Is Sanders an Election-Year Disaster Waiting to Happen?

I write this post as I watch the Democrat presidential candidate debate on a night where Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders are neck and neck in New Hampshire polls after roughly tying in Iowa.  Meanwhile, Joe Biden's campaign appears in decline, if not free fall, and Elizabeth Warren seems to be stagnating.  Four more years of a Donald Trump presidency poses an existential threat to America's democracy, especially after the body blow Senate Republican's dealt to the U.S. Constitution and the concept of Congressional oversight and reining in of an out of control and immoral occupant of the White House.  Thus, it is critical to ponder what would happen if Sanders somehow becomes the Democrat nominee.  Some, like myself, see Sanders as a disaster in the making should he become the Democrat nominee.  Indeed, the fact that Trump and the GOP see Sanders as the preferred candidate because he will be easier to defeat and are taking steps to potentially skew the primary results in South Carolina to boost Sanders' position in the primary results.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the danger Sanders - and his cult like followers - poses to defeating Trump in November, 2020.  Here are highlights:

Let’s say Sanders comes out of July’s Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee as the party’s nominee. Will House and Senate Democrats in swing districts and red states view Sanders as standard-bearer with joy — or alarm?

Former senator Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.), a supporter of former vice president Joe Biden, has an answer: If Sanders is the Democratic nominee, he will have a “very difficult time” beating President Trump and will pose a “serious threat to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ability to retain control of the House,” Axios reported.

Dodd’s assessment was echoed by Ami Bera (Calif.), co-chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Frontline program, which raises funds to reelect Democratic House members. During an interview with BuzzFeed News this week, Bera said, “If Bernie Sanders is our nominee, it’ll make a lot of these Trump districts that we picked up extremely competitive and probably does put our House majority in jeopardy.”

The bleakest assessment came from Marshall Matz, a policy adviser for Sen. George McGovern’s 1972 presidential bid, who said that if Sanders is nominated, Democrats should expect the sort of landslide loss that McGovern suffered to President Richard M. Nixon. “He would not just lose but would lose badly,” Matz told the Stamford Advocate.

Other establishment Democrats also fear Trump will barnstorm battleground states that Democrats need to keep control of the House and regain the Senate, loudly branding Sanders a socialist — a label many voters find hard to swallow. Montana Sen. Jon Tester, who led Senate Democrats’ campaign arm in 2016, told the Associated Press, “I come from a state that’s pretty damn red. There is no doubt that having ‘socialist’ ahead of ‘Democrat’ is not a positive thing in the state of Montana.”

And Republicans, he cautioned, “are really good at making elections about who’s at the top of the ticket.”

Is Sanders an election-year disaster waiting to happen?

He makes no bones about who he is. “I am a socialist, and everyone knows that,” Sanders said in 1990 as a newly elected House member, in response to an ad seeking to tie him to Fidel Castro’s regime. But he said his brand of “democratic socialism has nothing to do with authoritarian socialism.” . . . Nothing short of a political revolution is needed, he proclaimed as he launched his 2016 presidential bid to “transform our country economically, politically, socially and environmentally.”

Millions of voters, based upon 2016 election results and current polling numbers, are ideologically aligned with Sanders. But for many of them, this affinity does not extend to the Democratic Party. A recent poll found that only 53 percent of Sanders voters will definitely support the eventual 2020 Democratic nominee if he doesn’t win.

[Y]es, establishment Democrats are worried, and for good reason. Democrats don’t have a lock on the House. The reputable Cook Political Report rates only 181 House seats as solidly Democratic, with 35 more rated as leaning Democratic. But 18 seats currently held by Democrats are seen as toss-ups. You need 218 total for a majority. That’s not a lot of wiggle room.

Over in the Senate, Cook rates six Republican-held Senate seats as toss-up or only leaning GOP (plus one Democratic seat as leaning Republican). Democrats need to net four seats to take the majority outright.

Vulnerable congressional Republicans — as well as Trump — are no doubt rooting for a Sanders Democratic victory. Some are even trying to make it happen. There are GOP leaders in South Carolina calling on Republican voters to cast their ballots for Sanders in South Carolina’s Feb. 29 open primary.

Onlooking D.C. Democrats know their local candidates will be fine regardless of the nominee.

Still, they should be concerned as well. If Democratic convention delegates pick the wrong. 

