Biden leans on bundling billionaires, Steyer hits diminishing returns, Bloomberg takes up the “Most Widely Loathed” spot, Warren donations take a nosedive, Sanders đ commies, and Beto’s acid trip ends. It’s your Democratic Presidential clown car update!
We’re also down to the last two days of the year, so expect Q4 fundraising numbers to start dropping later this week.
Keep an eye on the new faces, I sagely advised: Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, plus former Rep. Beto OâRourke of Texas.
Sorry about that. Despite a fawning cover story in Vanity Fair, OâRourke flamed out fast. Harris staged an impressive launch, but then fell to earth. Brown never entered the race. Only Booker is still running, and his campaign is on life support.
Next time I recommend a hot technology stock or a soon-to-be-famous restaurant, ignore the tip.
Snip.
I didnât see Pete Buttigieg coming. The 37-year-old gay mayor of a small city? Inconceivable, I thought. Iowa voters may shortly prove me wrong.
I did see Elizabeth Warren coming. Her focus on plans to make the economy work better for the middle class was effective, I wrote.
Then Warren stumbled on healthcare. When she belatedly offered a plan, it proposed a government-run health insurance system, but only after a long transition period.
That seemed smart, I wrote. Itâs not clear that voters agree.
To be fair, I did get some things right.
I figured out that the controversies over Bidenâs verbal gaffes were really a polite proxy for questions about his age. Heâll be 78 on Inauguration Day; is he up to the job?
I noted that most Democratic voters arenât Bernie Sanders-style socialists, and that the progressive âlitmus testsâ that dominated early months of the campaign â âMedicare for all,â the Green New Deal, and abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency â werenât a sure path to winning primaries.
Speaking of which, unions, they of the fat health benefits, are not wild about “Medicare for All.” It would be tough going from a Cadillac plan to the equivalent of Medicaid.
Ranking the campaign dropouts. This is a pretty crappy “Have you done the will of the party, comrade?” ranking. No way does Kamala Harris’ disasterous campaign rank at the top.
Joe Biden released the names of more than 200 people and couples who are raising money for his presidential campaign, a list that includes a number of big names in Democratic money like Hollywood producer Jeffrey Katzenberg and LGBT rights activist Tim Gill and his husband, Scott Miller.
Bidenâs list of fundraisers, each of which has brought in at least $25,000 for his presidential bid, includes many of the biggest names in Democratic fundraising. The list spans Wall Street, Silicon Valley and a number of politicians themselves.
The former vice president voluntarily disclosed the list as the Democratic field â and especially Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren â sparred with each other throughout November and December over how to have adequate transparency about money and finances on the campaign trail.
More than any other leading candidate, Biden is relying on big fundraising events to power his bid for the presidency, which makes these bundlers crucial to his success. Other big-name bundlers for Biden include New York venture capital and private equity investor Alan Patricof, and billionaire real estate broker George Marcus.
Biden is running for president on his longtime experience in public service, and his list of bundlers reflects the many high-powered connections he built over that time. Biden bundlers include current senators Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey and Delaware Sen. Chris Coons. Former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles is a bundler for Biden, as is Dorothy McAuliffe, wife of former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
A number of former ambassadors â who are often longtime bundlers and major political donors in their own right â are also helping Biden. They include Elizabeth Frawley Bagley, former U.S. Ambassador to Portugal; Denise Bauer, former U.S. Ambassador to Belgium; Anthony Gardner, former U.S. Ambassador to the European Union; and Mark Gilbert, former U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand, and more.
It occurs to me that if there were a massive foreign aid kickback scheme funneling overseas money to longtime swamp creatures, Belgium and EU ambassadors would be perfectly situated to direct/skim off the graft. Evidently Biden and Rudy Giuliani have been have been feuding since the 1980s. (Worth reading for the many flip-flops in Biden’s career, including on the death penalty.) Remember how Biden is supposed to be the moderate, rational one?
More Hunter Biden dirt? Eh, it’s from a private investigator in the baby momma lawsuit, so caution is probably in order. But the “helping defraud American Indians” charge is new, though the names of Devon Archer, John Galanis and Bevan Cooney are not. Heh:
Just saw the new Star Wars. Wow! Never saw this coming, Rey turned out to be Hunter Bidenâs kid! What a twist!
Hillary Clinton tried. So did 16 rival Republicans. And after hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on ads attacking Donald Trump in 2016, the results were the same: They never did much damage.
Now Michael R. Bloomberg is trying â his way â spending millions each week in an online advertising onslaught that is guided by polling and data that he and his advisers believe provide unique insight into the presidentâs vulnerabilities.
The effort, which is targeting seven battleground states where polls show Mr. Trump is likely to be competitive in November, is just one piece of an advertising campaign that is unrivaled in scope and scale. On Facebook and Google alone, where Mr. Bloomberg is most focused on attacking the president, he has spent $18 million on ads over the last month, according to Acronym, a digital messaging firm that works with Democrats.
That is on top of the $128 million the Bloomberg campaign has spent on television ads, according to Advertising Analytics, an independent firm, which projects that Mr. Bloomberg is likely to spend a combined $300 million to $400 million on advertising across all media before the Super Tuesday primaries in early March.
Those amounts dwarf the ad budgets of his rivals, and he is spending at a faster clip than past presidential campaigns as well. Mr. Bloomberg is also already spending more than the Trump campaign each week to reach voters online. And if the $400 million estimate holds, that would be about the same as what President Barack Obamaâs campaign spent on advertising over the course of the entire general election in 2012.
The ads amount to a huge bet by the Bloomberg campaign that there are enough Americans who are not too fixed in their opinions of Mr. Trump and can be swayed by the adsâ indictment of his conduct and character.
None of these assumptions are safe in a political environment that is increasingly bifurcated along partisan lines and where, for many voters, information from âthe other sideâ is instantly suspect. But Mr. Bloombergâs aides believe it is imperative to flood voters with attacks on the president before it is too late.
Yeah, let’s keep throwing money into a proven losing strategy. Can’t see how that one can possibly fail to beat Trump. And as long as we’re rerunning 2016’s Greatest Misses, have you tried expressing outrage over the Billy Bush tape? Bloomy is also dropping a ton of money on Texas for Super Tuesday:
Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg is ramping up his efforts in Texas, with plans to build a state operation that his campaign says will be unrivaled by anyone else in the primary field.
In an announcement first shared with The Texas Tribune, his campaign said it will open a Texas headquarters in Houston and 16 field offices throughout the rest of the state between now and the March 3 primary. The offices will be spread across the Houston area, the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Austin, East Texas, the San Antonio area, El Paso, Laredo, McAllen and the Killeen area.
The campaign also named its first Texas hires:
Carla Brailey, vice chair of the Texas Democratic Party, will serve as Bloombergâs senior advisor.
Ashlea Turner, a government relations consultant who worked on Bill Whiteâs 2010 gubernatorial campaign, will serve as Bloombergâs state director.
Kevin Lo, who worked on presidential candidate Kamala Harrisâ Iowa campaign before she ended her campaign earlier this month, will serve as Bloombergâs organizing director. (Update: On March 27, 2020, Texas Tribune sent out this correction via email: “*Editor’s note: Bloomberg’s campaign initially listed Kevin Lo as one of its first Texas hires. Lo later said he was incorrectly listed by the campaign and never worked for the campaign and has asked this story to be updated to remove his name.”)
Lizzie Lewis, communications director for 2018 gubernatorial nominee Lupe Valdez, will be Bloombergâs press secretary.
Has anyone there ever run a successful campaign? None of the ones named were. Also:
While heâs only announced one hire, Biden has topped most Texas polls. There have not been many polls since Bloomberg declared his candidacy and launched a massive national TV ad blitz that prominently targeted the state. The one Texas survey since Bloomberg’s launch, released Dec. 11 by CNN, found Bloomberg at 5% â good enough for fifth place in but still far behind Biden, who placed a distant first with 35%.
Amy Keiderling is exactly who Cory Bookerâs presidential campaign is looking for as he seeks to build momentum in the final weeks before the Iowa caucuses.
The Waukee small business owner listened to Bookerâs remarks in an Adel bowling alley recently â Booker’s first stop of a four-day bus tour across Iowa. She said he gives her the same feeling she had when she caucused for Barack Obama.
He’s the first candidate sheâs seen in person this cycle, but before she left, she committed to caucus for the U.S. senator from New Jersey.
She isnât alone. Tess Seger, a campaign spokeswoman, said Booker surpassed his 10% average of caucus commitments at each of his tour stops. Sometimes 20% or 30% of the crowd signed the commitment cards.
âWeâre getting the people who are going to be caucusing for us, precinct captaining for us,â Booker told the Register on Monday. âItâs really exciting. This is how you win here.â
But, so far, Booker is a far short from the winner’s circle. In the latest Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll, conducted in November by Selzer & Co., Booker earned 3% support among likely Democratic caucusgoers. He’s been at or below 4% in first choice preferences in the Iowa Poll since 2018.
One cruel explanation is that people are simply lying to the Booker campaign because Democrats don’t have the heart to turn down a black candidate. Alternately, his “10% of tour stops” simply isn’t translating into mass appeal. Another theory: People actually do like him, but no one thinks he’s tough enough to beat Trump. And if you haven’t already had your fill, here’s another “struggles for traction” piece.
Downtown underwent a dramatic transformation under Buttigiegâs leadership. One-way streets became two-way. Speed limits were reduced. Driving lanes were narrowed. Trees were planted. Decorative brick pavers were laid.
I hate him already.
Buttigieg and his supporters say the more pedestrian-friendly downtown has spurred more than $190 million in private investment, as several key buildings found new life, transformed into hotels, apartments and restaurants.
As the economy recovered from the recession of 2008-â09, some of that investment might have been inevitable, as Buttigieg benefited from a rebounding national economy. Supporters still credit the mayor for setting the tone and aggressively pursuing projects.
More than 500 apartments have been built or are under construction downtown, luring new residents to the city.
That’s, what, two whole complexes?
The street changes have also annoyed some motorists. Any news story about Smart Streets thatâs shared on social media will draw complaints from residents pointing out there is too much traffic congestion downtown at peak travel times. Buttigieg has said the slowed traffic is worth the larger benefits.
There’s no end to Democrats willing to make life worse for people who drive cars.
Thereâs also Smart Streetsâ roughly $21 million price tag, paid for with bonds that are being repaid with Tax Incremental Financing money, which comes from property taxes paid on the assessed valuation growth in an area. That project, combined with the cityâs overhaul of its parks system, means the city could be limited in making other big investments in the near future, depending on their size.
Still, the assessed value of downtown property rose from about $132.8 million in 2013 to roughly $160.9 million last year, a 21-percent increase, according to a Tribune analysis of county property tax records.
Whole things sounds like a mixed bag at best. But since there are no reports of him luring an entire population of drug-addicted beggars to South Bend, it does sound like he did a much better job as a mayor than Steve Adler…
Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. Headline: “Julian Castro sees lift in polls despite being knocked off debate stage.” Reality: He’s up to 4%. Break out the party favors!
Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Probably not? “Michael Moore: Trump Will Win in 2020 if Democrats Nominate Another âCentrist, Moderateâ like Hillary Clinton.” I understand all those words individually…
2. Heâs criticized âMedicare for allâ a lot. What is his health care plan?
He wants to keep Medicare for people over 65 and create a new government program for people under 65. Everyone under 65 would automatically be enrolled in that program â which would cover all âessential health benefits,â including pre-existing conditions â but people could choose to forfeit the coverage and receive a credit to buy private insurance instead. He argues that this would guarantee universal coverage without forcing people to use a government health plan.
So instead of an expensive, unworkable program, he offers a slightly-less-insane unworkable but expensive program.
Sanders claims to be a democratic socialist in the European mold; an admirer of Sweden and Denmark. Yet his career is pockmarked with praise for regimes considerably to the left of those Scandinavian models. He has praised Cuba for âmaking enormous progress in improving the lives of poor and working people.â In his memoir, he bragged about attending a 1985 parade celebrating the Sandinistasâ seizure of power six years before. âBelieve it or not,â he wrote, âI was the highest ranking American official there.â At the time, the Sandinista regime had already allied with Cuba and begun a large military buildup courtesy of the Soviet Union. The Sandinistas, Mr. Sanders had every reason to know, had censored independent news outlets, nationalized half of the nationâs industry, forcibly displaced the Misquito Indians, and formed âneighborhood watchâ committees on the Cuban model. Sandinista forces, like those in East Germany and other communist countries, regularly opened fire on those attempting to flee the country. None of that appears to have dampened Sandersâs enthusiasm. The then-mayor of Burlington, Vt., gushed that under his leadership, âVermont could set an example to the rest of the nation similar to the type of example Nicaragua is setting for the rest of Latin America.â
Sanders was impatient with those who found fault with the Nicaraguan regime:
Is [the Sandinistasâ] crime that they have built new health clinics, schools, and distributed land to the peasants? Is their crime that they have given equal rights to women? Or that they are moving forward to wipe out illiteracy? No, their crime in Mr. Reaganâs eyes and the eyes of corporations and billionaires that determine American foreign policy is that they have refused to be a puppet and banana republic to American corporate interests.
Sanders now calls for a revolution in this country, and weâre all expected to nod knowingly. Of course he means a peaceful, democratic revolution. It would be outrageous to suggest anything else. Well, it would not be possible for Bernie Sanders to usher in a revolution in the U.S., but his sympathy for the real thing is notable. As Michael Moynihan reported, in the case of the Sandinistas, he was willing to justify press censorship and even bread lines. The regimeâs crackdown on the largest independent newspaper, La Prensa, âmakes sense to meâ Sanders explained, because the country was besieged by counterrevolutionary forces funded by the United States. As for bread lines, which soon appeared in Nicaragua as they would decades later in Venezuela, Sanders scoffed: âItâs funny, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is, that people are lining up for food. That is a good thing! In other countries people donât line up for food. The rich get the food and the poor starve to death.â
Billionaire Tom Steyer: In. Twitter. Facebook. All the vaguely interesting Steyer news is also vaguely off target. First: “AOC accepted Tom Steyer contribution, despite accusing Buttigieg of ‘being funded by billionaires.'” (thisismyshockedface.jpg) Second: “Former Tom Steyer aide sues SC Democratic Party for alleged defamation.” Details: “A former aide for 2020 presidential candidate Tom Steyer who resigned amid allegations that he stole volunteer data from the rival Kamala Harris campaign is now suing the South Carolina Democratic Party, accusing the partyâs chairman of defamation.” Being a former Tom Steyer aide must be like getting cut from the Washington Generals.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Elizabeth Warrenâs campaign sounds the alarm as fundraising pace slows about 30% in fourth quarter.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warrenâs campaign told supporters in an email on Friday that, so far, it has raised just over $17 million in the fourth quarter, a significant drop from her fundraising haul during the third quarter.
The memo asks backers to step up in giving to the campaign.
âSo far this quarter, weâve raised a little over $17 million. Thatâs a good chunk behind where we were at this time last quarter,â it says.
Warren finished the third quarter bringing in $24.6 million, which was much more than most of the other Democratic primary contenders, including former Vice President Joe Biden and Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Sen. Bernie Sanders â who, like Warren, shuns big-money fundraisers â led the field with more than $25 million during the third quarter.
If the $17 million total stands that would represent a 30% drop from the previous quarter. The quarter ends in four days.
