by Doctor Science
If you're going to do horse race journalism, at least do it right.
I'm writing as a long-time member of the Democratic Party base, a rank-and-file voter and regular volunteer. There are certain factors that come up when I and other Democrats talk about 2020, talk that began months ago. Now we're entering the invisible primary, with more discussion to sort out which candidates we might to support--and which should probably think that they're in it for the experience.
Spoiler: all these factors point to Bernie Sanders having zero chance of getting the Democratic nomination, while Kamala Harris is the (current) front-runner.
Factors:
1. A white man starts out behind. This factor is going to be *very* hard for journalists to recognize, because they're so deeply embedded in a system where white men are taken seriously much more than other people. For instance, they almost all work for white men.
I'm not saying that there's no way a white man could win the Democratic nomination. But he would have to be exceptional, because he starts out with a deficit. Specifically, a white man has to show a strong alliance with and support from some Democratic subgroup that is *not* mostly white men. This is a big reason why Beto O'Roarke's long-term prospects within the Democratic Party are so good: he respects, works with, and is supported by black women, among others. He's too inexperienced to be viable in 2020, but he's got a future.
Discussing our options for the 2016 primary, I said to a (black woman) friend, "I'm sick of being yelled at by white men." I am *so much more* sick of it now, words cannot express.
2. Candidates lose points with every year before 1950 they were born. Since World War II Democrats have a preference for younger candidates, which has increased as we've learned more about Reagan's health problems in office. We want a candidate whose health can reasonably extend through two terms of one of the most stressful jobs on the planet, and someone who's going to be over 70 in 2020 is not the best bet.
Elizabeth Warren was born in 1949. Joe Biden and Mike Bloomberg were born in 1942. Bernie Sanders was born in 1941. Warren is the only one who has a serious chance IMHO.
3. The candidate will have to release their tax returns. Bernie got away without doing it in 2016, but it will not fly this time around. Even if there are no state laws or Party regulations in place to enforce financial transparency, we in the party base will insist on seeing where the candidate's money is coming from and going to.
4. The most important demographic in the Democratic Party is black women. The largest race+gender demo in the party is white women (like myself), but black women are the most loyally and consistently Democratic.
I make a point of following a lot of people of color on Twitter--since it's hard *not* to get white people's opinions about everything, getting different points of view takes work. I do it on Twitter because it's a medium well-suited to listening to people talking to each other without my presence influencing their conversation.
What I see is that black voters, women in particular, are small-c conservative in their choices. That is, they don't tend to fall for trendy or stunt candidates. They want to see a track record of policy and accomplishment, and they *will* have the receipts. Democracy and government aren't spectator sports for them, their lives and those of their children are frequently and literally on the line. They vote, and they take voting seriously.
So far there's been one straw poll of influential women of color, and it showed Kamala Harris as the runaway favorite. More important IMHO is that the pollees' #1 suggestion for "how to inspire and engage" them is "Hire more women of color in leadership positions." Thus: if a candidate's early hires do not include any women of color, they are not trying to connect with this crucial demographic--or at least they will not succeed.
So: if you're looking at journalism or commentary about the 2020 Democratic nomination, anyone who says Kamala Harris is *not* the frontrunner has to explain why. I've seen a lot of analysis over the past year or so saying Joe Biden or even Bernie Sanders is the "obvious" frontrunner, or that there's a place in the Democratic primary for a random billionaire, but that's laughable. Such people will only be comfortable with a Democratic candidate who has the look and feel of a Republican: old, white, male, moneyed. Nope, not gonna happen.
Adam Silverman's analysis sees the same factors I do (though he phrases them more coothly), but he points out that Sanders is likely to keep in the race as an Independent after he loses the Democratic nomination early in the process. There is a very real danger that he'll be a Nader-like spoiler in the general election,
And if he decides he’s going to be a team player and not do so, his trusted agents won’t play ball and you’ll have the same problem regardless. And we can now add Congresswoman Gabbard to the potential spoilers category emanating from Sanders orbit.Silverman is a deeply experienced military analyst, and he emphasizes
that the US is at war. Putin has made it very clear since 2014 that as far as he was concerned Russia was, at least, in a new cold war with the US and the US was the aggressor.We need to expect and plan for Russia to continue its program of manipulating US elections in its favor, which currently means in Trump's favor.
The Russians would be fools not to make a big push to have Sanders run third-party--and they are not fools. The Democratic Party and everyone who opposes Trump needs to start thinking and planning now about how to forestall, combat or defuse such a run. Can Sanders be persuaded to back Warren? Can some Democrat-friendly billionaire (not a terribly common animal) buy him off? Should we insist on seeing his tax returns before the 1st debate, so he leaves in shame and/or a huff?
That's the only justification for horse-race journalism at this point in the cycle: so that party members like myself have info we need to figure out who to support early and who to discourage.
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