Posts Tagged ‘Wayne Messam’

Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for May 13, 2019

Monday, May 13th, 2019

Biden’s still up big, O’Rourke’s freefall continues, Yang threatens to PowerPoint the nation, and get ready for the Gravalanche! It’s the latest Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update!

Polls

  • Post and Courier-Change Research South Carolina: Biden 46, Sanders 15, Harris 10, Buttigieg 8, Warren 8. Booker 4, O’Rourke 2, Yang 2, Abrams 1.
  • Monmouth New Hampshire: Biden 36, Sanders 18, Buttigieg 9, Warren 8, Harris 6, O’Rourke 2, Klobuchar 2, Booker 2, Hickenlooper 1, Ryan 1, Yang 1.
  • Morning Consult: Biden 40, Sanders 19, Warren 8, Harris 7, Buttigieg 6, O’Rourke 5, Booker 3, Klobuchar 2, everyone else 1 or less.
  • This is going to throw a crimp into Harris and Booker’s plans:

  • Real Clear Politics
  • 538 polls
  • Election betting markets
  • Pundits, etc.

  • 18 of the declared Democratic nominees for President have met the minimum threshold to appear in the first debate, either by garnering donations from 65,000 individuals or scoring at least 1% in three or more polls: Sanders, Buttigieg, Harris, Warren, O’Roruke, Yang, Biden, Booker, Castro, Gabbard, Klobuchard (both), Delaney, Gillibrand, Hickenlooper, Inslee, Ryan, Swalwell (polls), and Marianne Williamson (donations). (Hat tip: BruceTheGay.)
  • Jim Geraghty notes that Biden is running away with the race and upending lots of assumptions:

    Late yesterday afternoon I raised the possibility that the hype surrounding Pete Buttigieg is peaking. He’s back to modest single digits in most national polls after a quick rise and very few African-Americans are attending his events, even in places such as Orangeburg, S.C. Young, well-educated, ambitious, and articulate, Buttigieg may well be a boutique candidate who mostly appeals to one important but not quite decisive demographic: the kinds of people who end up covering the Democratic presidential primary for major news organizations.

    Since formally announcing his presidential run, Joe Biden has enjoyed leads in national polls of 21, 32, 30, 26, and 24 percentage points ahead of Bernie Sanders. Perhaps this will turn out to be a short-term bump, but the people currently preferring Biden probably feel like they know him well. He’s a familiar and liked face amidst a crowd of strangers.

    Biden doesn’t need the formal endorsement of Barack Obama because he’s already received the clearest de-facto endorsement imaginable: Obama wanted Biden in the Oval Office if he ever died or was incapacitated. Obama effectively made his 2020 presidential endorsement in the summer of 2008.

    And if Biden does become the 2020 Democratic nominee . . . the ramifications will be hilarious. After all the talk of the most diverse group of candidates in American history, and for all the identity-politics obsession gripping the party, the Democratic nominee would be a (very) old, straight, white male. Post-Obama Democratic politics would not be focused on a Generation X or Millennial figure, but (sigh) yet another Baby Boomer.

    Also: “For all of the talk of the Democrats’ move towards socialism, the nominee would be a figure from the party’s establishment, who’s done the bidding of Delaware’s banking industry and credit-card companies for most of his career.”

  • Nobody wants to be a senator.
  • Big city mayors behold the Buttigieg boomlet.
  • 538 on what the candidates are saying and doing.
  • Now on to the clown car itself:

  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams: Maybe? Still says she’s looking. Thanks, that clears up everything…
  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti: Out.
  • Actor Alec Baldwin: Probably not. No news on a presidential run, but he does deride “flyover country” in an interview. Though he’s got this right: “When you hear specific left-leaning Democratic candidates and progressive candidates talking about these buffet tables they want to set up of public policy without one word about how they’re going to pay for it. That’s what’s going to kill them.”
  • Update: Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets a fawning op-ed in The Hill:

    He is a very thoughtful and pragmatic liberal who works well with colleagues on both sides. He has held important posts in state and local government and the executive branch. In 2010 he was one of the few Democrats from a competitive state to stave off the Republican Tea party surge. He likely would win a general election and — better than most others — navigate the almost impossibly polarized environment in Washington.

    Snip.

    He lacks the lengthy experience, contacts and warmth of Joe Biden; the new generational appeal of Pete Buttigieg or Beto O’Rourke; the ideological passion of Bernie Sanders — and if it’s the year of the woman, the gender of Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren.

    Way to sell us on him! He also hit the trail in Iowa.

  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: In. Twitter. Facebook. Jonathan Chait on how Biden is proving activists and pundits wrong:

    The poor guy has disregarded all the advice and decided to run anyway. And initial polling has revealed that a large number of Democrats have not left Biden behind at all. He begins the race leading his closest competitors, including early front-runner Bernie Sanders, by as much as 30 points. Perhaps it was the party’s intelligentsia, not Biden, that was out of touch with the modern Democratic electorate.

    The conclusion that Biden could not lead the post-Obama Democratic Party is the product of misplaced assumptions about the speed of its transformation. Yes, the party has moved left, but not nearly as far or as fast as everybody seemed to believe. Counterintuitively, House Democrats’ triumph in the midterms may have pushed their center of gravity to the right: The 40 seats Democrats gained were overwhelmingly located in moderate or Republican-leaning districts.

    Biden’s apparent resurrection from relic to runaway front-runner has illustrated a chasm between perception and reality. The triumph of the left is somewhere between a movement ahead of its time and a bubble that has just popped.

    Biden wants to raise your taxes. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.) Washington Post headline breathlessly tells us “Trouble is brewing in Joe Biden’s presidential campaign,” but it’s just microwaved ancient Anita Hill leftovers again. A parody website is outranking Biden’s official site. He brought in $700,000 at a Hollywood fundraiser.

  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Probably not.
  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. He criticized Warren’s calls to break up Facebook. “We do not need a president that is going to use their own personal beliefs and tell you which companies we should break up. We need a president that’s going to enforce antitrust laws in this country.”
  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown: Doesn’t sound like it.
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown: Out.
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock: All But In. Says a big announcement is “coming soon.”
  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Pete Buttigieg Thinks God Is a Democrat Because God Doesn’t Pick Sides.”

    He also campaigned in Las Vegas.

  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.: Out.
  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. His staff unionized. Decoding Castro’s vibe in Massachusetts: “This guy is class, this guy is smart, this guy is funny, this guy is a politician….Castro is young, energetic and exudes a positivity and kindness. I liked him.” If this piece were a supermarket product, it would be I Can’t Believe It’s Not Content.
  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Out. But Ann Althouse says never say never. “It’s a joke until it happens. DJT was a joke until it happened. The funniest thing may be the most likely thing.”
  • New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio: All But In. Random New Yorkers are actually going up to him in the street and yelling at him not to run.
  • Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. Delaney slammed “half-baked socialist policies” from some of the other candidates and declared himself the most moderate candidate in the field. The fact that he’s probably right on both will not change his ranking near the very bottom of the race.
  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. She get’s an extensive profile and interview with Glenn Greenwald:

    By mid-2016, Gabbard committed the ultimate party heresy: She very publicly resigned from her position as Democratic National Committee vice chair at the peak of the primary battle to endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders after months of internally accusing DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz of corruptly violating the DNC’s duty of neutrality by favoring Hillary Clinton. Her accusation was later vindicated through emails published by WikiLeaks, Wasserman Schultz’s resignation, Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s own “rigging” accusation, and current DNC Chair Donna Brazile’s book, which caused Gabbard to publicly repeat her allegations of the DNC’s “unethical rigging” of the primary in favor of Clinton.

    Gabbard has compiled a record on domestic policy questions that places her squarely within the left populist wing of the party — from advocating Medicare for All, a national $15 an hour minimum wage, various free college programs, and even participating in anti-pipeline Standing Rock protests in North Dakota. Yet her aggressive criticisms of the pieties of the bipartisan foreign policy community — particularly her harsh criticism of regime change operations from Iraq and Libya, to Syria and Venezuela, and her warnings about escalating tensions with Russia and China and the dangers of a “new Cold War” — have further cemented her status as party outsider and heretic from the perspective of Washington Democratic insiders.

    She also says the mainstream media is ignoring her. Well, they are when they’re not attacking her…

  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti: Out.
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: In. Twitter. Facebook. CNN gives her one of those a day in the life of a candidate story, the sort where we’re supposed to find her morning workout routine charming rather than annoying, and which would be pretty fawning if it didn’t bring up the fact she’s sucking so hard:

    But there is a harsh irony to this upbeat attitude: Gillibrand’s campaign, despite the joy, has gone nowhere since she announced earlier this year. The senator’s polls are sagging — a recent Monmouth University poll found her with less than 1% in New Hampshire, she has yet to hit the fundraising threshold outlined by the Democratic National Committee — a mark that a series of lesser known candidates have met, and people coming to her events have begun to worry she is being engulfed by the massive field of Democrats.

    She also predicted that there will only be three 2020 Democratic presidential candidates standing by next year’s Iowa caucuses.” 1. No. 2. If so, she won’t be among them, and 3. It’s like an old sixties rocker saying “The three greatest bands of the 60s were The Beatles, the Stones, and [inserts the name of his own obscure band here].” She’s fallen below the Andrew Yang Line and can’t get up.

  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum: Probably not. Still no sign of a run, be he did get ripped by a donor for leaving $3 million in the bank in his 2018 Florida gubernatorial race. Things that make you go “Hmmmm.”
  • Addition: Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel: In. Twitter. Facebook. After dismissing him as a joke campaign a month ago, I have come to the reluctantly conclusion that I need to include the 88 year-old gadfly in this roundup. Not because I think he can win, but because his campaign chances and activities look no less serious than those of Messam or Delaney. At 77,100 Twitter followers, he has more than Messam, Delany, Ryan, or Inslee. His pitch is geared toward the hard anti-war left, even more so than Gabbard or Sanders:

    Whether this gives him enough traction to make the debates remains to be seen, but at this point I like his chances better than Messam’s for meeting that threshold. On the other hand, he says he’d love a Sanders-Gabbard ticket.

    “The goal of a Gravel 2020 campaign would not be to win, but instead to draw attention to the central issues that Sen. Gravel has focused on over the previous decades,” a draft version of his campaign plan indicates, adding “the ultimate goal would be to gain media attention and then endorse either Rep. Gabbard or Sen. Bernie Sanders before the Iowa caucuses.”

    Watch the video at that link. Despite having a self-described “Senior Moment” in remembering Gabbard’s name, Gravel still sounds reasonably sharp, and like he’s actually telling it like he thinks it is. He can’t win, but he could actually make a little noise running an “screw it I’m just telling the truth and campaigning entirely on YouTube” effort…

  • California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter. Facebook. That Geraghty piece notes that Harris, being a liberal from California running on ending tax cuts and eliminating health insurance, might not play well in the Midwest. Said she would have voted against NAFTA. Senior members of the Congressional Black Caucus are pitching a Biden-Harris “dream ticket,” which sort of suggests they’ve already given up on her winning the nomination on her own.
  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper: In. Twitter. Facebook. Kevin D. Williamson:

    Hickenlooper apparently means to put himself in the “moderate” lane to the extent that doing so is comparable with creating trillions of dollars in new taxes and benefits. I would not bet very much on the efficacy of that strategy, especially for a candidate who checks all the wrong demographic boxes for the 2020 Democratic primary.

  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder: Out.
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: In. Twitter. “With new polling at 0 percent, can anyone stop Jay Inslee? Yes. Literally anyone.” “It’s almost like running a campaign exclusively on climate change isn’t a good idea.” To prove that point, Inslee put out this ad:

    It’s like someone went “Nothing can be more cringe-inducing than Beto’s televised teeth cleaning,” and Inslee went “Hold my beer.”

  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine: Out.
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry: Not seeing any sign.
  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Facebook. Twitter. Klobuchar’s Fox News town hall dominated ratings in that timeslot.
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu: Out.
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe: Out.
  • Oregon senator Jeff Merkley: Out. Filing for reelection to the senate instead.
  • Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: In. Twitter. Facebook. Interviewed over U.S. policy in the Middle East by Jewish News Syndicate. It’s mostly “How many times can I repeat the phrase ‘Two State Solution?'” Not impressing me.
  • Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets a Business Insider profile. “Even after weeks of polling, we’re really not near the sample size of Seth Moulton’s name recognition where we’d be confident interpreting his performance and drawing conclusions about a viable candidacy.” OK, then. Moving on…
  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama: Out.
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda: Out.
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke: In. Twitter. Facebook. Failing up, the O’Rourke way:

    For O’Rourke, the phenomenon on display in [his losing senate] race—failure without negative effects, and with perhaps even some kind of personal boost—is a feature of his life and career. That biography is marked as much by meandering, missteps and moments of melancholic searching as by résumé-boosting victories and honors. A graduate of an eastern prep school and an Ivy League rower and English major, the only son of a gregarious attorney and glad-handing pol and the proprietor of an upscale furniture store, the beneficiary of his family’s expansive social, business and political contacts, O’Rourke has ambled past a pair of arrests, designed websites for El Paso’s who’s who, launched short-lived publishing projects, self-term-limited his largely unremarkable tenure on Capitol Hill, shunned the advice of pollsters and consultants and penned overwrought, solipsistic Medium missives, enjoying the latitude afforded by the cushion of an upper-middle-class upbringing that is only amplified by his marriage to the daughter of one of the region’s richest men.

    (Hat tip: Erick Erickson, who notes “I know nothing of Kruse’s record and/or past infatuations or lack thereof with O’Rourke, but it is just hilarious watching various members of the Circle of Jerks that make up the political press pass the story around this morning. These people have been humping Beto O’Rourke’s leg for the past two years.”) “Beto O’Rourke is polling worse than ever.” “Looking at places, though, undersells O’Rourke’s media troubles. This past week, Biden’s name was mentioned 20 times as often on cable news as O’Rourke’s. The week before it was 22 times as often. And it’s not just less media: The stories seem to be more negative on O’Rourke than they once were.” He comes out against the right to work for non-union members. Get’s a profile from a college girlfriend that makes him sound really, really…boring.

  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Constitutionally ineligible to run in 2020.
  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: Out.
  • Ohio Representative Tim Ryan: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets an Independent profile:

    Ryan, a Catholic who is married to a schoolteacher and lives with their three children, has moderated his position on two issues of particular interests to Democrats. He was opposed to abortion until 2015, and he previously received an A rating from the National Rifle Association, which indicated his votes were in line with the gun lobbying group’s agenda. Following the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting in which 58 people were killed, he donated $20,000 that his campaign received from the NRA to groups supporting gun control.

    Well what do you know! A moderate pro-life, pro-gun Democratic magically becomes pro-abortion and anti-gun when running for national office! What are the odds?

  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. What’s the matter with Bernie? For one thing, Biden is clobbering him:

    Sanders had planned to pose as the quiet front-runner. The Democratic establishment might not be ready to anoint a populist insurrectionist, but Sanders, like Trump with the Republican base in 2016, thought that he had what the party’s voters wanted. Democratic operatives and veteran consultants whispered to anyone that would listen that Sanders, who had retained a permanent campaign infrastructure after coming up short in 2016, held a critical advantage in Democratic politics: the best ground game. The formula that supplied and maintained Barack Obama’s power had been mailing lists, volunteers, data, and pounding the pavement. Our Revolution, Sanders’s arm, was the heir to Organizing for America, the Obama mothership, and Sanders, like Obama, was awash in cash.