Biden Campaign is Struggling in Iowa

While national polls continue to show Joe Biden leading among 2020 Democrat nominee contenders, I and many others continue to worry about his ability to take on Trump in the general election.  His history of gaffes and past failed presidential campaigns does not instill confidence and now, in Iowa, his floundering campaign gives a frightening prelude to what could happen in the general election. His campaign is described as lacking in excitement, there are worries about too few visits to the state, and some question his ground game operation all as Biden has been steadily losing ground in polls in Iowa. The situation suggests a nightmare scenario were Biden to win the nomination and have to go toe to toe with Trump in the half dozen states that may determine who scores an Electoral College victory.  Indeed, Biden reminds me of Bob Dole's failed presidential campaign.  A piece in the New York Times looks at Biden's struggle in Iowa.  Here are highlights:

WINTERSET, Iowa — Nancy Courtney displays a Joe Biden sign in her yard, makes phone calls for his campaign and supports the former vice president “100 percent,” she said. But the sluggish state of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s organization in her city of Burlington, Iowa, had her fuming one recent evening.

“In Burlington, they are duds,” said Ms. Courtney, an activist who is married to the Democratic chairman in Des Moines County. “I will help, but there’s no excitement there. There’s nothing. I will do whatever it takes to get him elected, but I can’t go down there when there’s nothing going on.”

Bob Kling, a city councilman in Indianola, just south of Des Moines, was promoted by the Biden campaign as a prominent local endorser. But asked about Mr. Biden’s standing in his state, Mr. Kling was blunt: “Not as great as he was. Buttigieg is kind of taking the lead in the polls,”

Since late summer, Mr. Biden, the early front-runner in the Democratic primary, has faced an increasingly difficult path in Iowa — dropping in the polls and struggling with an enthusiasm gap and an inclination among undecided caucusgoers to consider all options. Now, 10 weeks before the Iowa caucuses, even his own supporters in the state are growing more worried about his prospects.

[V]oters at Mr. Biden’s events, along with county chairs and party strategists, characterize his on-the-ground organization as scattershot, visibly present in some counties but barely detectable in others. His events are often relatively small and sometimes subdued affairs, and in a state where enthusiasm can make or break a candidate on caucus night — a big part of caucusing centers on persuading friends and neighbors — Mr. Biden’s operation has found it difficult to build contagious excitement, these Democrats say.

There is also the sense among many Iowa Democrats that Mr. Biden, who entered the race later than many of his rivals, has been less engaged in the state than his top rivals.

Mr. Biden’s team argues that the former vice president, who is stronger in later-voting and more diverse states, has been trying hard to prevail in Iowa but also sees multiple paths to the nomination. Still, some advisers and allies are aware that a poor showing in Iowa could be crushing to a campaign that is premised on the notion that Mr. Biden is the most electable candidate against President Trump. Because New Hampshire, which follows Iowa in the primary calendar, historically favors candidates from neighboring states, the pressure is on here.

Mr. Buttigieg presents an immediate threat to Mr. Biden. While polls show him struggling with voters of color in later-voting states, in Iowa he draws supporters among moderates who like Mr. Biden but worry about his age, his tendency to misspeak and his uneven debate performances. And because of a cash crunch this fall, Mr. Biden was off the Iowa airwaves for weeks while Mr. Buttigieg, flush with cash, blanketed them with ads.

Mr. Biden’s diminished standing here was highlighted in a recent Des Moines Register/CNN poll, which showed Mr. Biden with 15 percent support — far behind Mr. Buttigieg and effectively tied with Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Dan Callahan, the Democratic chair in Buchanan County, said he expected Mr. Biden to finish in the top three in the state but suggested that his support had stagnated, in part because he can appear “unfocused and less energetic” when he goes off script at events.

“Part of Biden’s problem is that we have so many options to choose from,” Mr. Callahan said. “His followers are dedicated but he isn’t attracting new voters like some of the other candidates.”  

Pete Buttigieg Ascendant; Apologists for Black Homophobia

Prior post on this blog looked at the issues of (i) black homophobia presenting an obstacle to Pete Buttigieg, especially in the early primary state of South Carolina, and (ii) Buttigieg has jumped to the lead in Iowa based on the most recent polling. I return to the first topic because statistician wonk Nate Silver has put together data (see the chart above) that suggests that black homophobia is real even as two prominent black columnists in the New York Times and the Washington Post have tried to depict reporting on the reality of black homophobia as a lie promoted by "white liberals."  Here's a portion from the Times piece:

Reducing Pete Buttigieg’s struggle to attract black support solely to black homophobia is not only erroneous, it is a disgusting, racist trope, secretly nursed and insidiously whispered by white liberals with contempt for the very black people they court and need.

