https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/po ... c8fca13f66
And who is in the lead?It’s barely a week since the 2018 midterm elections, yet it seems like every day someone else lets it be known that he or she is exploring the possibility of running in the Democratic presidential primaries in 2020. “We’re thinking about it,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) told the Columbus Dispatch in an interview published Monday morning. Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, according to CNBC, has hired former John McCain 2008 campaign manager Steve Schmidt. And on Monday, Richard Ojeda, who lost out in a West Virginia congressional race, launched his presidential bid.
It goes on and on. Billionaire former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg changed his voter registration to the Democratic Party last month. Stormy Daniels’s lawyer Michael Avenatti thinks he’s got the bona fides. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) says she considering it. Some even think Hillary Clinton is going to try again.
Then there are the names that continue to circulate, maybe because they’ve visited Iowa or New Hampshire, or because they won’t give a definitive yes or no, or because they’ve given some indication that something is up: Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.); former vice president Joe Biden; Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti; Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Tex.); former attorney general Eric Holder; Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper; former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick.
The Washington Post counted 25 people — last spring. It has only grown since then.
Good. The more the merrier. The sheer number of candidates considering a run greatly increases the chances of a gradual winnowing of the flock, something that will allow supporters to slowly coalesce around one candidate and then another, instead of feeling forced into an allegiance, come hell or high water. You know, like in the last Democratic presidential primary.
I admit that a few months ago, I begged Schultz not to run. “The last thing the Democratic Party — or the Republican Party, for that matter — needs is a business leader with no elected political experience running for president,” I wrote. Don’t get me wrong. I still feel that way, especially since there are dozens of other potential candidates.
But I’m old enough to remember 2015, when there were so many Republicans vying for the nod of their party, the early intraparty debates needed to be divided into two to ensure everyone got airtime. The Democrats considered this something of a joke. The clown car, people named it. “This is getting ridiculous,” sniffed political analyst Bill Schneider.
The joke was on the American public. As it turned out, the vast GOP field offered an advantage that became clear only in retrospect. It prevented until the very end one-on-one mashups. Did it get personal — too personal? You bet. But when there were so many figures on the debate stage, not to mention so many people entering the race, only to drop out, it didn’t allow for a pernicious us-vs.-them to develop among the party voters — a key distinction. They saved their wrath for the Democrats.
That’s not what happened on the Democratic side. After Iowa, only Clinton and Sanders were left to battle it out. It was as if someone in the American League decided early in the season to cancel all baseball games, in favor of offering instead an entire season of the New York Yankees vs. the Boston Red Sox (and, by the way, intimated that all fans should really prefer the Yankees). The result? Are you still angry that Sanders referred to Planned Parenthood as “establishment” or that Clinton condescendingly dismissed single-payer health insurance? There’s a social media fight out there for you raging as I type this sentence.
That won’t happen in 2020. We’ll get to discover whether Democratic voters are willing to overlook Bloomberg’s support for “stop and frisk,” or embrace Schultz’s belief that the national debt is “the greatest threat” the United States needs to handle — and what candidate their supporters will choose next if their chosen standard bearer gets pushed out. Concerned that Sanders is too far to the left, that Warren’s handling of “Pocahontas” bodes poorly for the general election, or Holder is too solicitous of Wall Street interests? No need to stew. You’ll get a say. And when that one falls out, you can decide what you are willing to overlook and select another and then another until there is one man or woman left standing. Here is one thing I can guarantee: That person will turn out to be much, much better than Donald J. Trump.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/ ... ems-983995
Personally I doubt O'Rourke will run, he's pretty emphatic on that point IIRC. So Bernie and Biden, though I think that the more crowded field we're going to see, with a lot of fairly big names, it's not going to be just Bernie vs Biden from the outset. Which is good, I think, as a more open field means we probably won't get the same sort of long, intensely polarized clash between Bernie and an "establishment" candidate. Also, I don't think Biden will provoke as much hostility as Clinton. Partly that's because Joe Biden can be genuinely charming in a way Clinton generally wasn't, and doesn't have as much baggage (both real and manufactured). Partly, unfortunately, it's because there are people even in the Democratic Party who are less threatened by an old white man.Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) enter the 2020 election cycle as the leaders for the Democratic presidential nomination to take on President Donald Trump, according to a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll conducted in the immediate aftermath of last week’s midterms.
More than a quarter of Democratic voters, 26 percent, say Biden is their first choice to be the Democratic nominee. Another one-in-five, 19 percent, would pick Sanders, the runner-up for the nomination in 2016.
The two septuagenarians — Biden will be 77 on Election Day, 2020, and Sanders will be 79 — are the only two prospective candidates to garner double-digit support. The third-place candidate is Rep. Beto O’Rourke (R-Texas), who built national name-recognition through his losing Senate bid last week, with 8 percent.
“Beto O’Rourke is emerging to be an outside contender for the 2020 Democratic nomination, outpacing other potential nominees,” said Tyler Sinclair, Morning Consult’s vice president.
Following O’Rourke are three senators, all thought to be likely candidates: Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.). Warren is at 5 percent, Harris at 4 percent and Booker at 3 percent.
Of the 14 other possible Democratic candidates tested, no one else earned more than 2 percent support.
The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll was conducted November 7-9, surveying 1,952 registered voters. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Personally, though, I'd prefer Warren (as likely the best bet for Progressive/Centrist unity) or Booker (as likely the best person to fire up a crowd and get high turnout).
Most of all, I want someone who can beat Trump, though ideally a progressive. I'm hoping we don't see all the progressive names (Sanders, Warren, Brown, etc.) jumping in. If one big progressive name runs against a bunch of Centrists, we'll be united and their vote will be split and we could get a progressive nominee. But I don't want the progressive vote being split two or three ways, if say both Warren and Sanders run.
That said, I think every Democratic contender would be an improvement on Trump.
On the Republican side, I'm presuming it'll be Trump. I don't think there will be much of a primary challenge to him from within his own party at this point, unless he's impeached. Maybe if Mueller brings out proof of treason or something.