    But Sanders’s campaign underestimated Biden out of the gate. And this time, Sanders’s Achilles heel appears to be even more exposed than it was to Clinton. African Americans are the lynchpin of any Democratic strategy, but so far, black Southern Democrats seem to like the idea of Barack Obama’s lieutenant as president, even if Obama himself doesn’t feel so warm about it. Last time round, South Carolina was Stalingrad for Sanders. It didn’t finish him off, but it lost him the war. Right now, it’s déjà vu all over again for the senator from Vermont.

    On the trail with Bernie. See how many references to the 1960s you can spot. Frank Luntz thinks Sanders will win the race. I think he’s mistaking the Democratic Twitter base for the Democratic voting base.

  • Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer: Out.
  • California Representative Eric Swalwell: In. Twitter. Facebook. Dumbass compared the Russian Collusion Fantasy to Pearl Harbor. I know we’ll always remember the heroic moment when Doris Miller manned the Twittercades to fight back wave after devastating wave of Russian meme attacks…
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. She attended a town hall in Cincinnati and unveiled a plan (of course) to combat the opioid crisis in West Virginia.
  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. She reached the donation threshold to participate in the debates. She campaigned in Detroit.
  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey: Out.
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Yang is drawing some surprisingly large crowds.” He gets a PBS profile, which includes this nugget: “If elected, Yang promises to be the first president to use a PowerPoint during the State of the Union.” DEATH TO THE HERETIC!
  • Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for May 6, 2019

    Monday, May 6th, 2019

    Biden is up big, Bennet is In, Beto is down and de Blasio is about to unite all of America together in ridicule against him. Plus the raw sex appeal of Walter Mondale. It’s your Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update!

    Polls

  • In a Harvard-Harris poll, Biden leads his Democratic opponents by a whopping 30 points. Biden 44, Sanders 14, Harris 9, Warren 5, Buttigieg 4, O’Rourke 3, Booker 3. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • CNN–SRSS: Biden 39, Sanders 24, Warren 8, Buttigieg 7.
  • Morning Consult: Biden 36, Sanders 22, Warren 9, Buttigieg 8, Harris 7, O’Rourke 5, Booker 4, Klobucher 2, Yang 2.
  • Quinnipiac: Biden 38, Warren 12, Sanders 11, Buttigieg 10, Harris 8, O’Rourke 5. First poll I’ve seen Warren edge Sanders. Maybe all that “free everything for everybody” pandering is paying off for her…
  • Real Clear Politics
  • 538 polls.
  • Election betting markets. Warren (5.7%) is now up over Yang (5.3%) who is now up over O’Rourke (5.1%).
  • The Eight Tiers In This Race

    People usually sort candidates into “First Tier, Second Tier, Third Tier,” but that’s not applicable to a race this crowded:

    1. Right now Biden is alone in the first tier, and…
    2. Sanders is alone in the second.
    3. The third tier is Warren, Buttigieg and Harris all bunched up together (Warren is enjoying a little bounce, Buttigieg’s bounce faded as soon as Biden joined, and Harris is just barely hanging on as the media-boosted SJW darling).
    4. O’Rouke has probably free-fallen alone into the fourth tier, his telegenic hype long over and people scratching their heads as to why people ever thought he was exciting when not running against Ted Cruz.
    5. The fifth tier consists of Booker and Klobucher, who seem to be running competent, unexciting campaigns awaiting their turn to catch fire in a hype cycle.
    6. The sixth tier is Interesting Weirdos, lead by a rising Yang and a hasn’t-showed-us-anything-yet Williamson. Let’s also stick Gabbard here, since she generates tons of buzz only because the Democratic base seems to actively hate her, and she seems to have more followers than the lower tiers.
    7. The seventh tier is Dead in the Water, people who have resumes that suggest they should be credible Presidential candidates (mostly senators and governors), but somehow aren’t: Castro, Gillibrand, Hickenlooper, Inslee, and probably the newly-joined Bennet.
    8. The eighth and lowest tier (sorry Dante) is Wasting Our Time, including all the representatives other than Gabbard: Moulton, Ryan, Swalwell, Delany, Messam. Maybe one could break out, but I rather doubt it.

    Pundits, etc.

  • How much a candidate’s announcement coverage boosts them in polls. Caveat: They relied on cable news coverage, which leaves out a lot of things, like legacy MSM outlets slathering fawning coverage on Harris like ketchup on french fries.
  • “If you have an appetite for schadenfreude, one of the pleasures of the ongoing 2020 Democratic primary will be watching once-highly-touted politicians realize just how limited their appeal is, as they struggle to reach 5 percent in a crowded field.” Special mention of Castro, Gabbard and Gillibrand.
  • Stephen Green on electability. “If the economy is still booming in November 2020, maybe none of this year’s massive crop of Dems is electable. Maybe they’re all Mondales, albeit with far less of Walt’s raw sexual magnetism.”
  • Democrats desperately need their dark money sugar daddies.
  • 538 on what the candidates are saying and doing.
  • Now on to the clown car itself:

  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams: Maybe? She’s not running for the senate. Maybe she’s regretting turning down that Biden VP trial balloon. She also got a voter suppression pander from O’Rourke.
  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti: Out.
  • Actor Alec Baldwin: Probably not. Still nothing since that now four-week old tweet. But his estimated net worth is $85 million, and he was “a political science major at George Washington University (where he ran for student body president and lost).” Baldwin could probably talk himself into a run if he really wanted to…
  • Update: Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: In. “Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., announced he will run in the Democratic primary to seek his party’s nomination to go up against President Trump in the 2020 election.” More: “Bennet has built a reputation as a bipartisan, policy-focused senator on Capitol Hill, trending toward the center of the Democratic spectrum. He opposes a single-payer health care system, instead hoping to expand Obamacare.” Oh yeah, that’s just what the Democratic base in crying out for: bipartisanship. Data point: The guy’s a U.S. senator, and I have exactly one entry for him before I started doing the Clown Car update, and that was just a mention in the 2016 election. If you stuck guns to the heads of Democratic voters and said “Pick Michael Bennet out of these photos of all 21 declared Democratic Presidential candidates or die,” then you just killed a greater percentage of Democratic voters than Thanos.
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: In. Twitter. Facebook. “A $1.5 billion sweetheart deal Hunter Biden’s private equity firm secured from the state-owned Bank of China is ‘looming on the horizon’ as a potential line of attack against his father’s 2020 presidential campaign, according to Vanity Fair’s Tina Nguyen.” It’s going to be fun hearing Democrats claim that random contacts by low-level staffers constituted collusion with Russia for Trump, but that $1.5 billion from China to the Vice President’s son was just no big deal. Why Biden is not Jeb Bush. Four of these points I agree with, but the fifth (“unlike Jeb, who was weakened by the presence of his one-time protege Marco Rubio in the field, Biden has no immediate competitor in his primary ‘lane'”) is probably untrue, as Buttigieg, Moulton, Hickenlooper, Ryan and Bennet could all plausibly fill the “white moderate” lane. He appeared on ABC’s The View, where he promised to be less creepy. Biden picked up a very early endorsement from the International Association of Fire Fighters, another example of his strong play for union support. He appeals to forgotten blue collar Democrats. Flashback: In 1998, Joe Biden said Anita Hill was lying. (Right the first time.) Biden the liar. Speaking of which, the Washington Post gave him four Pinocchios for stating that the Trump tax cuts applied only to the rich. Biden’s campaign may be a well-oiled machine. Biden himself? Not so much:

    How far will the left wing of the Democratic Party go to drag Biden? Here’s a Newsweek piece dinging him for opposing forced busing in 1974. Here’s a hint: everyone hated forced busing. “We’re going to take your daughter and ship her across town to a school in the ghetto because that’s a whole hell of a lot easier than spending more money to improve ghetto schools or take on teachers unions.” Democrats gave up on forced busing because it was a horrible idea that didn’t actually address the problem and they didn’t want be wiped out in elections.

  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Maybe? I didn’t think he was going to run if Biden got in, but what the hell is this? It came up as an ad when I Googled “Michael Bloomberg President.” That sure as hell looks like the website of someone who is thinking of running for President. Upgraded from “Probably not” after I stumbled across it.
  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. He’s trying to split the difference on the full socialized “Medicare for all” pipe dream. Talks to Jake Tapper. He also refused to say whether he would jail American gun owners who refused to comply with his unconstitutional gun confiscation plan.
  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown: Doesn’t sound like it.
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown: Out.
  • Update: Montana Governor Steve Bullock: All But In. “Montana Gov. Steve Bullock will announce his bid for the presidency in two weeks, MTN News has learned — adding to the 20 Democrats already running for the 2020 nomination to challenge President Trump.” Upgrade over Leaning Toward In.
  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. NBC profile brings “fawning” to entirely new levels. Speaking of “fawning,” he also gets a Time profile, sure to boost him among the coveted “stuck alone at a dentist’s office without a smart phone” demographic. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.) He attends sunday school with Jimmy Carter (AKA history’s greatest monster).
  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.: Out.
  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Julian Castro hits 65,000-donor threshold to secure spot in first presidential debate.” That’s probably a great relief to him. He’s making a play for Nevada, which falls right after New Hampshire and has a large Hispanic population. That’s a strategically sound decision, and even if it fails, it can’t fail worse than anything else he’s tried…
  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Out. But she says the 2016 election was “stolen” from her.

  • Update: New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio: All But In. “It’s Now A Clown Bus: NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio Expected To Announce 2020 Run Next Week.” De Blasio unites all of America in contempt against him. “76 percent of New Yorkers say he shouldn’t run. Politico New York surveyed 30-odd members of Team de Blasio, and all but two said it was a bad idea, with one calling it ‘fucking insane.'” Also this: “He may have a shot if every Democratic candidate is caught sending racy selfies to minors.” Upgrade from Leaning Toward In.
  • Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. Interviewed on WBUR radio. He says Democrats need to talk more about mental health. Obviously true, but who is going to tell most of his fellow presidential candidates they’re crazy to keep running?
  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. She got an interview on Fox News, where she got a case of the vapors over Venezuela. A Counterpunch writer suggests that Gabbard will be arbitrarily excluded from the Democratic debates:

    According to the DNC, the max number of candidates participating will be a total of twenty even if all 21 announced candidates qualify as it threatens to eliminate candidates who had already made the cut – so much for “transparent, fair and inclusive.” Ten will appear on June 26 with the next ten on June 27th and selection will be determined by drawing lots. Conceivably, the Main Show of Bernie and Biden may occur on June 26th, or they may be split, appearing on two different nights. In any case, it may be difficult for the public to determine a clear ‘winner’ by virtue of candidate separation from the total field.

    Snip.

    Given her almost totally hostile reception by every MSM outlet who deigned to interview her, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has experienced, as an opponent of regime change wars, more bad manners and outright personal antagonism than any other candidate. While Gabbard easily qualified for the debates via the $65,000 requirement and continues to attract SRO audiences in NH, Iowa, California and elsewhere, yet until the newest CNN poll, she failed to register any % of public support. Something here does not compute given the ‘favored’ polls past history of favoritism. If the Dems continue to put a brick wall around her, Jill Stein has already opened the Green Party door as a more welcoming venue for a Tulsi candidacy. The Dems, who tend to be unprincipled and vindictive, better be careful what they wish for.

    Caveat: Counterpunch, so grains of salt time. On the other hand, the author can smell the stench of the Russiagate corpse, so maybe actual clues are involved here…

  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti: Out.
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: In. Twitter. Facebook. She’s getting a Fox town hall June 2. She wants the government to give people money so they can give it to politicians. Hmm, sounds just like the sort of lame-brained scheme someone lagging badly in the donation race would dream up…
  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum: Probably not. Don’t think he’s running, but it’s interesting that he’s disagreeing with Biden about China. “I don’t think it’s smart to underestimate the role China plays on the global stage.”
  • California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter. Facebook. Biden is eating Harris’ lunch, and probably her dinner:

    Senator Kamala Harris was supposed to be a frontrunner. According to the rules of “the invisible primary,” in which donors and party activists coalesce around their chosen nominees, sending signals about candidate quality that primary voters, more often that not, eventually validate, Harris seemed to check all the boxes of a frontrunner. Her campaign team is full of veterans of the campaign of the last Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton. She led the large donor fundraising race, with most of her big donors also being former donors to Clinton. Seth Masket, a political scientist and expert on the party system, conducted an informal poll last December of precisely the sort of party activists who are said to decide these things, and a healthy majority leaned toward supporting Harris. And in FiveThirtyEight’s weighted listing of endorsements, Harris ranked second among the declared candidates, losing out only to Senator Cory Booker (before Joe Biden formally entered the race last week).

    Judging by all available polling, though, Harris is not even close to the frontrunner. (And Cory Booker’s campaign seems to be utterly foundering, suggesting that counting up endorsements may not be the best way to measure the viability of a candidate from a state, like New Jersey, with a powerful, old-fashioned party machine.) Most national polls put her in a distant third or fourth place, frequently trailing South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a relative neophyte who was polling at basically zero a month ago.

    This doesn’t render “the invisible primary” obsolete as an explanatory factor. The seemingly overnight rise of Buttigieg is in fact evidence of the concept’s durability: People have heard of him, and tell pollsters they support him, because his press is managed by Lis Smith, a well-connected Democratic operative who formerly worked for Barack Obama’s reelection campaign, and Politico’s big donor analysis shows he is extremely popular among former Obama and Clinton bundlers. The energy around Mayor Pete is partly a reflection of the political press translating its knowledge of his advisers’ records and his popularity with the donor class into stories about his candidacy that create a sort of aura of “viability.” The new frontrunner, the former vice president, has, as you’d expect, even more institutional support behind him, especially among Democratic mega-donors and longtime elected officials.

    So, what has, thus far (there is a lot of election left to go), prevented Harris’s campaign from breaking out? And for that matter, how is Elizabeth Warren receiving so much glowing press for her transformative policy agenda, but still polling just as poorly as Harris?

    As the horserace quants at FiveThirtyEight explained, both are victims of the Democratic electorate’s fixation on “electability.” Polling broadly shows Democratic voters thinking Joe Biden has the best chance at winning the general election. That is exactly what Biden would like everyone to think, and that belief practically constitutes the sole argument for his candidacy.

    Wait, primary voters focus on electability? Do tell. The New Republic writer is pouting because he wanted Harris. That’s why he says “‘Electability’ is a crock of shit,” because he wants hard-left candidates and the majority of Democratic primary voters aren’t having any. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.) There’s a ton of “Oh yeah, she went after AG Barr! She’s my hero!” schoolgirl crush media pieces I’m omitting here, since the default setting on Harris coverage is “Fawning.”

