OK, it’s still pretty early to talk about the 2020 Presidential candidate selection process and the general election. However, it’s no longer “too early”. Most of the Democratic candidates have declared their intent, and all that remains is for Joe Biden to make it official. On the Republican side — of course, Trump owns the show, the Muller report obviously isn’t going to stop him. It will be interesting to see if anyone dares to challenge him, maybe John Kasich will take up the quixotic mantle, dream the impossible dream? It would at least make the GOP primary process somewhat interesting. And then there’s already Bill Weld, so at least someone is going to go down fighting the Trump Goliath. And the 3rd party field is off to a good start with Howard Schultz (early polls indicate that Schultz might bleed more votes from the Democratic challenger than from Trump).
On the Democratic side, there is a plethora of potential candidates at this point; I believe that the latest count is up to 16, and Joe will make 17, However, it all really sums up to a digital choice: Bernie (or younger reasonable facsimile) or Joe (or younger reasonable facsimile).
The argument for Joe and the pragmatists — Here are some thoughts from a recent Wall St Journal article from Ted Van Dyk, a Democratic party activist since the 1980s. According to Van Dyk, many say that the Democrats need to offer “just the opposite” of Trump . . . not only in terms of policy, but in terms of governing style.
The first is continuing public disenchantment with political, media, financial and cultural establishments. It is this disenchantment that brought Mr. Trump to the White House in the first place and, additionally, almost brought Sen. Bernie Sanders, not even a Democrat, the Democratic presidential nomination.
In Mr. Trump’s case, voters knew he was boorish, narcissistic, a business and financial freewheeler, a womanizer, and » continue reading …