The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Warren Fades; Democrats Worried UPDATE: Cory Booker Drops Out

Posted on | January 13, 2020 | 1 Comment

 

With the final pre-Iowa debate looming Tuesday night, the 2020 presidential campaign is looking shaky for Democrats. Unless you believe Joe Biden can beat Trump — and I’m not sure Biden can even make it to the end of February — any Democrat has got to be worried about Bernie Sanders, the avowed socialist, becoming their 2020 nominee.

For most of last year, the way for Democrats to avoid this Biden/Bernie dilemma was obvious: Elizabeth Warren was, on the one hand, wired into the party establishment and, on the other hand, willing to go whole-hog on the kind of anti-“Corporate America” theme that Sanders represents. Also, as an identity-politics bonus, Warren was female and thus could appeal to the women still butthurt over Hillary’s defeat.

Alas, things started going bad last fall for the Warren campaign, which was forced to fire national organizing director Rich McDaniel amid accusations of “inappropriate behavior.” Warren, who had actually been leading in Iowa (in early October, she had a 5-point lead on Biden in the Real Clear Politics average of Iowa polls), began fading quickly, and by early December was in third place behind Sanders and Pete Buttigieg in the RCP Iowa average. Meanwhile, two billionaires — Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg — began pouring millions of dollars into their vanity campaigns, with the result that Steyer now leads Warren in the most recent polls of two early states, Nevada and South Carolina. (Hat-tip: Lawrence Person’s BattleSwarm blog.) Considering the reports that Warren is having fundraising trouble, she may be doomed, and meanwhile Bernie is still chugging along, which brings us to another problem now confronting Democrats:

Only white candidates have qualified for [Tuesday’s] Democratic presidential debate, the first time in this election cycle that no minority contender will make the stage. It’s a dynamic that critics say threatens to undercut the party’s rhetoric of inclusivity.
The race for the 2020 Democratic nomination kicked off last year with a historically diverse pool of candidates, including two black senators, a black mayor, a Hispanic former Cabinet secretary and an Asian businessman. Since then, all have either dropped out or failed to qualify for a spot on the stage, determined by poll numbers and donations.
Now the specter of an all-white debate in the mostly white state of Iowa is prompting concern among party activists.
“Both the way the primary is set up and the way debates are done are a problem,” said Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color of Change, a racial justice organization. “The system they have designed has suppressed the most loyal base of the Democratic Party.”
He added: “Anyone with an understanding of civil rights law understands how the rules can be set up to benefit some communities. The Democratic Party should look at the impact of these rules and question the results.”

Yeah, baby — “the most loyal base” is being “suppressed” — that paranoid sense of betrayal might not turn many black voters into Republicans, but it sure as heck sounds like an ill omen for Democrats when November rolls around. “Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen . . .”

UPDATE: Breaking just now:

Obviously, this proves that the Democrat Party hates black men.



 

Category: Debates, Democrats, Iowa, Polls

Comments

One Response to “Warren Fades; Democrats Worried UPDATE: Cory Booker Drops Out”

  1. Democratic Primary Updates | 357 Magnum
    January 14th, 2020 @ 9:40 am

    […] I am so tired of Democratic Presidential candidates at this point in time I would rather watch NFL football, or The Oscars. Warren Fades; Democrats Worried UPDATE: Cory Booker Drops Out. […]