The rule of thumb is that in primaries you vote your heart and in general elections you vote your head. This means I have a problem tomorrow.
Almost at the exact moment I was going to start abusing the keyboard with my deep thoughts for why Pete Buttigieg was going to be my choice on Tuesday he dropped out. Ironically, the bottom line gist of my rant was going to be young Mayor Pete’s “judgment” — based on scholarship and thoughtfulness. And wouldn’t you know judgment, which is to say accepting he had no chance in 2020 and that the Democratic faithful will look more favorably upon him in 2024 or 2028 for stepping aside now, is what he showed in “suspending” his campaign.
So Mayor Pete is yesterday’s news. Now what?
Conventional wisdom says Amy Klobuchar will win her home state. You haven’t forgotten she’s from the Midwest have you? Or that she’s been “in the arena”? Or that she has “the receipts”?
Already at this point — eight months before the real election — every candidate’s operative cliches bang in my ears like a cheap tin drum. But somehow Amy’s cliches seem even more canned than most.
She’s been an effective Senator, at least on the level of constituent service, (provided by her terrorized staff), but there are just too many big, double-edged fights she’s avoided, and avoided IMHO out of calculation for her longer-term career goals. It’s wonderful she’s authored and passed far more bills than Bernie Sanders, (not a difficult thing to do). But on close inspection most of them fall into the category of requiring us to be kind to animals and eat our vegetables. The big fights … in the main arena … where the flak gets thicker and risk gets higher, is not a place she’s spent a lot of time.
The race is clearly moving to a Bernie v. Joe contest. Two nearly octegenarian white guys with the highest name recognition. Jesus.
Both come with barge-loads of baggage and an unconvincing forecast of what happens if they’re elected. Bernie is promising a near-total overhaul of 15-20% of the American economy, along with billions-to-trillions in fresh spending for a wet dream list of social programs, all while waving off the stark, ugly reality of Mitch McConnell and a federal court system every day stocked with more McConnell-knighted Federalist Society judges. Each of whom is committed to suffocating Bernie-ism before he gets directions to the Oval Office rest room.
Joe, meanwhile continues to assure us that since he’s been everywhere and met everyone in his 500 years in D.C. he’ll reach a collegial, cloakroom accomodation with Mitch and … you know … I guess … convince the Mitchs and Ted Cruzes and Lindsey Grahams of the world to give us all a win from time to time. Maybe roll back the 2017 tax cuts, stabilize Obamacare and throw some ching at climate change.
So … the heart being what it is, an emotional thing, prone to lapses of good judgment, I’ll be joining my lovely wife in voting for Elizabeth Warren tomorrow.
Warren has no chance at the nomination. And her “wealth tax”, where she basically takes the change she finds in Mike Bloomberg’s couch cushions to turn the US of A into a 3000-mile wide version of Denmark still makes no mathematical sense, while also dreamily ignoring what we’ll just call The McConnell Reality.
But what she does offer, and this is delicious, is the sharpest remaining contrast to the corrupt, semi-literate, sexist-racist vulgarian that is Donald Trump. Startlingly industrious, studious, diligent, energetic and … female, she more than any of those left standing offers an image of profound change. Also, unlike Amy, Warren is practically Spartacus when it comes to jumping into the high-profile/high risk arenas. The woman’s got fight in her. And damn … I like a gal with fight.
By Wedneasday morning though, it’ll all be Joe and Bernie, and maybe just Bernie. And with that decided, I’ll send a check to the winner, knock doors, paste bumper stickers all over my vehicle and, hell, stand on street corners– right here in Edina — and rant regularly about “a pox on the millionaires and billionaires.”
It won’t be pretty, especially if I’m still in my pajamas with a bad case of bed head. But it’s where we’ll be.
Gosh, you know Brian… Maybe I am the dumbest Pollyanna ever… But I think Warren can win. I think Buttigieg peeps will go her way. Biden just peaked. — Warren is now the moderate between Bernie and Amy.
We won’t know the “dumbest” for some time yet! We all remain in the running for that award…..
Sounds like Buttigieg is getting ready to endorse Biden. I may just vote for Biden tomorrow. It won’t be with my heart, but…..
I was trying to put my finger on what bothers me about Bernie, and I came upon this article, which kind of explains it, at least for me:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/us/politics/bernie-sanders-chapo-trap-house.html
My esteem for Buttigieg grew out of long form interviews he gave, well away from campaign cliches.
