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).<\/p>\n
On the Democratic side, there is a plethora of potential candidates at this point; I believe that the latest count<\/a> 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).<\/p>\n The argument for Joe and the pragmatists — Here are some thoughts from a recent Wall St Journal article<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n In Mr. Trump\u2019s case, voters knew he was boorish, narcissistic, a business and financial freewheeler, a womanizer, and largely ignorant of governance and public policy. His election was wholly about disillusion with the alternatives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n To paraphrase \u2013 with Trump, many average voters will see a good economy, low unemployment, ISIS defeated, withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan, getting tough with China, trying to get a handle on North Korea by directly engaging its mysterious leadership (something never done before), trying to get control of the southern border . . . from that perspective, Trump actually has a pretty good track record. <\/p>\n Given these objective conditions, cascading attacks on Mr. Trump and his family for his aberrant Presidential conduct are ultimately counterproductive. So are the many portrayals by the Democrats of a America as a nation mired in economic distress and plagued by white nationalism.<\/p>\n If Democratic candidates persist in 2020 in labeling Republicans as antiblack, anti-Latino, antiwoman, anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant and anti-middle-class, they can credibly be counterattacked for diverting attention from their own lack of a credible alternative agenda addressing the core national-security and economic issues. That agenda must be serious and not based on a Green New Deal that, however well-intentioned, is currently impossible technologically and economically, is crushingly unaffordable, and contains provisions wholly unrelated to a transition from fossil fuels.<\/p>\n When voters consider changing presidents, they usually focus on the weaknesses of the incumbent and vote for a replacement they perceive as his opposite. That has been the case in every president-changing election from 1932 until the present day.<\/p>\n Voters thus will be looking for a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who is reflective, experienced, a unifier rather than divider, and demonstrably capable of serious governance. In other words, not just another pugnacious self-seeker.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is obviously a reference to Joe Biden. In sum, this is the case for Joe Biden (or a Joe variant such as Amy Klobuchar, or maybe even Beto O’Rourke, once he is forced to decide where he really stands on the issues). <\/p>\n THE BERNIE THEORY \u2013 The argument for Bernie Sanders starts out by agreeing that the GOP selected Trump, and the voters in the right states elected Trump, out of disappointment and disdain for the existing political system. Enough of the public lost faith in the effectiveness of “the establishment”, and thus wanted to experiment (and Trump is truly an “experimental president”). In that light, then if the Democrats spotlight their own socialist experiment in 2020, versus the political correctness issues — i.e., if they hammer on all of their guarantees (college, health care, jobs, high minimum wage, fleece the rich to pay for it) and tone down the racism \/ sexism \/ all-else-ism accusations, and also put open border policy on the backburner (attacking ICE and tear down the wall), then they might qualify as \u201cthe next experiment\u201d. If the Trump experiment appears to be faltering and disappointing, perhaps enough of the public in the right places will be willing to change the experiment. E.g. if the economy goes into an an economic recession in 2020. And then throw in the demographic changes that have already put Arizona and Georgia in play for the Dems. <\/p>\n Here’s the basic outline, from an article<\/a> on Bernie Sanders in the super-progressive magazine The Nation:<\/p>\n \u201cPeople who are ailing need affordable health care, and a single-payer national health-care program will get the care they need; people working 40 hours a week shouldn\u2019t be living in poverty, and a $15-an-hour minimum wage will make ends meet; young people shouldn\u2019t have to take on overwhelming debt in order to get an education, and free tuition will change the calculus. Ending austerity and addressing inequality costs money, and taxing the rich will help to balance the books. \u201c<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is probably why Bernie got taken a lot more seriously in 2016 than anyone would have expected up front, and why he’s polling quite well right now. Bernie is like Trump — clearly a big change, an experiment in being \u201cnot like what we’ve had before\u201d.<\/p>\n But, the problem is that the socialistic Democrats are vulnerable to flank attacks from GOP regarding the tangential issues that are strongly insisted upon by the Democratic \u201cbase\u201d, i.e. 1.) open border policy 2.) maximum political correctness, with the threat of harsh tactics against anyone who don’t agree with it (e.g. Kamala Harris recently trying to disqualify a federal judge appointment<\/a> because the candidate was a member of the Catholic Knights of Columbus.<\/p>\n And a third and fourth Democratic vulnerability: 3.) A Green New Deal that could include a lot of uncomfortable lifestyle changes for middle and upper class Americans 4.) Medicare for all is arguably going to lead to high taxes, reduced choices, wasteful spending, limitations on healthcare quality, and ultimately rationing. <\/p>\n Also \u2013 socialism is still a tough sell<\/a> in the US, even though \u201c77 percent of Democrats believe that the country would be ‘better off’ if it were more socialist\u201d, according to a recent Public Opinion Strategies poll. This poll also found that \u201csignificant majorities of key 2020 swing voter groups like white suburban women (40 percent agree\/57 percent disagree), voters in key \u201920 presidential states (42 percent agree\/54 percent disagree) and suburban voters (41 percent agree\/56 percent disagree) all disagree with this statement\u201d.<\/p>\n The third option would be for the Democrats to go full socialist and at the same time loudly assert their socially progressive agenda. In that case, I would say that the 2020 election is going to be a replay of McGovern 1972 (Kamala Harris seems especially prone to push a social and economic agenda — although she has the countervailing advantage of possibly causing big jumps in the turnout rates of minorities, as in 2008). I would assume that the Dems are smart enough not to do that, but then again, the Democratic base seems increasing ideological and idealistic, not particularly concerned with the pragmatic. They want not just to defeat Trump but to change America. And I don\u2019t think that America is quite ready yet for all of the changes that the base envisions.<\/p>\n In the GOP camp, all seems quite calm. Barring a surprise on the part of nature (Trump\u2019s health), and with special counsel Robert Muller’s investigation into Trump’s alleged Russian ties in the rear view mirror, the GOP has their 2020 ticket locked in. But as to the vote count on the night of November , 2020, there are a lot of uncertainties that the GOP faces. They have not been expanding their appeal to woman and Hispanics, which they need; if anything Trump has been shrinking this base. Trump keeps doubling down on his white male oriented rural and rust belt base<\/a>, which barely put him over the top in the mid-west swing states. It would not take much to get Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan back into the Democratic column, and Georgia and Arizona might also flip; whereas only new state that GOP threatens is Minnesota. <\/p>\n