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The media keeps trying to hype up 2020 but personally speaking as a charter member of the Democratic base it’s the last thing I care about. I’m just not very emotionally invested in 2020 just yet. I care about 2019, specifically January 6, 2019 when the new Democratic Congress-the AccountabilityCongress is sworn in.

Now that the nonsense about someone other than Nancy Pelosi leading us is over, it’s full speed ahead. I can’t wait for accountability and there are millions of liberals, Dems, members of #TheResistance-and those who aren’t traditional Democrats but just want accountability-who feel the same.

UPDATE: Over nine months later, however, it remains to be seen if Pelosi repeating as Speaker and  the House impeaching Trump are actually mutually exclusive. History is calling Speaker will you answer the call?

I love this recent tweet by Eric Swalwell.

AMEN!

And this kind of touches on a potential problem for many of the 2020 nominees to the extent that many of the Dem 2020 nominees will presumably be Senators. But, alas, it’s going to be the House that has all the fun in the next two years.

FN: To be sure Swalwell him would run though he didn’t run the campaign he could have run-as I argue in Chapter A-and so the campaign never really took off.

What am I looking for in 2020? I don’t know-I care more about 2019 and investigating Trump, speaking of which:

But as they keep trying to talk about 2020 I thought I’d share a few of my own thoughts regarding. I guess what I’m personally looking for is someone tough on ‘President Trump’ first and foremost. This is why it’s going to be tough in a sense for Senators who would love to investigate Trump properly but Mitch McConnell, Richard Burr, and Lindsay Graham won’t let them.

FN: Nevertheless, Kamala Harris from her perch on the Senate Judiciary has a major line of attack she hasn’t utilized-Chapter A. It was her tough cross examinations of Jeff Sessions and Friends in Judiciary hearings that really put her on the map for a lot of the Dem base-including it turns out, Hillary Clinton herself.

 

If there’s one note of caution I’d give to 2020 aspirants is to not forget the Hillary Clinton base which remains huge and passionately supportive and angry on her behalf.

There remains a huge amount of us who are #StillWithHer and #AlwaysWithHer; which to digress is why Bernie may have trouble in 2020.

UPDATE:

Yes he’s got his loyal supporters but what isn’t recognized is so does she and he’ll have to make sure not to say anything to offend the Hillary base. One smart thing he does is attack Trump vociferously-yes! remind Democrats across the board where we can agree. Right now if I were to guess the candidate who could most naturally assume the mantle with the Hillary base is Kamala Harris-it’s very early and I personally am not very emotionally invested in 2020 just yet-I care chiefly about the House investigations coming now in just a few weeks.

 

I think there are a lot of potential Hillary-Kamala voters out there.

https://twitter.com/MrDane1982/status/1052233551842856960

 

https://twitter.com/VettingBernie/status/1073813286750015488

I love that hashtag: #HillaryKamala2020. Ok having said that I don’t think that she is going to run-though you can make a case it’s unfair that this idea is treated as absurd considering that no one minds Bernie and Biden running again though both of them are older-and Joe’s previous losses as POTUS candidate were much worse-he never came close prior to being Obama’s VP; maybe the long association with Obama will change this but that’s the history.

And many still want her to run again-Mr. Weeks and HillaryKamala2020, and:

Annnd:

It’s hard to deny that she’s BY FAR more qualified than anyone who is being taken seriously as the 2020 candidate. But she’s not going to run. But all candidates should remember that no matter all the potshots the MSM loves to take, she’s got this huge ‘Hillary ecosystem’ behind her and we aren’t going anywhere. We #WON”T be ERASED.

 

Again, for this reason, I think that Kamala Harris is particularly well setup as many Hillary supporters like Kamala the best by far going forward for 2020. Still, sometimes I wish I were Senator Harris’s adviser so I could advise her to: accentuate the source of her strength: many of us became fans of her during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings when she was so strong and assertive going after Sessions’ prevarications and perjuries. I haven’t seen Ms. Harris talk about that much lately. None of these candidates do things like this but if I were Harris’ adviser I’d recommend doing a press conference on the status of the Russia investigation-no doubt Lindsay Graham has been obstructing it. She ought to speak out forcefully and give us a weekly-or maybe biweekly or monthly-progress report and call Lindsay and friends out.