  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets a “can he make another underdog comeback” WaPo thumbsucker that makes him sound about as appealing as lukewarm water. Also unveiled a trade plan that includes adding (wait for it) “climate change goals into trade agreements.” Because there’s no trade problem that can’t be made worse by adding more job-killing government regulation…
  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder: Out.
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: In. Twitter. Climate Change Guy offers a pie-in-the-sky “carbon neutral by 2030” that also promises to destroy the coal industry. I guess he figures “Hey, everyone else is offering impossible bullshit! Why not me?”
  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine: Out.
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry: Not seeing any sign.
  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Facebook. Twitter. She too unveiled a mental health plan. Funny how people who hang out with Democrats all the time naturally assume that large numbers of Americans are crazy…
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu: Probably Out.
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe: Out.
  • Oregon senator Jeff Merkley: Out. Filing for reelection to the senate instead.
  • Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: In. Twitter. Facebook. Made his first appearance in Iowa…in front of 20 people.
  • Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton: In. Twitter. Facebook. He visited all four early primary states (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina) and got a WGBH profile. “Moulton is a centrist among more aggressively liberal candidates. The progressive base fawns over Bernie Sanders’s calls for economic revolution, and Elizabeth Warren’s lengthening list of plans, but it’s unclear that the majority of primary voters, let alone general-election voters, will opt for radically upending an economy that seems to be humming along pretty well.”
  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama: Out.
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda: Out.
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke: In. Twitter. Facebook. O’Roruke’s staff is still in flux. (Hat tip: Jonathon McClellan.) The media notices that (surprise, surprise) O’Rourke has huge flaws as a candidate. “Where Was All of This Skepticism about Beto Last Year?” He’s paying for Facebook ads…in Mexico. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.) He visited flood-struck communities in Iowa, which of course required him to natter on about climate change.
  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Constitutionally ineligible to run in 2020.
  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: Out.
  • Ohio Representative Tim Ryan: In. Twitter. Facebook. Ryan also criticized Biden’s comments on China as “stunningly out of touch.” “They’re putting billions of dollars behind these projects, and they have a 100-year plan. We’re in a 24-hour news cycle.”
  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. Team Sanders is throwing a lot more sharp elbows at his Democratic rivals this time around. “Donations to Sanders cut in half after Biden entry.” He sat down ABC’s This Week for an interview, where he said he approved of President Trump’s approach on North Korea. “Inside Bernie Sanders’s 1988 10-day ‘honeymoon’ in the Soviet Union.” (“Throughout the trip, local officials took aside members of Sanders’s entourage, telling them that the Soviet system was near collapse…’Yes, they may have had low-cost apartments, but things were very out of whack, there were food shortages, no political freedom.'”)(Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer: Out.
  • California Representative Eric Swalwell: In. Twitter. Facebook. He appeared on Face the Nation, and spent his time nattering about the Russian Collusion Fantasy, which is far too precious for liberals to give up on despite being complete bunk.
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. She seems to have a plan for everything. “Warren nerds out and the crowds go crazy.” She blasted Biden over the 2005 bankruptcy bill.

    The bill made it harder for individuals to file for bankruptcy and get out of debt, a legal change that credit card companies and many major retailers had championed for years. The bill passed Congress with large majorities, but most Democratic senators, including Barack Obama, voted no. Biden voted yes and was widely seen at the time as one of the bill’s major Democratic champions.

    As Hillary Clinton did in 2016, Warren greatly benefits from having an actor much younger than her play her on Saturday Night Live. At 35, Kate McKinnon is half Warren’s age of 70.

  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. 538’s “How Marianne Williamson Could Win The 2020 Democratic Primary” is one of those pieces where the headline is at war with the conclusion:

    So far, her efforts haven’t yet translated into much success. Despite her Hollywood connections, she managed to raise just $1.5 million as of the end of the first quarter — not chump change, but it does put her toward the bottom of the list of serious contenders. Nor has she yet managed to clear the 65,000-donor threshold that would qualify her to participate in the first two Democratic primary debates, although according to her campaign website, she’s about 90 percent of the way there.

    And although her books have sold 3 million copies, her name recognition is among the lowest in the field. In a national poll conducted by Change Research in mid-April, 66 percent of likely Democratic voters had never heard of her; the same was true of 53 percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers in an early-April Monmouth poll of Iowa. Candidates with low name recognition can still have a shot at the nomination if they’re backed by a decent percentage of the people who have heard of them, but Williamson gets almost no support in horse-race surveys: She has gotten 0 percent support in 27 of the 35 polls in our database that have asked about her. And she is unlikely to become better known as long as cable news networks and newspapers continue to cover her far less often than the candidates with more traditional credentials.

    She visited Iowa, where she spoke to about 60 people, and Nevada, where she got interviewed by Politics Now, where it looks like they’re using cameras and a set from 1979.

  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey: Out.
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: In. Twitter. Facebook. He visited Michigan to flog his $1,000 a month basic income pipe dream some more.
  • Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for April 29, 2019

    Monday, April 29th, 2019

    Biden is finally In, so barring stragglers and outsiders, the field is largely set.

    Also see yesterday’s update on the Twitter Primary.

    Polls

  • WaPo/ABC (open question poll of Democrats and Democrat-leaning adults): Biden 13, Sanders 9, Buttigieg 5, Harris 4, Warren 4, O’Rourke 3, Booker 1, Hillary Clinton 1(!), Klobucher 1, Donald Trump 1(!!!!!), Michelle Obama 1, Other 4.
  • Weirdly, ABC has different numbers for what appears to be the same poll: Biden 17, Sanders 11, Buttigieg 5, Harris 4, Warren 4, O’Rourke 4. And I’m too busy to dig into the methodology to figure out the discrepancy.
  • Monmouth from April 23rd: Biden 27, Sanders 20, Buttigieg 8, Harris 8, Warren 6, O’Rourke 4. “California Sen. Kamala Harris has 8% support, off just slightly from 10% in March and 11% in January.” But she can’t be thrilled at that trendline…
  • UNH New Hampshire poll. Sanders 30, Biden 18, Buttigieg 15, Warren 5, Harris 4, Booker 3, O’Rourke 3, Klobucher 2, Yang 2, Ryan 2. That’s as high as I’ve seen Buttigieg.
  • Emerson Texas poll: Biden 23, O’Rourke 22, Sanders 17, Buttigieg 8, Warren 7, Castro 4, Yang 3, Harris 3, Klobucher 3. That’s an abysmal showing for Castro in his home state, and Harris should be doing better just off urban voters from Houston and the Metroplex. Indeed, Harris is down in every poll here.
  • Real Clear Politics
  • 538 polls.
  • Election betting markets. Yang is polling better at 4.9% for the Dem nomination than Warren at 4.7%. One wonders which Bulwerk-backer has Marco Rubio 2020 at 0.5%…
  • Pundits, etc.

  • Kevin Williamson says that in the bold new Social Justice Warrior Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders and joe Biden are the same candidate:

    Old white guy? Joe Biden has hair plugs that are older than the median Democratic primary voter. Sanders and Biden are a year apart — and both of them are older than Trump. Creaky? Creepy stuff in his history? Dusty northeastern union-hall politics? Check all those boxes. Worst: Sanders and Biden, though they are miles apart in rhetoric, are in many ways a couple of outmoded Teddy Kennedy liberals in a party that wants nothing to do with dinosaurs of that particular species.

    Snip.

    The old-white-guy thing isn’t working out too well for Sanders. In Houston earlier this week for a cracked festival of progressive inanity called “She the People,” Sanders got read the old-white-guy riot act: Pressed about racial issues, Comrade Muppet started to launch into yet another retelling of the fact that he marched with the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963 — but the crowd shut him down, hooting and laughing at him. “We know!” someone shouted. They’d heard it all before. Sanders, visibly flummoxed, went on to talk up the fact that he’d supported Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign, and the room responded with, approximately, “Jesse Who?”

    The Reverend Jackson’s is a name to conjure with no more.

  • The Democratic Party Civil War, Round Two:

    Former Vice President Joe Biden’s entry into the 2020 presidential primary sets the stage for another knock-down, drag-out fight between the establishment wing of the party and the ascendant left, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

    Snip.

    The 2016 primary contest left liberals fuming at what they viewed as establishment interference in the race, underscored by the hacked Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails that showed favoritism toward Clinton.

    And some mainstream Democrats are unnerved by what they view as a group of left-wing interlopers, online brawlers and sore losers trying to take over the party.

    The same fight played out in 2017, when party officials elected Tom Perez to be the next DNC chairman. Perez, who was backed by Biden, narrowly defeated Sanders’s preferred candidate, former Rep. Keith Ellison (Minn.). That race similarly cut along establishment and grass-roots lines.

    Snip.

    But many centrist Democrats are just as worried about how the left will approach the primary contest.

    They’re frustrated by Sanders’s steadfast refusal to officially join the Democratic Party and worried by what they view as his team of political assassins. And they wonder whether Sanders’s supporters will accept the outcome of the primary and turn out to vote for the nominee in the general election if Sanders falls short again.

    “There is a ‘Bernie-or-bust’ coalition, and they have no allegiance to the party,” said the Democratic strategist. “They don’t care about campaign infrastructure or winning up and down the ballot. They’re just concerned about bullshit litmus tests and defending their guy no matter what and pretending that everyone else is a member of the big bad establishment.”

  • 538 on what the candidates are saying and doing.
  • Here’s a handy visual identifier for the clown car:

  • Now on to the clown car itself:

  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams: Maybe? Some sort of announcement looms early this week. Gets a New York Times softball interview.
  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti: Out.
  • Actor Alec Baldwin: Probably not. Still no news since his three week old tweet.
  • Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: Leaning toward a run. He’s been very quiet since his cancer surgery. Hard to blame him…
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: In. See last week’s post for his announcement video. Naturally, there’s tons of Biden news to wade through:
    • He raised $6.3 million within 24 hours of announcing, the most of any of the 2020 Democratic hopefuls, but not a “blow you away” number. “Biden’s campaign announced Friday that 96,926 donors contributed, with an average online donation of $41. His campaign also noted that 97% of his online donations were under $200.”
    • “Joe Biden Launches Presidential Bid With Fundraiser Filled With Corporate Lobbyists and GOP Donors.”

      Biden has long since been close to lobbyists. Biden’s presidential campaign is currently being coordinated by his former chief of staff, Steve Ricchetti, who was himself a lobbyist. In the past, Ricchetti’s role with Biden’s vice presidential office sidestepped the Obama administration’s ban on employing lobbyists: Ricchetti received a special waiver to take his role with Biden.

      Thursday’s fundraiser will be rife with lobbyists — but not those registered in the federal system.

      The Biden for President host committee includes Kenneth Jarin, a lobbyist with Ballard Spahr who is registered to work on behalf of toll road operator Conduent and several health care interests. Jarin is a major donor to both parties and has given to political action committees controlled by former Republican House Speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner.

      Another host of the Biden fundraiser is Alan Kessler, another lobbyist who works with the firm Duane Morris. Kessler is registered to lobby in Pennsylvania for American Airlines and the global information tech firm Unisys Corporation, among other clients.

      Former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, another host of the event, is a senior adviser to the local lobbying operation at Dentons, a law firm with a vast government affairs operation. Nutter is also on the board of Conduent.

    • Whistling past the graveyard: “Democrats dismiss Biden as front-runner in name only.”

      In another election, at another time, the late entrance of a well-funded candidate leading in the polls might send convulsions through the primary field.

      But Joe Biden’s arrival into the 2020 race has not had that effect. No Democratic rival appears doomed. No one’s fundraising seems in danger of drying up. Instead, in joining the race, the former vice president has laid bare how unsettled the entire 20-candidate contest remains — and how many in the party don’t believe the 76-year-old Biden is prepared for the rigors of a modern campaign, or the demands of a party transformed.

      What, you mean the other candidates didn’t immediately start rending their garments and proclaiming “Woe is me! All is lost!”? Do tell…

    • Carpe Donktum nails Biden on the “very fine people” lie:

    • Heh:

    • About one of Biden’s advisors:

    • The cases for and against Joe Biden. On the for side:

      I’ve written previously on how the Democratic Party is more moderate and older than you probably think it is. About 50% of Democratic voters call themselves moderate or conservative, which is about the same percentage that are at least 50 years old. Most Democratic candidates running this year don’t seem to recognize that fact.

      We’ve seen a Democratic field in which the candidates seem to be falling over each other to move further left, where the youngest Democrats are.

      Biden, meanwhile, is sitting all alone in his base. In a Monmouth University poll released earlier this week, he had a 19-point advantage over his nearest competitor with Democrats who called themselves moderate or conservative. He was up by 18 points among those who were at least 50 years old. A Quinnipiac University poll released last month (that had Biden in a similar overall position) gave him even bigger advantages with more moderate and older voters.

      Now, Biden does trail with the youngest and very liberal Democrats. But they make up a minority of the party, and Biden’s competitors are splitting that vote.

    • New York Governor Andrew Cuomo enddorses Biden, and is going to use his fundraising network to help him. That will be useful.
    • R. S. McCain thinks that Biden’s 29% is his peak. I’m not so sure. I think there are a substantial portion of people who vote in Democratic primaries that haven’t swallowed the SJW line, and will show up at the polls for Biden.
  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Probably Not. The word always was that Bloomberg would only get in if Biden didn’t. Now that Biden is in the race, does this mean an end to the “Bloomberg might still run” pieces?
  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. Get’s a New York profile. Actually talks about meeting with Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich, Jared Kushner, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, as both Mayor of Newark and a Senator. “I value comity, I value finding common ground.” He posted 10 years of tax returns. “When I said we should crash the Booker campaign event, I didn’t mean literally!”
  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown: Doesn’t sound like it.
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown: Out.
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock: Maybe. The Montana legislative session has already ended, and he had a closed event in Butte. But: “You know, the Legislature just left town, they left 300 bills on my desk, so I have quite a bit of work to do to sort the rest of that out, and haven’t made any decisions what I’d do after I get to serve governor.” Slight downgrade.
  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. He praised a Republican, but it’s OK, he’s safely dead. “According to reports by Politico, Buttigieg displays photos of himself alongside [late Indiana Republican Senator Richard] Lugar and other officials in his South Bend office.” Get’s a semi-fawning profile from Ross Douthat:

    But another part of Buttigieg’s appeal rests on the fact that during and after the McKinsey stint, he did two very un-meritocratty things: First, he joined the Navy Reserve and was briefly deployed to Afghanistan, and then he moved back to the small, de-industrialized Midwestern city of his youth, not to join his parents in its academic enclave, but to run for mayor of South Bend and attempt to save a piece of the heartland from stagnation and decline.

    These unusual steps away from elite self-segregation inform the way he sometimes seems to want to run for president: As a bridge-builder between the heartland and the coasts, as the Ivy League guy who takes Trump voters seriously as something more than just “deplorables,” as the first gay president who, like Nixon going to China, might be able to call a truce in the post-Obergefell culture wars and convince cultural liberals that they don’t need to bring every evangelical florist or Catholic adoption agency to heel.

    But this bridge-building possibility coexists with another theory of Buttigieg, in which his unusual trajectory back homeward, far from a rejection of the meritocratic mentality, is actually just a clever meritocrat’s “hack” of the system of ascent — an advertisement for his own seriousness that, having served its purpose, can now be abandoned while he tries to vault insanely high, to return not only to Washington but to the Oval Office (or at least the Naval Observatory or a cabinet office).