Like this: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/e/59768363?autoplay=true
And here’s William Saletan at Slate this morning, closey echoing me sentiments.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/pete-buttigieg-2020-campaign-good-for-democrats.html?via=taps_top
“A year ago, I watched Buttigieg speak to an audience in Ankeny, Iowa. I knew nothing about him. I was a fan of Sen. Kamala Harris, who had announced her presidential campaign two weeks earlier. I liked Harris’ strength and clarity, and I thought it was time to elect a woman to the White House. It seemed crazy that the mayor of South Bend was running for president. But the more I watched him, the more he surprised me.
It wasn’t just that Buttigieg knew way more about the complications of national policy, on one issue after another, than you’d expect from a mayor. It was how he dealt with what he didn’t know. He was sensible, open-minded, and wise. He weighed alternatives and reflected on how to apply lessons and principles. In Ankeny, he grappled with automation, a universal basic income, and a national infrastructure bank. You could see how he would handle incoming challenges. And this, I’ve learned, is one of the most important things to look for in a president. We don’t know what’s coming: a virus, a terror attack, a financial meltdown. A president needs the heart and mind to deal with whatever comes.”
Right there with you! Thank you!
✔️That’s what my wife and I did and will do
And now Amy is out. My vote goes to Warren tomorrow.
oh well… 🙂 I’m still voting Warren, and then… I guess it’s Biden.
Sheesh. I AM Pollyanna.
Joe Biden is the death rattle of the Democratic Party. If elected, he will select better judges which is important, but no other real change will happen.
It was too good to be true that Biden would be benched before achieving his life’s consuming ambition to be the nominee for President. He won’t get to be President, of course. And neither will Bernie Sanders, who’s more of a patriot than all the purported “moderates” rolled together. The chattering caste, the punditocracy, and the undistinguished corporate-certified Democratic careerist politicians didn’t take Trump seriously and they STILL don’t comprehend fascism, or klepto-thug-ocracy, or “insane clown president” or whatever monicker our vicious regime requires.
Biden. Are we f*ckin’ kidding?? Say, just what WAS his meth-head son doing on the board of some Ukrainian gas or petrol business? Biden? The guy who started his 1987 speech to the League of Cities by referring to “the architect of the New Deal — President Reagan!” Biden? Even by that early point in his career, Joe had been exposed for having plagiarized lengthy portions of speeches (from a SOCIALIST, no less: Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock.)
Well, here we are. As the bumper sticker says: “Any Functioning Adult.”
Yep. Hillary Clinton in drag.
Good work, Democratic hacks.
The thing is, Bernie Sanders is true to his basic values, and politically he’s no different in any significant way from 1950’s and 1960’s-era Democratic Party liberalism. It does help to have a vision of, say, a “Great Society.” Something to believe in. You don’t get it all at once, but you know what you’re working towards.
Bernie is no orator. But in his ability to explain issues and to suggest how problems can be fixed, he talks in language that makes sense to most listeners. His voice isn’t tinged with condescension or opaque with bureaucratic jargon, as is too often the case with Democrats. Nor is it incoherent, illiterate, abusive, and foul, like the Republican Role Model’s is.
Sanders’ political philosophy and programs aren’t substantially different from those of dozens of thoughtful liberals who were also gifted politicians in their not-so-distant-day—such as Gaylord Nelson, Gene McCarthy, Hubert Humphrey (version 1), Claude Pepper, Howard Metzenbaum, Wayne Morse, “Soapy” Williams, John Conyers and many others. Northing to be afraid of, unless one is afraid of shadows, or, perhaps, ghosts.
The late, great Al Uhl came to disconsolate DFL gatherings during the nightmare Cheney decade, handing out lapel pins that read: “Vote Democratic: Better Spineless Than Evil!” I picked one up at Al’s funeral last year . . . it will come in useful.
By the way, voting for Elizabeth Warren was the decision made by lots of late-deciding Democrats in my St. Paul precinct. Too bad we couldn’t have had this primary back in August or September in 2019. It’s tragic that her campaign “peaked” too soon. I for one hope she hangs in there and keeps speaking the unvarnished truth in her forthright way. It does look like she deserves credit for verbally knee-capping Bloomberg. That alone ought to have earned her the nomination.