The Post piece isn't any better as this quote indicates: "all the armchair pundits — and actual pundits — perpetuating the lie that blacks are more homophobic than anyone else are smearing African Americans as a whole, . . . "  

Like it or not, Silver's data indicates that there IS a serious gap in support of LGBT rights among blacks as a whole compared to other racial demographics that actively vote in primaries.  Does this mean that all blacks are homophobic?  Of course not, but it does suggest that blacks' demand support for their rights that they are not willing to extend to others who are targets of society at large.  Here in Hampton Roads we recently saw this double standard writ large when Virginia Beach Human Rights Commissioner LaKendrick El who is black said horrible things about LGBT individuals as a class of people.  El was eventually forced to resign but in the process damaged the image of the Commission he had served on and possibly alienated some in the LGBT community from being supportive of black civil rights and/or black politicians.  Lurking behind such homophobia is religion, one of the most toxic forces in the world.  In the case of El, he is a Muslim and in the case of many blacks they belong to evangelical churches that are often anti-gay. 

The second topic merits further consideration for several reasons.  One is Buttigieg's fundraising prowess.  As Outwire757.com is reporting and the graph above indicates, here in Virginia, Buttigieg has raised more money - in some cases far more money - than any of the other Democrat presidential primary candidates.  This, combined with the recent Iowa poll results have made Buttigieg a target for his rivals and their supporters as explored by a piece in Vanity Fair:

Pete Buttigieg entered the 2020 race as a longshot. But the 37-year-old South Bend mayor has since demonstrated exceptional staying power, captivating moderates and many in the donor class, and establishing himself as part of the top tier of candidates. Now, he’s doing more than surging in polls; he’s starting to lead them. 

While that surely sends a jolt through the other Democrats vying for the party nod, it has also sounded alarms among Republicans. “He’d be a fresh face with a message of unity and a more traditional Democratic program that’s not as scary to suburbanites,” Karl Rove told Axios Monday. Some top Trump advisers are reportedly worried that Buttigieg is “more talented than Joe Biden” and “will be harder to brand as a leftist radical.”

 

Buttigieg’s star has risen in tandem with increasing concern among the party establishment that Biden is carrying too much baggage to defeat Donald Trump, and that Warren and Sanders are too far left. Buttigieg has appealed to the party’s moneyed centrists by taking a middle-of-the-road approach, relying less on a bold agenda and more on soaring rhetoric evoking Barack Obama’s calls for unity.

 

Such appeals have earned him large crowds, growing support, and the attention of big donors. But they’ve also rankled other Democrats . . . . Many of Buttigieg’s detractors view his approach as an inadequate response to an openly corrupt president who’s left some Americans feeling uniquely vulnerable. He’s invited serious questions about his ability to tackle those issues, struggling to make inroads among black and minority voters.

That could weigh Buttigieg down in the early primary state of South Carolina. But a win in Iowa, the first contest of the Democratic primary, could deliver him significant momentum, forcing the political world to take him seriously, and potentially damaging the campaigns of the other leading candidates. A Buttigieg victory, after all, would raise questions both about Biden’s electability—his primary selling point—and the electorate’s appetite for the progressive visions of Warren and Sanders. With plenty at stake, Buttieg may start getting the frontrunner treatment—particularly at Wednesday night’s Democratic debate.

Where all of this goes, nobody knows.  That said, if the black community displays homophobia towards Buttigieg, they may well undermine support for their own cause among some in the LGBT community and turn a situation where two groups that should be allies find themselves something less and as a result are less cohesive and effective at creating much needed change.  Trump and Republicans need to remain the focused enemy.

Pete Buttigieg Jumps to Lead in Iowa Poll

A new Des Moines Register/CNN poll suggests that Iowa voters may not want the "revolution" and complete remaking of America's health care system being pushed by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren - both of whom I see as un-electable in a general election against Trump who merely needs to carry a few swing states to score another Electoral College win even if me loses the popular vote by up to 5 million votes (further proof why the Electoral College needs to be abandoned).  In the poll, moderate Pete Buttigieg has taken a commanding lead with 25% of the would be caucus goers.  Rather than a forced Medicare for All plan - something a post from yesterday suggests is a vote loser - Buttigieg prefers a Medicare for those who want it that would leave employer based plans in place yet which over time could transition towards a larger government plan option. Sanders and Warren cultist are no doubt in an uproar, but elections are not about forced ideological purity, but rather winning the general election. Like Warren and Joe Biden has likewise fallen in the polls indicating to me that more Democrat voters are coming to believe that he is not up to defeating Donald Trump.  The true focus needs to be on who can win in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa.  Winning by huge majorities in New York or California or even Virginia will not make for an Electoral College win.  The New York Times looks at the new poll results:

DES MOINES — Pete Buttigieg continues to surge in Iowa, leapfrogging Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to hold a commanding lead among likely Democratic caucus goers, according to a new poll from The Des Moines Register and CNN.