Poll numbers and fawning media profiles are ephemeral, but cold, hard cash is a great measuring stick for a presidential campaign. Warren is in trouble and donors know it. After all that noise about the most women ever in a presidential field, it seems increasingly likely that it’s going to come down to Biden and Sanders. Warren had no problem taking high dollar donations until she ran for President. If you live in Iowa, own a phone and vote Democrat, there’s a decent chance Warren will call you:
Makes sure that activists, celebrities, elected leaders and local Democratic officials keep picking up the phone (or checking their voice mail) to hear the same five words: âHi, this is Elizabeth Warren.â
She has made thousands of such calls over the past two years to key political leaders and influencers, according to her campaign, and Democratic officials say she stands apart for her prolific phone habit. She makes her case against President Trump, seeks out advice and tries to lock down endorsements.
It is a huge investment of the campaignâs most precious resource â Ms. Warrenâs time â that advisers hope will pay a crucial good-will dividend in the run-up to the first votes of 2020.
The breadth of her call list serves another purpose: It reinforces the campaignâs message that she is a team player for the party, looking to lift candidates up and down the ballot despite running as a populist outsider threatening to shake up the system. And her efforts as a party builder and leader differentiate her from a key rival, Senator Bernie Sanders, who represents Vermont as an independent rather than as a Democrat, and whom far fewer Democrats described calling them out of the blue.
Early this year, Ms. Warren announced that she would not be courting or calling big donors, a fact that has become central to her campaign. âI donât do call time with millionaires and billionaires,â she declared at the most recent debate. Ms. Warren instead uses her calls to small donors â heavily publicized and advertised on social media â to burnish her populist credentials, and these less talked-about political calls to woo the establishment.
Ms. Warren occasionally makes the calls on the long walks she takes in the morning â she likes to get her steps in and can sometimes be seen, sans entourage, briskly roaming the streets of whatever city she woke up in that day. But most often her calls are made in car rides in between events.
Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. Yet another NYTthree questions piece. “Power of love” question is vapid, and reparations is idiot Social justice Warrior pandering. On the third question, on her views on mental health, she “believes that antidepressants are harmfully overprescribed.” She probably has a point.
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:
Another debate down (like the ratings), Buttigieg brings all the swells to the crystal wine bar, Bloomberg carpet bombs the airwaves with money, and Tom Steyer is the Cats of candidates. It’s your Democratic Presidential clown car update!
Polls
I’m betting polling will be sparse Christmas week:
Iowa State University (Iowa): Buttigieg 24, Sanders 21, Warren 18, Biden 15, Klobuchar 4, Yang 3, Booker 3, Gabbard 3, Steyer 2, Castro 1. Sample size of 632.
Emerson: Biden 32, Sanders 25, Warren 12, Buttigieg 8, Yang 6, Gabbard 4, Bloomberg 3, Klobuchar 2, Booker 2, Steyer 2, Delaney 1. “Warren appears to be losing to Sanders with younger voters, and losing to Biden with older voters, making it difficult for her to secure a base. With less than 50 days until the Iowa caucus, this strategy of waiting for Sanders or Biden to fall is looking shaky.” But sample size of only 525.
There’s something of a spotlight paradox happening in the Democratic primary this year. The candidates who have spent time under the bright lights have wilted, while those sitting in its shadow have risen.
Why is this? Democrats don’t suddenly dislike the candidates who have undergone the scrutiny that comes with front runner status. What they do dislike, however, is vulnerability. For many Democratic voters, President Trump is an existential threat. As with any existential threat, the most important question is who/what can beat it. In 2019, a candidate’s ideology isn’t as important as his or her ability to take a punch. And be able to punch back.
Biden started the race as the guy best suited to do just that. He started the race as the affable frontrunner, who had a long history with the party and a solid relationship with the country’s first African-American president. What he lacked in energy, he made up for in electability. Who better to win back those Rust Belt states than good old “Scranton Joe.”
But, once in the spotlight, or more specifically, under the debate stage lights, Biden looked anything but invincible. His performances in the first two debates were shaky and uneven. He spent most of the summer on his heels, defending (or changing) past policy positions and struggling to raise money.
From May to November, Biden’s share of the Democratic vote dropped 10 points in Monmouth polls. In Quinnipiac surveys, he dropped nine points from June to October.
As Biden slipped, Sen. Elizabeth Warren started to rise. She was attracting big crowds in Iowa, raising lots of money online and getting a second look from voters and pundits who had written her off earlier in the year as she struggled to explain her decision to take a DNA test to prove her Native American ancestry. By early October, the RealClearPolitics average showed Warren narrowly overtaking Biden, 26.6 to 26.4 percent. But, as she struggled to adequately explain how her plan for a Medicare for All system would work, voters started to get worried. Could the woman with the “plan” for everything, really be this unprepared to answer questions about a central issue in the campaign? And, if so, wouldn’t Trump exploit this?
Since reaching that high on October 8, Warren has begun a steady downward trajectory. The most recent RCP average pegs her vote share at 12 percent â13 points behind Biden.
As Warren slipped, anxious Democrats began to cast about for a candidate who would be steadier and less flawed than Biden or Warren had proven to be. And, right on cue, comes South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg. He has been aggressive in the debates, steady on the stump and has surged into a big lead in Iowa. Since mid-October, Buttigieg has risen eight points in the RealClearPolitics average. The big ole spotlight is now trained directly on him and on his biggest weaknesses, namely his inability to attract voters of color.
As Buttigieg undergoes his ‘stress test,’ there’s another candidate just outside of the spotlight who is well-positioned to take advantage of this moment: Sen. Bernie Sanders. While we were all focused on Warren’s crashing, and Buttigieg’s rise, Sanders has been slowing moving up in the polls. The RealClearPolitics average puts him in second place nationally, and just slightly behind Buttigieg in Iowa and New Hampshire. He’s also holding a good position in Nevada. This, despite the fact that he spent much of the fall recuperating from a heart attack.
In order to qualify for the next debate, candidates will need to reach one of two polling thresholds as well as a fundraising requirement. The White House hopefuls will have to hit at least 5 percent in four DNC-approved national or early-voting state (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina) polls â or reach at least 7 percent in two early-voting state surveys.
The fundraising criteria for the upcoming debate â which will be hosted by CNN and the Des Moines Register â requires campaign contributions from at least 225,000 individual donors as well as a minimum of 1,000 unique donors in at least 20 states.
Candidates have until the end of Jan. 10 to reach the thresholds, and the window for qualifying polling started on Nov. 14.
Megan McArdle offers up some horserace analysis. It’s pretty much consensus opinion stuff, though Yang over Bloomberg for sixth is a result no one would have expected when the campaign began.
Newmark Knight Frank CEO Barry Gosin and GFP Real Estate chairman Jeffrey Gural â bucking the trend of real estate gurus staunchly backing President Trump â are throwing a $2,800-a-ticket soiree for Biden at 6:15âp.m. Jan. 6. Then top Skadden partner Mark N. Kaplan and a host of other luminaries, including art collector and financier Asher Edelman, are hosting a breakfast for Biden in Midtown the following morning.
Bloomberg has committed $160 million from his coffers to fund vaping prohibition efforts, despite e-cigarettes being 95 percent safer than combustible cigarettes according to prestigious international health bodies such as Public Health England. The billionaire also gives generously to left-leaning organizations that advocate for carbon taxation and greater âgreenâ regulation, including the League of Conservation Voters and Americaâs Pledge.
Yet, Bloomberg believes that with enough of an investment, a message of higher prices at the pump and less reduced-risk options for smokers will somehow translate to electoral success. He clearly hasnât learned from the losses of his affluent forerunners and will surely have a lot of explaining to do to millions of moderate Democratic voters not sold on radical, costly progressive ideas such as the Green New Deal or his âBeyond Carbonâ doppelganger.
The more interesting but barely reported aspect of the litigation is that it has been encouraged and even secretly funded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg.
State attorneys general offices are busy places. They generally donât generally have time for frivolous litigation, so Bloomberg stepped up to fund law schools, like the one at New York University, to do the climate litigation staff work for the various state attorneys general involved in the litigation, according to emails obtained via public records requests by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Bloomberg has essentially discovered a way for a (wealthy) private citizen to buy a state attorney general and use the stateâs powers and resources to pursue his private political agenda. Although there is no specific provision in any law prohibiting such conduct, that is only the case because no one ever imagined that anyone would have the effrontery to do it.
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. He released a list of campaign bundlers. “Among the high-profile donors who have raised at least $50,000 for Bookerâs presidential bid are musician Jon Bon Jovi, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D).”
At a Palo Alto, California, fundraiser on Monday, cohosts included Netflix CEO Reed Hastings; the Google cofounder Sergey Brin’s wife, Nicole Shanahan; the former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s wife, Wendy Schmidt; and Michelle Sandberg, the sister of Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, a campaign document obtained by Recode’s Teddy Schleifer indicates. These hosts’ families combined have an estimated net worth of $80 billion, according to Recode.
After that cozy, down-home little gathering, Buttigieg jetted off to lecture people on income inequality. His fellow candidates may have torn into him for it, but the Wine Cave soiree is perfectly emblematic of the Democratic Party’s massive institutional hypocrisy, and of the disconnect between what it demands ordinary people (the ones it keeps claiming to represent) must give up in order to fight the existential crisis that is “climate change,” and the good life enjoyed by the anointed party elite, who make clear they are absolutely unwilling to give up jack squat, refusing to even to forgo their ostentatious displays of wealth.
Ordinary people are supposed to give up cars, toilets that flush and lightbulbs that work. Ordinary people are told to give up meat, eat bugs and recycle, while the party elite who look down on their backward ways continue dining in crystal-bedecked wine caves. Sacrifices, like laws against insider trading and foreign influence, are for the little people. What rankles is the unmitigated gall of railing against “the 1%” while insisting on their own right to live the same lifestyle, and expecting ordinary people to ignore the rank hypocrisy.
Remember, peasants: It’s not your place to question the privileges of your betters. And if that just wasn’t enough hypocrisy all on its own, Buttigieg is the son of a Marxist academic who specialized in the work of Italian communist Antonio Gramsci. Makes you wonder how much of Buttigieg’s moderate persona is a sham from a red diaper baby…
Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Probably not? She thinks the election will be close.
Former Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. “John Delaney Would Like You to Know Heâs Still Running for President.” Writer calls up to ask his campaign why and get offered an interview. Delaney says he’s all in on Iowa and wants to bring the country together. I think the country has already united behind not voting for John Delaney.
Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. She voted “present” on impeachment. “My vote today is a vote for much needed reconciliation and hope that together we can heal our country.” I guess that desire for reconciliation is why Saturday Night Live keeps casting her as the villain in their debate sketches: If you’re not a hyper-left partisan, you’re the enemy. President Donald Trump, chaos magician that he is, said he respected Gabbard for voting present, which is sure to sure to drive the TDS crowd even further around the bend (it’s a very big bend).
Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets a PBS interview. The headline says “Old allies come out to help Deval Patrick in N.H.” but the only allies actually mentioned are the Massachusetts couple running his campaign. But he is topping the order list for candidates in Massachusetts itself for the March 3rd primary. Is he planning on picking up enough home state delegates to be a kingmaker and wrangle a VP slot? If so, it’s a pretty longshot strategy, but at least it is a strategy, which is more than his stillborn campaign has evidenced thus far.
Nobody forced Bernie Sandersâs campaign to endorse Jeremy Corbynâs Labour Party. By the time the Sanders campâs national organizing director, Clair Sandberg, announced that the Vermont senatorâs team stood in solidarity with the far-left British candidate, it was already apparent that Corbynâs party was likely to lose and lose badly. And thatâs precisely what happened.
On Thursday, British voters delivered Labour its worst defeat in 85 years. The thrashing it endured was less attributable to the lingering debate over the U.K.âs withdrawal from the European Union than to Labourâs uniquely repulsive leader. When 100,000 British respondents were asked what they feared most about the prospect of a Labour government, all but the staunchest Labourites and Remainers indicated that the prospect of Corbynâs ascension to 10 Downing Street was an unacceptable risk.
Corbyn rendered his party toxic. His penchant for standing in solidarity with terrorists and anti-Semites opened a seal out of which a cascade of anti-Jewish sentiments poured, engulfing his party in scandal. His brand of radical socialism was insufferably hidebound. His expressions of sympathy for historyâs greatest criminals were thoughtlessly dogmatic. The Labour Party under Corbyn drifted so far toward overt Jew-hatred that Britainâs chief rabbi denounced the institution. The Archbishop of Canterbury agreed with that assessment, as did 85 percent of the countryâs Jews. There was no ambiguity here.
So there were many obvious risks and few upsides associated with the Sanders endorsement. And yet, his campaign did it anyway. We can only conclude that this was not an act of political shrewdness but a genuine display of affection.
Bernie Sanders has thus far evaded scrutiny over the values he and his campaign share with the Labour Partyâs discredited leader, but that lack of curiosity is indefensible. As of this writing, Sanders is firmly in second place in the average of national Democratic primary polls. Heâs in second and gaining in Iowa, too, and is leading in New Hampshire. Sanders is a contender, and itâs time for the press to act like it. But taking that job seriously would entail an examination of the senatorâs conspicuously Corbyn-esque instincts, to say nothing of the bigots with whom he has surrounded himself.
Donât take my word for it; take that of Sandersâs own surrogates. Rep. Ilhan Omar, one of Sandersâs most visible endorsers with whom the senator frequently shares the stage, has apologized for some of what sheâs admitted were anti-Semitic remarks. Or, if thatâs not good enough, take the Democratic Partyâs verdict. Those anti-Jewish slights for which Omar declined to show remorse had been targeted by her fellow caucus members for censure before a revolt of the partyâs progressives and Black Caucus Members scuttled the initiative.
For one thing, as Trotsky correctly indicated, socialism tends to corrode all other religious and cultural affiliations. Secular Jewish progressive groups posing as faith-based organizations, for example, have long worked to conflate their ideological positions with Judaism by reimagining the latter to make it indistinguishable from the former. Itâs one of the great tragedies of the American Jewish community that they are succeeding.
More bluntly, remember that Sanders honeymooned in Moscow, not Jerusalem, for a good reason. âLetâs take the strengths of both systems,â Sanders insisted even as the reprehensible Soviet system was on the verge of collapse. âLetâs learn from each other,â Sanders said even when over 100 Jewish refuseniks were still being denied permission to leave the Communist regime after enduring decades of anti-Semitic oppression under rhetoric of âanti-Zionism.â As far as I can tell, Sanders never said a word in their defense to his hosts.
Oppressed Russian Jews werenât his people. Jeremy Corbyn is Bernieâs people. As Rothman notes, no one forced Sanders to compare his movement to Corbynism. Britainâs chief rabbi may have found Corbyn an âexistentialâ threat to his flock, but Sanders never once thought it concerning enough to mention during any of his praise for the British leader.
Bernie’s 2016 press secretary Symone Sanders (who this piece suggests is totally known by insiders) is now backing Biden. Celebrities supporting Sanders: Tim Robbins, Danny DeVito, Willow Smith, Jeff Ross, and somebody by the name of “Anderson .Paak,” which is evidently a rapper rather than a new data compression protocol.
Billionaire Tom Steyer: In. Twitter. Facebook. The Atlanticinterviews Steyer in the Nixon Library, so it’s all tedious impeachment blather. (Of course, we are talking Steyer, and tedious is his default setting. Historians will look back and wonder how the other billionaire in the race lost a charisma contest to Michael Bloomberg, something scientists previously thought impossible. Steyer is the Cats of the Democratic primary: spending tons of money only to completely horrify people.) He’s campaigning on climate change. Because that worked so well for Jay Inslee.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Obama talks up Warren behind closed doors to wealthy donors.” But! “The former president has stopped short of an endorsement of Warren in these conversations and has emphasized that he is not endorsing in the Democratic primary race.” She attacks Buttigieg in a new ad, for that exciting third place vs. fourth place action. Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus blasts Warren for bashing the rich. Ooopsie!