    This is the reading offered by Buttigieg’s pungent left-wing critics: I especially recommend a long takedown of the young mayor’s memoir by Nathan Robinson of Current Affairs, and a shorter critique by a scion of the Studebaker family (Studebakers being the cars whose manufacture once built South Bend’s blue-collar prosperity).

    These anti-Buttigiegians look at his mayoral record and see a politician who never really escaped the mentality of Harvard and McKinsey, whose big idea for the city involved bulldozing poor people’s houses and encouraging internet companies to move in — a “creative class” theory of urban renewal that didn’t supply the jobs that working-class South Benders need.

    Here’s that Current Affirs takedown of Buttigieg’s memoir Douthat mentions. Current Affaris is both progressive and uber-smarmy, so read it only if you want a hard-lefty hit-piece. But I’ve got to admit that the author’s deep reading of Buttigieg’s own extremely lengthy index entry for himself in his own memoir (“CrossFit phase of, 133”) has some definite zing to it.

  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.: Out.
  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. He goes spelunking to discover homeless people under Las Vegas. (What CHUDs in Vegas stays under Vegas…) He visits New Hampshire.
  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Out.
  • New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio: Leaning toward In. Why Bill De Blasio wouldn’t make a good president.” But it’s only 800 words rather than 800,000…
  • Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Presidential hopeful John Delaney wants you to unfollow Trump on Twitter.” See, I would think if you have some 19,800 Twitter followers, you wouldn’t want to draw attention to that fact by telling people to stop following the guy who has just under 60 million…
  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Tulsi Gabbard Is Running a Presidential Campaign on Freelancers. The Hawaii Democrat lists only one person as being on payroll in the first quarter of 2019.” Naturally unions have their knickers in a knot over that. Interesting how quickly she deleted this tweet, about how Democrats attack her more than Republicans:

    (Hat tip: Lee Stranahan.)

  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti: Out.
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: In. Twitter. Facebook. Cruel, but accurate: “No One Likes You, Kirsten Gillibrand.”

    It’s clear that Gillibrand has made women and “women’s issues” a focus of her campaign, and it is clearly reflected in her fundraising. More than half of all the individual donations to her campaign during the first fundraising cycle of 2020 were from women. That’s more than any other 2020 contender can say. She is prioritizing issues like national paid family leave, access to abortion and birth control, improving public education, and stopping sexual harassment and abuse. But is that a winning strategy?

    Maybe her hot pink campaign logo and website splashed with the word “BRAVE” all over are a little too on the nose. Maybe constantly describing herself as a “young mom” is a label that just isn’t doesn’t seem to fit. Maybe women voters don’t liked to be courted simply because of their sex. Or maybe, she’s just too much like Hillary Clinton.

    Ouch!

  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum: Probably not. But there is this: “Andrew Gillum Agrees To Pay $5,000 Fine In Ethics Case Settlement.”
  • California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter. Facebook. How Biden could derail Harris in South Carolina. Harris calls for a ban on right to work laws, which suggest she really wants union campaign contributions.
  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper: In. Twitter. Facebook. He gets a New York Times profile. “In its 191-year history, the Democratic Party has never nominated a presidential candidate from west of the Central time zone.” I doubt that’s the tidbit I would have led with. Also “He got all these lefty programs through but supports fracking.” He had a brain freeze and forgot what GDP stands for.
  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder: Out.
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: In. Twitter. He blathers about climate change and takes potshots at Bernie Sanders to a lefty outlet. “If you’re looking for a woman, or even an economically progressive candidate, Inslee is not your guy.”
  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine: Out.
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry: Not seeing any sign.
  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Facebook. Twitter. “Klobuchar hails Anita Hill as an inspiration,” because of course she does. Genuflecting to St. Anita is a required ritual on the left again, mainly as a way for “woke” candidates to bash Biden for the Clarence Thomas confirmation. But one wonders how much a confirmation hearing that occurred more than a quarter-century ago will mean to an electorate that doesn’t remember Jesse Jackson…
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu: Probably Out.
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe: Out.
  • Oregon senator Jeff Merkley: Out. Filing for reelection to the senate instead.
  • Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: In. Twitter. Facebook. Last week’s Clown Car Update noted reports that Messam had missed payroll for campaign staffers. This week: “The two-term mayor’s campaign staffers have scattered from the nest after Messam missed payroll, first reported by The Miami New Times. Reports from the road say rallies have been sparsely attended. Now, Messam is mum, referring people to his legal counsel.” Also this: “There was speculation that Messam has his eyes set on the seat of Congressman Alcee Hastings, 82, who is reportedly going through treatment for pancreatic cancer.”
  • Update: Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets a Rolling Stone profile:

    Democratic congressman Seth Moulton (D-MA), an Iraq war veteran who announced his candidacy for president early this week, wants you to know that presidential candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren who are trying to push America towards more progressive policies are bad for our country, and he’s running to save us.

    “We can’t go too far left or we will lose middle America.”

    It seems like Moulton is competing with Biden, Buttigieg and Delaney for the “non-crazy” Democratic Party vote. Whether this is a viable strategy remains to be seen. I have my doubts. But I was mildly surprised to see that Moulton has 138,000 Twitter followers, which is more than any of the other representatives running save Gabbard. Of course, that says less about how well Moulton is running than how badly Swalwell, Delaney and Ryan are…

  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama: Out.
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda: Out.
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke: In. Twitter. Facebook. O’Rourke and Bernie Sanders both heckled at She the People conference. He wants to spend $5 trillion on climate change, because who can most quickly bankrupt America for an unproven theory is now a race among Democratic candidates. The cops at the scene of O’Rourke’s 1998 DWI said that yes, he did try to flee the scene. (Hat tip: Twitchy.)
  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Constitutionally ineligible to run in 2020.
  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: Out.
  • Ohio Representative Tim Ryan: In. Twitter. Facebook. Got a KVUE interview: “I want to change the conversation. I’ve listened to some of these political shows and we’re not even talking about the real issues in the campaign. I think first and foremost, we need an industrial policy that actually lifts middle-class wages.”
  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. Inside Bernie’s army: “On Saturday, the campaign launched a nationwide organizing program with nearly 5,000 house parties in every state throughout the country, demonstrating a show of force for his volunteer network and an opportunity to mobilize supporters in a primary contest that could remain close through the early voting states and beyond.” He’s also building out Our Revolution as a “shadow campaign” in the Midwest. “Bernie Sanders Can Win, But He Isn’t Polling Like A Favorite,” which compares Sanders’ numbers to candidates with similar numbers in previous cycles from Jeb! in 2016 all the way back to Hubert Humphrey in 1972. “Three of these candidates [Romney 2012, Obama 2008, McCain 2008] won their nominations; the other 12 lost.”
  • Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer: Probably Out. But he did attract a sarcastic Trump tweet:

  • California Representative Eric Swalwell: In. Twitter. Facebook. He’s touring Iowa. “Trey Gowdy: Eric Swalwell as president ‘ought to scare the ever-living hell out of you.'” Well, it might if his campaign weren’t dead in the water…
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. “A Guide to Elizabeth Warren’s (Many) 2020 Policy Proposals.” How Warren is threatening Bernie’s left flank. Op-Ed: “Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are bad for the Democrats.” “Both represent the purist liberal wing of their party, a faction that has failed to elect a single president since the death of Franklin Roosevelt in 1945. And with only one out of four Americans calling themselves liberals in the last election, the notion that a doctrinaire left-winger can win in 2020 is an exercise in self-delusion.” Warren was evidently well-received at an SEIU shindig that Sanders skipped.
  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets a lengthy video interview from a Las Vegas TV station. Also gets endorsed by some actor I’ve never heard of who was in Glee.
  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey: Out.
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: In. Twitter. Facebook. Report on a Yang rally in Los Angeles, complete with comparison to cult bad film The Room. “He is the hyper-enthusiastic high school teacher and his supporters are the jocks, goths, and potheads who never knew school could be so fun.” He also campaigned in Iowa.
  • The Twitter Primary Revisited for April 2019

    Sunday, April 28th, 2019

    A month ago I did a post on the number of Twitter followers among Democratic presidential candidates. A lot of new candidates have jumped into the race since then, so let’s look at how the Twitter Primary stacks up today:

    The following are all the declared Presidential candidates ranked in order of most to least Twitter followers:

    1. Bernie Sanders: 9.25 million (up 90,000)
    2. Cory Booker: 4.25 million (up 30,000)
    3. Joe Biden: 3.54 million (up 40,000)
    4. Marianne Williamson: 2.61 million (unchanged)
    5. Kamala Harris: 2.6 million (up 110,000)
    6. Elizabeth Warren: 2.44 million (up 130,000)
    7. Beto O’Rourke: 1.42 million (up 50,000)
    8. Kirsten Gillibrand: 1.39 million (up 40,000)
    9. Pete Buttigieg: 982,000 (up 494,000)
    10. Amy Klobuchar: 683,000 (up 23,000)
    11. Tulsi Gabbard: 341,000 (up 29,000)
    12. Andrew Yang: 257,000 (up 62,000)
    13. Julian Castro: 209,000 (up 15,000)
    14. John Hickenlooper: 139,000 (up 4,000)
    15. Seth Moulton: 138,000 (new)
    16. Eric Swalwell: 77,600 (new)
    17. Jay Inslee: 42,000 (up 6,300)
    18. John Delaney: 19,800 (up 1,700)
    19. Tim Ryan: 18,900 (new)
    20. Wayne Messam: 6,350 (new)

    For reference, President Donald Trump’s personal account has 59.9 million followers (up 600,000). (The official presidential @POTUS account has 25.7 million, which I’m sure includes a great deal of overlap.)

    A few notes:

  • Twitter does rounding, and counts change all the time, so the numbers might be slightly different when you look at them.
  • Buttigieg is the biggest riser in both absolute and percentage terms, doubling his followers and leapfrogging Klobucher, but he’s still behind O’Rourke. He should crack one million this week.
  • Save Buttigieg, no one below one million followers is on track to have one million followers by the Iowa caucuses.
  • Warren is the second biggest riser in April, up 130,000, which doesn’t jib with the narrative that her campaign has been underwhelming and policy-heavy.
  • Williamson does not seem to be gaining followers, and her vast Twitter readership doesn’t seem to be showing up in polls.
  • Harris also did well, and should soon pass Williamson, but she’s not on track to pass Biden before Iowa.
  • Thus far Biden hasn’t gotten much of a bump from formally entering the race.
  • Booker’s Twitter strength is not showing up in polling.
  • Castro, Hickenlooper, Moulton, Swalwell, Inslee, Delaney, Ryan and Messam are all below Yang, and none seem to be on a trajectory to catch him.
  • Of course, it’s possible that one of the longshots could catch fire, and race up the charts. Buttigieg started as a longshot and is now right in the thick of it. Compared to expectations, Yang is doing very well, but so far not well enough to be an actual contender.

    And watch tomorrow for the regular Clown Car update.

    Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for April 22, 2019

    Monday, April 22nd, 2019

    Word is that Biden is finally going to announce he’s in on Wednesday, Seth Moulten just jumped In, and Terry McAuliffe is Out.

    Fundraising

    More Q1 fundraising numbers, continued from last week, with new additions linked and number of donors shown where known:

    1. Bernie Sanders: $18.2 million from 525,000 donors
    2. Kamala Harris: $12 million from 138,000 donors
    3. Beto O’Rourke: $9.4 million from 218,000 contributions
    4. Pete Buttigieg: $7 million from 158,550 donors
    5. Elizabeth Warren: $6 million from 135,000 individuals
    6. Amy Klobuchar: $5.2 million
    7. Cory Booker: $5 million
    8. Kirsten Gillibrand: $3 million
    9. Jay Inslee: $2.25 million
    10. Tulsi Gabbard: $1.95 million (and at least 65,000 donors)
    11. Andrew Yang: $1.7 million from 80,000 donors
    12. Marianne Williamson: $1.5 million
    13. Julian Castro: $1.1 million
    14. John Delaney: $435,000 in donations, plus $11.7 million loan from himself
    15. Wayne Messam: $43,500

    Most of the announced Democrats seem to have qualified for the first debates, with the possible exceptions of Williamson, Messam, and the two representatives (Tim Ryan and Eric Swalwell) who entered the race late in Q1.

    The New York Times has nine takeaways from the fundraising race.

    Ads on sites like Facebook and Google were the top expenditure for multiple campaigns. Why? In part because the nature of running for president is changing. And in part because the Democratic Party has made having 65,000 donors a gateway to the first primary debates, so campaigns are fishing for new donors online.

    Mr. Sanders spent $1.5 million on digital ads. Ms. Harris spent $1 million. And Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington, plowed more than half of everything he spent into online ads: $450,000.

    Warren’s hefty burn rate:

    Ms. Warren, who entered the race on New Year’s Eve, raised $6 million and spent the most of any Democratic candidate in the first quarter. Her $5.2 million amounts to a big and risky bet that early investment and organizing in the states that will begin the nominating contest — Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina — will pay dividends next year.

    Ms. Warren’s report showed more than 160 people on payroll — nearly double that of Mr. Sanders, even as he raised three times as much as her. Ms. Harris, the No. 2 fund-raiser, had 44 people on staff. Ms. Warren spent nearly $1.9 million on salaries, payroll taxes and insurance in the first quarter.

    Ms. Warren also transferred $10.4 million from her Senate account, giving her a financial cushion. But such a transfer happens only once.

    The Hill sorts them into winners and losers. Winners: Buttigieg, Sanders, Trump, Harris, O’Rourke. Losers: Warren, Gillibrand, Delaney.

    Polls

  • Real Clear Politics
  • 538 polls.
  • Pundits, etc.

  • Headline: “Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson, Bernie Sanders are the 2020 candidates standing out to our readers.” Body: “And while we got overwhelming messages from the Andrew Yang, Bernie Sanders, Marianne Williamson and Tulsi Gabbard camps (in that order).” Man, even USA Today headline writers have it in for Gabbard…
  • 538 Presidential roundup.
  • Decision Desk has helpfully compiled a stream of 2020 Presidential candidate tweets.
  • Democratic Party presidential primary schedule.
  • Now on to the clown car itself:

  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams: Maybe? Still hasn’t said, but her failed Senate campaign is under investigation by the Georgia Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission.
  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti: Out.
  • Actor Alec Baldwin: Probably not. Still not seeing any news since his Twitter outburst two weeks ago. Downgrade from Maybe.
  • Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: Leaning toward a run. He had successful prostate surgery. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: All But In. Supposed to announce Wednesday:

    Joe Biden is running. The former vice president will make his candidacy official with a video announcement next Wednesday, according to people familiar with the discussions who have been told about them by top aides.

    Seriously, he’s actually made a decision. It’s taken two years of back-and-forth, it’ll be his third (or, depending on how you count, seventh) try for the White House, and many people thought he wouldn’t do it, but the biggest factor reshaping the 2020 Democratic-primary field is locking into place.

    He wants this. He really wants this. He’s wanted this since he was first elected to the Senate, in 1972, and he’s decided that he isn’t too old, isn’t too out of sync with the current energy in the Democratic Party, and certainly wasn’t going to be chased out by the women who accused him of making them feel uncomfortable or demeaned because of how he’d touched them.

