The Great Race

Another day, another Democrat declares his or her intent to seek the party’s presidential nomination in 2020.

It’s way too early to handicap this thing, so I’ll start with a paraphrase of a very concise analysis offered by Ben Shapiro. (Yes, the same Ben Shapiro who’s been banned from speaking at college campuses because the liberals in those institutions’ administrations only believe in free speech for themselves; anyone who thinks differently must be silenced, especially on college campuses, lest our impressionable kiddos actually learn to think for themselves and perhaps become - *gasp* - conservatives.)

I’ll intersperse that with some general observations of my own, and wrap up with some creative ideas for choosing a single candidate from so crowded a field of contenders. All of this will be done with tongue placed firmly against cheek, so lest any of this offend – relax, already, and laugh along.

First, the summary of Shapiro’s analysis (with my own observations sprinkled in). Bernie Sanders owns the left lane of the party (meaning the uber-liberal, socialist faction). In a party that has elevated Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to the improbable role of thought leader (and I threw up in my mouth a little bit just typing this sentence), many candidates see their best shot as bearing hard left, so some others are trying to crowd into Sanders’ lane, including Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren.

In doing so, they’re getting lost, because again, he owns the lane. To counter that, they’ve spawned a new “me-too” movement: one in which they jump on the Sanders bandwagon for whatever bat-poo crazy liberal idea he floats. Sanders wants to raise taxes on the wealthy (wealthier than him, presumably; now that he’s a millionaire he no longer attacks millionaires, just billionaires)? Gee, so do Harris, Booker, Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Julian Castro. Those same “me-too” Dems have also jumped on Sanders’ Medicare-for-all bandwagon.

In some cases, to draw a distinction, they’re trying to out-liberal Sanders and each other. Oh, Sanders wants to legalize marijuana? Cory “Spartacus” Booker will call your legalization of marijuana and raise you reparations for everyone incarcerated for marijuana possession. (Of course, Spartacus has already made a name for himself in terms of making outrageous comments.)

And in other cases, their me-tooism backfires and they have to back-pedal. Sanders recently said that convicted prisoners should be allowed to vote. An audience member asked whether that would include felons like the Boston Marathon bomber, and Sanders replied that yes, it would, stating that the right to vote is so fundamental that even “terrible people” convicted of heinous crimes should retain it (sidebar to come).

Later, Harris was asked whether she agreed. Proving that she can’t take a controversial position, but wanting to jump into the left lane and draft off Sanders, she said, “We should have that conversation.” (By contrast, “Mayor Pete” Buttigieg opposed the idea when asked, noting that when you’re convicted of a crime you give up some rights, and voting is one of them, but then he’s not navigating toward the left lane, he’s driving in the center – more on that later.)

After Sanders was universally blasted for his statement, Harris recanted in a statement that, as a former prosecutor, she believed that “people who commit murder, people who are terrorists, should be deprived of their rights.” No mention of the earlier comment, no explanation of the about-face. George Orwell would be proud.

(Sidebar: a better question for Sanders would have been whether the white supremacist who ran over and killed a woman in Charlottesville should have the right to vote. See, the only reason Bernie would want prisoners to be able to vote would be if the majority of prisoners were Democrats – let that sink in.

And a more rational approach to the question would relate the right to vote to the crime. Should a convicted abortion clinic bomber be allowed to vote for a president who’s likely to appoint conservative SCOTUS justices who might overturn Roe v. Wade? Should death row inmates be allowed to vote for a candidate for governor whom they think is likely to stay their executions? Should a convicted criminal in a given county be allowed to vote for sheriff of that county? Should any convicted criminal be allowed to vote for appellate court judges?)

To her credit, Warren is trying to set herself apart with her own ideas. The trouble is, they’re so crazy – like forgiving all student loans and making college tuition free – that they’re doing nothing to elevate her from the muck she mired herself in with her “23 and Me” stunt. (By the way, if she were to be elected and forgave all student debt and made tuition free, I’d demand reparations for that. I’d like my tuition and my student loan payments back. With interest.)

So much for the left lane, let’s shift to the self-proclaimed center. Now that Biden has officially declared his candidacy, we can presume he owns that lane. Biden’s problem is his platform: “Trump sucks, so vote for me.” Trouble is, every other Democrat in the race, as well as Howard Schultz, is saying the same thing. Hard to differentiate your product when all of your competitors have the same sales pitch.

Biden has already told the first lie of his young campaign, when he said that he asked President Obama not to endorse him, but to let the primaries play themselves out. Are you flipping kidding me? Anyone who believes that should look up, because it says “gullible” on the ceiling. An Obama endorsement would be gold for any of these candidates – no way would they refuse it. Obama was the one who said he’d let the primaries play out before endorsing a candidate, not Biden. When the time comes, Obama will likely endorse whomever can unseat Sanders, if he endorses anyone at all.

I think Beto is in the center lane too; it’s so hard to say as he doesn’t have a solid position on any issue, large or small. I suspect he’s actually as liberal as they come. But no matter, because Mayor Pete roared past Beto to position himself firmly on Biden’s bumper, and Beto will never catch up. Mayor Pete is also largely devoid of firm positions, and is also likely more left than center. But he talks a good game.