Warren released a list of endorsements from Obama aides and on the list is Edward B.P. Buck, which is indeed the same Ed Buck who is responsible for the deaths of several black men via drug overdose.
Yang, a candidate who is known for challenging the party consensus, slammed Democrats for their “obsession” with the president and impeachment during Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate.
“The media networks didn’t do us any favors by missing the reason why Donald Trump became our president in the first place,” Yang told the PBS Newshour moderators. “The more we act like Donald Trump is a cause of our problems, the more Americans lose trust that we can actually see what’s going on it our communities and solve those problems.”
“What we have to do is we have to stop being obsessed over impeachment,” he stated.
During his 2016 race, Sanders amassed a grassroots following with ideas like Medicare for All and tuition-free public college, two policies that initially had little mainstream support. That was the first year a majority of Americans backed Medicare for All, and their support has remained steady ever since, according to figures from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Also since 2016, support for free public college has grown from 47 to 63 percent.
Sanders, of course, didnât win the Democratic nomination. But his campaign did inspire hundreds of down-ballot progressive candidates across the country to embrace his platform: In the 2018 midterm elections, more than half of all Democratic candidates for the House backed Medicare for All, including his former campaign organizer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Now, with Sanders on his second campaign, his trademark proposals have dominated the 2020 primary race: Seven of the remaining 15 Democratic candidates have embraced some version of Medicare for All, and multiple debates have featured a sustained discussion about the proposal. Similarly, almost every candidate has promised to eliminate tuition for two-year community colleges, with several, in addition to Sanders, vowing to make all public four-year colleges free.
Sanders, in other words, has served as a transformational figure on the leftâsomeone who was able to fundamentally shift the Democratic political conversation toward these ambitious policy goals. Whether or not Yang earns his partyâs nomination, he, too, could be an influential figure. His policy proposals have already moved the primaryâs Overton window, even as many American voters are only just starting to tune in to the race. Before his campaign, UBI wasnât an often-discussed proposal in the United States outside the lefty-think-tank world, though a few cities have run pilot programs to varying degrees of success. Public support for the proposal increased by 6 percent from February to September of this year, according to the latest Hill and HarrisX polling. Among Democrats in particular, support for UBI ticked up 12 percent in the same period.
As Yangâs campaign has captured more attention, his competitors have been forced to take a position on UBI. Severalâincluding Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts; former Housing and Urban Development Secretary JuliĂĄn Castro; Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii; and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigiegâexpressed openness to the policy in the months after Yangâs candidacy began to gain traction. âI think that itâs worth taking seriously,â Buttigieg said in an interview this spring on the liberal podcast Pod Save America.
In debates, Yang has hammered home his warnings about automation, and during the October contest, the CNN moderator Erin Burnett asked a question seemingly inspired by that message. She wanted to know how candidates would prevent job losses due to automation, leading to an argument between Yang and the primary front-runners about whether implementing UBI would be more effective than raising the minimum wage or instituting a federal-jobs guarantee.
âItâs likely,â Dave Wasserman, the House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, told me, âthat candidates will only be talking more about automation and its impact and its role in inequality in future yearsâwhether they want to address it with some kind of enhanced safety net and a guaranteed income or not.â Already, Wasserman added, Yangâs ideas are speaking to âanxieties that a number of younger voters have about the future of the economy.â
This once again raises the question of why Yang is so concerned about automation taking American jobs in the future, but not illegal aliens taking American jobs right now. He wants to decriminalize whores, but not johns.
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:
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.
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%. đ¤
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.
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.
âWe wanted to propel others to jump in,â she said. âWe 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.â
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 canât get more than 25 percent of voters behind one candidate. Letâs be clear: They have more candidates than us splitting the vote. If I were Third Way, Iâd be more concerned with their side than ours.”
Stop me if youâve 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, âGet the hell out! We value diversity here!â
I didnât say it was a good joke, but itâs 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, âThe famously inclusive party wasnât looking very inclusive anymore.â
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, âThere are more billionaires than black people whoâve made the December debate stage â thatâs a problem.â
Itâs debatable whether itâs a problem for anyone other than Booker himself, which is why heâs been raising this alarm vociferously. So has former HUD secretary Julian Castro, who is of Mexican descent.
âWhat weâre staring at is a DNC debate stage with no people of color on it,â Castro complained. âThat does not reflect the diversity of our party or our country. We need to do better than that.â
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 itâs worth) became the first African-American president, winning two terms. In 2016, Hillary Clinton became the Democratsâ first female nominee. She won the popular vote but lost the election to Donald Trump.
Given these facts, itâs 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:
One lesson from the UK: if the Democrats don't stop their hard-left slide, they'll suffer the same fate as Labour. If they don't move off their support for mass immigration, they're toast. Ditto the wokeness. Left Twitter is not reality.
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.)
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: Bookerâs 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 âThe Oprah Winfrey Showâ. Booker also drew criticism in 2012 when he defended Bain Capital against attacks during President Barack Obamaâs reelection bid against Mitt Romney.
2) Hired Garry McCarthy: Before Garry McCarthy became former Mayor Rahm Emanuelâs controversial police superintendent in Chicago, Booker hired him to be Newarkâs top cop. The two were stars in the documentary âBrick City,â whose production crew later would go on to produce the CNN series âChicagolandâ â a documentary largely in name only â that focused on Emanuel and McCarthy. In Newark, McCarthy favored the use of âstop and frisk,â 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 âTrumpâs guyâ to run his police department, a reference to Trump calling McCarthy a âgreat guyâ 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.
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.
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?
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 ButÂtigieg. 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 OâRourkeâs campaign.
Klobucharâs rise comes as moderate Democrats have reasserted their power in a presidential race that for months was dominated by sweeping liberal ideas, including Sandersâs call for a political revolution and Warrenâs 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 Trumpâs reelection next year.
Klobuchar has made the same unwavering argument for months on the campaign trail, describing Medicare-for-all as a âpipe dreamâ and criticizing proposals such as free college as something the nation canât 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 OâRourke and Kamala Harris can be added to that list and each has already suspended their campaign.
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 DNCâs bizarre debate criteria, he has essentially purchased his donor base, through tactics such as selling $1 swag with free shippingâusually items worth far more than $1âthat 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…
In Iowa and nationwide, they are the leading second-choice pick of the otherâs 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, thatâs exactly their hope â 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 â or if they ultimately join forces â the ticket would unnerve independent voters and go down in defeat against President Trump.
Interviews with aides from both camps â who spoke on the condition they not be named because they warn their own surrogates not to criticize the other â produce a common refrain. The two candidates are loath to attack each other because they fear negativity would merely antagonize the otherâs supporters. The only way to eventually poach the otherâs 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 âprogressive majorityâ 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. Warrenâs levy.” I’m sure there’s no way that would damage the economy…
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 âlonger-than-longâ shot. As recently as this spring, Yang couldnât crack a single percentage point in most national polling.
Heâs 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 â Yangâs campaign is on track to beat his $10 million third-quarter earnings for the end of this year â 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. Yangâs 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. Itâs 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:
Bullock and Harris drop Out, Bloomberg rises (though slowly), Booker gets weepy, Tulsi sings, and Democrats have a diversity problem. It’s your Democratic Presidential clown car update!
With just under two months until the Iowa caucuses, the already-volatile Democratic presidential race has grown even more unsettled, setting the stage for a marathon nominating contest between the partyâs moderate and liberal factions.
Pete Buttigiegâs surge, Bernie Sandersâs revival, Elizabeth Warrenâs struggles and the exit of Kamala Harris have upended the primary and, along with Joseph R. Bidenâs Jr. enduring strength with nonwhite voters, increased the possibility of a split decision after the early nominating states.
Thatâs when Michael R. Bloomberg aims to burst into the contest â after saturating the airwaves of the Super Tuesday states with tens of millions of dollars of television ads.
With no true front-runner and three other candidates besides Mr. Bloomberg armed with war chests of over $20 million, Democrats are confronting the prospect of a drawn-out primary reminiscent of the epic Clinton-Obama contest in 2008.
âThereâs a real possibility Pete wins here, Warren takes New Hampshire, Biden South Carolina and who knows about Nevada,â said Sue Dvorsky, a former Iowa Democratic chair. âThen you go into Super Tuesday with Bloomberg throwing $30 million out of his couch cushions and this is going to go for a while.â
Thatâs a worrisome prospect for a party already debating whether it has a candidate strong enough to defeat President Trump next November. The contenders have recently begun to attack one another more forcefully â Ms. Warren, a nonaggressor for most of the campaign, took on Mr. Buttigieg on Thursday night â and the sparring could get uglier the longer the primary continues.
A monthslong delegate battle would also feature a lengthy public airing of the partyâs ideological fissures and focus more attention on contentious policies like single-payer health care while allowing Mr. Trump to unleash millions of dollars in attack ads portraying Democrats as extreme.
The candidates are already planning for a long race, hiring staff members for contests well past the initial early states. But at the moment they are also grappling with a primary that has evolved into something of a three-dimensional chess match, in which moves that may seem puzzling are taken with an eye toward a future payoff.
Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders, for example, are blocking each other from consolidating much of the left, but instead of attacking each other the two senators are training their fire on Mr. Buttigieg, the South Bend, Ind., mayor. He has taken a lead in Iowa polls yet spent much of the past week courting black voters in the South.
And Mr. Biden is concluding an eight-day bus tour across Iowa, during which he has said his goal is to win the caucuses, but his supporters privately say they would also be satisfied if Mr. Buttigieg won and denied Ms. Warren a victory.
It may seem a little confusing, but thereâs a strategy behind the moves.
Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren each covet the otherâs progressive supporters but are wary about angering them by attacking each other. So Ms. Warren has begun drawing an implicit contrast by emphasizing her gender â a path more available now with Ms. Harrisâs exit â and they are both targeting a shared opponent whom many of their fiercest backers disdain: Mr. Buttigieg.
The mayor has soared in heavily white Iowa, but has virtually no support among voters of color. So he started airing commercials in South Carolina spotlighting his faith and took his campaign there and into Alabama this past week â an acknowledgment that Iowans may be uneasy about him if he canât demonstrate appeal with more diverse voters.
As for Mr. Biden, his supporters think he would effectively end the primary by winning Iowa. But they believe the next best outcome would be if Mr. Buttigieg fends off Ms. Warren there to keep her from sweeping both Iowa and New Hampshire and gaining too much momentum. They are convinced sheâs far more of a threat than Mr. Buttigieg to build a multiracial coalition and breach the former vice presidentâs firewall in Nevada and South Carolina.
I don’t think Warren’s winning Iowa or New Hampshire, but since this was actually in the article, and I had to see it, now you have to see it too:
And you thought the Halloween nightmare season was over…
The Times piece didnât mention the policy initiative upon which Harris launched her campaign: Bernie Sandersâs Medicare-for-All legislation, which would eliminate private and employer-based health insurance. Harris signed on as a cosponsor to the bill last April. Itâs haunted her ever since. Medicare for All might look like the sort of âbig, structural changeâ that sets progressive hearts aflutter. For most voters it causes arrhythmia.
The proposal is liberalsâ foolâs gold. It appears valuable but is actually worthless. It gets the progressive politician coming and going: Not only do voters recoil at the notion of having their insurance canceled, but candidates look awkward and inauthentic when they begin to move away from the unpopular idea they mistakenly embraced. Thatâs what happened to Harris earlier this year and is happening to Elizabeth Warren today.
Harris moved into second place nationwide after her ambush of Joe Biden over busing during the first Democratic debate. But her position soon began to erode. Her wavering position on eliminating private insurance dissatisfied voters. She had raised her hand in support of the policy during the debate, but the next day she walked it back. Then she walked back the walk-back. Then, ahead of the second debate, she released an intermediary plan that allowed for certain forms of private insurance. She stumbled again when Biden called her to account for the cost of the bill. Tulsi Gabbardâs pincer move on incarceration, using data first reported by the Free Beacon, made matters worse. By September, Harris had fallen to fifth place.
This was around the time that Warren, bolstered by adoring press coverage and strong retail politics, began her ascent. For a moment in early October, she pulled slightly ahead of Biden in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls. Her rivals sensed an opportunity in her refusal to admit that middle-class taxes would have to increase to pay for Medicare for All. The attacks took their toll. Support for Warren fell. She then released an eye-popping payment scheme that failed to satisfy her critics. In early November, she released a âfirst termâ plan that would âtransitionâ the country to Medicare for All. In so doing, she conceded the unreality of her initial proposal. She came across as sophistical and conniving. Her descent continues.
The national front-runner, Joe Biden, and the early-state leader, Pete Buttigieg, both reject Medicare for All in favor of a public option that would allow people to buy into Medicare.
Could all this sound and fury just boil down to Bernie vs. Biden? “Warren’s early October high has worn off, while Sanders has steadily crept back up in the polls. The result is that the two are in a virtual heat for second place.”
Disappointed Democrats groused that you obviously had to be rich to compete in the 2020 race â because [Harris] was gone, while two billionaires remained â and pointed to the potentially all-white, un-diverse lineup at the partyâs next debate as proof that the qualifying criteria put too much of a premium on fund-raising.
But Harris had made the cut for that debate. And she entered the presidential sweepstakes with a higher net worth ($6 million, according to Forbes) than Bernie Sanders ($2.5 million), Amy Klobuchar ($2 million) or Pete Buttigieg ($100,000), who are still in the hunt and are among the six contenders slated to be sparring onstage on Dec. 19. Whatâs more, Sanders and another of the six, Elizabeth Warren, have raised buckets of money without courting plutocrats.
Many Democrats blamed the media for Harrisâs demise. They have a point, inasmuch as some news organizations never had the kind of romance with her that they did with Buttigieg and Beto OâRourke, two white men. I noted as much in a column last May, pointing to OâRourkeâs placement on the cover of Vanity Fair and Buttigiegâs on the cover of Time.
But the media fell quickly out of love with OâRourke and is picking Buttigieg apart for his lack of support among African-Americans and his past employment as a McKinsey consultant. And Harris was hardly ignored: Her initial campaign rally in Oakland, Calif., in January was covered live, in its entirety, on MSNBC and CNN. That same month, Rachel Maddow of MSNBC told her, in a face-to-face interview, âI think there is a good chance that you are going to win the nomination.â And after the Democratic debate in June, when Harris stirringly confronted Joe Biden about his past opposition to federally mandated busing to integrate schools, she received a bonanza of media attention and rapturous reviews.
I get that this Democratic primary isnât playing out as anyone predicted or in remote accordance with the partyâs image of itself and with its priorities. None of the top four candidates â Biden, Warren, Buttigieg and Sanders â is a person of color, three of them are 70 or older, and the billionaires, Tom Steyer and Mike Bloomberg, are dipping into their personal fortunes in their efforts to gain ground. For a party that celebrates diversity, pitches itself to underdogs and prides itself on being future-minded and youth-oriented, thatâs a freaky, baffling turn of events.
But some of the conclusions being drawn and complaints being raised donât fully hold water.
Take the fears about the nomination being purchased. Without question, running for office is too expensive. That dynamic can definitely favor candidates with lucrative connections. And candidates are forced â unless theyâre Steyer or Bloomberg â to devote ludicrous and possibly corrupting sums of time to political panhandling.