    Biden’s campaign will, at its core, argue that the response to Donald Trump requires an experienced, calm hand to help America take a deep breath and figure out a way to get back on track. First, however, the man who would become the oldest president in American history needs to get through a primary—one that’s already tracking 18 other candidates, including six senators, two governors, a charismatic Texan wannabe senator, a geek-cool Indiana mayor with an impossible-to-pronounce name, and a guy no one had ever heard of who’s already scored a spot on the debate stage by becoming a mock obsession in weird corners of the internet by talking about universal basic income and robots.

    The primary, Biden believes, will be easier than some might think: He sees a clear path down the middle of the party, especially with Bernie Sanders occupying a solid 20 percent of the progressive base, and most of the other candidates fighting for the rest. And the announcement comes at a moment when many in the party have become anxious about Sanders’s strength, with some beginning to wonder whether Biden might be the only sure counterweight to stop him from getting the nomination.

    Remembering Biden’s old plagiarism problems. He also visited a union picket line and delivered Fritz Hollings’ eulogy.

  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Probably Not. No new news, and the original speculation was he wouldn’t run if Biden did. Downgrade from Maybe, but he has enough FU money that you never know…
  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. QA with The State of South Caroline. Booker sent out a fundraising email attacking…John Delaney? This is not exactly a novel insight: Booker’s biggest problem is Harris:

    Why has Harris got a better start than Booker? The answer is in the demography of the Democratic primary electorate and the importance of women in the party. The strength of black women was clearly illustrated in the results of the recent mayoral race in Chicago where the two finalists were both black women.

    The CNN research indicates the Democratic primary electorate has changed significantly since 2008. Black and female voters made up a larger share of the Democratic primary electorate in 2016 than they did in 2008. Unfortunately for Booker that gives the advantage to Harris.

  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown: Doesn’t sound like it.
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown: Out.
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock: Leaning Toward In, but is reportedly going to wait until Montana’s legislative session finishes, which would be May 1. Let’s see what happens after that date passes.
  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. He’s garnered ex-Obama and Clinton backers, including Steve Elmendorf, Laurie David, Robert Pohlad, Jill Goldman, John Phillips, and Orin Kramer. “Unlike much of the Democratic primary field, Buttigieg has not fully distanced himself from big money donors.” You don’t say. A Washington Post piece offers three points of historical comparison for Buttigieg:

    Several past candidates come to mind in trying to assess the Buttigieg phenomenon. One is Barack Obama. Another is former senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey. A third is former Arizona governor Bruce Babbitt. All had their moments. All were the subject of favorable and sometimes gushing media coverage. Only Obama went on to become both his party’s nominee and president of the United States.

    The tiny problem with this analysis is that Buttigieg can’t be Obama because he doesn’t have a century of white guilt behind his candidacy…

  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.: Out.
  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Mr. Castro is in need of a breakthrough moment.”

    Once considered a rising star in the Democratic Party — he was the first Latino to give a keynote address at the Democratic National Convention — he has been outshined in the ever-expanding field by brighter stars and nonstars alike. While he has many fans in his hometown, San Antonio, where he once served as mayor, he is not well known on the national stage. And with the sudden rise of the former El Paso congressman Beto O’Rourke, Mr. Castro is not even the most well-known candidate in his own state.

    Lots of “this should be his moment because immigration” blather snipped.

    Some Democrats believe that Mr. Castro’s moment has, if anything, already passed — that his best shot at national success occurred after he gave his electrifying speech at the 2012 convention. Some wonder whether he is too quiet, too inexperienced and too careful to compete in such a crowded, high-powered primary field.

    While Mr. Castro tries to brush off the inevitable comparisons to Mr. O’Rourke, whose challenge to Senator Ted Cruz last year turned him into a national celebrity, the attention drawn by Mr. O’Rourke — who speaks fluent Spanish, and whose hometown is on the border with Mexico — has cast something of a shadow over Mr. Castro’s candidacy.

    When he left Washington at the end of the Obama administration, Mr. Castro returned to Texas but resisted entreaties to run for statewide office. He finished writing a book, did some teaching and spent time with his family, but some Texas Democrats believe he missed an opportunity to advance his career and gain the kind of political profile that could have fortified his presidential run.

    Because Mr. Castro never ran for statewide office, he has not built up a big email list of supporters, and he still has not met the 65,000-donor threshold to qualify for the first Democratic primary debates. In the first three months of the year, he raised only $1.1 million (though his campaign said it had raised over half a million more by mid-April).

    Theta’s the real takeaway here, but 538 says he’s in the debates thanks to cracking 1% in three polls.

  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Out.
  • New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio: Leaning toward In. “Why Is Bill de Blasio’s Presidential Dream a Sad Joke?” (Talk about a question that answers itself!)

    It may be hard to believe now, but for a New York minute it seemed that Bill de Blasio was going to be the champion of an insurgent left. Progressive activists and commentators hailed de Blasio’s landslide victory in New York’s 2013 mayoral election as a sign of an encouraging new direction for the Democratic Party. His unabashedly liberal campaign—which centered on income inequality, or what de Blasio poetically termed a “tale of two cities”—prefigured the unrest that would shake the party, culminating in Bernie Sanders’s unlikely challenge to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential primary.

    Many unfulfilled, NYC-specific campaign promises snipped.

    Yet as de Blasio weighs entering the 2020 race, the prospect of a President de Blasio has been met with widespread derision. The New Republic’s Alex Shephard termed his interest in the presidency an “embarrassing quest for national fame,” while the mayor’s own allies (anonymously) told Politico that his flirtation with a presidential run was “fucking insane.” De Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, has said the “timing is not exactly right” for him to launch a campaign. The New York Times, which seems to take gleeful pleasure in dinging de Blasio for everything from calling errant snow days to ostentatiously hanging around Iowa, recently noted that Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has generated far more presidential buzz than the mayor of the country’s biggest city. Even in his hometown, there seems to be only one person who thinks a de Blasio presidential campaign would be anything other than a joke: de Blasio himself.

    How did he fall so far? De Blasio does, after all, have a robust record of actual accomplishments under his belt, which is more than what can be said for, say, Beto O’Rourke. He was once the favorite of grassroots groups and leftist elites alike. Perhaps the left soured on him because he is a singularly ham-handed politician, who possesses all the native charm of a Howard Schultz, the billionaire Starbucks founder who is trying to win the presidency one sanctimonious tweet at a time. Perhaps de Blasio has never been as progressive as his early cheerleaders made him out to be; he might simply be an opportunist who saw, early on, the way the wind was blowing and adjusted accordingly. Or maybe the Democrats, unnerved by the disaster of the last election and fearing another Trump victory in 2020, have started to prefer candidates who are all promise and no baggage.

    Read on for more bashing of other candidates, but since the words “corrupt crapweasel” never appear, I don’t think the author has quite hit the nail on the head…

  • Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. Delaney raised $435,000 in donations, plus $11.7 million loan from himself. Delaney has a net worth of about $180 million, so he can self-fund in the primary. But the general? Not so much. And John Delaney may get tired of John Delaney wasting John Delaney’s money trying to get John Delaney the Democratic nomination.
  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. She raised $1.95 million in Q1, and also transferred $2.5 million into her presidential account from her congressional campaign account, so she’s managed to bat above the Andrew Yang Line. Polifact ranks “Tulsi Gabbard’s attack on new Trump policy for pork inspections, E. coli testing” as mostly false. I wouldn’t even have heard about the policy otherwise. She’s raising money off 4/20 for marijuana legalization. Here’s a “she’s doing badly so she should drop out of the race” piece.
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti: Out.
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Gillibrand struggling to break into top tier of Dem presidential hopefuls.”

    By the numbers, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s bid for president is foundering.

    Support for her candidacy has hovered around 1 percent in national polling of Democrats.

    Contributions to her campaign in its first three months totaled just under $3 million.

    And viewers of her CNN town hall on April 9 numbered 491,000, rating worse than nine of the 10 forums before hers.

    Hell, she’s struggling to stay in the middle tier. She also transferred $10 million from her 2018 senate campaign.

  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum: Probably not. But he did call for President Trump’s impeachment, which is a very “I might just run so I better pander to the hard left” move.
  • California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter. Facebook. She went on Trevor Noah and played the “is it because I’m black?” card on New Hampshire. Granite Staters not amused. “Harris, Booker miss most votes of senators running in 2020.”
  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper: In. Twitter. Facebook. Here’s a piece on his connections to fracking and “David Bernhardt, the new [Trump Administration] secretary of the Interior responsible for opening public lands to industry development.”
  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder: Out.
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: In. Twitter. He raised $2.25 million in Q1, which is far from stellar. Why he’s becalmed in the third tier:

    The Inslee strategy was to grow his numbers as Beto O’Rourke began to fade (which is already happening), move into the second tier with Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, and eventually fight his way into the Final Four. But why isn’t he breaking into the second tier?

    Three reasons. First, Inslee is a white, older, male with a wonderful wife and pedestrian liberal views. Yes, Bernie Sanders is an even older white married man, but he has been a socialist and an outsider for years. In short, he’s authentic, the real deal for people who want an outsider who will challenge the power structure in both political parties. In years past, Jay’s personal bio would have been reassuring. This year it’s boring.

    Second, climate change is an important issue, but to help Jay Inslee it needs to be the issue. It guarantees media coverage, young volunteers and green money, but others are crowding his turf, preventing him from owning it outright. And there is an issue that is more important: being a genuine outsider. The three candidates with the most momentum, Bernie Sanders in Tier 1, Pete Buttigieg in Tier 2 and Andrew Yang in Tier 3 are completely outside the political vineyards, where Jay Inslee has been happily toiling for 30 years.

  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine: Out.
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry: Not seeing any sign.
  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Facebook. Twitter. She will be on a Fox News town hall. “Amy Klobuchar has voted to confirm more than half of Trump’s judicial nominees.” That’s from Think Progress, so you know they view that as a bad thing…
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu: Probably Out.
  • Update: Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe: Out. “Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said Wednesday he will forgo a 2020 presidential bid and instead focus on boosting Democrats in Virginia’s legislative elections later this year.” A mild surprise after all the “he wants to get in” buzz. Maybe he doesn’t see room to run with Biden getting in. And maybe it provides grist for R. S. McCain’s “Buttigieg as designated Clinton stalking horse” theory.
  • Oregon senator Jeff Merkley: Out. Filing for reelection to the senate instead.
  • Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: In. Twitter. Facebook. Wait, there are stories that he already missed payroll for his campaign? He just got in a few weeks ago! Then again, he’s evidently only raised $43,500 in Q1. That won’t get you far.
  • Update: Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton: In. Twitter. Facebook. He just announced today.

    Rep. Seth Moulton announced Monday that he is running for president, vowing to engage young people and military veterans and becoming the third Massachusetts politician to throw a hat into the 2020 ring.

    An Iraq veteran who led an unsuccessful effort to oust Nancy Pelosi from the House leadership last year, the 40-year-old Moulton has said he plans to run a campaign focused on national security and defense issues, which his campaign argues will make him a foil to President Donald Trump. Moulton was elected to Congress in 2014, after he upset former Democratic Rep. John Tierney in a primary fight. The Salem lawmaker is serving his third term.

    “Engaging young people and military veterans” sounds less like a plan than a demographic excuse to run, as there won’t be enough of either voting in the primaries to secure the nomination. And “national security and defense issues” go over in the Democratic base about as well as tofu at a BBQ cookoff. He’s also securing office space and staffing up. Upgrade over Maybe.

  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama: Out. But see this interview with Norman Podhoretz where he predicts she’ll jump in an be the nominee.
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda: Out.
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke: In. Twitter. Facebook. However, that NYT fundraising piece notes that “Nearly $300,000 of his first-day haul was actually general-election funds raised above the limit that he can spend in the primary contest.” Two top staffers leave his campaign. O’Rourke is wrong about America’s success being founded on slavery. Heh: “Michael Moore crashed Democratic presidential primary candidate Beto O’Rourke’s rally in Arlington, Virginia, but the crowd quickly turned on the left-wing documentary filmmaker.” Carlson Tucker says that O’Rourke’s campaign is dead:

    I suspect that pronouncement is premature. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Constitutionally ineligible to run in 2020.
  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: Out.
  • Ohio Representative Tim Ryan: In. Twitter. Facebook. He doesn’t back impeachment. He’s in Iowa, but not setting the world on fire: “Ryan’s audiences were small and quaint. At a brewery in Burlington, 15 people showed up. A sandwich shop in Fort Madison and a restaurant in Mount Pleasant had even smaller crowds. Most of the people were white and easily older than 50.” They note even Tulsi Gabbard drew 30…
  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. He had a Fox News town hall. He has a big fundraising advantage among small donors. “He’s relying almost entirely on small donors while railing against the outside influence of ‘millionaires and billionaires’ who have traditionally financed winning campaigns.” Also see Bernie vs. The DNC: Round 2 from last week.
  • Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer: Probably Out. But he is all in on impeaching President Trump. I’m sure Trump is equally delighted at the attempt…
  • California Representative Eric Swalwell: In. Twitter. Facebook. He really does want to put gun owners in jail.
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. More details on her staffing and spending.
  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. A CNN roundup says she raised $1.5 million in Q1 in their roundup, but I’m not seeing a source. She wants $100 billion for reparations.
  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey: Out.
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets a Reason profile, which included this nugget: “‘I’ve looked at the numbers…” Yang said repeatedly at a rally in Washington, D.C., on Monday evening, eliciting loud cheers from supporters who fervently waved signs that said ‘MATH.'” I was told…
  • Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for April 15, 2019

    Monday, April 15th, 2019

    More Q1 numbers are trickling out. Harris, Sanders and O’Rourke all did well, Gillibrand and Castro did poorly. Insert your own Biden as Hamlet sentence here.

    Fundraising

    More Q1 fundraising numbers, continued from last week, with new additions announced

    1. Bernie Sanders: $18.2 million from 525,000 donors
    2. Kamala Harris: $12 million from 138,000 donors
    3. Beto O’Rourke: $9.4 million from 218,000 contributions (number of donors not specified)
    4. Pete Buttigieg: $7 million from 158,550 donors
    5. Elizabeth Warren: $6 million from 135,000 individuals
    6. Amy Klobuchar: $5.2 million (number of donors not specified)
    7. Cory Booker: $5 million (number of donors not specified)
    8. Kirsten Gillibrand: $3 million
    9. Andrew Yang: $1.7 million from 80,000 donors
    10. Julian Castro: $1.1 million

    For the sake of comparison, incumbent president Donald Trump pulled in pulled in $30 million, and has $40 million in hand.

    Polls etc.

    Emerson: Sanders 29, Biden 24%, Buttigieg 9%, Harris and O’Rourke at 8%. I think that’s the first poll that had Sanders over Biden, or Buttigieg over Harris and O’Rourke.

    538 Presidential roundup.

    538 polls.

    Democratic Party presidential primary schedule.

    Decision Desk has helpfully compiled a stream of 2020 Presidential candidate tweets.

    Pundits

    Washington Post‘s The Fix rates the candidates in order of likeliness to be a nominee. Any list that ranks Warren third and Biden sixth can’t be taken seriously.

