Elizabeth Warren let me down. Her bungling has jeopardized my reputation as an infallible prophet. Not long ago I prophesied in print that we could expect her to take the lead in the herd of ambitious Democrats eager to take on President Trump in next year’s general election. I reasoned that Warren and Bernie Sanders maintained substantial leads in national polls over Biden, the champion of the “moderates.” At some point, it seemed certain, the leftmost Democrats would consolidate behind one the two in order to prevent a “corporate” candidate from getting the nomination. I’d thought that Bernie’s heart attack would free his followers to switch.
Wrong! They have remained faithful. The reason for their abiding faith isn’t clear to me, but it may be his consistent self-identification as a socialist from adolescence to senility is reassuring. More, Warren has been a millionaire for year while Sanders climbed to that status when he became a national candidate. And now Warren’s bungling has given Sanders the advantage in most polls. She led Biden in national polls for a short time in September and led in the Iowa and New Hampshire polls for a little longer. She seemed to have survived her fib about Indian ancestry, but fresh examples of dodging and weaving around the truth renewed doubts.
While the Vermont Socialist spares the woman, his followers have attacked her plan to pay for universal Medicare without raising middle-class taxes and her more gradual approach. Her more moderate opponents, Buttigieg, Biden, and Klobuchar used the debates to attack her health-care reform as too radical.
The current Real Clear Politics polling averages give Biden 26.9% of the primary vote while Sanders and Warren have 34.6% between them. Iowa gives Sanders and Warren 35.6% against Biden’s 18%. New Hampshire gives Sanders and Warren 32.3% against Biden’s 14.3%. Moving away from New England we read that Nevada gives Biden 29% against the Warren/Sanders total of 39.8%. South Carolina shows Biden getting 35% while Warren/Sanders get 31.6%. In the most recent poll (as of this writing) NPR/PBS gives Biden 24%, Sanders 22%, and Warren 17%.
These figures must worry Democratic leaders who doubt the voters readiness for revolution.
Prof. Robert Reich, Obama’s Secretary of Labor, has teamed up with the gang at Democracy for America to rally the left to seize the nomination for Sanders or Warren. Although he sees significant differences between the two, he argues that they are both enemies of “the corporate and Wall Street Democrats” who are trying to make Democrats believe they are too far left to beat Trump. He vehemently denies this, arguing that “…as long as the backers of both of them eventually come together behind one of them, we will have the votes to take the White House, flip the Senate, and begin the work of making this great nation work for the many, rather than the few.”
Reich reasons that presidential elections are determined by turnout. And over a third of eligible voters don’t vote. “They only go to the polls if they’re motivated. And what motivates people most is a candidate who stands for average people and against power and privilege.” This is not the first time a fantasy of electoral victory was built around motivating non-voters to vote. It won’t be the last. Apparently he believes that the disillusioned and apathetic voters will beat their feet to the polls once they get word that there’s a candidate who cares about the many and loathes the few.
Here’s the problem with his scenario. He assumes that an apathetic mass of voters will wake up and vote for the good guys. But he provides no method for convincing them that them that the candidates he considers good guys aren’t just a pack of ambitious politicians. I’m guessing that the key strategy would have to be loud and persistent propaganda about the nastiness and greed of powerful people who rig elections for their own benefit. Will this convince people that the enemies of the corporate interests are therefore friends of average people?
Biden’s fumbling, rambling, incoherent, gaffe-rich campaign still maintains a lead in national polling. Voters whose loathing for Trump (AND his followers) is their key political principle look to Good ‘Ol Joe to rescue the country from a continuation of the Trump Terror put their hopes on a familiar, reassuring (if uninspiring) candidates. But there’s mounting evidence that some people are looking around for a higher quality moderate. Bloomberg has somebody in mind—Bloomberg. He jumps in, ready to spend millions from his vast fortune, and immediately polls at 5.3% nationally. When you add Bittigieg (9.3%), Yang (3.3%) and Klobuchar (3.1%) to the Biden and Bloomberg totals you have “moderate” faction of 47.9% nationally, at this time.
If the brief boom in the Yang and Klobuchar fade out, along with the lower ranking candidates we can assume their votes will migrate to Biden, Bloomberg, or Buttigieg. The latter’s sudden rise seems to be getting most attention at this time. Not all of this attention is positive.
This quote from a CNN report says it all: “Increasingly…opposition to Buttigieg is turning to fury, fueled by a boisterous online ecosystem of progressives who are driving anti-Buttigieg commentary and memes. They view him as beholden to corporate interests, unable to win over the diverse Democratic base that these activists take pride in, and disinterested in the systemic change they believe the country desperately needs on issues like the influence of big money on politics and climate change and systemic racism.”
As the first uncloseted gay presidential Mayor Pete (as his fans prefer to call him) meets one of the desideratum for liberal candidates, but he’s a standout failure in two key diversity criteria. He has no detectable Hispanic or Afro-American support. The liberal opinion makers and Democratic party operatives have been denouncing conservatives and Republicans for neglecting People of Color (POCs) in favor of colorless voters and candidates. Now that their mob of presidential candidates has shrunk to three losers—Cory Booker, Julián Castro, and Andrew Yang—they face some embarassment. And Mayor Pete will be no help.
John Frary of Farmington, the GOP candidate for U.S. Congress in 2008, is a retired history professor, an emeritus Board Member of Maine Taxpayers United, a Maine Citizen’s Coalition Board member, and publisher of FraryHomeCompanion.com. He can be reached at jfrary8070
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