But at least at present, neither Steyer nor Bloomberg is exactly barreling toward victory. And while Cory Booker drew a connection between Harrisâs departure and a process warped by wealth, the link is tenuous. Booker, whose campaign presses on despite his failure to qualify for the December debate, said of Harrisâs withdrawal, âVoters did not determine her destiny.â
Actually, they kind of did. Theyâre the ones who are or arenât excited enough about a candidacy to donate money and keep it alive. Theyâre the ones responding to pollsters and, by flagging their preferences, determining which candidates take on the air of plausibility that often generates the next round of donations. I keep seeing, on Twitter and Facebook, laments about Harrisâs fate from Democrats who chose to support candidates other than her. Well, she couldnât succeed on generalized, ambient good will.
Former Vice President Joe Biden: In. Twitter. Facebook. Another piece warning than if Biden places out of the money in Iowa and New Hampshire his campaign dies. “Biden: âNobody warned meâ about Hunter and Ukraine because Beau was dying.”
Joe Biden asserted that he never heard worries that his son Hunter Biden’s role on a Ukrainian gas company could create a conflict of interest.
“Nobody warned me about a potential conflict of interest,” Biden said Friday in an interview with NPR. “I never, never heard that once at all.”
Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company, while his father was vice president and working on Ukrainian policy. President Trump asked the Ukrainian president this year to investigate the Bidens, prompting Democrats to launch impeachment proceedings against Trump.
George Kent, a top State Department official, testified during impeachment hearings in November that he raised conflict of interest concerns after he learned Hunter Biden was on Burisma’s board.
Is pathos supposed to distract us from the fact that Biden is too incompetent to keep his own house in order? Or are we just supposed to assume that so much graft and self-dealing went on the Obama White House that Hunter’s piddling $50 grand a month Ukrainian sinecure was side hustle chump change next to the scams others were running? Speaking of Ukraine, John Kerry endorses his stepsons’s business partner’s father. “Here Are The Billionaires Backing Joe Bidenâs Presidential Campaign.” Prominent names include Google’s Eric Schmidt, eBay’s Meg Whitman, Valve’s Gabe Newell, and George Lucas’ wife. He gets testy in a town hall and calls a retired farmer “fat.” Speaking of horrifying images lodged in your brain:
After two weeks in the presidential race, Mike Bloomberg now employs one of the largest campaign staff rosters, has spent more money on ads than all the top-polling Democrats combined and is simultaneously building out ground operations in 27 states.
But when the former New York mayor showed up to get the endorsement of Augusta Mayor Hardie Davis Jr. on Friday, only two of the 10 chairs initially placed before the lectern were occupied. When Bloomberg joked about his college years, saying he âwas one of the students who made the top half of the class possible,â he was met by silence.
âYouâre supposed to laugh at that, folks,â Bloomberg said to a room at the cityâs African American history museum filled mostly with staff and media.
For a normal presidential campaign, such moments would be a worrying sign, a potentially viral metaphor for a struggling effort. But with the Bloomberg campaign, it is not at all clear what established rules apply, if any. Everything he is doing is so unlike what has been done for decades that it is difficult to decipher how voters will react.
Rather than focus on the early states, he is campaigning for votes deep in the 2020 calendar, in places where voters are less tuned in to the nominating process. Rather than worry about a budget, he has put no limit on the money he is prepared to spend. Rather than run in a Democratic primary by appealing to ideological die-hards or partisan flag bearers, he describes himself as âbasically nonpartisan.â
Although far outside the box, the effort is not easily dismissed. As a former three-term New York mayor, he comes to the race with more executive governing experience and has represented more voters than most of his competitors, as well as a philanthropic record he has emphasized in campaign ads while pushing several core liberal priorities, including increased gun regulation and the reduction of carbon pollution. His campaign message is focused on his own competence and electability.
It’s ironic that he’s focusing on “competence and electability” while pushing two of the democratic Party policies most likely to lose him votes in swing states. Gun grabbing and carbon taxes are electoral poison in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Tired of pieces that do nothing but rip into Bloomberg? Me neither:
Everyone will have their least favorite figure in the Democratic presidential primary. Mine might be Michael Bloomberg, for sheer self-regard, narcissism, condescension, and arrogance.
Bloomberg did his first televised interview as a presidential candidate with CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King. Some of the highlights, or depending upon your perspective:
No other Democrats is even remotely as good Michael Bloomberg, according to Michael Bloomberg.
MIKE BLOOMBERG: I watched all the candidates. And I just thought to myself, âDonald Trump would eat âem up.â
GAYLE KING: You think all the candidates who are running today, he would eat them up?
MIKE BLOOMBERG: Let me rephrase it. I think that I would do the best job of competing with him and beating him.
His ego is justified because of his accomplishments, he explained.
MIKE BLOOMBERG: Does it take an ego? Yeah, I guess it takes an ego to think that you could do the job. I have 12 years of experience in City Hall. And I think if you go back today and ask most people about those 12 years, they would say that theâ not me, but the team that I put together made an enormous difference in New York City. And New York City benefited from it and continues to benefit from it today from what we did then.
Even his flip-flops are a demonstration of his intelligence, competence, and guts, he explained.
GAYLE KING: Stop and frisk. You recently apologized for that. Some people are suspicious of the timing of your apology.
MIKE BLOOMBERG: The mark of an intelligent, competent person is when they make a mistake, they have the guts to stand up and say, âI made a mistake. Iâm sorry.â
Bloomberg complimented the remaining African-American candidate in the race for being âvery well-spoken.â
GAYLE KING: the next debate is December And Cory Bookerâ said that it could possibly be on that debate stage no one of color. There would be more billionaires in the race than black people. Is that a problem to you?
MIKE BLOOMBERG: Well, Cory Booker endorsed me a number of times. And I endorsed Cory Booker a number of times. Heâs very well-spoken. Heâs got some good ideas.
To be fair, if fellow New York City mayor Bill de Blasio were still in the race, Bloomberg would only be the second most loathed figure in the race…
The tears started flowing near the end of Saturday nightâs town hall, as Cory Booker knew they would. The senator from New Jersey had started closing his events with a story about a mentor calling for him from his hospital bed, sharing his last six words.
âHe said to me: I see you, I love you,â Booker said. âI see you. I love you.â
Some people had started wiping their eyes. âA family moving up from the South, distressed. Neighbors that didn’t know them helped my family out. I see you. I love you. Slaves trying to escape from the South find white families opening their barns up, pulling together to build the greatest infrastructure project this county has ever known, the Underground Railroad. I see you. I love you.â
The crowd of around 50 Iowans is silent, except for the sniffles and tissue packets. Booker has done this repeatedly, over a year-long campaign that has made him well-liked across the state â a popular second choice for voters whose top pick is Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren or Pete Buttigieg.
But Booker is an infrequent first choice, and itâs about to cost him. Unless something dramatic happens by Thursday, heâll be knocked out of the sixth Democratic debate. Even Democrats who arenât voting for Booker say theyâre upset about that, wondering how the most diverse primary field in party history could become all white. The end of Sen. Kamala D. Harrisâs campaign rattled some Democrats, and Booker wants them to think about why. That starts with his own story, about a father who fought segregation to help his family, and a Stanford graduate who became a poor city’s mayor. That â hint, hint â was what would be left offstage.
White liberal Democrats will do anything for black candidates except vote for them.
âItâs unfair to voters,â Booker said about the debate rules in an interview after a stop in Iowa City. âOne of the most significant campaign presences here, and not be able to be on the debate stage? That’s unacceptable. The attitude from even local media here has been saying things like: Look, if you’re polled, choose Cory Booker, he deserves to be on the stage. Thereâs a backlash that’s going on here, where people are turning to our campaign, saying this is not right, we want to help.â
In front of voters, Booker was even more direct: âIf you sit there and you see a caller I.D. and don’t recognize the number, for the next week or so, answer the phone.â
Booker is not the only nonwhite Democrat who could get onstage. Andrew Yang and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii closer to qualifying than Booker is, based on polling. (Candidates must hit 4 percent in four polls, or 6 percent in two polls of early states, to qualify.) All three have hit the DNCâs fundraising marker and attracted at least 200,000 donations, as has JuliĂĄn Castro, who was bumped out of the last debate.
Senator Cory Booker, one of two black Democrats still running for president, thinks the Democratic Party has created a primary contest thatâs âgoing to have the unintended consequence of excluding people of colorâ while benefiting the white billionaires in the race.
âIs that really the symbol that the Democratic party wants to be sending out? That this is going to be made by money and elitesâ decisions, not by the people? Thatâs a very problematic message to send,â Booker told BuzzFeed News in an interview outside his Cedar Rapids campaign office on Sunday morning.
After Sen. Kamala Harris dropped out of the race last week, Booker has said he thinks the primary has been hijacked by billionaires like Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, who are able to use their considerable wealth to reach voters quickly. For instance, despite launching his campaign much later than other candidates, Steyer has a spot on the Democratic debate stage next week, while none of the four candidates of color have met the DNCâs requirements to qualify.
âWhen you watch an election, even in Iowa here when youâre staying in hotels here, you see Steyer and Bloombergâs ads wall to wall and you see Kamala not making it now because of money,â he said.
Steyer’s spending millions to suck. Harris raised millions, and stopped raising them when people found out how badly she sucked.
Update: Montana Governor Steve Bullock: Dropped Out. Twitter. Facebook. Dropped out December 2, 2019, seemingly right after I hit publish on last week’s Clown Car update, and says he’s not running for the senate. 538 does a failure analysis of both Bullock and Sestak:
On paper, he coulda been a contender: Heâs a sitting governor, and governors have historically done well in presidential nominating contests. (Although itâs likely the 2020 nominee will not be a current or former governor â with Bullockâs departure, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is the only remaining current or former governor in the race.) And as the former chair of the Democratic Governors Association, heâs friendly with the establishment and even enjoyed the endorsement of Iowaâs most prominent statewide Democratic officeholder. He could also make a convincing case for his electability against President Trump, something that is very important to Democratic voters this cycle, as Bullock won reelection as Montana governor by 4 percentage points at the same time that Trump carried the state by 20 points.
But as with so many other candidates, former Vice President Joe Biden overshadowed Bullock. Biden has proven more durable in the primary than many pundits expected, which has limited the ability of similar candidates (center-left, white, male, perceived as electable, possessing executive experience) to get a foothold. And, for whatever reason, donors and other party leaders who are leery of Biden have chosen to recruit new candidates to enter the race rather than get behind a candidate like Bullock. And with his polling average in Iowa barely better than it was nationally, Bullock may have concluded that his path to the White House no longer existed.
Even with 12 Democratic candidates out, 16 remain in. No, Democrats do not have a quantity problem. What they have is a diversity problem â one of ideology â the only diversity problem they do not long to discuss.
To understand Democratsâ ideological diversity problem, compare two of this weekâs casualties: Bullock and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.).
Bullock was a popular two-term governor from red state Montana, the kind of state Democrats hope to flip to win in 2020. Harris is a first-term senator from bluest of blue California, the kind of state Democrats could not lose if they tried. Bullock is a white man; Harris, a minority woman. Bullockâs support remained low and flat throughout his brief campaign; Harris experienced a brief boom-let.
None of those differences mattered much. The only one that mattered was the ideological one. Men and women, whites and minorities, and extreme liberals and less-extreme liberals remain in the race. Bullock was the contestâs only conservative. Harris was an undisguised liberal. Still, according to the Real Clear Politics average of national polling, just before their exits, Bullock stood at 0.5 percent; Harris was at 4 percent. That numerical difference is indicative of the raceâs content.
Bullockâs exit will be written off discreetly as a failure to gain âtraction.â That is no more than face-saving fiction. If âtractionâ means what it objectively should â a significant increase in enthusiasm for their candidacy â then the whole Democratic field lack it. By such a standard, they should all be gone.
Honestly, how many conservatives are even left in the Democratic Party?
Former Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. Last week we saw his beefcake, this week he’s talking about his endurance in the race. Maybe he should walk on stage to a Barry White tune. Actually, he should totally do that, because it would be hilarious, and at 1% he can’t possibly do any worse.
Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. Here’s the complete Joe Rogan interview with Gabbard (his second) that I merely posted an excerpt from last week:
She sings “imagine.” I hate that song, but she’s not cringy:
Senator Kamala Devi Harris, who survived growing up in the segregated deep south of Berkeley and then Montreal, was a sure lock to be the next President of the United States.
And then, after raising $36 million from gullible idiots and greedy special interests, she dropped out without even facing a single primary. It was her single greatest act of courage since being bused across the Mason-Dixon line from Berkeley into Thousand Oaks. Sadly, she just wasnât bused far enough.
There were many high points in the presidential campaign of the woman who would be Obama.
Her estranged father came out to condemn her for suggesting that his family was a bunch of pot smokers. Itâs not everyday a presidential candidateâs father states that her great-grandmothers are âturning in their graveâ over her âidentity politicsâ and that her Jamaican family wish to âdissociate ourselves from this travesty.â The travesty being the Kamala Harris presidential campaign.
It took a while, but Kamala Harris also disassociated herself from her travesty of a campaign.
Snip.
The problem with Kamala Harris for the People was that the people didnât want Kamala. Toward the end, Kamala was polling at 2% in the HarrisX poll (no relation) alongside winners like Julian Castro, Andrew Yang, and the guy who promises to tell the truth about the secret UFO base on the moon.
If Moon Base Guy has a Twitter feed, I give him good odds to beat Delaney in Iowa.
By then her campaign had broken out in spasms of vicious infighting between her sister Maya and campaign manager Juan Rodriguez who were only speaking to each through media leaks. Rodriguez had run Kamalaâs Senate campaign and had the requisite skills to win elections in a corrupt one-party state. He was out of his depth competing in a national election and the dysfunctional campaign showed it.
But the real brains behind Kamala Harris for the People was, predictably, a member of the family.
Maya Harris had headed the ACLU in Northern California, then had a plum spot at the Ford Foundation, before becoming a senior advisor to the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016, and then as campaign chair for her sister. âHillary really trusted her instincts,â John Podesta said of Maya. So did Kamala.
Too bad for her.
With her ACLU and Ford Foundation background, Maya had been billed as Kamalaâs âprogressive linkâ. It was more like the weakest link. While her campaign manager was out of his depth, her campaign chairwoman kept pushing her sister far leftward. And while that strategy worked in California where socialized medicine can pass without anyone having a clue how to pay for it: it didnât work nationally.
Kamala Harris for the People, the campaign brand, played off Kamalaâs background as a prosecutor. But under Maya, that part of her resume, the biggest part that doesnât involve Willie Brown, got buried. Maya pushed Kamala into the same radical policy space as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren while trying to compete for Joe Bidenâs black voters. But Kamala and Maya were too detached from the black community to realize that South Carolina black voters wanted a more conservative candidate.
Instead of winning over leftists and black voters, Kamala lost both.
(Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.) “I will admit that seeing a liberal accuse the Democratic base of being racist is a delicious and refreshing change of pace, but itâs as lazy here as it is when they lob this nonsense at Republicans. Kamala Harrisâs biggest problem was always Kamala Harris.” Powerline: “The substance was Harrisâs record as a prosecutor in California. The problem wasnât just that Harris was a zealous prosecutor at times. Thatâs to her credit as far as Iâm concerned. The biggest problem was her over-zealousness. Some of her practices were offensive even to a die hard law and order type like me.” This piece identifies four fatal flaws with her campaign:
Mismanaging Campaign Funds: “Harris raised an ample amount of cash early in the campaign but didnât husband her resources well and failed to adjust in time when her fundraising slowed. The New York Times reported that at the time she dropped out, Harris would have had to go into debt to continue her campaign.”