Have no doubt about it it was her performance in these Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Jeff Sessions perjury-where she made a name for herself among many of us. Speaking personally, I wasn’t that familiar with her prior to it and after seeing her in action she went to the top of my list. We reacted both to how strong she got in Sessions face and called him out for his absurd evasions-like she said, if he has as poor a memory as he claims then he ought to bring notes to the hearings as this is no way for a former Senator and current DOJ AG to comport himself before the Senate.

We also reacted to the way the white GOP males on the committee went after her-yes, ‘even McCain’ for being tough on Sessions. It seems they felt the little brown lady had forgotten her place. In every sense her strong stand seemed to offend them-she’s a woman of color, an African-American woman and she’s also relatively young.

But that she was even able to display her knowledge and prosecutorial skills-as the former AG of California she knew of where she spoke in reprimanding the then US AG-was the dumb luck that Sessions’ testimony as a former Senator was public. This was a kind of oversight by the obstructionist GOP who have otherwise refused to allow Russia related testimony to be public.

And there’s the rub. As Eric Swalwell says, the House is the body who’s going to fix things. The Senate Dems will be stuck in Mitch McConnell’s purgatory-Kamala Harris in Lindsay Graham’s particularly chapter of this purgatory.

For this reason, IMO, she ought to do like a weekly-or monthly/biweekly whichever seems most appropriate-press conference where she updates the press and the American people on everything that the GOP dominated Senate is not doing regarding Russia-and what they should be doing. That would be a way for her to play to her strengths.

Again, Kamala Harris is currently my first choice-though it is very early. But another candidate might be smart to do this weekly/monthly/biweekly presser thing-Kirsten Gillibrand-assuming she is running and she’s given a lot of mixed signals.

If Kamala Harris’ strength is her background as a tough prosecutor who can go after Trump hard on Russia, Gillibrand’s strength is clearly #MeToo-her strong stand against sexual misconduct by powerful men against women. Having said that her standing is something of a double edged sword-as many still don’t like the way she demanded Franken walk the plank prior to vetting the accusations against Franken.

UPDATE: An informal poll someone took of Democrats regarding 2020 provided some validation to my theory that Kamala Harris at this point in time is the natural heir for the Clinton base

There were many who chose Harris:

https://twitter.com/mamamac72/status/1077766705340919819

https://twitter.com/CatherinePiske/status/1077842131719467008

I will say-Harris and Booker are-at this very early point in time-my two favorites too with Harris getting top billing.

I’m particularly with Joan Wilder:

Yes there were some who want Hillary in 2020.

And let me just say is wholly legitimate. Why if it’s not ridiculous for Biden and Bernie-both older than her-to run yet again in 2020 is it absurd for Hillary? Interestingly, one pretext that many found compelling for opposing her in 2016 was her vote in favor of the Iraq War way back in 2002. Basically a vote from 14 years ago would forever disqualify her for the Oval Office we were supposed to believe. And to be sure, that as a big a Hillary supporter as you will find, I was disappointed in her vote for Iraq in 2002. Still, I didn’t see this admittedly bad mistake as being a reason she was finished and evidently many suddenly share my premise for Biden 2020 who also voted for the Iraq War. 

As for Gillibrand, after she demanded Franken leave without a hearing and called for Bill Clinton to somehow retroactively resign 20 years later over a consensual affair with an intern, she certainly hasn’t been beating the drum at least on a daily basis regarding the fact that the current ‘President’ has been accused by 20 women of sexual assault and there are credible allegations against so-called ‘Justice Brett Kavanaugh.’

FN: Recently we have the particularly galling and instructive case of the MSM totally burying the story of Trump raping a reporter

While the ‘Savvy’ and the Dem consultants are certain Trump is teflon-he’s not see Chapter A-and that no one cares if he raped Jean Carroll-maybe a better test of this would be if the Beltway press actually covered it beyond two days-post gender age indeed.

