Tag: Democratic primary

Make or Break for the Sanders Campaign

Tuesday, the Midwestern delegate-rich heavy hitter states in the Democratic primary begin to vote – first Michigan, then Ohio and Illinois next week (and can’t fail to mention Florida coming up, as well). As a Bernie Sanders supporter, it’s a big deal. A lot is riding on his success in these states. Michigan especially kept Sanders competitive in 2016, and it could again this time.

I’ll admit the polls don’t look good, though they were spectacularly wrong in 2016 (in Michigan specifically, not just nationally). Centrists in the party have found their candidate in Joe Biden and are going all in.

(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map-USA-Midwest01.png)

For me, this is largely make or break for the Sanders campaign. The post-industrial areas of the country should be a source of strength for his campaign. If they’re not, then that speaks to the nature of the race this time around. It is possible for Sanders to justify staying in the race until the end of April, though, when Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have had a chance to vote.

Should Biden ultimately prove to be the nominee, I would strongly encourage Sanders to work hard to build bridges to centrist Democrats. He’s had tremendous success in shifting the conversation within the party. He should consolidate that.

At the same time, centrist Democrats have their own work to do. I worry they will make two big mistakes:

One, ignore or, even worse, dismiss the issues and energy Sanders has identified. The bad blood between the two factions of the party could lead centrists to believe too strongly in the electoral power of disaffected Republicans. They made this mistake in 2016. Republican-lite failed with Hillary Clinton, and I believe it’s likely to fail again. They should actively court the left, with tangible, credible offers.

Two, I worry centrists will dismiss the obvious weaknesses of Biden as a candidate, again, much like they seemed to with Hillary Clinton. I get that you have to believe in order to campaign hard. But someone better be working late to think through how his faltering performances in many public appearances could affect the campaign and his eventual presidency. Plus, you know Republicans aren’t going to drop questions around Hunter Biden any time soon.

Iowa 2020 – Safe to Ignore

As we approach the final tallies of the spectacularly inept Iowa caucuses, I think it’s fair to say that – despite all of the time, expense, and effort – it ultimately tells us very little.

The tie between Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg shows that the party is still fairly balanced between its progressive and centrist factions.

New York Times, www.nytimes.com, 6 Feb 2020, 5:30 pm, Singapore time

This is true even if you add the results of the other leading candidates together. Looking at the final vote tallies, Sanders and Warren together got 46.8%. Buttigieg, Biden, and Klobuchar together got 50.9%. (I don’t know how to classify Yang.) In the end, the party might coalesce around a more centrist candidate, but that’s by no means guaranteed, and it hints that any centrist candidate will have to reach out to the progressive wing. (Though I suspect their temptation is likely to be telling the progressive wing to suck it and fall in line.)

However, we still have the wildcard of Michael Bloomberg, which could further disrupt the race. Bloomberg is advertising his way (buying his way, US$300mm and counting) into the middle of the pack in recent polls, doing far better than other candidates who have been hustling and meeting voters for a year or more. But he chose to not compete in Iowa and isn’t competing in New Hampshire, so it’s hard to gauge his actual electoral support. After all, Biden has been leading those same national Democratic polls for a long time, but placed fourth. Which, maybe that’s the one clear and meaningful result. Tanking that bad is not a good look.