Choosing the Wrong Ground on which to Fight (i.e., going after Biden for his opposition to forced busing)
Trying to Have It Both Ways on Medicare for All
Waging a Front-Runnerâs Campaign When She Needed to Wage an Insurgentâs: “Biden, the de-facto front-runner from the beginning, has proven to be much more durable in national polls than many expected, and his support among African-American voters in South Carolina kept Harris from ever really taking off in the first-in-the-South primary. Yet Harris kept on campaigning as if she were leading the race, focusing on national media, limiting her early events in Iowa, sticking to stage-managed appearances, and, worst of all, appearing thoroughly scripted.”
All true, though left unsaid is the fact that she sucked as a campaigner, an uncomfortable truth papered over by a fawning media desperate to boost the candidacy of a black liberal women.
The result has been an influx of money that has allowed her to build up her Iowa staff, though not on the scale of her rivals. Still, Klobuchar had added five offices around the state to the 10 she had.
Also noteworthy, this week she added to her team veteran Iowa Democratic campaign operative Norm Sterzenbach, a former Iowa Democratic Party executive director who had been an adviser to former Rep. Beto OâRourkeâs 2020 presidential campaign.
Klobuchar was on a three-day trip through Iowa, including lightly populated counties in her quest to campaign in each of Iowaâs 99 counties before the Feb. 3 caucuses. By Saturday, she planned to have campaigned in her 70th.
Snip.
There are signs itâs got potential. The Des Moines Register-CNN-Mediacom Iowa Poll conducted last month showed Klobuchar rising to a distant fifth, behind Buttigieg, Warren, Biden and Sanders. A brighter spot for her: Nearly 40% of likely caucus participants were still considering her, a jump of more than 10 percentage points in the past month.
Of all the longshots, Klobuchar is best situated to compete in Iowa. She also campaigned in Denver.
To call Deval Patrickâs campaign a shoestring operation would be insulting to shoestrings.
Attend a Patrick event and thereâs not a bumper sticker or pin to be found, let alone organizers with clipboards collecting names of would-be voters. His ground game looks to be nonexistent: The entire campaign appears to consist of a handful of volunteers and one publicly announced staffer, campaign manager Abe Rakov. In comparison, other campaigns have several hundred paid staffers and dozens of offices combined â and thatâs just in New Hampshire.
Patrick has spent the first dozen days of his campaign trying to persuade senior Democratic leaders in the early voting states to take him seriously. They want to give the former Massachusetts governor with an inspirational life story and friendship with Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt. But Patrick has a way to go before they fully buy in.
âA lot of the talent has already been acquired here, professional talent to run his campaign,â said former New Hampshire Chief Justice John Broderick, a Joe Biden supporter. âHeâs not going to be on the debate stage, most probably. Itâs pretty damn difficult.â
The campaign hasn’t publicized the few staff hires it has made, so far divulging only two names: Rakov and LaJoia Broughton, who will serve as South Carolina state director.
Can that sort of campaign succeed in the 21st century? Possibly, if either you have an unusually compelling candidate (think Donald Trump), or message campaign that resonates with primary voters (think McGovern 72); Patrick doesn’t check either of those boxes.
Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. It’s not just that the 2016 presidential campaign never ended, the 2016 Democratic Primary is still being fought over, with Sanders and Clinton still trading barbs. Given how far she and the DNC went to rig 2016 in her favor, she has a lot of damn gall complaining about Sanders hurting her chances, especially since he ended up campaigning for her. Another day, another Democratic staffer (Darius Khalil Gordon) fired for tweets, including “Working hard so one day i can make that Jew money.” He wants to dump $150 billion into government owned broadband. Just when you think nothing could be worse than Comcast or Spectrum, Bernie proves you wrong!
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. By the shores of gutterrama, by the gently toppling 9 pin, by the rolling blackball thunder, confessed the sins of Liawatha:
đ Whoa…
This is quite the admission from Elizabeth Warren on previously identifying as Native American:
âI shouldnât have done it. I am not a person of color, I am not a citizen of a tribe. And I have apologized for confusion I have causedâpic.twitter.com/ErjPhVb62h
Gee, think maybe you should have done that four years ago? And note that she never confesses to the sin of using the benefits of Affirmative Action to advance her own career. Warren simply isn’t hard enough left for The Guardian. “Elizabeth Warren â under pressure from rival Pete Buttigieg to reveal her past compensation from corporate clients â announced Sunday that she’s received $1.9 million from private legal work since 1986.” That works out to just under $83,000 over 23 years. Pretty good money for most people (though less than I make), but (and I know this is going to sound weird coming from me) that’s really not an overwhelming amount of legal consulting billing, where good attorneys can bill $400 an hour an up, and a high profile lawyer like Warren before she ran for the senate, $1,000+ is not unheard of. On the oher hand, she hasn’t broken up how it was earned, exactly when, and for whom; maybe the bulk came after she was elected to the senate. How socialists soured on her:
It wasnât so long ago that you could read an article in Jacobin that argued, âIf Bernie Sanders werenât running, an Elizabeth Warren presidency would probably be the best-case scenario.â In April, another Jacobin article conceded that Warren is âno socialistâ but added that âsheâs a tough-minded liberal who makes the right kind of enemies,â and her policy proposals âwould make this country a better place.â A good showing by her in a debate this summer was seen as a clear win for the left in the movementâs grand ideological battle within, or perhaps against, the Democratic Party. Even staff writer Meagan Day, probably the biggest Bernie stan on Jacobinâs masthead, found nice things to say about Warren.
No more. A selection of Jacobin headlines from November: âElizabeth Warrenâs Head Tax Is Indefensible,â âElizabeth Warrenâs Plan to Finance Medicare for All Is a Disasterâ and âElizabeth Warren Is Jeopardizing Our Fight for Medicare for All.â In October, a story warned that a vote for Warren would be âan unconditional surrender to class dealignment.â Even a recent piece titled âMichael Bloomberg? Now Theyâre Just Fucking with Usâ went out of its way to say that Warren is insufficiently confrontational to billionaires.
At some level, the picks and pans of an activist magazine with only a fraction of the readership of, say, pre-2016 Breitbart might not seem of much consequence as America heads into its next presidential election. But as the Democratic Party faces its intramural battle over how best to respond to the Trump presidencyâwith measured centrism, or an opportunistic and disruptive lurch to the leftâ Jacobin has emerged as a hard-to-ignore voice in defining what the latter should look like.
Actually, I’ve done a pretty good job ignoring it.
The change in the publicationâs treatment of Warren, Sunkara told me, was not a conscious decision or directive from higher-ups like himself. The publication, as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, cannot formally endorse political candidates.
But it does reflect, he said, what Jacobinâs mostly young left-wing writers and contributors, many of whom are open Sanders supporters and even campaign volunteers, are thinking. Where a previous generation might have been more than satisfied with a candidacy that would have been a socialist dream a mere decade ago, a younger generation tired of tempering its hopes is hungry for what it thinks could be a more revolutionary outcome.
Warrenâs ginger concessions to the centerâbe it her proclamations of â faith in marketsâ or her refusal to say sheâd raise middle class taxes to pay for single-payer health careâthus seem like a betrayal of necessary convictions.
âThere probably has been, among certain writers, a disillusioning with certain parts of the Warren approach to things, and also itâs probably an attempt to push her to be more resolute,â Sunkara said. Thereâs a reason, after all, why the candidate who said she is a âcapitalist to her bonesâ was not the socialistsâ favorite to begin with.
Man, the show trials where Jacobian writers purge DailyKos writers for rightist deviationism is going to be lit!
Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. She said something stupid about vaccines, but the only link choices are Vice or The Mary Sue, so, nah, I’m just telling you about it. She’s angling for an apperance on Joe Rogan, which would be a great move for her (or, honestly, probably anyone but Biden or The Billionaire Boys).
âNot a single Republican has given any indication that theyâre in fact-finding mode. Theyâre all in defend-the-president mode. You need literally dozens of Republican senators to switch sides when the trial starts, which weâve gotten zero indication is going to happen.â
âThe more this drags on, the more danger there is of two things: Number one, Donald Trump comes out of this and says, âVindicated! Totally exonerated!â And number two, we are wasting precious time where we should be creating a positive vision that Americans are excited about solving the problems that got Donald Trump elected, and beat him in 2020,â he added.
He went on: âIf all that happens is all of the Democrats are talking about impeachment that fails, then it seems like there is no vision. It seems like all we can do is throw ineffective rocks at Donald Trump, and then it ends up leading, unfortunately, toward his reelection.â
Andrew Yang expanded his presidential bid’s digital operations with two senior hires, including an alum of the Obama and Hillary Clinton White House campaigns.
Yang brought on Ally Letsky, a senior vice president and strategist at Deliver Strategies, to lead the campaignâs direct mail efforts and Julia Rosen, a partner at Fireside Campaigns, to helm the campaignâs digital strategy.
âWhile other campaigns are scaling back or trying to sustain their current levels, our campaign is rapidly growing and adding experience and know-how to ensure that we peak at the right time,” Yang said in a statement. “Weâre absolutely thrilled that Ally and Julia â two of the most experienced and respected professionals in their fields â are bringing their expertise to the Yang Gang to help us compete and win.”
Letsky is a veteran of the Obama and Clinton presidential campaigns in 2012 and 2016, respectively. She helped former President Obama with his direct mail efforts during his reelection bid and served as the director of direct mail for Clintonâs failed 2016 bid….Rosen has also worked with several Democratic organizations and establishment groups prior to joining Fireside Campaigns, including ActBlue and MoveOn.
The piece also says that “JuliĂĄn Castro laid off staffers in New Hampshire and South Carolina earlier this month to narrow his focus on Iowa and Nevada.”
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, who declared then dropped out, or whose campaigns are so moribund I no longer feel like wasting my time gathering updates on them:
Taking their campaign all the way to the convention floor:
Joe Biden
Bernie Sanders
Pete Buttigieg
Elizabeth Warren
Michael Bloomberg
Tulsi Gabbard
I believe Bloomberg and Gabbard will soldier on despite no hope of winning. There’s a chance Yang takes this route as well. There’s also a chance Castro and Harris stay in until Super Tuesday in hopes of winning home state delegates in Texas and California, but I think they’re already toast. And with Patrick’s campaign essentially stillborn, there’s a chance he packs it up before Iowa as well.
Biden noms his wife in public, an ex-staffer reveals how badly Camp Harris sucks, Sestak drops Out (or at least stops pretending he was in), Gabbard weaponizes Joe Rogan, and New Hampshire voters beg Tom Steyer to make it stop. It’s your Democratic Presidential clown car update!
At little lite, as you would expect after Thanksgiving week. Who wants to talk about any of these turkeys over real turkey?
Update: Shortly after I posted this, I learned Steve Bullock also dropped out.
Quinnipiac: Biden 24, Buttigieg 16, Warren 14, Sanders 13, Harris 3, Bloomberg 3, Klobuchar 3, Yang 2, Booker 2, Bennet 2, Castro 2, Gabbard 1. Warren’s fall to third in this poll is pretty relevant, since Quinnipiac was the only national poll that ever showed Warren up over Biden. Biden maintains his frontrunner status, but it’s essentially a dogfight for second among Buttigieg, Warren and Sanders. There’s a significant possibility that all four of them have enough money, popularity and organization to take their four-way fight all the way to the convention floor.
“The Democratic presidential campaign has produced confusion rather than clarity.” Really? What first tipped you off?
Early in the year, the partyâs liberal wing seemed to be ascendant, defined by the candidacies of Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and the embrace of a single-payer, Medicare-for-all health-care program. Sanders and Warren were calling for other dramatic changes to the system â economic and political â and their voices stood out. Some other candidates offered echoes of their ideas.
That proved to be a misleading indicator of where the Democratic electorate stood on some of the issues, particularly health care, in part because fewer moderate voices were being heard. Former vice president Joe Biden didnât join the race until April. South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg wasnât being taken very seriously. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) wasnât breaking through.
The candidate debates provided the setting for the arguments to play out before a larger audience. Warren and Sanders came under attack from moderate Democrats at the first debate in June in Miami, with former Maryland congressman John Delaney the most vocal. But Warren and Sanders more than held their own. The progressive wing appeared to be on solid ground.
Subsequent debates, however, have produced a different impression. The progressives have been much more on the defensive and the moderates more assertive. Biden tangled with Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) in the Detroit debate over the issue of health care. Harris subsequently modified her position, moving toward the center. On the issue of Medicare-for-all, the ground has shifted.
During the Atlanta debate in late November, even Sanders seemed to be tempering his overall message. Asked about comments by former president Barack Obama, who had earlier told some wealthy Democratic donors that the country wasnât looking for a revolution, Sanders replied, âHeâs right. We donât have to tear down the system, but we do have to do what the American people want.â
Judged by the current polling in the four early states, the more-moderate candidates are prospering. To the surprise of many, Buttigieg is at the top of the field in Iowa and New Hampshire, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls. No one would have predicted that last spring.
Maybe not. But it was possible to do it when he led Q2 fundraising.
Democrat’s nightmare scenario: Bloomberg can’t win, but he can choose which Democrat to make lose:
What is the worst-case scenario for Democrats in their upcoming primary? Is it a contested primary all the way to the convention, where no candidate gets enough delegates to secure the nomination on the first ballot?…
Is it Joe Biden hanging on, leaving a lot of progressives disappointed and uninspired, a sense that theyâre counting on a man who just turned 77, and whoâs looked not so sharp in the debates, to beat Trump? Itâs not hard to imagine a âgrumpy old menâ general election, where Trump is his usual wildly unpredictable self with raucous, incendiary rallies, and Biden responds with his own meandering stories about âCorn Pop,â implausible anecdotes, un-woke language, cringe-worthy gaffes, and repeated insistence that his son did nothing wrong by joining Burismaâs board.
With Elizabeth Warren tumbling fast, Bernie Sanders locked in around the high teens in most places, and Pete Buttigieg still a long way from frontrunner status, Biden stumbling his way to the nomination doesnât seem so implausible. Lots of people comment on how Buttigieg is struggling to gain support among African Americans, but Warren and Sanders arenât doing that much better than him among this demographic.
But thereâs one other new factor that could make things go even worse for Democrats. As noted on The Editors podcast, I donât think Mike Bloomberg can be the king, but he could become the kingmaker. Having $30 million or so to spend on television advertising every week means Bloomberg can more or less take a sledgehammer to any rival whenever he wants. For Democrats, the nightmare scenario is that Bloomberg spends his millions tearing down anyone in his way, driving up voter disapproval of all the other candidates, but proves too unpopular to win the nomination himself â leaving the party angry and full of recriminations as Biden accepts the nomination on July 16 of next year.
Former Vice President Joe Biden: In. Twitter. Facebook. He launched a “no malarkey” tour of Iowa, eveidently because that tested better than “Cut the Jibber Jabber,” “Dagnabit,” or “I Wore An Onion On My Belt, Because That Was The Style At The Time” as a tour name. On that tour, he chewed on his wife’s fingers while she was speaking like a playful Rottweiler puppy. Can the “black left,” AKA #BlackLivesMatters, stop Biden? Given that Harris was their champion, and they haven’t achieved any significant victories themselves, I’m going to go with “no.”
#Bloomberg2020: Combines the thrilling excitement of a school board meeting with the sheer joy of listening to your dentist deliver a 30 minute condescending lecture on your improper flossing technique.
