President Barack Obama’s reelection bid against Mitt Romney.

    2) Hired Garry McCarthy: Before Garry McCarthy became former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s controversial police superintendent in Chicago, Booker hired him to be Newark’s top cop. The two were stars in the documentary “Brick City,” whose production crew later would go on to produce the CNN series “Chicagoland” — a documentary largely in name only — that focused on Emanuel and McCarthy. In Newark, McCarthy favored the use of “stop and frisk,” which resulted in complaints from the American Civil Liberties Union and a U.S. Department of Justice investigation that found illegal stops, searches and use of force. Booker cooperated with the investigation and agreed to a federal consent decree. Former Vice President Joe Biden attacked Booker in an early presidential debate for hiring “Trump’s guy” to run his police department, a reference to Trump calling McCarthy a “great guy” at a political rally. Emanuel used the footage of Trump in attack ads against McCarthy in 2018 before abandoning a run for a third term.

    3) Bachelor candidate: Booker has never been married and, if elected, would become just the third U.S. president elected unmarried. He has, however, confirmed he is dating actress Rosario Dawson.

  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. Is Alfred E. Newman too young to be President? Another reminder of how incestuous our ruling class is: “Ganesh Sitaraman is one of Elizabeth Warren’s closest advisors. He’s also one of Pete Buttigieg’s best friends.” Here’s a lengthy “Buttigieg doesn’t get black people” piece. Be sure to strap on your intersectionality wading boots first…
  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. Castro just barely made it onto the Virginia primary ballot when they located his paperwork. He was very, very upset that President Donald Trump mocked St. Greta.
  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Probably not? She tops an online Harris poll for which candidates Democrats want. Key word there is “online.” “I guess a bit of me hopes Hillary does run to muck up the Democratic primary even more and the fact that Trump would easily cruise to a second term.” She has a new look and it’s ghastly.
  • Former Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. Interview with Fox Business. Delaney didn’t make the filing deadline for the Virginia Super Tuesday primary on March 3rd. I think he’s already mentally checked out of the race and is just waiting for Iowa to give his campaign the sweet release of death.
  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. She gets a Chicago Tribune profile. They finally found an unflattering photo of her to run (closeup from below). She’s pledged to skip the December debate even if she met the inclusion criteria (she didn’t), choosing to spend the time in New Hampshire and South Carolina. BoldMoveCotton etc. It would have made a bigger statement if she had actually qualified, or done it after she qualified for the last debate. Could she oppose impeachment? Do the Afghanistan Papers justify her antiwar stance?
  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Twitter. Facebook. Another piece on the Klobuchar boomlet:

    In the past two weeks, she has doubled her number of [Iowa] field offices to 20, with the possibility of more expansion. She has about 60 staffers on the ground, up from 40 in late August but about half the number reported by Warren, Biden and But­tigieg. Still, she has made key hires, including Norm Sterzenbach, a former Iowa Democratic Party executive director and expert on caucus turnout who previously worked for former congressman Beto O’Rourke’s campaign.

    Klobuchar’s rise comes as moderate Democrats have reasserted their power in a presidential race that for months was dominated by sweeping liberal ideas, including Sanders’s call for a political revolution and Warren’s pitch for big, structural change. Democratic Party leaders and voters here have openly worried that expensive policies such as Medicare-for-all could prove to be too polarizing and lead to Trump’s reelection next year.

    Klobuchar has made the same unwavering argument for months on the campaign trail, describing Medicare-for-all as a “pipe dream” and criticizing proposals such as free college as something the nation can’t afford. She has criticized other Democrats in the 2020 race, arguing that their liberal policies will doom them in the general election. She presents herself, in contrast, as a political realist and, during her stump speech, often ticks through a litany of bills she has passed as a member of the Senate, many with the support of Republicans.

    She’s peaking at the right time, but she’s also starting waaaaaay far back from the frontrunners. Is her boom significant? This piece brings up some painful historical analogies:

    Klobuchar had previously received at least five percent support in each of the four public polls of Iowa Democrats released in November by Monmouth University, CBS News, Des Moines Register/CNN, and Iowa State University.

    But will hitting this double-digit mark ultimately be a big deal, little deal, or no deal for Klobuchar with less than two months before the caucuses?

    To be sure, in recent election cycles there have been many presidential candidates who at some point reached the 10 percent mark in an Iowa poll, but ultimately did not carry a single state in the subsequent primaries or caucuses:

    • 2004 (Democrats): Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt
    • 2008 (Republicans): Fred Thompson, Rand Paul, and Rudy Giuliani
    • 2008 (Democrats): Tom Vilsack and Bill Richardson
    • 2012 (Republicans): Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry
    • 2016 (Republicans): Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee, Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Ben Carson

    In the 2020 cycle, Democrats Beto O’Rourke and Kamala Harris can be added to that list and each has already suspended their campaign.

  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: In. Twitter. Facebook. Inside his time at Bain Capital.

    Oh wait, that’s Bane Capital. Never mind.

    He’s not going to make the Michigan ballot. Honestly, at this point he’s fighting Delaney, Castro, Steyer and Williamson for last place.