    Heh: “Scientists Recommend Reducing The Number Of Democratic Presidential Candidates To Help Fight Climate Change.” “Scientists recommend the current Democratic field be reduced to less than half the current number or we could see an increase in hurricanes, droughts, kaiju, and ‘other climate change things.'”

    Now on to the clown car itself:

  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams: Maybe? Krystal Ball (yes, her real name) make the case for Abrams. “You can just hear the narrator intoning: “With hard work and perseverance, anyone can succeed. America is the land of opportunity.’ But, Abrams doesn’t seem to buy that narrative. For one thing, in spite of all of her success in the grand American meritocracy, Abrams still found herself filing for governor at a time when she owed $170,000 in consumer and student loan debt and $50,000 in taxes.” Wait, you’re making the case for Abrams? As for running statewide:

  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti: Out. But see Friday’s LinkSwarm for more information on this prince among men and his multiple felony indictments.
  • Addition: Actor Alec Baldwin: Maybe? No news from Baldwin himself since floating last week’s Twitter balloon, but this piece suggests Democrats should run a celebrity…just not Alec Baldwin.

    In one of the Twitter rants he is always getting up to, Alec Baldwin claimed the other day that if he ran for president in 2020, he could beat President Trump. It would be “easy,” he said. “So easy. So easy.”

    I’m not so sure he’s right about this. No one over the age of 35 watches Saturday Night Live anymore, certainly not outside our major cities. Normal people don’t know who is being parodied in your 37th different sketch about some minor White House official, which makes laughing along kind of difficult. What else do Americans associate Baldwin with these days, apart from 30 Rock and that one funny monologue in Glengarry Glen Ross? His stint narrating Thomas and Friends? The Hunt for Red October? I just don’t think he’s beloved enough.

    Wait, people under the age of 35 watch Saturday Night Live? I’ll need to see documented evidence of that…

  • Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: Leaning toward a run. Despite his cancer diagnosis, he was visiting Iowa, which suggests he’s not easily deterred.
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: Leaning Towards Running. He’s evidently planning to run as Obama’s pale third term. I’m not sure that’s the red tofu Democratic activists are longing to hear, but it may not matter. Biden also has an advantage in having every old Democratic office holder at his beck and call. Here’s a Vanity Fair piece on how the #MeToo creeper stuff is going to hurt him; it’s unconvincing, and it’s the same argument liberals made about the Billy Bush tape sinking Trump. He’s also delivering Fritz Hollings’ eulogy.
  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Maybe. Nothing since last week’s “he might run after all” blip.
  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. He had a kickoff campaign event in Newark, where he did the usual “Republicans are evil racists who will kill you” scaremongering. Whistling past the graveyard: “Cory Booker Hasn’t Taken Off Yet, but His Campaign Doesn’t Mind.”
  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown: Doesn’t sound like it.
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown: Out.
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock: Leaning Toward In, but is reportedly going to wait until Montana’s legislative session finishes, which would be May 1. Now that date is not so far away…
  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. He did the “I was already running but now I’m officially officially running” thing. A report on his speech makes it sounds like all the usual Democratic talking points. “Buttigieg criticized what he called the more conservative connotation of the word “freedom,” one that he said refers simply to freedom from the government. He instead talked about government having a role in promoting other freedoms: from racism, gender inequality, unfair working conditions, financial exploitation, a lack of affordable health care.” Big Brother needs to get bigger! Kurt Schlichter wants us to remember how annoying Buttigieg is. Hmmm: “Austin Mayor Steve Adler backing Buttigieg two weeks after welcoming Beto at hometown rally.” Those liberal college town mayors have to stick together…
  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.: Out.
  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. Castro only raised $1.1 million in Q1. Even by the standard of a guy that’s not setting the campaign trail on fire that’s piss-poor. Gets a Vox profile.
  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Out. But for some inexplicable reason she and her husband are out on a speaking tour. Of course, it could be the very explicable reason of “money.”
  • New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio: Leaning toward In. “New York City mayor tests chilly waters for presidential run.” “Chilly” as in “Hydrogen freezes.”
  • Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. He campaigned in Pennsylvania. “At a Tuesday night event hosted by Penn Democrats, Delaney billed himself as a different type of Democrat, offering a centrist vision for the nation.” The picture shows a crowd of what looks to be about 25 people, despite a plate of free sandwiches in the room…
  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. She hit the goal of 65,000 donors to put her on the debate stage, but no word yet of how much money she actually raised. Also, Hawaii Democratic State Senator Kai Kahele says he’s raised $250,000 to primary Gabbard for her U.S. congressional seat.
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti: Out.
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: In. Twitter. Facebook. She raised $3 million in Q1, which is piss poor by the standards of a sitting new York senator. She should have been able to shake down that much from Wall Street the day she announced. her staff is blaming her stand on Al Franken. Heh: “White House National Security Adviser John Bolton could not stop laughing when played a clip of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) discussing her opposition to “tactile” nuclear weapons on the campaign trail.”
  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum: Probably not. Seeing no sign he’s running for President in 2020. But this is interesting: “Former Gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum built up some serious hype when he launched a voter drive. That work will be done with his Forward Florida political committee, which he now chairs. But it appears Gillum also formed a corporation with a similar name and function. Division of Corporations records show on April 5, paperwork was filed for the Forward Florida Action not-for-profit corporation.”
  • California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter. Facebook. She released 15 years of tax returns, which showed she and her lawyer husband made nearly $2 million in 2018. Must be nice. She’s leading the Hollywood fundraising race (just like Alan Cranston did in 1984), which donations from Shonda Rhimes, Elizabeth Banks, Quincy Jones, and J.J. Abrams, who is reportedly considering buffing up her campaign with more lens flare. She’s also the candidate of big tech:

    the national obsession with ethnicity and novelty obscures the more important reality: Harris is also the favored candidate of the tech and media oligarchy now almost uniformly aligned with the Democratic Party. She has been a hit in all the important places—the Hamptons, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley—that financed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.

    Unlike Warren and Sanders, or Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar, Harris has not called for curbs on, let alone for breaking up, the tech giants. As California’s attorney general, she did little to prevent the agglomeration of economic power that has increasingly turned California into a semi-feudal state dominated by a handful of large tech firms. These corporate behemoths now occupy 20 percent of Silicon Valley’s office space, and they have undermined the start-up culture that once drove the area’s growth.

    Snip.

    By the time Harris ran for the Senate, she could count on massive support from Bay Area law firms, real-estate developers, and Hollywood. More important, she appealed, early on, to tech mavens such as Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Sean Parker, Marc Benioff of Salesforce, Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer, venture capitalist John Doerr, Steve Jobs’s widow Laurene Powell, and various executives at tech firms such as Airbnb, Google, and Nest, who have collectively poured money into her campaigns. Their investment was not ill-considered. Harris seems a sure bet for the tech leaders. Her husband, attorney Doug Emhoff, was a managing partner with Venable Partners, whose clients include Microsoft, Apple, Verizon, and trade associations opposing strict Internet regulations.

    She’s also building out her campaign in South Carolina, probably a smart move. With so many candidates in the race and proportional delegate allocation, I don’t think Iowa and new Hampshire are going to winnow the field nearly as much in the past, which is going to make South Carolina’s February 29th primary more important than in year’s past. Speaking of which: “Bakari Sellers, a CNN commentator and former South Carolina state representative, endorsed Sen. Kamala Harris for president, her campaign announced Monday.” Wait, Harris is a gun owner? That will make for some interesting Harris-Swalwell deabtes. (Hat tip: CarpeDonktum.)

  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper: In. Twitter. Facebook. “John Hickenlooper is misrepresenting his record on the death penalty.” He visited some Iowa brewpubs.
  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder: Out.
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: In. Twitter. He had a CNN town hall. At least one review was not kind: “He really did sound like he has just half a brain, as he himself said earlier this week. CNN didn’t do Inslee any favors by airing this interview.” He said his state would love to get all those illegal aliens. One wonders if his constituents feel the same.
  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine: Out.
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry: Not seeing any sign.
  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Facebook. Twitter. She raised $5.2 million in Q1. She also released her most recent tax return, showing a modest (by u.S. senatorial standards) $338,483 in income. She’s in Iowa pimping for ethanol. She visited Boulder.
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu: Probably Out.
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe: Leaning toward a run? Why can’t Terry meme?

  • Oregon senator Jeff Merkley: Out. Filing for reelection to the senate instead.
  • Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Wayne Messam presidential campaign staffs up with women and alumni from Gillum and Obama.” “His staff currently numbers about 20, mostly women. Of the eight senior staffers, five are women.”
  • Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton: Maybe? “Seth Moulton is running social media ads asking if he should run for higher office.” Expect him to throw his hat into the ring under his new name of Candidate McCandidateFace.
  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama: Out.
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda: Out.
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke: In. Twitter. Facebook. “The big idea? Beto doesn’t have one.” “Beto O’Rourke’s most distinctive policy position? To be determined. There’s no signature issue yet, no single policy proposal sparking his campaign. Convening crowds — and listening to them — is the central thrust of his early presidential bid.” The roots of Beto’s money. Hint: It’s not record sales. “O’Rourke co-owns a shopping mall worth seven figures; He received his half as a gift from his mother.”
  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Constitutionally ineligible to run in 2020.
  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: Out.
  • Ohio Representative Tim Ryan: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Why is Tim Ryan running for president, anyway?” “There are not a lot of discernible reasons why Tim is doing this.” But rapper Cardi B says she’s endorsing both Sanders and Ryan, based on seeing Ryan promising free health care on TV. So he’s got that going for him…
  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. Evidently some people still hold a grudge from 2016:

    Sen. Bernie Sanders has accused a leading liberal think tank, founded and run by longtime Hillary Clinton allies, of orchestrating attacks on him and two other 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.

    In a letter provided to CNN by his campaign, Sanders addressed the board of the Center for American Progress and CAP Action Fund on Saturday, alleging that its activities are playing a “destructive role” in the “critical mission to defeat Donald Trump.” Sanders cited two posts about him by ThinkProgress, a website run by CAP’s political arm, and past pieces focused on Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker.

    The exchange threatens to shred an already frayed public détente between the wider circles surrounding both Sanders and Clinton, who fought a bitter 2016 presidential primary that still looms large in the minds of many Democrats — if only because they fear a divisive replay in 2020.

    CAP, founded in 2003 by John Podesta, who was former President Bill Clinton’s final chief of staff and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chairman, and its top officials have often been accused by progressives loyal to Sanders of seeking to undermine his political agenda — debates that frequently blow up on social media platforms like Twitter.

  • Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer: Probably Out? Said he wasn’t running, but there’s this: “California billionaire Tom Steyer may be reconsidering his decision last January to remove himself as a possible candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, according to a new report. A citizen in Iowa recently recorded a robocall that tested political messaging related to Steyer, according to a report from Iowa Starting Line.” Still think he’s out, but not this for the record.
  • California Representative Eric Swalwell: In. Twitter. Facebook. Officially kicked off his campaign in Dublin, California, staying all in on the gun grabbing issue. There’s also a parody website.
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. Warren pulled in $6 million in Q1 from 135,000 individuals. “Elizabeth Warren doesn’t like to talk about it, but for years she was a registered Republican.” And here’s the Warren Policy Proposal of the Week: “Ban new fossil fuel production on federal lands.”
  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. She got a joint town hall on CNN with Andrew Yang. Williamson’s part is filled with bad ideas: A hardline approach to Israel (undoing President Trump’s Golan heights resolution, for instance) and supporting reparations.
  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey: Out.
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: In. Twitter. Facebook. Yang had some of his own bad ideas, like “monitoring malicious speech.” He also wants to decriminalize heroin and other opiates (along the lines of Portugal), which may be the first genuinely new idea any Democratic Presidential candidate has floated this cycle. Here’s a review of his book. “Once you read his book, it is apparent that Andrew Yang is running for president because he is afraid of normal people.” He’s an idea-a-minute guy, many of them bad, sort of a Democratic version of 2012’s Newt Gingrich. Yang also leads the candidates in Facebook spending.

  • Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for April 8, 2019

    Monday, April 8th, 2019

    Tim Ryan and Eric Swalwell are In, Biden’s still Hamleting, Bloomberg is suddenly back in the picture, and a certain anti-Trump celebrity is making noises about running.

    Fundraising

    More fundraising numbers are trickling out: “Final fundraising tallies from January through March won’t come out until April 15 when candidates officially file their numbers with the FEC. That didn’t stop several triumphant Democratic contenders from releasing their estimated fundraising tallies early.”

    From Open Secrets and elsewhere:

    1. Bernie Sanders: $18.2 million from 525,000 donors
    2. Kamala Harris: $12 million from 138,000 donors
    3. Beto O’Rourke: $9.4 million from 218,000 contributions (number of donors not specified)
    4. Pete Buttigieg: $7 million from 158,550 donors
    5. Cory Booker: $5 million (number of donors not specified)
    6. Andrew Yang: $1.7 million from 80,000 donors

    This comment had some of the usual types in a tizzy:

    But he’s right. Harris has all sorts of structural advantages (sitting senator from an extremely wealthy state and a media darling), but she’s barely outpacing a guy who was considered an unlikely longshot a month ago.

    Polls

    Morning Consult has it Biden 33, Sanders 25, O’Rourke and Harris tied at 8, and Warren at 7.

    Change Research poll of South Carolina voters has Biden at 32, Sanders at 12, Harris at 10, Booker and O’Rourke at 9, Adams and Buttigieg at 7, and Warren at 6.

    It turns out that the home states of the various candidates are not super-wild about them, as none got majorities in their own states.

    538 Presidential roundup. (You know this gets updated with new info and a new URL every week, right?)

    538 polls.

    Democratic Party presidential primary schedule.

    Now on to the clown car itself:

  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams: Maybe?Stacey Abrams torn between running for president, Senate.” She’s even making noises that she could wait until the fall to decide. Uh, not really. If you launch that late I think you start running into ballot access issues.
  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti: Out.
  • Addition: Actor Alec Baldwin: Maybe? I wouldn’t necessarily put much stock into it, but the actor and SNL Trump-impersonator asked his Twitter followers if they would vote for him if he ran for President. Two weeks ago I said that the race could be ripe for a disruptive outsider celebrity candidate, and despite his career decline, Baldwin fits that description. And having noted rageholic Baldwin run would certainly shake things up. Though his Twitter account (which he’s blocked me on) seems to have been mostly moribund the last year. And his opponents already have a anti-Baldwin meme song ready to go:

  • Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: Maybe? Bennet announced he has prostate cancer…but is still interested in running for President after surgery. Sounds like the sort of event that causes people to decide not to run for President…
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: Leaning Towards Running. Biden says he wants to be the last person to announce he’s running for President. So far, so good! But he’s running into more creeper questions, as well as flak for his son’s shady deals in Ukraine. Nine reasons to vote for Joe Biden. 95% sarcasm by weight. And this took Twitter by storm:

  • Update: Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Maybe. Remember how Bloomberg said he was out? Well now people close to him are saying he might still run if Biden doesn’t. Upgrade from Out.
  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Says he raised more than $5 million in Q1. The National Catholic Reporter wonders why he’s not doing better. “Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey should be one of the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. He checks so many different boxes that other candidates leave unchecked, it is hard to see why he has not catapulted to the top of the polls, but he hasn’t.”
  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown: Doesn’t sound like it.
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown: Out.
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock: Leaning Toward In, but is reportedly going to wait until Montana’s legislative session finishes, which would be May 1. New York magazine did a little mini-roundup of who hasn’t announced yet. “There are those who consider Bullock, who’s delaying his decision on a possible race until his legislature adjourns, a quite viable candidate.”
  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. Says he like the Green New Deal and nuclear power. Jim Geraghty dissects the Buttigieg moment:

    I see a common thread between the current moment of Buttigieg-mania, and 2018’s Beto-mania. A once-obscure political figure suddenly is the subject of one glossy profile after another, with the general gist of “You’ve never heard of this officeholder, but he’s (or less often, she’s) amazing, and about to shake up politics.” You hear about how the figure is wowing people on the stump, some quote from some audience members selected to represent the “average voter,” declaring that the figure “restores my hope” and “really cares about people like me,” followed by a recitation of their legislative or governing accomplishments. The profile hits all the familiar notes: the humble beginnings, the mischievous hijinks of youth, the happy home life, the vague but positive vision for America’s future. (It’s like this Beto profile, but less exaggerated.)