Brace yourselves, America. This week youâre getting $30 million in television ads touting former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg to be the Democratic nomination. And donât think that youâll be missing out if you live in some small television market â Bloombergâs campaign is spending $52,000 in Fargo, N.D., and $59,000 in Biloxi, Miss.
The most enthusiastic supporters of Bloombergâs bid appear to be television-station-ad sales reps, Bloomberg employees, and the Republican National Committee. Donât think of it as an election, America; think of it as an acquisition by Bloomberg LP. Donât listen to the people who say Bloomberg is trying to buy the nomination and the presidency; think of it as buying hearts and souls.
Democrats complain a great deal about how terrible money in politics is, while secretly accepting the assistance of $140 million in âdark moneyâ in the 2018 midterm elections. Bloomberg is going to be a great test of whether Democrats think and make decisions the way they want to believe that they do. On paper, Bloomberg is a terrible candidate. But if he gets traction in this race, it means Democratic primary voters are as easily persuaded by slick television ads as much as any other demographic. Note that Tom Steyer, a diminutive billionaire who is a walking vortex that no charisma can escape from, qualified for the last two debates and is at 2.5 percent in Iowa, 3 percent in New Hampshire, 3.5 percent in Nevada and 4 percent in South Carolina. But the most recent poll in New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina all put Steyer at 5 percent. TV ads build name recognition.
Bloomberg does not seem like the most natural choice for a party that is hell-bent on beating an incumbent president they see as an egomaniacal billionaire from New York with authoritarian impulses. You donât have to be a conservative to recoil from Bloomberg (although it helps); you just have to dislike any smug billionaire who believes the rules donât apply to him and that he knows whatâs best for everyone.
He says that Xi Jinping is not a dictator:
How is Bloombergâs apologism on behalf of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party not automatically disqualifying?pic.twitter.com/So8dhMtOtz
I also can’t see this winning him many friends, well, anywhere:
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: âHigher taxes should have a higher impact on their behavior and how they deal with themselves…â
Bloomberg says when leftists raise taxes on the poor, itâs good because then the poor will live longer because they canât afford as many things that âkill them.â pic.twitter.com/SaPkvp1fB8
If Buttigieg was hoping his high debate marks would help him diversify his base of support, that hasnât happened yet. The demographic cross-tabs in our poll show that he mainly made inroads among groups where he already enjoyed a disproportionate amount of support, like the college-educated, white voters and older voters. He had little success winning people over among groups where he has tended to struggle, like with black and Hispanic voters.
Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. Mark your calendar, as Castro actually said something that wasn’t absurd left-wing pandering: He wants to reform opiod laws so people that actual need them can get them, and says he’s open to decriminalizing drugs. I hope he enjoys probably the only “attaboy” he’ll receive from me until he inevitably ends his moribund campaign.
Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Probably not? No time for Grandma Death this week.
â Veteran â Woman â Minority â Lifelong Dem â Crossover appeal to Independents, Libertarians, Republicans The Dem Establishment shld be excited about my candidacy. But they'd rather lose to Trump than win with me, cuz they canât control me & that scares the hell out of them pic.twitter.com/wTWBGlwumo
A blistering resignation letter from a member of the Kamala Harris campaign paints a picture of low morale among staffers of a directionless campaign with “no real plan to win” ahead of the crucial Iowa caucus in 2020.
According to the New York Times, the sentiments expressed in a letter from now-former state operations manager Kelly Mehlenbacher were corroborated by more than 50 current and former campaign staffers and allies, speaking largely on the condition of anonymity to disclose the campaign’s many flaws and tactical errors, from focusing on the wrong states to targeting the wrong candidates, as a frustrated campaign staff draws closer to 2020 Democratic primaries, which at one point counted the California Senator as a likely star.
Ms Mehlenbacher’s letter came a few days after a November staff meeting during which aides pressed campaign manager Juan Rodriguez about strategy and finances after sweeping layoffs ahead of the campaign’s movement in Iowa.
“While I still believe Senator Harris is the strongest candidate” in 2020, Ms Mehlenbacher said, “I have never seen an organisation treat its staff so poorly … I no longer have confidence in our campaign or its leadership. The treatment of our staff over the last two weeks was the final straw.”
She said it was “unacceptable” to move campaign staff from Washington DC to headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland, “only to lay them off without notice” with “no plan for the campaign” and “without thoughtful consideration of the personal consequences to them or the consequences that their absence would have on the remaining staff.”
I can believe both that departing staffers are unaware how highly uncertain and contingent presidential campaigns are and that Harris treats her staff like shit.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder is âfrustratedâ former President Barack Obama did not emphatically encourage his presidential aspirations, those close to Holder and familiar with his thinking say.
Holder, who has warned Democrats to be âwary of attacking the Obama record,â was reportedly âfrustratedâ that Obama, who he considers a close friend, did not actively encourage his presidential aspirations.
Obama has remained notably silent throughout the Democrat primary â a development that should come to no surprise to those closely following the race. The former president signaled he would not endorse a primary candidate or speak out in an overly critical manner of any of the presidential hopefuls. According to Politico, Obama views his role as âproviding guardrails to keep the process from getting too ugly and to unite the party when the nominee is clear.â
Obama has, largely, stuck to that strategy, refusing to endorse his former running mate Joe Biden (D) and refraining from encouraging the presidential aspirations of his âclose friendâ Holder, who teamed up with Obamaâs Organizing For Action to create the All On The Line campaign, a redistricting project âaimed at thwarting the use of so-called gerrymandering across the country.â
While reports, as recently as early November, indicated Holder was still mulling a last-minute presidential bid, the doors are slowly closing. Politico reported Holder was reportedly âfrustratedâ Obama did not encourage his plans for a presidential bid, with a source close to Holder telling the outlet that âheâs [Holderâs] still pretty sensitive about it.â
Bet Obama never encouraged his plans to become an NBA center, either…
As her rivals falter, Ms. Klobuchar has outlasted some national figures, like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and former Representative Beto OâRourke, and she is one of just six candidates, so far, to have qualified for the next debate in December. Enough money has flowed in for her to expand her operation; she has doubled her offices in Iowa and her staff in New Hampshire at a time when many of her rivals are worried about contracting. After months stuck toward the bottom of the polls, she has earned around 5 percent in several recent surveys of early-voting states, as voters give her a second look.
And in perhaps the highest mark of progress yet, her strong performance in last weekâs debate inspired a spoof on âSaturday Night Live,â albeit one largely focused on her quivering bangs. (Ms. Klobuchar said she was standing under an air vent during the debate and hadnât used enough hair spray.)
Hoping to ride a wave of post-debate attention, Ms. Klobuchar planned to blaze through New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina this week, stopping briefly in Des Moines for a Thanksgiving Day celebration at the home of her campaignâs state chairwoman.
âIâm hearing more talk about Amy. Itâs picked up in the last couple weeks,â said Laurie McCray, the Democratic Party chairwoman in Portsmouth, N.H. âPeople have heard from the other candidates and theyâre still looking.â
The fresh interest comes as Democratic leaders express vocal concerns about whether sweeping progressive policies, like Medicare for all, could hurt the party in key battleground states. As some center-left voters seek an alternative to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and as former Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts and former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York have entered the race, the competition to emerge as the partyâs moderate standard-bearer has intensified.
She’s certainly doing better than Booker, Bullock and Bennet, and the departed Gillibrand, Hickenlooper, and Inslee, and has a real chance to pass Harris…for fifth place. That’s not exactly winning. She might well be peking at the right time and still garner* no delegates…
The theory of the Kamala Harris candidacy, whose nosedive was the subject of a withering pre-mortem from three of my colleagues over Thanksgiving, was that she was well suited to accomplish this unification through the elixir of her female/minority/professional class identities â that she would embody the partyâs diversity much as Barack Obama did before her, and subsume the partyâs potential tensions under the benevolent stewardship of a multicultural managerialism.
That isnât happening. But itâs still reasonable for Democratic voters to look for someone who can do a version of what Harris was supposed to do, and build a coalition across the partyâs many axes of division.
And thereâs an interesting case that the candidate best positioned to do this â the one whose support is most diverse right now â is the candidate whom Obama allegedly promised to intervene against if his nomination seemed likely: the resilient Socialist from Vermont, Bernie Sanders.
Like other candidates, Sandersâs support has a demographic core: Just as Elizabeth Warren depends on very liberal professionals and Joe Biden on older minorities and moderates, Bernie depends intensely on the young. But his polling also shows an interesting better-than-you-expect pattern, given stereotypes about his support. He does better-than-you-expect with minorities despite having struggled with them in 2016, with moderate voters and $100K-plus earners despite being famously left-wing, and with young women despite all the BernieBro business.
This pattern explains why, in early-state polling, Sanders shows the most strength in very different environments â leading Warren everywhere in the latest FiveThirtyEight average, beating Biden in Iowa and challenging him in more-diverse Nevada, matching Pete Buttigieg in New Hampshire and leading him easily in South Carolina and California.
Now, I have stacked the argument slightly, and left out a crucial axis of division where Sanders does worse than you expect: He struggles badly with his fellow Social Security recipients, the over-65. This weakness and Bidenâs strength with these same voters are obvious reasons to doubt the case for Bernie as the unifier, Bernie as the eventual nominee.
Real analysis or concern trolling? You make the call. Sanders also gets an interview with WYFF in Columbia, South Carolina.
Update: Former Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak: Dropped Out. He dropped out December 1, 2019. “Former Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) announced Sunday that he would drop out of the Democratic primary race after failing to gain traction in national polling despite months of campaigning.” His primary race accomplishments are talking coherently about defense policy and the threat posed by China, and to outlast Wayne Messam in the longshot derby. Plus all the Land of the Lost memes:
Billionaire Tom Steyer: In. Twitter. Facebook. “New Hampshire voters to Steyer: Make it stop!” (I try, but sometimes you can’t improve on the original headline.)
Maggie and Libby knew Tom Steyerâs ad by heart: “I’m going to say two words that will make Washington insiders very uncomfortable: Term limits!” they recently chirped in unison at the dinner table.
Unfortunately for Steyer, their votes canât be bought â theyâre 10 and 13.
âIt was like a comedy act,â the childrenâs father, Loren Foxx, said. âHis ads are on constantly.”
Some Granite staters said theyâre seeing Steyerâs ads dozens of times a day â and itâs become more grating than ingratiating. A POLITICO reporter who watched YouTube music videos this week by Pentatonix, a popular a capella group, endured 17 Steyer ads in just over an hour.
Even some of Steyerâs local staff privately acknowledge the volume of ads has gone overboard.
Steyer has massively outspent other Democratic candidates on social media in an effort to gain traction in polls and ensure he makes the debate stage. But the recoiling of some New Hampshire voters suggests there are limits to the strategy â Michael Bloomberg beware. Indeed, some residents feel like they can’t touch a piece of technology without seeing his face.
âThere is a point of no return in terms of visibility,” said Scott Spradling, a New Hampshire media analyst. “At some point, you become the uninvited guest. He uniquely is becoming dangerously close.”
Little Tommy Steyer is bringing his special type of campaign to Nevada. And he wants Bloomberg to drop out, in much the same way the Miami Dolphins’ third string quarterback would like the first string quarterback to retire…
Sen. Elizabeth Warrenâs downfall has begun and itâs not happening gradually. New polling shows that her support has been nearly cut in half, a sure sign that, as voters get to know her more, they find her less and less palatable.
I actually wrote a piece speculating about Warrenâs issues a little over a month ago.
The last debate exposed Warren for who she is. Sheâs inauthentic, whiny, and way too rehearsed. Democrats love her and the media swoon when sheâs reading off her talking points. When sheâs pressed and shows no ability to answer real questions, she suddenly is revealed for the weak candidate she isâŚ
âŚFor now, sheâs still in the thick of things, but the longer the status quo drags on, the tougher it will be for her. The hype train is beginning to go off the tracks.
It looks like the hype train has not only come off the tracks now, but plummeted into a ravine followed by explosions. Quinnipiac has a new poll out that shows Warrenâs support has been cut in half since their last survey. Further, support for so called âMedicare for Allâ has cratered.
Snip.
But Iâm not even sure this is all about policy realities. Warrenâs fall coicindes with her last debate performance. Iâve been saying for a long time that sheâs just plain unlikable. Sheâs Hillary Clinton but angrier. The running to her campaign rallies, dance moves, and rant sessions all just come off as incredibly inauthentic. Two decades ago, Warren was basically a Republican. Now, we are supposed to believe sheâs a progressive warrior? Democrat primary voters certainly are beginning to suspect itâs all an act.
Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: In. Twitter. Facebook. He raised $750,000 in 24 hours. Honestly, of all the candidates outside the big four, I like Yang’s chances the best, as he seems to have run the smartest and most focused campaign. Problem: Bloomberg garnered* more media mentions in a week than Yang has all year. Maybe the DNC-led media really does hate him. Also got a hit piece about a woman claiming she fired her after she complained about pay disparity in his company in 2011. “The woman, who had worked for Yangâs Manhattan GMAT for two years when she made her complaint, said she was making $87,000 a year when Yang asked her to send employment offers to two men he wanted to hire. The men were offered $125,000 per year and a $50,000 ‘relocation bonus.'” Eh, eight years ago and no name attached. Hard to think the charge carries much juice.
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, who declared then dropped out, or whose campaigns are so moribund I no longer feel like wasting my time gathering updates on them:
As I did in previous months, here’s an update on the number of Twitter followers of the Democratic presidential candidates, updated since last month’s update.
Three months ago I started using a tool that gives me precise Twitter follower counts.
I do this Twitter Primary update the last Tuesday of each month, following Monday’s Clown Car Update.
The following are all the declared Democratic Presidential candidates ranked in order of Twitter followers:
For reference, President Donald Trump’s personal account has 67,030,782 followers, up 704,954 since the last roundup, so once again Trump has gained more Twitter followers this month than all the Democratic presidential contenders combined. The official presidential @POTUS account has 27,163,640 followers, which I’m sure includes a great deal of overlap with Trump’s personal followers.
A few notes:
Twitter counts change all the time, so the numbers might be slightly different when you look at them. And if you’re not looking at the counts with a tool like Social Blade, Twitter does significant (and weird) rounding.
Sanders crushed it this month, adding nearly 230,000 followers; no one else even came close six digit follower gains.
Elizabeth Warren gained 237,827 followers last month, but only 79,433 this month. Even though that’s the second biggest gain, it suggests that her campaign may have peaked and that she failed to become the far-left alternative to Sanders.
Andrew Yang’s momentum seemed to slow as well, but it was still enough to carry him up over the 1 million mark.
Along with Joe Biden, Warren and Yang, Tulsi Gabbard was the only candidate to gain over 100,000 followers last month. That momentum seems to have slowed dramatically, with just under 17,000 new followers for November, which is right in line with what Amy Klobuchar and Julian Castro did. All are below The Andrew Yang Line, and none seem a threat to break into a higher tier anymore.
Michael Bloomberg joins the list in seventh place, with 2,343,799 followers, a majority of which I would guess are New York City/business related. Can he gain the 400,000+ followers to overcome the moribund Williamson campaign for sixth place between now and Iowa? I’d bet not.
Deval Patrick joins the race with 51,868 Twitter followers, or the sort of numbers garnered by people who drop out of the race, not get in it.
No one below Joe Biden is on a trajectory to pass Joe Biden in followers before Iowa.
Marianne Williamson’s second straight sub-1,000 gain month shows that the magic is gone and probably isn’t coming back.
Steyer still seems to be getting a pretty pathetic return on his Twitter ad buys.