The poll showed that Mr. Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Ind., was the first choice for 25 percent of would-be Democratic caucusgoers, a significant increase from the 9 percent he held in September, when The Register last polled the state. The support placed him far ahead of the rest of the field — with the other three top candidates in a virtual tie for second: Ms. Warren at 16 percent and Mr. Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders at 15 percent.

The results are the latest evidence of Mr. Buttigieg’s strength in Iowa, where his moderate political views, plain-spoken style and military history have resonated in the early voting state. Since September, when he placed fourth in the Register poll, he has more than doubled his on-the-ground staff to over 100 and has opened more than 20 field offices. He recently completed another bus tour in the state.

Speaking to reporters in Long Beach, Calif., on Saturday night during the state’s Democratic convention, Mr. Buttigieg said the just-released poll numbers were “extremely encouraging.”

His rise also suggests that voters, in Iowa at least, are increasingly favoring a centrist agenda — a view that has drawn two new entrants, Deval Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts, and Michael R. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, into the race this month.

The poll results reflect the deep split within the Democratic Party over whether it is veering too far to the left to defeat President Trump. Speaking on Friday to a room of wealthy liberal donors, former President Barack Obama expressed concern about some of the policy ideas being promoted by some of the candidates, citing health care and immigration as issues where the proposals may not align with public opinion.

[H]is remarks were seen as an implicit criticism of Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren, two of the leading candidates who are pushing policy plans once considered too liberal, like “Medicare for all,” with the broader goal of “political revolution” and “big, structural change.”

“Even as we push the envelope and we are bold in our vision we also have to be rooted in reality,” Mr. Obama said. “The average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it.”

Ms. Warren, who led the Register’s September poll, with 22 percent, fell 6 percentage points.

Mr. Biden, who has seen his standing in Iowa slowly slip, dropped 5 percentage points.

In addition to identifying a new Iowa front-runner, the poll has once again delineated a clear divide between the top tier of Democratic candidates — Mr. Buttigieg, Ms. Warren, Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders — and the rest of the field. The next-closest candidate in the poll was Senator Amy Klobuchar, with 6 percent, followed by a cluster of White House hopefuls with 3 percent, including Senator Cory Booker, Senator Kamala Harris and Andrew Yang.

Mr. Bloomberg, who has suggested he would skip the first four early nominating states, including Iowa, if he were to officially enter the race, was at 2 percent.

The other thing that Buttigieg continues to do is field an amazing digital campaign out reach.  Every single day I receive messages from his campaign - the husband and I are on seemingly  on every Democrat donor list there is - while I receive nothing from any of the other candidates.  Buttigieg's outreach covers everything from policy positions to, of course, fundraising. 

Pete Buttigieg's Democratic Rivals: A Case of Sour Grapes?

Buttigieg at the Blue Commonwealth Gala.

Of the Democrat presidential candidates, I have only heard two speak in person: Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg when we attended the Blue Commonwealth Gala in Richmond back in June.  Klobuchar gave an impressive speech - or at least it was impressive until Buttigieg spoke after her.  Buttigieg is simply a phenomenal speaker.  This, combined with his more moderate approach to health care reform and other issues, explains, in my view, his popularity and fund raising ability (the Gala attendance in June was reportedly more than 25% higher than usual largely due to people wanting to see Buttigieg).  

All of Buttigieg's success is causing angst and annoyance among Buttigieg's rivals who feel they are more experienced and have "paid their dues."  Where all of this goes is anyone's guess, especially with the entry of Michael Bloomberg into the contest.  I believe there is a longing for change in the electorate, but one non-quantifiable element is charisma - something Bernie Sanders, for instance, lacks.  

Buttigieg also has an impressive digital campaign machine as I have seen personally since the husband and I seemingly are on every Democrat donor list known to mankind.  Of any of the campaigns, I get regular, if not daily communications from the Buttigieg campaign.  I've received NOTHING from the Biden campaign and little from most of the other candidates other than Warren and Sanders who I do not view as electable and who burned bridges with many Virginia Democrats in 2017.  

A piece in the New York Times looks at the griping of Buttigieg's rivals and how he is doing far better in the contest than some would ever have expected.  Here are excerpts:

In the still-crowded Democratic presidential field, one man has triggered an outpouring of resentment and angst. It’s not Donald Trump. As Mr. Buttigieg, the millennial mayor of a town smaller than a New York City Council district, rises in the polls, he has struck a nerve with his Democratic rivals.