    And maybe in the back of your mind, you’re thinking . . . wait, if this guy is so terrific, why have I never heard of him until now? I follow the news. I’m reasonably well-informed. If he was the driving force behind such big and consequential accomplishments, why have I not noticed them or heard other people talking about them? The accounts of the audiences left in rapturous awe ought to raise some red flags for us, too. Sure, the figure seems charismatic and likable enough, but the allegedly ordinary voters who show up to the rallies are already predisposed to like him — otherwise, they wouldn’t show up to the rally!

    Almost everybody’s resume looks good — it represents putting your best foot forward. Very few figures who run for office begin by announcing, “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, had a lot of proposals that never worked out, I’ve had my share of ethical lapses, and I have no idea how I would hold up under the pressure of the presidency.”

    Sure, there are under-covered, little-noticed mayors, House members, and even governors and senators who are accomplishing things under the radar of the national media. But when it comes to Democrats, there are some painfully familiar templates: the “here’s the Democrat who’s leading his party to a comeback in the South” and the variation, “Texas Democrats are ready for a comeback.” And when it comes to presidential politics, maybe the easiest way to pick out the candidate who will get the early buzz is to ask which one reminds the national press corps the most of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama — young, charismatic, handsome, talking about better days ahead and unleashing all of America’s untapped potential. We can argue about whether it’s still accurate, but for a long time, the line “Republicans fall in line, Democrats want to fall in love” was a reasonable assessment of each party’s presidential-primary process.

    Buttigieg is that guy right now. But history has examples of young Democrats who ultimately stumbled for one reason or another — John Edwards, Howard Dean, Jerry Brown, Gary Hart, the 1988 edition of Al Gore.

  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.: Out.
  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. He promised to release 10 years of tax returns and campaigned in California.
  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Out.
  • New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio: Leaning toward In. “De Blasio Stubbornly Moves Toward Presidential Race That Could Humiliate New York.”

    His first two recent trips to Iowa have been, in a word, fiascoes (his first, last December, was marked by NYPD protests, and during the second, in February, he was stranded in a blizzard at a Super 8 motel and dined on a gas-station burrito). He hasn’t been listed in most 2020 polls, and his peak performance in any has been a booming one percent.

    It’s hard to discern any path to the White House for Hizzoner.

  • Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets a Business Insider profile. The Root talks about his “commitment to black America.”
  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Tulsi Gabbard Accuses CNN’s Fareed Zakaria of Goading Donald Trump Into War With Russia.”
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti: Out.
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: In. Twitter. Facebook. She too gets a Business Insider profile.
  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum: Probably not. All quiet on the Gillum front.
  • California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter. Facebook. She racked up more South Carolina endorsements. “When the Senate took contentious votes this week on a disaster aid package to help California rebuild after wildfires, Sen. Kamala Harris was in Sacramento — courting the support of labor unions for her presidential campaign.”
  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Hickenlooper this week addressed the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.”
  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder: Out.
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: In. Twitter. Get’s a CNN quick facts profile.
  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine: Out.
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry: Not seeing any sign.
  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Facebook. Twitter. “Amy Klobuchar’s Hazy ‘Heartland Economics’“: “Amy Klobuchar is counting on “heartland economics” to win Iowa and make her the candidate of the Midwest—though she’s still working through what precisely she means by that, and how it would actually lead her to the Democratic presidential nomination.” She also released 12 years of tax returns.
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu: Probably Out.
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe: Leaning toward a run? “Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe said Monday that he’s “very close” to a decision on whether he’ll seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2020.” Also says he’ll have the funniest campaign if he runs, which is pretty tough talk given how hilarious both Baldwin’s and de Blasio’s campaigns would be.
  • Oregon senator Jeff Merkley: Out. Filing for reelection to the senate instead.
  • Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: In. Twitter. Facebook. He’s not even going to get to New Hampshire until May. So far I’m not seeing any Messamentum. But he did put a viral ad with his daughters, and they seem really, really…normal:

  • Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton: Maybe? Get’s a New Hampshire public radio profile.
  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama: Out.
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda: Out.
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke: In. Twitter. Facebook. “It’s been Bernie versus Beto all weekend in Iowa.” Heh: “Iowa student asks Beto O’Rourke ‘Are you here to see Beto?'”
  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Constitutionally ineligible to run in 2020.
  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: Out.
  • Update. Tim Ryan: In. Twitter. Facebook. He announced last week. Five facts about Ryan, including the tidbit that he’s never run for statewide office, and his district went for Trump in 2016.
  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. Sanders thinks convicted felons should be able to vote from prison. But he says he doesn’t want open borders:

    Maybe he wants to try “Socialism in One Country” first…

  • Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer: Out.
  • Update: California Representative Eric Swalwell: In. He announced he’s running on gun control on Colbert. Never mind my well-known opposition to gun control, as an observer I just don’t see that moving the needle in such a crowded field. Just about all of them are gun grabbers.
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. Warren is polling in third place… in Massachusetts. She’s also dropped a lot of radical policy proposals down the well, most of which haven’t made a splash, and she hasn’t released any preliminary Q1 fundraising numbers.
  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. She gets a Des Moines Register profile. She’s going to do a CNN town hall April 14.
  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey: Out.
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: In. Twitter. Facebook. He raised $1.7 million, so obviously someone cares, even if it’s conservatives trying to jam the Democrats. He got an ABC News profile and was interviewed by Ben Shapiro:

  • Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for April 1, 2019

    Monday, April 1st, 2019

    What use is April Fools Day when there are so many fools to choose from? That aside, Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam is In, while Biden continues his Hamlet routine. (Given what last week’s Mueller-Avenatti-Smollett smashup was like, I don’t really blame him anyone for not launching their campaign last week.) Eric Swalwell was do disappointed by the Mueller report that he’s going to run for President to ease the pain, sort of like sawing off your own leg to make you forget a toothache. There’s a little Buttigieg boomlet going on. And with the quarter just ended, fundraising totals are starting to trickle out.

    Polls
    A Quinnipiac national poll has it Biden 29, Sanders 19, O’Rourke 12, Harris 8, and Warren and Buttigieg in a distant fifth tied at 4% each. Most interesting tidbit? O’Roruke has double Harris’ support among black people, and ties it among women.

    An Emerson Iowa poll had it Biden 25, Sanders 24, Buttigieg 11, Harris at 10, with Warren, Booker and O’Rourke trailing in single digits.

    A Harvard poll of young voters showed they love them some geezers:

    America’s youngest voters prefer the oldest 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls over those closer to them in age, and millennial women are showing little problem with former Vice President Joe Biden’s personally touchy style that has drawn the scorn of some #MeToo champions, according to a new survey.

    The Harvard Youth Poll found that Sen. Bernie Sanders, 77, and Biden, 76, top the choices of voters aged 18-29.

    Sanders leads Biden 31 percent to 20 percent, said the survey from the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy’s School.

    Notably, one of the youngest Democratic candidates, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, registered just 10 percent. But that makes him the third top choice of the younger voters.

    Everyone else was back in single digits.

    “The one big takeaway from every 2020 Democratic primary poll: The 2020 Democratic primary won’t really start until Joe Biden runs — or doesn’t.”

    538 Presidential roundup.

    538 polls.

    Democratic Party presidential primary schedule.

    Now on to the clown car itself:

  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams: Maybe?Stacey Abrams builds massive political network ahead of 2020 decision.” “Stacey Abrams is set to reveal soon whether she’ll run for president or senator or something else. But in recent months, the Democrat has mounted a nationwide, largely below-the-radar effort to expand her donor and political network that will make her an instant force whatever she decides.” She also ruled out preemptively agreeing to be Biden’s VP.
  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti: Out. Plus it’s gone be hard to run for president from inside a federal prison. (Bonus kick.)
  • Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: Leaning Toward In. Says he’s very inclined to run.
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: Leaning Towards Running. Biden isn’t even in the race yet, and they’re already dropping opposition research from the 1970s on him. Here’s a piece detailing all his deviationist votes from social justice warrior orthodoxy. Nevada Democrat Lucy Flores complains about Biden creeping on her. Biden says it’s hooey. Of course, Flores just happens to be a staunch Sanders supporter. More on Creepy Uncle Joe:

    Joe Biden is a creepy old goat. Everyone knows this. There is much photographic evidence of him crossing the line with women. He’s also a liar and a buffoon. But the Democratic party’s public-relations arm, aka the mainstream media, has never before had any incentive to hold Biden up to scrutiny. Why bother? When he became veep, any attack on Biden risked looking like casting aspersions on the man who made him his number two, and the media could not countenance any naysaying about the judgment of the Precious.

  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Out.
  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. He had a CNN town hall. Here’s a recording of his AIPAC conference speech.
  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown: Doesn’t sound like it. He’s off on a ranch.
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown: Out.
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock: Leaning Toward In, but is reportedly going to wait until Montana’s legislative session finishes, which would be May 1. He keeps saying he doesn’t want to run for the Senate,
  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. There’s a little Buttigieg boomlet going on. He pulled in $7 million in fundraising in Q1. He got a new York Times profile. With him doing well in that Emerson poll, he’s already getting the but he’s a white male!” backlash. And that Washington Post piece tells us how to pronounce his name: “Boot-edge-edge.” Which just doesn’t roll off the tongue the way “Dick Butt” does…
  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.: Out.
  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. He was in Ft. Dodge, Iowa. Back in January, Jim Geraghty noted: “Julián Castro was the candidate of tomorrow, and always will be.” It also included this tidbit:

    In 2012, Rosie Castro caused her son a bit of a headache when she told The New York Times Magazine that the Texans at the Alamo were “a bunch of drunks and crooks and slaveholding imperialists who conquered land that didn’t belong to them…I can truly say that I hate that place and everything it stands for.” It’s not often you see a mayor’s mother trashing the city’s most famous historical site.

  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Out.
  • New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio: Leaning toward In. He’s even losing the popularity contest to Buttigieg in the city of which he’s mayor.
  • Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. Campaigning in Iowa.
  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Tulsi Gabbard Says It’s Time to ‘Move Forward’ After Trump-Russia Investigation.” “Now that Mueller has reported that his investigation revealed no such collusion, we all need to put aside our partisan interests and recognize that finding that the president of the United States did not conspire with Russia to interfere with our elections is a good thing for our country.” Yeah, I bet that stance is going to make her super popular among Democratic primary voters…
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti: Out.
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: In. Twitter. Facebook. She released her 2018 tax returns. A smart move, assuming anyone pays attention to it…
  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum: Probably not. “Unless somebody I know who inspires me on a regular basis decides to do something else, he’d be focusing all his energy on getting Florida voters registered and turning the state blue in 2020.” Downgrade from Maybe.
  • California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter. Facebook. Harris is popular with her California constituents…but not super-popular, and the state doles out delegates proportionally. Interestingly, left-leaning PolitiFact said that her assertion that President Trump was raiding money from soldier pensions was false. And speaking of Jussie Smollett:

  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper: In. Twitter. Facebook. “Hickenlooper is certainly different.” One way he’s different: He suffers from “face blindness,” the inability to remember someone’s face, a very un-politician-like disease.
  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder: Out.
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: In. Twitter. Facebook. He released his tax returns as well.
  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine: Out.
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry: Not seeing any sign.
  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Facebook. Twitter. She visited Iowa to check out flooding damage. “There are half a dozen Democrats running for president who fill VFW halls or city squares or public parks. Klobuchar is not one of those Democrats. Her audiences are rapt and curious but small. Her Friday night visit to Council Bluffs, which took place in the same venue and time of day as Warren’s first visit to the city, attracted 75 people.” She also unveiled an very expensive infrastructure plan. How expensive?

  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu: Probably Out.
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe: Leaning toward a run? Here’s another “he’s leaning toward getting in” piece.
  • Oregon senator Jeff Merkley: Out. Filing for reelection to the senate instead.
  • Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: In. Twitter. Facebook. He announced Saturday.

    In the first speech of his presidential campaign, Miramar Mayor Wayne Messam on Saturday said he’s aiming to “give Americans a second chance at the American Dream.”

    The 44-year-old son of Jamaican immigrants said his top priorities are greatly reducing gun violence and preventing mass shootings, eliminating college loan debt, reversing harmful climate change, and rebuilding ties with America’s allies across the planet.

    “We will meet this challenge,” Messam told the crowd at the Lou Rawls Center for the Performing Arts at Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens. He used the “Black Panther” movie song “Pray for Me” as his theme music.

    With all of five thousand twitter followers, Messam takes the longest of longshots crown from John Delaney. However, as a black mayor with a compelling personal story, the media will be unable to ignore him as they’ve largely ignored Delany, no matter how much Harris and Booker campaigns might wish they would. And the inevitable Obama comparisons won’t hurt, though I don’t see him having anything near that magnetism. Florida’s primary is March 17, fairly early but after Super Tuesday, and it’s possible that Messam’s favorite son bid could make some noise there, especially if Gillum doesn’t jump into the race.

  • Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton: Maybe? Yet another guy who says he’ll decide in the next few weeks.
  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama: Out.
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda: Out.
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke: In. Twitter. Facebook. He kicked off his campaign with a rally in El Paso. “Beto O’Rourke is 2020’s John Edwards.” Especially how he magically shifted from a theoretical centrist who opposed ObamaCare to “a full-throated liberal.” Peter Beinart swoons over O’Rourke’s immigration ideas. “In his bicultural and bilingual hometown of El Paso, while speaking in both English and Spanish, he imagined the United States helping itself by helping Central America.” It’s the usual “my favored candidates policy ideas are extremely persuasive” piece no one will remember a week from now. The El Paso Times puts up, then takes down, a “Beto is a Furry” meme explainer.
  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Constitutionally ineligible to run in 2020.
  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: Out.
  • Ohio Democratic Representative Tim Ryan: Leaning Toward In? He was at a forum in Iowa.
  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. Bernie “three houses” Sanders is not so keen on releasing his taxes. Also promises to magically cut prescription drug prices in half.
  • Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer: Out.
  • California Representative Eric Swalwell: All But In. He told an audience he was announcing in two weeks. Maybe he can spend his Presidential campaign looking for the real Russian colluders. (Upgrade from Maybe.)
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. She just lost her financing manager. “Her staff is sensitive enough about the “but can she win” concerns that last week it issued a lengthy campaign memo, in the guise of a fund-raising email, detailing her platform and resume while offering a reminder that she is the only candidate who in recent years has defeated a statewide Republican incumbent.” Yeah, in Massachusetts, which for a Democrat is like Kramer beating up 9-year olds in his karate class.
  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. Robert Stacey McCain has been out on the trail covering the Williamson campaign.