Patrick jumps in, Bloomberg is running Heisenberg’s Campaign, Buttigieg is up big in Iowa, Warren falls, Tulsi draws all the boys to the yard, and Biden won’t puff or pass. It’s your Democratic Presidential clown car update!
Quinnipiac (South Carolina): Biden 33, Warren 13, Sanders 11, Buttigieg 6, Steyer 5, Yang 4, Harris 3, Booker 2, Klobuchar 1, Williamson 1. Got to think this is evidence Steyer is dropping big bucks on South CarolinaâŚ
Election betting markets. If you think Deval Patrick has a chance, now’s a great time to put down your money: he has no bets backing him, not even the 0.1% laid on the departed Hickenlooper…
Voters cast ballots in less than three months, and the Democratic primary is still crowded with little guys. Roughly a half-dozen candidates in the very bottom tier of the Democratic presidential primary are soldiering on, hoping that even after months of campaigning without catching fire that there’s still a chance. Their resolve reflects, in part, some Democrats’ insistence that the lineup of top contenders is deeply flawed and the race is primed for some late twists and turns.
“I truly believe that that person is as likely to be someone polling at 1% today as it is to be the people that are leading in the race today,” Bennet told reporters after filing his paperwork. “Stranger things have happened than that.”
Candidates like Bennet have some reason for optimism. Polls show many Democratic voters, even in early-voting states, have not made up their minds. In Iowa, the first state to weigh in, the front of the pack is crowded, another sign of ambiguity, some argue. Worries about the strength of the front-runners prompted Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York mayor, to move toward a bid, threatening to expand the field just as the party thought it would be winnowing.
Some higher-profile aspirants, including New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand or former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, weren’t able to stick it out, after months of poor polling and lackluster fundraising. Some middle-tier candidates, meanwhile, have had to scale back their operations. California Sen. Kamala Harris pulled staff from New Hampshire this past week, while former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro cut positions there and in early-voting South Carolina.
But Bennet and others seemed to have prepared for a long, very slow burn. Bennet and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock never expected to raise much money and built small-scale operations that could carry them until the first part of February, when Iowa and then New Hampshire vote.
“Everybody goes up and down, and what I need to be is organizing and catching fire as voting starts,” said Bullock, another candidate mired in the bottom tier who has announced an initial $500,000 advertising campaign in Iowa.
Bennet and Bullock stand out in the crowded bottom tier as two well-regarded moderate politicians who got into the race late â in May â and appear to have the same strategy: wait for former Vice President Joe Biden’s support to collapse and hope they’re the best centrist standing. A Bloomberg bid would immediately add another contender â and millions of dollars â to the competition on that front, though the former mayor’s team says he will likely stay out of early states.
Other perennial 1% polling candidates have plans that are far less clear. They include spiritualist and best-selling author Marianne Williamson, who moved from Los Angeles to Iowa for the race; former Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak, who just concluded a walk across New Hampshire to attempt to draw attention to his campaign; and former Maryland Rep. John Delaney, a wealthy businessman who is self-funding much of his race.
Delaney explained his continued campaign with a “why not?” rationale. After millions spent and countless hours of time, “it just seems kind of crazy for me to get out before the caucus,” he said.
“The left smells a rat in Bloomberg, Patrick bids”:
Aides and allies to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, among other liberals, perceive the eleventh-hour campaign launched last week by Patrick â and the prospect of an impending Bloomberg 2020 bid â as an attempt to crush an ascendant left wing that would expand government more than any other Democratic president in decades.
In their view, Patrick and Bloomberg are stalking horses for moderate Democrats, high-dollar contributors and bundlers desperate to halt the momentum of the economic populists at the top of the polls â and regain control of the party levers.
Itâs no minor intra-party spat in an election where all wings of the Democratic Party will need to be working in concert to beat Trump.
They’re not wrong, but note that the word “unelectable” is strangely missing from the piece. Finally, an actual excuse for using a silly image:
Former Vice President Joe Biden: In. Twitter. Facebook. Inside the war on Biden-Ukraine reporting. Man, Alexandra Chalupa’s name shows up in so many places. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.) Comes out against marijuana legalization. While I think that’s the wrong opinion, I’ve got to admit that it’s a bit gutsy for Biden to stick to his guns on this one, as it would be so easy to give lip-service to legalization the way most other candidates are doing. Promises he can work with Republicans once that evil mastermind Trump is gone. Caveat: It’s a garbage article full of far-left talking points like “more and more men on the right turn to political violence,” as though a Bernie Bro hadn’t started shooting at Republican congressmen.
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Getting In? Twitter. The Bloomberg campaign is currently in a quantum superimposition state, since he’s running (applied for ballot access in Alabama) and not running (hasn’t officially announced) at the same time. So don’t make too much fun of him, or he might not run:
Name the Democrat who is super-excited to have Michael Bloomberg barge into the Dem primaries like some nutty ex-girlfriend who gave you crabs popping in at your wedding. Where is the groundswell of support behind this pint-sized presidential aspirant? Perhaps the Democratic consultants who didnât sign up with one of the other goofy candidates are happy. The micro-zillionaire may not have charisma or a vision or actual human support, but heâs got endless bucks to squander on electoral parasites.
So, those jerks will love him getting in. And so will us Republicans â Trump already has a nickname laid upon the numismatic gnome, âLittle Michael.â
Real talk: the guy is delusional. Can you hear the excitement about the Verne Troyer of American politics bubbling over in the Midwest where this electionâs going to be won?â
âHey Lou, good news. That Bloomberg guy is in the race. Iâve been lookinâ for a miniature Manhattan finance snob who wants to ban Cokes, take our deer rifles, and who makes the New York Times happy.â
âYeah Phil, Iâm sure getting tired of all this great economic good news and my kids not coming home in boxes from Whocaresistan.â
âWe need a guy whoâs thinks heâs smarter and better than us and isnât afraid to tell us how to live our lives!â
Snip.
Bloomberg is the kind of pursed-lipped, uptight scold the Normals are saluting with a single digit. You get the distinct impression that he spends a lot of his time being very, very upset that we are choosing to live our lives without his approval, and that it grates on him. Electing him president would be like electing your kindergarten teacher POTUS, if your kindergarten teacher was tiny, 77, and jetted away for every weekend to Bermuda in her Gulfstream after lecturing you on how you canât have chocolate because of global warming.
Snip.
But thatâs okay, because his ego trip is going to cause amazing, glorious disruption within the Democratic race and help Donald Trump immeasurably. Blue on blue is the best kind of conflict, and this uncivil war is going to send popcorn sales through the roof. I know Iâll be gobbling it down, while sipping a Big Gulp just to tick him off.
Do you think Joe Biden, who now occupies the âfake moderateâ lane Bloomberg wants to run in, will just go quietly? It was Gropeyâs age-fueled decline, magnified by his snortunate son Hooverâs coke-fueled Slavic shenanigans, that made the creepy veep vulnerable. But Joe wonât stagger away quietly. Heâll stagger away loudly, incoherently, and bloodily. Joe may be utterly confused â âWhaddya mean the Blue Man Group is running against me?â â but those around him, those investing in his success, those planning to actually control things should the American people be dumb enough to elect the empty figurehead, are not going to just throw in the towel.
Itâs not like Bloomberg has a lot of love out there in Dem land, or in Republican land, or in any land. He wants to claim the centrist slot, but the Dems are in no mood for puny moderation. And we Republicans are not fooled by Lilâ Duce. Heâs a liberal schoolmarm just like the rest, except his business acumen wonât let him support the trillions in giveaways Chief Sitting Bolshevik and the rest are touting. He knows their numbers are literally insane, and heâll say so, but just because you can count doesnât make you moderate.
Bloomberg sees another gap, this one in the Democratic presidential field, where no center-left candidate dominates. Both Joe Biden and Mayor Pete Buttigieg have obvious weaknesses and Amy Klobuchar has all but disappeared. Bloomberg is right in saying the whole field is weak, most candidates are too far left to win in November, and the center lane is not too crowded. Heâs also right in saying that President Trump is vulnerable despite the strong economy. And heâs right in thinking that his age is no barrier. At 77, he is still energetic and sharp enough to do the job.
Where Bloomberg is wrong is thinking he can captivate a Democratic base that has moved sharply left since Barack Obama left office. Heâs wrong, too, if he thinks policies that worked in New York City will appeal to contemporary Democrats.
Bloombergâs problem is not that primary voters hate his notorious tax on Slurpees or his strong stance against guns. They like them. Party activists donât drink Big Gulps; they sip fair-trade coffee and craft beer. They donât drive pickup trucks with gun racks. Au contraire. They think restrictions on gun sales are long overdue and will reduce urban crime. They adore government policies crafted by experienced professionals, not gasbag populists. Some remember Bloombergâs New York as a very competently run city, one that became cleaner, safer, and more prosperous during his tenure (2002-2013). So far, so good.
The problem is that Bloomberg made the city safer by cracking down on petty criminals (âbroken windowsâ policing) and frisking lots of people to lessen gun violence. Those policies, begun under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and continued under Bloomberg, worked wellâbut they made enemies, especially in poor, minority neighborhoods. Today, those policies are despised by party activists, especially African Americans.
Being strong on crime is the surest way to alienate todayâs Democratic primary voters. The same black politicians who backed tough laws during the crack cocaine epidemic now reject them and blame their passage on white racists. (Thatâs why Joe Biden, who voted for these bills, now apologizes for them.) Actually, black politicians were among their strongest advocates. Back then, they had plenty of support from minority voters living in communities ravaged by crack and the gangs that sold it.
Those days are gone. The politicians who previously supported such policies now revile âmass incarcerationâ and the âprison-industrial complex.â For them, Black Lives Matter means no more intrusive policing, no more arrests for âbroken windowsâ or jumping turnstiles, no more street stops to frisk for illegal weapons.
Gone, too, are the days when reform-minded Democrats supported charter schools, as Mayor Bloomberg did. Teacher unions have waged war on them in Democratic cities across the country.
This shift in attitudes means Bloomberg can tell primary voters he made New York more livable, but he cannot tell them how. His successful policies are now politically toxic, at least among Democrats. They are major obstacles to winning black support, an essential element in the partyâs coalition. Elizabeth Warren and Mayor Pete face their own obstacles with this vital constituency, where they badly lag Barack Obamaâs vice president.
Bloombergâs second problem is yet another one that would be a huge asset in a sane world. He is the very embodiment of an American economic success story. He is immensely rich, and he made it all himself. Republicans love that kind of story. Democrats once did, too. No more. It doesnât matter that Bloomberg made his riches honestly by adding value to the economy. He didnât throw poor people out of work, run sweatshops, mine coal, or slaughter cuddly animals. It hardly matters that heâs given away billions to charity. What matters is that he is not embarrassed by his riches, that he made them in the financial sector, and that he opposes the activistsâ anti-growth policies, such as the Green New Deal. For the socialist wing of the party, those are the indelible marks of Cain. The hard left will never back him, even if he wins the nomination. Some might hold their noses and vote for him in the general election, but his nomination would rip the party apart.
Bloomberg faces other problems, too. He is the opposite of charismatic. He lacks a national, grassroots organization. His money can buy consultants and advertisements, but it cannot coax volunteers to ring doorbells.
“History Says Bloomberg 2020 Would Be a Sure Loser“:
If Bloomberg is concerned about the rise of Elizabeth Warren, the Thompson campaign should prompt him to think very hard about the ramifications of getting into the 2020 race. By splitting the moderate vote with Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, a Bloomberg candidacy might wind up delivering key states to Warren or Bernie Sanders.
Granted, none of the other latecomers has brought a fleet of Brinks trucks into a campaign. And the sheer volatility of primaries, along with the unpredictability of politics, warns against putting too much stock in history. Still, if Bloomberg or anyone else is seriously thinking of launching a campaign, itâs worth remembering that when it comes to a presidential run, the last has never been first.
Now that Bloomberg has hinted that he might get into the race, he must be considering how heâll defend his record as mayor to an increasingly left-leaning Democratic voter. Though conservatives often deride Bloomberg for his nanny-state initiatives, like wanting to ban âbig gulpâ sugary drinks, a considerable part of what the Wall Street tycoon accomplished in New Yorkâfrom carrying on Rudy Giulianiâs essential policing initiatives to knocking down barriers to real estate development and encouraging the rich to come to New York because âthatâs where the revenue comes [from]ââwill be far more noxious to the progressive voter than Bidenâs policy transgressions. How Bloomberg defends himself will be significant because weâre entering a phase in which moderate, pro-business Democrats (and he was always a Democrat, even when he ran as a Republican) like him are disappearing from the political landscape of Americaâs big cities, to be replaced by progressives whose views on everythingâespecially public orderâappear to be regressions to the disastrous urban policies of the 1960s and 1970s. The disorder rising in places like San Francisco and Seattle suggests what the fruits of such policies will be.
BOSTON GLOBE: I think that I get the premise of the campaign. You have someone highly educated, very energetic, inspiring on the stump, has some executive experience, with a beautiful, bald head â
CORY BOOKER: Thank you for finally stating the truth!
GLOBE: Oh, well I am talking about Deval Patrick.
BOOKER: [Laughter] TouchĂŠ! TouchĂŠ! Another reporter did that to me, like a mayor, Rhodes Scholar, and thank you, thank you. âOh no, I am talking about Mayor Pete.ââ
Points for being a good sport…
Montana Governor Steve Bullock: In. Twitter. Facebook. He didn’t qualify for the November debate. He wins a fact-check. “Bullock is right heâs the only Democratic presidential candidate to win a statewide race in a state Trump won in 2016.” Winning a fact check is a nice consolation prize for someone who won’t win any delegates…
South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. CNN tries to explain his surge in Iowa. “It all has to do with the fact that a lot of caucusgoers had and have a highly favorable view of Buttigieg.” That’s putting the cart before the horse: They have a favorable view of him because he’s poured a ton of money into the state to introduce himself favorably to Iowans. Is he peaking too soon? Maybe, but most of the Democratic candidates this cycle never even broke into double-digits anywhere. He may be up big in Iowa, but South Carolina? Not so much:
The Democratic nomination remains very much up for grabs, but a big question hanging over Buttigiegâs head is whether he can make sufficient inroads with African-American primary voters to capture the nomination.
Black voters make up about a quarter of the Democratic primary electorate, but two thirds of South Carolina primary voters are black, and Buttigieg remains stuck in the single digits in the Palmetto State. A Monmouth poll of South Carolina conducted after the October Democratic debate, where Buttigieg went toe-to-toe with Elizabeth Warren and won, pegged the mayorâs support at 3 percent, while a Change Research poll conducted at the same time showed Buttigieg at 9 percent.
Buttigiegâs weakness in South Carolina is partly a function of the fact that Joe Biden, former vice president to Americaâs first black president, retains a commanding lead among black voters. But Buttigiegâs weakness is also partly a function of his sexual orientation, as David Catanese reported in The State last month: âInternal focus groups conducted by Pete Buttigiegâs presidential campaign this summer reveal a possible reason why he is struggling with African-American voters: some see his sexuality as a problem.â
âIâll go ahead and say it,â one African-American man said in a focus group. âI donât like the fact that he threw out there that he lives with his husband.â
Buttigieg pitches a plan for black Americans. Unfortunately, he used a stock photograph of black Kenyans in an ad promoting the plan. Oops. Double-oops: Names of supporters of the plan (but not necessarily Buttigieg) appearing in a Buttigieg ad.
Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Probably not? But she says that “many, many, many people” want her to run in 2020. I’m sure that’s true: There’s an army of Clinton sycophants, toadies and consultants who would love one last ride on the gravy train. “‘We Would Be Delighted To Have Hillary Clinton Run In 2020,’ Says Democratic Party Chair As Several Laser Dots Dance Around On Forehead.”