 

But more generally she could give regular updates on the issue of sexual assault and harassment of women as this deep institutional problem that we need to get to the bottom of as a society while constantly reminding us about and tying it to Trump, Kavanaugh, and Clarence Thomas. 

Why not demand every day that they step down? After all, that’s the standard she set on accused males in her own party. Far be it from Democrats being as biased in favor of other Democrats as Republicans are in favor of Republicans, Gillibrand is just one of many who is actually much tougher on her own party.

UPDATE: Turns out she’s not so tough on accused members of her own staff either.

Speaking of tough on Trump. Bernie Sanders. As noted above he’s smart to always hit Trump very hard. As a Clinton supporter, I still recoil remembering how he harmed her by staying in for months after he knew perfectly well he had lost-then there were the Lock Her UP chants by his supporters in Philly. Having said that, he’s pretty smart in so explicitly embracing the #Resistance as he does in his recent book.

A recent Iowa straw poll had Bernie at second behind Joe Biden:

“Former Vice President Joe Biden is the preferred candidate of nearly one-third of some of the most influential voters in the 2020 Democratic primary: Iowa Democrats who are definitely or probably going to attend the February caucus.”

“According to a Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll — the first of the 2020 primary season — Joe Biden is the top choice for 32 percent of Iowa Democrats. Sen. Bernie Sanders comes in second with 19 percent, while outgoing Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke took third with 11 percent. No other candidate broke double digits, although Sen. Elizabeth Warren picked up 8 percent and Sen. Kamala Harris 5 percent (“not sure” received 6 percent). All this could easily change, however: An early 2015 poll had Sanders as the top choice of only 5 percent of likely 2016 caucus-goers, and he went on to win 49.59 percent of the vote.”

FN: Quite a bit has changed in the over eight months since-according to the RCP average, Biden is at 26%, Warren is second at 18%, Bernie is third at 14%-not a good place at all for him in Iowa-and Kamala Harris is actually only half a percent behind him at 13.5%-which is a surprisingly good result for her-you wouldn’t necessarily expect her to win Iowa while it seems to me that Bernie needs to win it-a distant third is bad, perhaps, disastrous for him.

A big part is no doubt name recognition. Biden and Bernie are the most well known of the candidates as both have previously run-and Biden was Obama’s VP for eight years. I like Biden though it’s still irksome that he’s treated as a legitimate candidate despite his previous poor showing while it’s taken as an article of faith that Hillary’s ‘too unlikeable’ to run. It’s conveniently forgotten that in 2011 Biden was felt to be such a ‘gaffe machine’ that some in Obama’s reelection campaign seriously considered swapping him out for Hillary.

I read that as whoever the Dem presumed candidate is will be hit with 1000 mudpies, little more. If Biden had been the choice in 2016 I contend he wouldn’t have done better than her. Because the name of the game was anyone but Hillary-as she was the actual frontrunner-the media forgot all the hits it had inflicted on Biden through the years. Now with that woman such a clear and present threat they pretended that Biden was this almost flawless candidate who Bernie would never have gotten a following against-ignoring that he and Clinton were similar Center Left ‘establishment’ candidates who would be subjected to the same ‘True Progressive’ critique.

Not only would Biden not have been better he may have been worse-there are some real skeletons in his closet-Anita Hill, voting to overturn Roe v. Wade in the early 1980s, his vote for that awful bill that empowered the credit card companies in 2005 that were still living under today.

UPDATE: In retrospect nine months later it’s clear that Biden has largely gotten a pass on much of this-why is this however? As he has committed the same alleged sins she did in terms of voting record-and worse-what constitutes the difference? If he’s seen as ‘more authentic’ the question is why? Or should I say y?

In any case it’s not at all clear that comparing Clinton in 2015 to Biden in 2019 is apples to oranges-this is a much larger field and perhaps the Dem primary electorate has sobered up after the disaster of 2016.

If she had her areas of vulnerability so did he. But in 2016 the media pretended otherwise to foment the narrative that ‘Dems are in disarray’ and ‘want to swap out Hillary for Biden.’