Many of their campaigns have griped privately about the attention and cash directed toward Mr. Buttigieg. They say he is too inexperienced to be electable and that his accomplishments don’t merit the outsize appeal he has with elite donors and voters. His public punditry about the race has prompted eye rolls from older rivals who view him as a know-it-all.

And in a field where most candidates find themselves strapped for cash, they snipe at his ability to raise more than anyone else in the primary field except for Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

More than a dozen participants in the Democratic campaign — including rival candidates and campaign aides — spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss their views about Mr. Buttigieg candidly. They conveyed an annoyance at the McKinsey consultant certitude with which Mr. Buttigieg analyzes and makes pronouncements about the primary.

Recently, though, some of the aggravation has spilled out into the public.

Campaign aides acknowledge privately that Mr. Buttigieg triggers some of his rivals. But they dismiss the criticism as little more than sour grapes. Over last weekend in Iowa, he drew crowds of several hundred people in towns that numbered just a few thousand.

“This is not a contest for who is the most established, it’s a contest for who is the most convincing,” Mr. Buttigieg said during an interview aboard his campaign bus in Waverly. “The better we do, I imagine the more we’ll feel some heat, but that just means we’re doing well.”

Mr. Buttigieg emerged from near-political obscurity to become a leader in the race, surpassing a flotilla of far more experienced governors and senators in the process. He now holds a commanding position in Iowa, one of the biggest bank accounts in the primary race and a string of field offices in the early voting states that is among the most of any candidate in the field. Even if Mr. Buttigieg fails to capture the nomination, he’s already won himself a coveted place in the political universe — as even those supporting other candidates acknowledge. . . . That’s part of what infuriates his rivals, who acknowledge Mr. Buttigieg’s political talent but also see him as benefiting from certain advantages.

Over the summer, a simple mention of Mr. Buttigieg’s name during a conversation in the Senate chamber between Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and Ms. Klobuchar was enough to make Ms. Klobuchar extremely agitated, according to witnesses.

Ms. Klobuchar, during an interview last weekend in Iowa, declined to answer when asked if Mr. Buttigieg is qualified to be president. Instead she pointed to his electoral record, which she said shows no signs he could beat President Trump in a general election.

It’s not unheard-of for one candidate in a large presidential field to become unpopular with the others. In 2004, established Democrats made no secret about their dislike for Howard Dean, the relatively unknown governor of Vermont who said he represented “the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.” During the 2008 Republican primary, Mitt Romney was so disliked by his rivals that only Ron Paul would speak with him backstage before debates. Barack Obama wasn’t popular among his rivals at the beginning of his 2008 race.

“It is a natural thing when a young candidate comes along and has success for other candidates who feel like they’ve toiled in the vineyards to resent it,” said David Axelrod, the chief strategist for Mr. Obama in 2008. “I think they’d like him better if he weren’t doing as well.”

As he’s increased his national profile, Mr. Buttigieg has taken care to cultivate important Democratic donors, party officials and strategists, an effort helped by his failed bid for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee in 2017. Many former Obama staffers, including Mr. Axelrod, have heaped praise on Mr. Buttigieg. Some donors and strategists who are backing Mr. Biden say they’re keeping a close eye on Mr. Buttigieg, as well.

In recent weeks Mr. Buttigieg has grown more aggressive in his attacks on his rivals, further angering them. Around Labor Day, he began defining himself as the centrist alternative to Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders. Then during the October debate in Ohio, he attacked Ms. Warren on health care, Mr. O’Rourke on gun control and Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii on foreign policy.

His supporters said it was about time Mr. Buttigieg adopted a more aggressive posture.

On the bus in Waverly, Mr. Buttigieg said his rivals had been unfailingly polite to him in their private interactions, though he acknowledged that his success may have irked those who have seen years of presidential campaign planning tossed aside by his rise.

“I’m not going to comment,” he said, “on the emotions of my competitors.”

As a member of the LGBT community - and one who was once fired for being gay - I will say that it continues to amaze me to see an openly gay candidate do as well as Buttigieg is doing.  In the age of Trump when my community is under open attack by the Trump/Pence regime, Buttigieg's success provides hope for the future.