Gabbard doesnât have a ton of supporters: Sheâs averaging 1 to 2 percent in national surveys and 2 to 4 percent in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire. But sheâs managed to meet the higher polling thresholds for debate qualification, so her support has grown at least a little bit â and whatâs more, a chunk of it seems to be exclusively considering backing Gabbard. Back in October FiveThirtyEight partnered with Ipsos to dig into candidate support before and after the fourth Democratic debate. Our survey found that 13 percent of Gabbardâs supporters said they were only considering voting for her, a larger share than all Democratic candidates other than former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, both of whom have more support overall.
So what do we know about Gabbardâs base? For one thing, itâs overwhelmingly male âaccording to The Economistâs polling with YouGov, her support among men is in the mid-single digits, while her support among women is practically nonexistent.
This trend is evident in other recent polls as well. Last weekâs Quinnipiac poll of Iowa found Gabbard at 5 percent among men and 1 percent among women, and Quinnipiacâs new survey of New Hampshire found her at 9 percent among men and 4 percent among women. A late October national poll from Suffolk University found her at 6 percent among men and 2 percent among women.
Her predominantly male support shows up in other ways, too. An analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics found that only 24 percent of Gabbardâs itemized contributions had come from female donors,1 the smallest percentage of any candidate in the race. And while she doesnât lead on the prediction markets, which tend to skew heavily young and male, as of publication, bettors do give her a slightly better chance of winning the Democratic nomination than Sen. Kamala Harris on PredictIt, though still not better than internet favorite Andrew Yang.
Gabbardâs supporters are also likely to fall outside of traditional Democratic circles. Her supporters, for instance, are more likely to have backed President Trump in 2016, hold conservative views or identify as Republican compared to voters backing the other candidates. An early November poll from The Economist/YouGov found that 24 percent of Democratic primary voters who voted for Trump in 2016 backed Gabbard. By comparison, 12 percent of these voters backed Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 11 percent backed Biden and 10 percent backed Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Primary voters who identified as conservative also overwhelmingly backed Gabbard in that poll (16 percent) â only Biden and Harris enjoyed more support from this group (27 percent and 17 percent, respectively).
All reasons for woke Democrats to hate her even more…
⌠many privately expressed the view that Harris should begin seriously considering leaving the race to avoid total embarrassment in the stateâs early March primary. Her continued weakness in the presidential contest could even have a more damaging effect, several said â encouraging a primary challenger in 2022, when Harris is up for reelection.
âI donât think she can last until California,ââ says Garry South, a veteran strategist who has advised [CA Governor Gavin] Newsom and former presidential candidate Joe Lieberman. âI donât wish her ill, but sheâs got a decision to make: you limp in here and get killed in your home state, and it damages your reputation nationally. Or you pull out before the primary like Jerry Brown did in 1980 ⌠and you at least avoid the spectacle of being decisively rejected.â
[âŚ]
Interviews with a half-dozen veteran Democratic campaign insiders at the convention who spoke on condition of anonymity â many out of fear of angering a sitting senator â echoed Southâs view.
Harris has qualified for both the November and December Democratic debates, so itâs highly unlikely sheâll drop out before then unless she just no longer has the campaign resources to go on.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder: Probably not? Not seeing any news since last week’s trial ballon, and maybe Patrick’s entry stole any potential thunder he could have generated.
Klobucharâs rise in Minnesota politics is attributable in good part to her fatherâs prominence as a sports reporter and daily columnist for the Minneapolis Tribune. By the time she jumped into electoral politics everybody knew the name Klobuchar.
In Minnesota politics Klobuchar has led a charmed life, but so have a few other DFL politicians who lacked the advantage of a widely known name. Her popularity among Minnesota voters is not a credit to us. From my perspective, the most notable fact about Senator Klobuchar is what a phony she is.
She is not nice. She is not funny. She is not a moderate. She is not an accomplished legislator. She is an incredibly boring speaker.
Update: Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: Jumped In. Because Massachusetts just isn’t sufficiently represented by Liawatha in the race. 538 articulates the reasoning behind Patrick’s run:
Democrats, as I wrote earlier this week, have a somewhat unorthodox set of front-runners â at least when compared to past nominees. Joe Biden is on the old side (76). Pete Buttigieg is on the young side (37). Elizabeth Warren is very liberal. And Bernie Sanders is both very liberal and old (78). The last two Democrats to win a general election â Bill Clinton and Barack Obama â were 40-somethings who ran on somewhat safe ideological platforms.
Patrick, meanwhile, is 63 years old â not young, exactly, but not in his upper 70s either. He served two terms as Massachusetts governor. Heâs liberal, but unlikely to push more controversial liberal policies such as Medicare for All or more drastic ones such as a wealth tax. I assume that Patrick, who is friendly with Obama, is himself wary of the current Democratic field and its lack of a Bill Clinton or Barack Obama style figure, and that his circle includes a lot of Democratic Party operatives and donors who see this void and encouraged him to run. (Or at least didnât discourage him.)
You might think that Patrickâs logical path is to compete with Biden for black voters, and with Warren and Sanders for New Hampshire voters (all three come from neighboring states). And sure, it would help Patrick if he can peel off some of Warrenâs well-educated liberal voters, particularly in New Hampshire. And to win the nomination, he will probably have to close the big lead that Biden has with African-Americans. But I think the real opening for Patrick is essentially to replace Pete Buttigieg as the candidate for voters who want a charismatic, optimistic, left-but-not-that-left candidate. Patrick, I think, is betting that thereâs a âGoldilocksâ opportunity for him â âButtigieg but older,â or âBiden but youngerâ â a candidate who is viewed as both safe on policy and safe on electability grounds by Democratic establishment types and voters who just want a somewhat generic Democratic candidate that they are confident will win the general election.
After all, in his rise in Massachusetts politics, Patrick was not that reliant on black support â the Bay State has a fairly small black population (9 percent). Instead, he won a competitive 2006 Democratic primary for governor by emerging as preferred candidate among the stateâs white, educated, activist class.
On paper, Patrick seems fairly similar to Cory Booker and Kamala Harris â charismatic, black, left-but-not-that-left. But he has two potential advantages over them. First, Patrick has a last-mover advantage â heâs seen how the other candidates have ran and can begin his candidacy to take advantage of perceived weaknesses. As a new candidate, voters might also give him a fresh look in a way that perhaps the two senators havenât been able to get. But more importantly, Booker and Harris both spent the first half of the year trying to win some of the more liberal voters, who are likely now with Warren and Sanders. That may have made Harris, in particular, appear as though she was trying to be all things to all people. Patrick can now enter the race knowing that he is trying to win Democrats who self-identify as âmoderateâ and âsomewhat liberal,â basically conceding the most liberal voters to Warren and Sanders.
Patrick currently works at Bain Capital, the private equity firm that Democrats spent 2012 criticizing because Mitt Romney had long worked there. That looked like a huge liability this time last year, when Patrick flirted with but ultimately ruled out a run. Back then, it seemed like the partyâs left was ascendant and Patrickâs Bain work would be a deal-breaker. Now, I expect Patrick to be more unapologetic about his work, essentially leaning into the idea that he is more moderate and pro-capitalism than Warren or Sanders.
It all sounds pretty good on paper, right? You can almost see why Patrick decided to launch such a late, long-shot bid.
There is a potential problem, though: Iâm not sure voters really want Buttigieg-but-older or Biden-but-younger. Whatever the Democratic elites think, Democratic voters like the current field, as I noted above. That makes me think that people in Iowa, where the South Bend mayor is surging, are not looking for Buttigieg-but-older. Theyâre probably well aware of how old Buttigieg is â he talks about it all the time! Biden, meanwhile, has led in national polls most of the year and has solid leads in Nevada and South Carolina â itâs possible many voters view his age and related experience as a feature not a bug. Patrick will be a fresh candidate and perhaps have a more honed message, but in the end may register with actual voters not much differently than Booker or Harris or any of the other lower-tier candidates, black or non-black.
Deval Patrick, former governor of Massachusetts and newly-resigned executive of Mitt Romneyâs private equity firm Bain Capital, has entered the Democratic primary race, which is shaping up to be the biggest ensemble-disaster comedy since Cannonball Run.
Patrickâs entry comes after news that former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg put himself on the ballot in Alabama and Arkansas. It also comes amid word from Hillary Clinton that âmany, many, manyâ people are urging her to run in 2020, and whispers in the press that an âanxious Democratic establishmentâ has been praying for alternate candidacies in a year that had already seen an astonishing 26 different people jump in the race.
A piece in the New York Times a few weeks ago suggested Democratic insiders, going through a âMaalox momentâ as they contemplated possible failure in next yearâs general election season, were fantasizing about âwhite knightâ campaigns by Clinton, Patrick, John Kerry, Michelle Obama, former Attorney General Eric Holder (!), or Ohioâs Sherrod Brown.
The story described âconcernâ that âparty elitesâ have about the existing field:
With doubts rising about former Vice President Joseph R. Bidenâs ability to finance a multistate primary campaign, persistent questions about Senator Elizabeth Warrenâs viability in the general election and skepticism that Mayor Pete Buttigieg, of South Bend, Ind., can broaden his appeal beyond white voters, Democratic leaders are engaging in a familiar rite: fretting about who is in the raceâŚ
LOL at the non-mention of Bernie Sanders in that passage. If Bernie wins the nomination, âButtigieg Finishes Encouraging Fourthâ is going to be your A1 Times headline.
Snip.
People like Bloomberg and Patrick seem to believe in the existence of a massive electoral âmiddleâ that wants 15-point plans and meritocratic slogans instead of action. As befits brilliant political strategists, they also seem hyper-concerned about the feelings of the countryâs least numerous demographic, the extremely rich. A consistent theme is fear (often described in papers like the Times as âconcernâ) that the rhetoric of Warren and Sanders might unduly upset wealthy folk.
Snip.
From Donald Trump to Sanders to Warren, the politicians attracting the biggest and most enthusiastic responses in recent years have run on furious, throw-the-bums-out themes, for the logical reason that bums by now clearly need throwing out.
Snip.
You canât capture the widespread discontent over these issues if youâre running on a message that the donor class doesnât deserve censure for helping create these messes. Itâs worse if you actually worked â as Patrick did â for a company like Ameriquest, a poster child for the practices that caused the 2008 financial crisis: using aggressive and/or predatory tactics to push homeowners into new subprime mortgages or mortgage refis, fueling the disastrous financial bubble.
If we count Bloomberg, Patrick marks the 28th person to run in the 2020 Democratic race. Pundits from the start have hyped a succession of politicians with similar/familiar political profiles, from Beto OâRourke to Kamala Harris to Buttigieg to Amy Klobuchar to John Delaney, and all have failed to capture public sentiment, for the incredibly obvious reason that voters have tuned out this kind of politician.
Theyâve heard it all before. Every time a long-serving establishment Democrat gets up and offers paeans to âhopeâ and âunityâ and âeconomic mobility,â all voters hear is blah, blah, blah. Theyâre not looking for what FiveThirtyEight.com calls a âGoldilocks solution,â i.e. âButtigieg, but older,â or âBiden, but youngerâ (or, more to the point in the case of this Bain Capital executive, âMitt Romney, but blackâ); theyâre looking for something actually different from what theyâve seen before.
The partyâs insiders would have better luck finding a winning general election candidate if they randomly plucked an auto mechanic from Lansing, Michigan, or a nail salon owner from Vegas, or any of a thousand schoolteachers who could use the six months of better-paid work, than they would backing yet another in the seemingly endless parade of corporate-friendly âGoldilocks solutions.â Thatâs assuming they canât see past themselves long enough to at least pretend they can support someone with wide support bases like Sanders or Warren.
Our military is excellent in many regards, but it is insufficient in its readiness to meet all the threats of the 21st century and needs to be truly transformed. You can see this in the U.S. commander of the Pacificâs comment that China now commands the Western Pacific. In the face of a rising China, along with authoritarian regimes from Brazil to the Philippines to Turkey to Russia, and the constant presence of belligerent non-state actors, we need to reform our military to deal with asymmetrical threats.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. Warren climbs onboard the free health care for illegal aliens train. “Medicare for All, as I put this together, covers everyone regardless of immigration statusâŚAnd thatâs it. We get Medicare for All, and you donât need the subsidies because Medicare for All is fully paid for, and thatâs the starting place.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.) But she’s also ever-so-slightly scaled back her $40 trillion socialized medicine scheme, and Sweet Jesus are the loony left upset over it. And I’ve got to hand it to Team Bernie for this one:
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is expanding her staff in Texas, giving her easily the biggest organization devoted to the state of any primary campaign.
In an announcement first shared with The Texas Tribune, her campaign named six senior staffers Friday morning who will work under its previously announced state director, Jenn Longoria. The staff for now will be spread across offices in San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Houston and Fort Worth.
The campaign also announced it will hire full-time organizers in north, central, east and south Texas.
The Texas team, according to the campaign, âwill focus on traditional, digital and data-driven voter contact and dedicated outreach to communities of color across the Lone Star State.” The delegate-rich Texas primary is on March 3, or Super Tuesday.
Here are the senior staffers that Warrenâs campaign announced Friday morning, starting with where they will be based:
San Antonio area: Matthew Baiza, deputy organizing director. Baiza was the 2019 campaign manager for San Antonio City Councilwoman Ana Sandoval and an organizer for Gina Ortiz Jonesâ 2018 bid for the 23rd Congressional District.
Austin area: Sissi Yado, organizing director. Yado most recently worked as senior field manager for the Human Rights Campaign in Texas and previously was training manager for the Florida Democratic Party.
Austin area: Michael Maher, operations and training director. Maher has worked for Battleground Texas in a number of roles, including 2018 programs director and 2016-2019 operations and finance manager.
Austin area: Beth Kloser, data director. Kloser was managing director of Battleground Texas from 2015-2018 and a regional organizer for Wendy Davisâ 2014 gubernatorial run.
Dallas area: Jess Moore Matthews, mobilization director. Matthews most recently served as chief content officer for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and previously was digital director for de Blasioâs 2020 presidential campaign.
Houston area: Andre Wagner, community organizing director. Wagner is a former staffer for state Sen. Carol Alvarado of Houston and Houston City Councilman Dwight Boykins whose campaign experience includes organizing for Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 U.S. Senate bid.
Yes, Battleground Texas, Wendy Davis and Bill de Blasio alums, that’s your surefire ticket to success in Texas…
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, who declared then dropped out, or whose campaigns are so moribund I no longer feel like wasting my time gathering updates on them:
I’ve successfully managed to post the clown car update every Monday since January, but today is going to break the string thanks to a task that took up several hours on Sunday. But tomorrow should still see a one-day late Clown Car Update, so the weekly streak will continue.
Instead, enjoy a handful of tweets on more-or-less the same subject:
Just so we're clear Joe Biden skipped the California Democratic Convention, including a univision forum, so he could go to Vegas and call marijuana a gateway drug. https://t.co/V00ctNKGnp
Per @ForecasterEnten, this seems pretty significant in Iowa. 38% of Democratic caucus-goers think Warren is too liberal, up from 23% this spring. (Just 4% say she's too conservative.) And Iowa caucusgoers are a pretty darn liberal bunch! https://t.co/pDI44clAPApic.twitter.com/KVYY1WCiC1
Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg lied about black Americans endorsing him and literally used fake photos from Kenya to prove it … meanwhile I have Democrats in my mentions claiming the parties magically switched places. LOL