Ok, so-trying to-put that aside what about his standing in 2020? Well going in I’ve felt like Democrats would probably choose someone who represents the next generation. But what’s notable about this field is how devoid it is of any thing close to a front runner or even an odds on favorite. I mean we’re not talking about Beato who has Obama one beat. If Obama ran-and won-President after having just one his first term as a Senator, Beato is being seen as a kind of Dem savior after having lost his Texas Senate race-albeit, to come as close as he did in Texas wa very impressive.

So I can’t blame Biden for taking a shot-why not? There’s just no clear center of gravity in the 2020 field at this point so he might as well go for it. And-wether or not anyone in either the Biden or Beato camps-are seriously considering it, a Biden-Beato ticket could paper the clear problems for each-Biden for being ‘yesterday’s generation’ and Beato-for having zero experience.

Biden can give him experience and gravitas and Beato gives Biden youth.

FN: However Beato ended up crashing and burning after a decent start-he was replaced by Mayor Pete Buttigieg-who himself later crashed and burnt.

Beyond that I do think that Elizabeth Warren could be a compelling candidate as a kind of bridge between the Hillary and Bernie wings of the party-or at least the Center Left and the Left. To be sure, one thing that the Dems did very impressively in 2018 is avoiding the whole Hillary-Bernie angle which no doubt they want to do again in 2020.

UPDATE: Warren has turned out to be a very talented and adaptive candidate who has indeed proven able to traverse HillaryWorld and BernieWorld. Her coming out for impeachment just a day after the Mueller Report was inspired and enabled her to get voters not naturally in her base. Much more below.

 

Still the media freakout over Warren’s debunking the lie that she made up having a Cherokee heritage to get into school-the media is more concerned that the bullied girl’s response to her tormentor is off key than that her tormentor-Pochantas-is tormenting her.

Erich Boehlert rightly warns that those who think the derangement syndrome was only about Hillary, that 2020 will be a ‘post gender’ are living in a very dangerous dream world.

Watch for Trump and his base  to use blatant, nasty sexism against any woman on the 2020 ticket-Kamala, Warren, Gillibrand, Amy Kloubchar-it doesn’t matter who, and for the media to excuse and even sanction much of it. Some of it may well come from the Left, some, alas, who will be eager to Hillary Clinton any female nominee as ‘not progressive enough’ and ‘I want a woman just not that woman.’

It’s going to happen, we just need to be forewarned. That does not mean that a la Michael Avenatti, you take the bait of the misogynists and declare: We need a white male to win back Middle America.

Just be prepared.

Again, I care about January, 6, 2019-we have to get the next two years right to have a shot in 2020. There are rumors that Eric Swalwell may run-and when asked he didn’t knock them down by any stretch. He has a great advantage to the extent he can be the face of the Russia investigation the next two years.

FN: Swalwell wouldn’t use this advantage at all and his campaign never got off the ground-more below.

Yes we want to get Trump-and the GOP out of there. But we also need accountability and closure. The idea that you can just ‘vote them out’ was the mistake of Bill Clinton and the Dems in 1993 and Obama and the Dems in 2009. This time we must get it right or 2020 won’t save us.

Winning in 2020 will throw him out of Office but we must also expunge and exorcise him from it-to use Comey’s apt word.

UPDATE:

Ok so with the benefit of over eight months-some thoughts.

First and foremost:

Maybe put this part about 2019 at the end?

First have 2020 predictions then cut and paste 2019 to end.

As far as 2020 is concerned,  regarding Biden-over eight months later-I’m of a few minds. On the one hand I kind of think it’s healthy that at this point voters don’t seem to be rising to the bait at the MSM’s moral panic over his ‘gaffes.’ Considering that Trump’s gaffes are worse and that Trump says other things much worse than mere ‘gaffes’-like the 73% of the time he lies or his xenophobic and racist slurs which have incited violence many times over-Biden’s more innocent ‘gaffes’ almost harken back to a more normal time-no doubt much of Joe’s appeal is exactly that, he seems to harken back to a better, simpler time, a time of lost innocence-the Obama years.