Why Pete Buttigieg Isn't Going Away

Republicans have one advantage over Democrats: their base is far less diverse and is united by its racism and religious extremism - plus a dose of severe greed among a significant portion of the wealthy. Democrats in contrast have a diverse base that often agrees on little with some elements easily manipulated and played for fools by Republicans and right wing religious leaders who cherry pick bible passages to induce low information voters (especially black voters) to either (i) vote for candidates that will further the GOP's white supremacist agenda, or (ii) stay home from the polls in a funk and by default cast a vote for anti-black Republicans.  A case in point: a recent Facebook exchange where a black male said he could never vote for Buttigieg since he is gay implying he'd stay home and allow white supremacist champion Donald Trump to be re-elected if it came down to that choice.  Talk about acting against one's own best interest.  Of course, this same individual demands that gays support his civil rights. This is but one example of the divisions within the Democrat base.

Where the Democrat nomination ultimately goes remains unknown, but one thing appears clear for now: Buttigieg is not going away any time soon.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at the next phase of Buttigieg's unlikely campaign.  Here are highlights:

We’ve reached an odd moment in an odd Democratic-primary race. With less than 100 days until the Iowa caucuses, former Vice President Joe Biden is struggling to hang on to his lead in the polls and is short on cash. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is making some people nervous that she’ll be Hillary Clinton and George McGovern rolled into one, and that nominating her means throwing the election to Donald Trump. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is recovering from a heart attack, and some observers believe that he has reached his ceiling of support. And while many voters keep saying they haven’t made up their minds yet, 14 other candidates are trying to convince voters and themselves there’s still a way to pull it off.

And then there’s Buttigieg. Several top Democratic officials who are not backing any candidate, as well as some operatives who are, have told me in the past two weeks that there’s a spot for him, but that the nominee can’t be him. They say the same things: He’s too young, too inexperienced, and unable to draw support from African American voters. They worry about the question that keeps coming up in focus groups and that reporters are beginning to ask: whether he’s struggling to win people over because he’s gay.

In Rock Hill, South Carolina, last weekend, I asked people at a Buttigieg town hall whether they thought he was ready to do the job. “Have you ever listened to him speak? He’s got brains, he’s got class, he’s got poise,” Chuck McKinney, a retired carpenter who’d driven in from Lake Lure, North Carolina, told me.

This is the point in the 2008 race when Barack Obama began an ascent that never stopped. He broke out at the Iowa Democratic Party dinner in November 2007.

Buttigieg’s campaign has leaned into the Obama comparisons for a while. On Wednesday, his team sent an email to supporters from Larry Grisolano, a consultant who worked for Obama and has been on Buttigieg’s campaign since the summer: “Pete’s campaign this year is rekindling the same excitement I felt at this time in 2007,” he wrote.

And notice how Buttigieg delivers his big finale on the stump these days: “I know hope went out of style,” Buttigieg said in Rock Hill on Saturday. He asked the crowd: “Do you have a sense of hope to bring about change for our republic?”

He’s a young veteran and a polyglot from the Midwest talking about a record of accountable local government. He is strangely fit for this political moment, but he’s also fitting himself for it constantly.

But the core brilliance of Buttigieg’s campaign is making the carefully planned seem nonchalant, like he’s ambling when in fact he’s in the middle of a plié. Every sentence is precisely arranged, the words weighted, playing off ideas like faith and security and freedom. Operatives on other campaigns grumble that he’s a construction, a “celebrity” who wows reporters looking for the hot new thing, but it’s working.

When I asked how his whopping total of 19,506 votes between two mayoral races could actually win a presidential election, he called that “an exquisitely Washington mind-set.” When asked whether he’s the epitome of white, male privilege, he turns it back with, “When it comes to identity, I am very mindful of the privileges that go with being white and being male. I also have the experience of belonging to a category of people in America that would have been assumed to be effectively ineligible for the presidency.”

[T]here’s the latest line that he appears so eager to push, he hit it twice at the October Democratic debate and has repeated it at nearly every recent public appearance: “I want you to picture what it’s going to be like, what it’s actually going to feel like in this country, the first day the sun comes up after Donald Trump has been president,” he said on the debate stage in Ohio. “It starts out feeling like a happy thought; this particular brand of chaos and corruption will be over. But really think about where we’ll be: vulnerable, even more torn apart by politics than we are right now.”

All the more reason not to go with Buttigieg, his doubters say. . . . Aha! Buttigieg says: Now is his time. Now more than ever, in fact.

“Look, they blew everything up, which means that there is a chance to build something new and better on the rubble,” Buttigieg said. “I mean, not to over-dramatize it, but I think about areas where buildings have been destroyed in the world, and then architecture of a new kind flourishes.”

He was an intelligence officer stationed in Afghanistan; he rarely ventured outside the wire, and mostly guarded transports when he did. “My vehicle, to my knowledge, was never targeted,” Buttigieg said, already preparing to turn it into the point he’s making. “So I don’t go around acting like I was out in the Korangal Valley. I’m somebody who did my part. But I think it’s an important contrast to draw with somebody who avoided doing his part when it was his turn.”