    Say hello to Marianne Williamson, a best-selling author who has often been called Oprah Winfrey’s “spiritual guru.” Although she isn’t even a single-digit blip in the national polls, Ms. Williamson’s campaign has already been featured on ABC’s Nightline, and her campaign appearances in Iowa and New Hampshire have received respectful coverage in such local media as the Des Moines Register and the Concord Monitor. Her only previous foray into electoral politics was a fourth-place finish in a 16-candidate California congressional race in 2014, but Ms. Williamson seems to have learned a lot in the past five years. Her campaign website is state-of-the-art, her calendar of public appearances is carefully targeted toward the early primary and caucus states, and she has already hired state campaign directors in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. “We’re getting traction,” Williamson campaign spokeswoman Patricia Ewing told me in a brief telephone interview Thursday. “We’re very happy with it.”

    Ms. Ewing said the campaign is “confident” Ms. Williamson will surpass the crucial metric of 65,000 unique donors that the Democratic National Committee has established as the threshold to participate in the first televised debates. She already has more than 25,000 donors, Ms. Ewings said. “It’s not a stress point for us at all. We know we’re going to hit the numbers by the time the DNC wants us to.” Ms. Williamson has spent more than 30 years making public appearances to promote her popular books and, before launching her current campaign, went on a 75-city national tour with an average of 500 people attending each event, Ms. Ewing said. Do the math, and that adds up to nearly 40,000 dedicated supporters. Given how easily an “outsider” candidate like Trump vanquished a field of Republican politicians in the 2016 primaries, it’s not impossible that Ms. Williamson could pull off a similar feat among Democrats in 2020. “We believe that a presidential candidate can come from someone who is not a career politician,” Ms. Ewing said. “Someone who has an understanding of the breadth and width of the country.”

    More from McCain:

    For all the talk about the Religious Right’s role in Republican politics, little attention is paid to the influence among Democrats of the Religious Left, of which Ms. Williamson is a recognized leader. And if the odds against her winning her party’s 2020 presidential nomination are a million-to-one, there are nonetheless serious Democrats who believe she can achieve such a miracle. One of them is Dr. Gloria Bromell Tinubu, state director of the Williamson campaign. An experienced politician who served in the Georgia legislature before returning to her native South Carolina, Dr. Tinubu was twice the Democratic nominee for Congress in the 7th District, getting more than 100,000 votes against Republican Rep. Tom Rice in this deep “red” district. Dr. Tinubu introduced Ms. Williamson at Bethel A.M.E. by saying, “I consider her a sister,” which is about as strong an endorsement as any Democrat needs here.

    Snip.

    If the “Three B’s” (Biden, Bernie, and Beto) are Trump’s “dream” of a 2020 opponent, Ms. Williamson might just be his worst nightmare. Like him, she’s an outsider, a non-politician without the kind of political baggage that sank Hillary Clinton. And she brings to the campaign a spiritual vibe that could connect with swing voters. “Politics should not be a pursuit disconnected from the heart,” her campaign literature proclaims. “Where fear has been harnessed for political purposes, let’s now harness the power of love.” Sure, conservative readers will roll their eyes at that kind of emotional appeal, but what about suburban “soccer moms”? What about the millions of women who’ve bought Ms. Williamson’s books or seen her many TV appearances with Oprah? What about the congregation at Bethel A.M.E. that applauded Ms. Williamson’s call for reparations for slavery?

    All the same pundits who confidently predicted Trump’s defeat would say it is impossible Ms. Williamson could win the Democrats’ 2020 nomination, and that’s the really spooky thing. We are living in a world where impossible things seem to be happening with remarkable frequency, and it’s foolish to say miracles never happen. How odd was it, after all, that Ms. Williamson was speaking Sunday from the pulpit of a black church in South Carolina? Not only is she white, she’s Jewish. (To quote New York Jewish Week: “Should she win the presidency, Williamson, 66, not only would be the first woman president but the first Jewish one.”) She mentioned the Jewish celebration of Purim, which commemorates Esther’s role in saving the Jews of Persia. She didn’t mention the famous question Mordecai asked of Esther: “Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Indeed, who knows? In such a time as this, perhaps Ms. Williamson could be the miracle that saves Democrats from themselves.

  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey: Out.
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: Running but no one cares. Twitter. Facebook. He gets a WIRED interview. Lots of talk of AI and robots.
  • Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for March 25, 2019

    Monday, March 25th, 2019

    This week in the clown car update: Two more additions, one possibly serious, the other definitely not. Also, don’t miss yesterday’s post on the Twitter primary.

    Polls and Pundits

    Fox poll has Biden at 31, Sanders at 24, and both beating Trump, with everyone else in single digits and losing to Trump.

    CNN has it Biden 28, Sanders 20, Harris 12, O’Rourke 11, with no one else more than 6.

    James Pindell of the Boston Globe ranks the Democratic presidential field in New Hampshire. TLDR: Sanders, Biden, Warren, Harris, Booker, O’Rourke, Williamson, Gabbard, Buttigieg, Yang. Yes, he has Williamson and Yang ahead of numerous “serious” candidates.

    538 Presidential roundup.

    538 polls.

    Democratic Party presidential primary schedule.

    Now on to the clown car itself:

  • Losing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams: Maybe? Still considering a run. Also see Biden comma Joe.
  • Creepy Porn Lawyer Michael Avenatti: Out. But he did pen an op-ed stating that Beto O’Rourke can’t win. “It’s not Beto’s fault he’s not a fighter. After all, he’s led a very charmed, privileged life as a white male. He’s faced very little adversity.” Seems like the Creepy Porn Lawyer is calling the kettle white…
  • Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: Leaning Toward In. “U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet is taking the final steps toward becoming the second Colorado Democrat in the 2020 race for president, with a possible announcement coming soon, sources familiar with his plan have told The Denver Post.”
  • Former Vice President Joe Biden: Leaning Towards Running. Trial balloon floated the idea of him announcing for the campaign and naming Stacey Abrams as his running mate right out of the gate. Not sure that would help clinch the nomination with two (or, see below, three) actual black candidates in the race. Lots of pundits are pronouncing this to be a bad idea, but how many are in the tank for Kamala Harris? Jim Geraghty: “Nominating Biden atop the Democratic ticket is like giving the wacky neighbor supporting character on a beloved show his own spinoff.” Could Biden be the Jeb Bush of 2020?

  • Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Out.
  • New Jersey Senator Cory Booker: In. Twitter. Facebook. Booker is being pulled left by the party’s crazy primary base. Booker and Harris top a poll of South Carolina’s Democratic Party county chairs. He also had a fundraiser hosted for him by Bon Jovi. “Cory Booker the Only Dem 2020 Candidate Attending AIPAC Conference.”
  • Former California Governor Jerry Brown: Doesn’t sound like it.
  • Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown: Out.
  • Montana Governor Steve Bullock: Leaning Toward In, but is reportedly going to wait until Montana’s legislative session finishes, which would be May 1. But he has been fundraising for local Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire.
  • South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets a profile from NBC, which notes that he too has met the 65,000 donor threshold to participate in debates.
  • Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr.: Out.
  • Former San Antonio Mayor and Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro: In. Twitter. Facebook. He whistled past the graveyard about O’Rourke’s entry into the race.
  • Former First Lady, New York Senator, Secretary of State and losing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Out.
  • New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio: Leaning toward In. “New Yorkers Don’t Seem Too Thrilled About Possible Presidential Candidate Bill de Blasio.” Why should they be different than the rest of the country?
  • Maryland Representative John Delaney: In. Twitter. Facebook. Gets an ABC profile that notes “Delaney has made Iowa his primary focus. He’s traveled to 99 counties and was planning to open six offices in the first state that will have a say in the election. His time in Iowa reportedly earned him early endorsements from three Iowan Democratic Party county chairs.” Probably the only candidate in the field emphasizing bipartisanship.
  • Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard: In. Twitter. Facebook. Got a New Hampshire public radio interview. She visited Plaistow, New Hampshire, which is right on the border with Massachusetts.
  • Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti: Out.
  • New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: In. Twitter. Facebook. She had an an official campaign launch where she bashed Trump (way to stand out from the crowd). Gillibrand’s solution to the opioid epidemic is to take pain medication from the people that actually need it.
  • Former Tallahassee Mayor and failed Florida Senate candidate Andrew Gillum: Maybe? This week Gillum announced…a voter registration drive.
  • Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel: Maybe, but it’s a joke run. He lost to everyone in 2008, coming in eight out of eight and receiving no delegates, then switched to the Libertarian Party, where he came in four out of eight. According to his Twitter account: “I’m not planning to contest any primaries and, if offered the nomination, would decline it.” The 88-year old did make an FEC filing, but I’m only listing him here to mention that I’m not listing him here…
  • California Senator Kamala Harris: In. Twitter. Facebook. She swung through Texas and compared herself to LBJ, which suggests she’s a mean, corrupt political operator who used voting fraud to steal an election. “Black women could help boost Kamala Harris’ presidential aspirations.” Wow, there’s an original thought. But the whispers I hear suggests that Homewrecker Harris is far less popular among black women than you might expect…
  • Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper: In. Twitter. Facebook. John Hickenlooper, ladies man. He’s also wondering why no one asks the female candidates whether they would pick a male running mate.
  • Former Attorney General Eric Holder: Out.
  • Washington Governor Jay Inslee: In. Twitter. Facebook. Appeared on The Daily Show. Inslee’s extra security for his presidential run will cost Washington state $4 million. Wait, don’t you actually have to know who someone is before you target him for assassination?
  • Virginia Senator and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Vice Presidential running mate Tim Kaine: Out.
  • Former Obama Secretary of State and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry: Not seeing any sign. But he did get 4% in that CNN poll.
  • Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar: In. Facebook. Twitter. US News and World Report (who are evidently still around) cover the “humor” of Klobuchar. Judging from the samples provided, I don’t see her headlining at The Laugh Factory anytime soon…
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu: Probably Out.
  • Former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe: Leaning toward a run? He gets a Washington Post profile. “When he left office in January 2018, McAuliffe appeared to be well positioned for a White House run as a socially liberal, business-friendly Democrat from an important swing state. But 14 months later, it’s unclear if there is room for McAuliffe, 62, in a party that seems to be pulling leftward.”
  • Oregon senator Jeff Merkley: Out. Filing for reelection to the senate instead.
  • Addition Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam: Leaning Toward In. Twitter. Stumbled across him on Wikipedia. He’s filed paperwork with the SEC and is expected to make an announcement March 30. He was also a wide receiver at Florida State and a member of their 1993 National Championship team. Do I consider the 44-year old a serious contender? Right now, no. But as of 2010, Miramar had a population of 122,041, compared to South Bend, Indiana’s 101,168. By what objective criteria is Sound Bend’s white gay mayor Pete Buttigieg a legitimate Presidential contender and Miramar’s black, straight (presumably, since he’s married with three children) mayor isn’t? (Even 538 is keeping track of him, and made the same point about Buttigieg.)
  • Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton: Maybe? Says he’ll decide by next month.
  • Former First Lady Michelle Obama: Out.
  • Former West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda: Out.
  • Former Texas Representative and failed Senatorial candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke: In. Twitter. Facebook. Two Jim Geraghty pieces: Beto finds that that everything seems a lot harder when you’re not running against Ted Cruz. “All of a sudden Beto O’Rourke, the candidate who was most beloved by the national press in 2018, is getting brutal coverage in 2019.” But then he warns Republicans not to underestimate him and compares his career path to George W. Bush. There are some parallels there, but it’s a big leap from the congressional son of a city councilman to the gubernatorial son of a President. He campaigned in South Carolina. Wait, he’s now saying he’s a gun owner? Did he mention that when he was bragging about his F rating from the NRA last year? Whoa ho here he comes, he’s a dirt eater.
  • New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Constitutionally ineligible to run in 2020.
  • Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: Out.
  • Ohio Democratic Representative Tim Ryan: Leaning Toward In? Save the usual Trump bashing, I’m not seeing significant news this week.
  • Vermont Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders: In. Twitter. Facebook. From that Boston Globe piece on New Hampshire:

    As it stands in the New Hampshire primary, there’s Sanders and then everyone else. No one even comes close to the level of support, energy, and commitment that Sanders has enjoyed since he won the New Hampshire primary with 60 percent of the vote in 2016.

    Now here’s the downside of expectations: mathematically, his numbers can go only go down in a field this large. But even with polls putting him at 25 percent to 30 percent support in the state’s primary, that’s enough to win in such a large field.

    Journalist David Sirota spent the last few months attacking all the non-Sanders Democrats in the race. Surprise! Bernie just hired him. Sanders also spoke to large crowds in San Francisco (of course) and San Diego.

  • Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer: Out.
  • California Representative Eric Swalwell: Leaning Toward In. Gonna be a tough week for Russian collusion truther Swalwell…
  • Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren: In. Twitter. Facebook. In Politico, Jeff Greenfield ponders her slow start. “She is languishing in fifth place in a spate of polls of Democratic primary voters; Bernie Sanders and Beto O’Rourke are dominating the money race.” Oh, and she wants to eliminate the Electoral College because of course she does.
  • Author and spiritual advisor Marianne Williamson: In. Twitter. Facebook. From that Boston Globe piece on New Hampshire:

    Yes, a person most readers will have to Google is already well ahead of sitting senators, Cabinet officials, and former governors in the New Hampshire rankings. Don’t believe me? Just look at the overflow crowds of people who adore her and probably won’t even consider voting for anyone else. It’s clear by these counts that Williamson, Oprah Winfrey’s spiritual adviser, enters the race with her own base of support. Also, it turned a lot of heads when former congressman Paul Hodes agreed to run her campaign in the state.

    She gets an intermittantly interesting Buzzfeed profile that talks about all her celebrity spiritualist boosters (Steve Tyler, Gwyneth Paltro, Cher, Kim Kardashian West) and officiating at one of Elizabeth Taylor’s weddings, while showing her speaking before an audience of six. Robert Stacy McCain needs your donations so he can travel to South Carolina to give the Williamson campaign the coverage it deserves in person. Help make it happen! (And here’s an update.)

  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey: Out.
  • Venture capitalist Andrew Yang: Running but no one cares. Twitter. Facebook. He’s in the debates! Yang has lots of ideas, most of them bad. He wants to reformulate GDP: “Robot trucks are going to be great for GDP, but they’re going to be terrible for the 3 1/2 billion [sic] truck drivers in the country.” He’s also come out against the most pressing issue of our day: circumcision. Though I suspect there’s no truth to the rumor he’ll make his official campaign song Pink Floyd’s “The Final Cut”…