OTOH it’s amazing how much more lenient his treatment is compared with Hillary-Biden has all the same votes and history that were supposed to be such problems for Hillary-the Iraq War, the 1994 crime bill-you’d never know from the coverage that Hillary didn’t actually vote for it-she was First Lady though true she did support it-while Biden was a key supporter and proponent-for many years after he would boast of his role. Yet on balance it hasn’t hurt him much-at least not yet. Harris did lay a glove on him and do some damage in the first debate on his record opposing busing-what was seen as hurting him more than the issue was his response.

But he was able to come back-in part because her performance in the second debate wasn’t seen as impressive as in the first; for some reason while, arguably he was more shaky that she was in that second debate, she was penalized sharply in the polls while his steadied after that.

Then there’s Biden’s vote for the Iraq War-Hillary’s vote was treated like something of an Unpardonable Sin by the True Progressives in 2016. Yet Tulsi Gabbard-who was personally vociferous in her criticism of Clinton’s vote went so far as to defend Biden’s vote for it.

FN: Find tweet Mike

This is why when the Bernie Bros insisted the problem with Clinton is she wasn’t progressive enough I was skeptical-it’s become much clearer since how much of the support for Bernie was actually mood affiliation for people who hated Clinton-Nate Silver had a very revealing piece on the #NeverHillary voters-Chapter B for more.

Indeed, what’s notable in the early stages of the 2020 primary-during 2019-is that while 31% of 2016 Bernie voters are supporting him this time 43% of Hillary voters are now supporting Biden.

In any case while in some ways I applaud that Dem primary voters are not taking the bait on Biden’s gaffes or even getting so worked up over things from the deep past like with Clinton we still have to ask why he’s received so much forbearance for alleged sins-and worse; Anita Hill anyone?-that she was castigated for? Can I buy a letter Y for $200? 

As for Harris I think that she’s been dismissed too quickly-I don’t believe we’ve seen the last of her. Indeed, so far her poll numbers have been highly impacted by perceptions of her debate performance. After the first debate she shot up to the mid teens. After her second night was seen as less impressive she gave back much of her gains and is now stuck in the high single digits.

I also strongly suspect that her selloff was way overdone, she was victim of high expectations after the first night and was graded on a very harsh curve-in market speak her current price is cheap. If she can be seen as doing better in the next debate in a few weeks-she probably will as expectations are much lower for her now-expect to see her numbers rise again.

Having said that I will reiterate that she could do more than she is-she’d really benefit from attacking Trump more and calling for his impeachment. After Warren came out strongly for impeachment in April, Kamala herself came out for it a few days later.

It’s clear her team realized this would help Warren-whose rise in the polls largely correlates with when she advocated for impeachment. But Warren’s call was less equivocal and more based in simple principle-Trump’s committed impeachable offenses we must impeach him or he’s effectively above the law. Harris was more equivocal and hasn’t discussed it much since.

If she were to do so I believe her numbers would rise-but to really gain she should make the principled case Warren does simply declaring that this is not a time for political expediency. Yes it’s true that impeachment is not an issue that a 2020 Presidential candidate has any control over-so what? The 2016 GOP candidates had no control over wether Clinton would be indicted by the fake Emailgate investigation yet they made it their own with Lock Her Up.

It’s what the Dem base wants to hear. And honestly a Presidential candidate has no control over much of what s/he will discuss-they can talk about gun control, climate change, and Medicare for All but wether these things actually happen is not wholly in their control-if the GOP retains the Senate in 2020 much of it will be moot. The political process is by definition unpredictable.

Indeed, Harris’ perch on Senate Judiciary gives her an even stronger position to go after Trump-and Lindsay Graham and Friends for failing to adequately investigate Russia.

As I argued in Chapter A if I were her adviser I’d strongly encourage her to give monthly if not biweekly pressers about this abdication-and where the investigation goes from here. She has at times talked about how her history as a tough prosecutor enables her to prosecute the case against Trump-she should continue to. She rightly said that her DOJ may prosecute Trump-her point was misinterpreted for a MSM freakout over false equivalence and she since walked her statement back.