Over the past few weeks, Buttigieg has not-so-subtly presented himself as a Biden alternative. Sitting in a coffee shop in Concord, New Hampshire, in April, Buttigieg told me he didn’t think going deep on policy was a priority. He brought up an economic-development plan he wrote when first running for mayor that he said maybe a dozen people actually read. In September, he released his “Medicare for All Who Want It” plan, which has a policy paper behind it, but is basically appealing wordplay to get a message to people who will never read the whole thing, which is most people: “I’m not for eliminating private plans,” he said, “so I’m glad that we found a way in a headline to explain it.”

“He’s got workable ideas,” says Sherre Kearn, who works for the state government in Columbia, South Carolina, and had driven up to Rock Hill to hold a big Buttigieg sign last weekend. She says she voted for Sanders in the 2016 primaries because of his focus on health care, but now she’s backing Buttigieg because she thinks he’s talking about practical solutions to health care.

Buttigieg has been accused mostly by Sanders and Warren supporters of tacking to the center in the past few weeks, with accusations that he came in bold when there was nothing to lose but now wants to come across as acceptable when winning is theoretically in sight.

He had $22 million on hand at the end of September, and the money keeps coming in, but he’s still a long way from first place, and always has been. And many political veterans believe that if somehow Buttigieg does make it to a two-way race with Warren, he won’t make it further than that, given his inability to attract the African American voters that would really make him the Biden alternative, given that they have been his backstop.

Buttigieg makes this next point because it’s self-serving, but it also happens to be true: Each of the four Democratic presidents since World War II (not counting the two who took over for dead men) were young and inexperienced: John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Obama. Candidates who get called “presidential,” Republican or Democrat, tend not to become president at all.

Trump has already made an issue of Buttigieg looking young enough to get carded, and never having done much. Buttigieg welcomes that.

“He might make it about age and experience, but fundamentally, that’s an argument about judgment and wisdom,” Buttigieg said. “And I think in a judgment and wisdom contest, this president’s on pretty shaky ground.”

He has another line he uses often, about how if there aren’t the kind of big changes he says his presidency would bring about, then the American experiment could unravel.
How close to the brink does he think we are?  “Closer than we think,” he said.

Trade War and Oil Industry Waivers Continue to Harm Farmers

Empty grain receiving facility - photo credit: Washington Post.

Ironically, it is Republicans who preach - or at least pretend to preach - the mantra of personal responsibility and that bad decisions and actions should reap consequences on those who make bad life decisions. Thus, for example if suffers the consequences of being gay or poor, somehow one's choices are to blame, not social and economic barriers.  Applying this rule, it is delicious to see Mid-West farmers who helped elect Donald Trump pay an enormous economic and financial price for their bad and - in my view - morally bankrupt decision. I truly worry about the children and youths who are suffering as a result, but as for the adults who chose to vote for a narcissistic demagogue who played to their worse instincts and bigotries, they sadly deserve their fate.  Frighteningly, many continue to refuse to see their own fault in what has now befallen them.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the continued economic devastation  Trump's self-created trade wars and pandering to the oil industry continues to wreak in the Mid-West in particular.  Here are story highlights (Note the idiocy and insanity: "Many of those grumbling about Trump today concede they are unlikely to vote for a Democratic presidential candidate next year."):

SIOUX CENTER, Iowa — On a typical day, about 80 tractor trailers full of corn line up to dump their loads at Siouxland Energy Cooperative, the ethanol plant just outside of town. The air throbs with the noise and vibration of this industrial moonshine operation, which distills nature’s harvest into a cleaner-burning fuel.

But today, the warm Iowa sun shines on an almost empty parking lot, and the machinery sits idle.

After two decades, Siouxland this month halted operations following the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to exempt 31 small oil refiners from a federal law requiring them to blend ethanol in their gasoline. The waivers, which the Trump administration has approved almost four times as often as its predecessor, have undercut demand for ethanol and the corn used to make it, farmers said.

“The waivers are what pushed us over the edge,” said Steve Westra, 46, the plant manager. “It absolutely killed the potential for anybody to make any money at this.”

For Iowa farmers already suffering from an extended trade war with China, the ruling has made ethanol the focus of their growing ire over President Trump’s policies.

The trade war has cost farmers potential Chinese orders for the corn-based fuel as well as for a byproduct that is used as animal feed. Now, the refinery exemptions are compounding the financial pain — and threatening political consequences for [Trump] the president, who won this state and its six electoral votes in 2016.