  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. Franklin Foer wants you to know that Bernie is totally, totally, totally different from Jeremy Corbyn, for Reasons. Sanders withdrew his endorsement of Cenk Uygur (who’s running a carpetbagger campaign for Katie Hill’s seat) for various Twitter crimes against social justice. Seeing cancel culture come after Uygur is certainly a savory “told ya” moment. Gets mocked by Rep. Dan Crenshaw over his student debt cancellation plan.
  • Billionaire Tom Steyer: In. Twitter. Facebook. Lefties accuse Steyer of running a donor scam: “He has spent $47 million of his own money in what amounts to a scam. Since he needs donors only to meet the DNC’s bizarre debate criteria, he has essentially purchased his donor base, through tactics such as selling $1 swag with free shipping—usually items worth far more than $1—that has nothing to do with him or his presidential campaign.” This leaves out that the natural demand for Steyer swag is zero. Now, if Make-A-Wish Tommy started stapling a $20 bill to every shirt he sold…
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. Warren and Sanders have a problem: each other:

    In Iowa and nationwide, they are the leading second-choice pick of the other’s supporters, a vivid illustration of the promise and the peril that progressives face going into 2020: After decades of losing intraparty battles, this race may represent their best chance to seize control from establishment-aligned Democrats, yet that is unlikely to happen so long as Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders are blocking each other from consolidating the left.

    For center-left Democrats, that’s exactly their hope — that the two progressives divide votes in so many contests that neither is able to capture the nomination. Moderates in the party fear that if Mr. Warren or Mr. Sanders pull away — or if they ultimately join forces — the ticket would unnerve independent voters and go down in defeat against President Trump.

    Interviews with aides from both camps — who spoke on the condition they not be named because they warn their own surrogates not to criticize the other — produce a common refrain. The two candidates are loath to attack each other because they fear negativity would merely antagonize the other’s supporters. The only way to eventually poach the other’s voters, each campaign believes, is by winning considerably more votes in the first caucuses and primaries.

    Liberal leaders, acknowledging the mixed blessing of having two well-funded, well-organized progressive Democrats dividing endorsements and poised to compete deep into the primary calendar, are now beginning discussions about how best to avert a collision that could tip the nomination to a more centrist candidate.

    At informal Washington dinners, on the floor of the House and on activist-filled conference calls, left-leaning officials are deliberating about how to forge an eventual alliance between Mr. Sanders, of Vermont, and Ms. Warren, of Massachusetts. Some are urging them to form a unity ticket, others want each to stay in the race through the primary season to amass a combined “progressive majority” of delegates, and nearly every liberal leader is hoping the two septuagenarian senators and their supporters avoid criticizing each other and dividing the movement.

    “Investors could pay twice as much in capital gains just to raise the funds for Ms. Warren’s levy.” I’m sure there’s no way that would damage the economy…

  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. Facepalm.
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: In. Twitter. Facebook. He’s qualified for the December debate. Says he’s not getting media attention because he’s Asian. Meet the Yang Gang.

    Yang launched his quixotic quest for the presidency more than two years ago. At the time, he was a fairly successful but little-known entrepreneur. The New York Times described his bid, which he bolstered with the marquee issue of a universal basic income, as having a “longer-than-long” shot. As recently as this spring, Yang couldn’t crack a single percentage point in most national polling.

    He’s now polling around 3%, good enough for fifth or sixth place nationally, and at more than 3% in the Granite State as well as in Nevada and California. Now, this virtual unknown and political neophyte has already outlasted three senators, three governors, five representatives, and two mayors in the less-and-less-crowded Democratic presidential field. Couple that with surging fundraising — Yang’s campaign is on track to beat his $10 million third-quarter earnings for the end of this year — and he’s a genuinely impressive candidate.

    Perhaps the most important asset to the campaign has been the Yang Gang.

    Joe Rogan, the massively popular podcast host, introduced Yang to most of the pundit class and plenty of his most vocal eventual supporters. Yang’s February appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, the same show that landed Yang-endorser Elon Musk in hot water with NASA for smoking marijuana on air, earned more than 4 million views on YouTube. His Twitter following went from 34,000 to more than a quarter million. It’s now well over a million.

    Yang proudly deems himself a Democrat. He supports unfettered abortion access and financial giveaways. But his central message, that the government must temper the effects of the automation revolution with a universal basic income rather than socialist safety nets, has resonated with some on the Right.

  • Out of the Running

    These are people who were formerly in the roundup who have announced they’re not running, for which I’ve seen no recent signs they’re running, or who declared then dropped out:

  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti
  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams
  • Actor Alec Baldwin.
  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock (Dropped out December 2, 2019)
  • Former one-term President Jimmy Carter
  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.
  • New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
  • New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (Dropped out September 20, 2019)
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (Dropped out August 29, 2019)
  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum
  • Former Vice President Al Gore
  • Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (Dropped out August 2, 2019)
  • California Senator Kamala Harris (Dropped out December 3, 2019)
  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper (Dropped out August 15, 2019; running for Senate instead)
  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: Dropped Out (Dropped out August 21, 2019; running for a third gubernatorial term)
  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe
  • Oregon senator Jeff Merkley
  • Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton (Dropped out August 23, 2019)
  • Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: (Dropped out November 20, 2019)
  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda (Dropped out January 29, 2019)
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke (Dropped out November 1, 2019)
  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (constitutionally ineligible)
  • Ohio Representative Tim Ryan (Dropped out October 24, 2019)
  • Former Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak (Dropped out December 1, 2019)
  • California Representative Eric Swalwell (Dropped out July 8, 2019)
  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey
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    One Response to “Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for December 16, 2019”

    1. cali says:

      There appears to be a switcheroo planned that would put HRC into the white house after Biden retreats due to illness.
      Of course Pelosi is in on it so we’ll see how it play out!

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