Again I expect her to come back but if she wants to bounce back quickly and with staying power this would help her do that-it would certainly distinguish her from the rest of the field.

As it is Warren through her clear, principled stand on impeachment has been able to poach Kamala’s turf-including myself really-before Warren’s stand I was for Kamala first and foremost by now I’m for Warren and Kamala-I donated to Warren the night she said #ImpeachtheMFer.

Ok-why not, let’s make some predictions. It seems to me very likely that the Dem nominee will be one of these three: Biden, Warren, or Kamala. As indicated above I don’t think Harris is done-so far her standing has been very sensitive to debate performance and since she was oversold in her last debate expect her to make back some ground this time.

Biden may continue to lead the field but it’s fairly precarious.

What about Bernie? It just seems that Warren has lapped him-she has all the progressive policies a liberal could want but she’s also able to simultaneously win over the Dem establishment.. She’s shown herself to be the anti Bernie in style-you’ve heard one Bernie speech you’ve heard them all, he’s a one note wonder while she’s shown herself to be highly adaptive adaptive with tremendous range.

There’s also still a good deal of anger over the way Hillary was treated in 2016 and many in the Dem base-the large subsection of Clinton voters-will never vote for him. Meanwhile he still stumbles over how to discuss race and gender-sometimes you get the sense that he thinks the whole thing is a distraction-at one point he complained that ‘it’s not enough to tell voters I’m a person of color vote for me…’

TBH in the mood of the 2020 Dem primary electorate-so many women and men still outraged over it being stolen from Hillary-many would love the chance to finally have a female President-so that’s just one more advantage for Warren.

So I believe it will come down to Biden-Warren-Kamala. Many assume Kamala is already dead. Again my guess is she comes back. The Battle Royale will be her and Biden fighting over the African-American vote-for her to win she will have to pry some of it loose. Biden may be the frontrunner but is not an awfully strong one.

Then there’s Warren who has so far run the best campaign by far. Before she hit her stride I’d assumed she was maybe too ideologically Left to win. But she’s proven to be highly adaptive with great range and now you can imagine it. Indeed the futures market actually has had her ahead of Biden for weeks. 

While Biden leads her 28.9% to 16.5% in the national polls-as well as in Iowa and New Hampshire-the betting markets have put her ahead by as much as 10% for weeks. They clearly seem to know something…

My only reservation about Warren is that by definition the African American vote always picks the Democratic nominee and Biden/Kamala look like the more likely winner of the AA vote. But everyday Warren is creating new believers.

Having said all of that I still care more about 2019 and so far the Dem efforts in holding Trump accountable have not been all that impressive-only one fact witness has testified publicly-before the Dems finally had Mueller in on July 24. Lots of foot dragging by Pelosi and especially by Richard Neal-who now grandly tells us that it’s totally fine we won’t see Trump’s tax returns before the 2020 election thanks to his dithering.

Maybe they are finally going to hit a higher gear-wouldn’t be the house on it though. We’ll see-Nadler claims they have now opened an inquiry-and has made a case for it in court-a good development but Pelosi’s intentions are still not clear-is this all just a great adventure in running out the clock?

 

As for all the campaign hoopla if they drop the ball on impeachment they may pay a price with the base. I have already told the DCCC to call me back when the Dems quit opposing impeachment and I know I’m not the only one.

I tend to see all this 2020 hoopla as the MSM’s desperation to pretend everything is normal and we’re having a normal election. To me and many in the base, though, 2020 coverage remains a sideshow until we have a full and honest accounting of what happened and those responsible-Trump and his co-conspirators, the FBI rogue agents, etc-are held responsible.

As noted above, the candidate who wins my vote is the one who gets this. If it’s a constitutional crisis-as Pelosi herself says-it’s time to act like it.

UPDATE: There is some reason to hope.

Though also to worry:

I mean why have they not subpoenaed Davidson? It’s almost like they only bother if they know they will be rebuffed… Why would they do that? To run out the clock?

 

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