That’s reminiscent of another young candidate, who was equally devoid of ideas and experience (I mean, really, mayor of South Bend, IN?), but turned a pretty phrase. That candidate rode into the White House on identity politics, and Mayor Pete appears to be attempting the same feat.

But this is a guy who couldn’t get elected Indiana State Treasurer. Only three former mayors have ever been elected President; none of them advanced directly from the one office to the other; and all were President before 1930. (For the record, Calvin Coolidge went from mayor of Northampton, MA, to the state House, then the state Senate, then the Lt. Governor, then Governor before becoming Vice President, then President. Grover Cleveland was mayor of Buffalo, having been Sheriff, then became Governor of New York, before being elected President. And Andrew Johnson was mayor of Greeneville, TN, then was elected to the Tennessee House, then the state Senate, then the U.S. House, then the Tennessee Governorship, then the U.S. Senate, before being appointed by Abraham Lincoln as Military Governor of Tennessee, then becoming Lincoln’s running mate for his second term. After Lincoln was assassinated, Johnson became President, and of course was later impeached.) Suffice it to say that to get from mayor of South Bend directly to the White House, Mayor Pete will need a vertical jump to rival Michael Jordan’s.

Do any of these (and the many other) declared Democrat candidates have a snowball’s chance in hell of unseating Trump? Apparently the Republicans don’t think so. In many ways, this is the most vulnerable incumbent president this nation has ever seen. If there was any concern whatsoever in the GOP ranks that they’d lose the White House in 2020, especially to one of the many radical far-left candidates, a challenger would emerge to contest the GOP primary, and that hasn’t happened. Sure, we could still see a Flake or a Romney or a Kasich step up, but the complete lack of noise from any of them appears to reflect fear of getting thrashed.

Usually, a very crowded field of candidates trying to unseat an incumbent president means dim chances of one of them getting elected. It smacks of desperation. So many of them lack experience. Most of them lack ideas, and the ones that don’t have such crazy ideas they don’t stand a chance in a general election. The current number of Democrat candidates is unprecedented, but in 2004 the field was, by previous standards, crowded. The initial front-runner in that field was Dean, who ultimately blew himself up with his infamous “Yeah!!” screech – er, speech. The sharpest crayons in that box were Dennis Kucinich and Joe Lieberman. But the candidates canceled each other out right and left, until the last man standing was John Kerry, and we saw how he fared in the general election against an also-vulnerable George W. Bush.

In another crowded field, this one not facing an incumbent, 2016 saw 16 Republicans contest the primaries. Most observers believed that Donald Trump didn’t stand a chance, and that Jeb Bush was the most likely candidate. Yet again, other candidates canceled each other out right and left, and Bush exited early while Trump emerged as the nominee, then went on to win the general election.

That could well play out in 2020. Biden has the best chance against Trump. (Sanders polls well against him, but we learned in 2016 how reliable polls are. I’ll go out on a limb and say that Sanders is unelectable in a general election, and I’ll pray I’m right.) However, Biden likely can’t survive the primaries; his past failed presidential bids and his more recent “creepy Uncle Joe” image, combined with his advanced age and the fact that he just sounds tired all the time, will not help him against such a crowded field. I’m not convinced he has the energy to aggressively campaign – and that’s not a knock on him; I wouldn’t either at his age. And, again, he has no differentiating message.

If candidates do cancel each other out along the way, we could wind up with a Harris or a Gillibrand or a Mayor Pete as the nominee, and any of those would get crushed in the general. It’s virtually certain that the nominee will not be Warren (too much baggage), Booker (too much drama) or Beto (too little substance). (AOC would be running if she were old enough, and wouldn’t that be fun to watch?)

However, my money is on Sanders. But again, it’s too soon to tell.

With such a large field, though, it seems we can surely come up with something more creative than the current process to pick a winner. Can you imagine a debate with 20+ candidates? They’d only get one question each before all the TV viewers (and Biden) had to go to bed. And the Dems may not be done yet – Hillary earlier said she wouldn’t rule out a bid, though she will not run, IMO; NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio will probably throw his name in the ring; and we can’t eliminate the possibility of Alec Baldwin stepping in to play the Pat Paulsen role.

If the numbers reach 25 or more candidates, we could set up a bracket similar to the NCAA basketball tournament, which featured 25 teams from 1968-1974, before the bracket was expanded. (This approach could actually accommodate a field as large as 68 candidates, which is the current number of teams that contest the hoops tourney.) The long-shot outsiders could compete in the play-in round, then the others would be seeded according to polling position. Competition would take the form of one-on-one debates, with voters picking a winner after each. Fouls could be called, with free-throw questions granted. Major policy questions would be three-pointers. The winner would advance to the next round. Spike Lee, Samuel L. Jackson and Charles Barkley would provide commentary, or maybe even be the moderators. Definitely more fun than the current scheme.