“I supported Trump in the last election. Today, if the election were held, I don’t think I could vote for him,” said Kelly Nieuwenhuis, 60, a corn and soybean farmer in Primghar, about 40 miles east. “It’s definitely growing, the displeasure with the Trump administration.” . . . .Many of those grumbling about Trump today concede they are unlikely to vote for a Democratic presidential candidate next year.

In recent days, amid a rising impeachment furor, the White House has scrambled to midwife a compromise between ethanol advocates and the oil industry. . . . The discontent in deeply conservative northwest Iowa has its roots in [Trump’s] the president’s confrontation with China, which farmers initially backed.

The trade war’s mounting costs are especially evident in this corner of the corn belt. Iowa’s fourth congressional district, which sprawls from the Nebraska and Minnesota borders to the outskirts of Des Moines, has lost more export sales to China than any other district in the country, according to the U.S.-China Business Council.

China’s retaliation for [Trump's] the president’s tariffs on Chinese goods last year cost farmers 78 percent of their $856 million in oilseed and grain shipments to China, the study found.

Those figures may understate the toll. The trade war erupted as farmers were counting on a major increase in Chinese orders for U.S. ethanol and an ethanol byproduct called distillers dried grain (DDG.) Those potential sales for the past two years have now become casualties of the trans-Pacific conflict, Nieuwenhuis said.

China in 2015 had purchased more than 5 million metric tons of DDG, a high-protein animal feed, valued at $1.4 billion, according to the U.S. Grains Council. By the following year, China was the No. 3 export market for American ethanol, purchasing more than 200 million gallons, worth almost $350 million, the industry group said. Since then, DDG sales have plunged by roughly 98 percent; ethanol orders are virtually nonexistent.

China targeted Midwestern farmers for retaliation, calculating that complaints from a key part of Trump’s political base might cause him to buckle. The president so far has instead tried to make farmers whole with a $28 billion bailout and promises of future riches.

Neither seems to be working. Multiple farmers said the Agriculture Department payments that [Trump] the president bills as full compensation for lost Chinese sales, while better than nothing, still leave them in the red.

[The Trump/Pence] administration has exempted more than 38 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel from ethanol blending requirements compared with just 7.4 billion in President Obama’s final three years, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, an industry group.

It is sad that racial animus and clinging to extremist religious beliefs mean more to a majority of these farmers than their own economic survival.  Adding insult to injury is that the rest of America has been forced to pay 28 billion to save these farmers from the consequences of their own idiocy and bigotry.

Poll: Buttigieg Busts Out in Iowa (and New Hampshire)

A future blog post will look at the issue of far left Democrats potentially causing Donald Trump to be re-elected because of their inability to push for more moderate proposals that can win the support of a majority of voters. It's a symptom of the out of control "purity" obsession of some far left Democrats who have lost sight on the need to win elections, even if the candidate best able to win doesn't meet all of the impossible - and impractical - purity tests.  Which brings me to the polls in New Hampshire and Iowa that both have Joe Biden in the lead even though he has yet to announce (and in my view, should not announce) and Pete Buttigieg in third position.  Of the far left candidates, only Bernie Sanders is in the top three.  The message to the far left should be that a far left agenda may not equate to winning the nomination.  A piece in Politico looks at the Iowa poll and possible takeaways.  Here are excerpts:

Former Vice President Joe Biden leads the 2020 Democratic presidential field in Iowa, according to a new poll released Thursday that also suggests Pete Buttigieg — a previously unknown, small-city mayor from Indiana — is gaining significant traction with likely caucus-goers.

The Monmouth University poll shows Biden, who hasn’t officially entered the race, is the first choice of roughly a quarter of likely caucusgoers, 27 percent. He’s followed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) with 16 percent and Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., with 9 percent.

That places Buttigieg marginally ahead of a handful of candidates who entered the race with more established profiles: Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are at 7 percent, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) is at 6 percent, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) is at 4 percent and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is at 3 percent.

Buttigieg still lags most of the other major candidates in name recognition, the poll shows. Nearly a quarter of caucusgoers, 24 percent, say they haven’t heard of the mayor of the nation’s 301st-largest city, compared to 3 percent who haven’t heard of Warren, 7 percent who haven’t heard of O’Rourke, 10 percent for Harris and 11 percent for Booker. (Biden and Sanders have universal name-ID among Democrats.)

But Buttigieg has his fans: 45 percent of caucusgoers view him favorably, while 9 percent have an unfavorable opinion of him. The remaining 22 percent say they have heard of Buttigieg but don’t have an opinion of the 37-year-old candidate.

“Buttigieg’s current standing in the horse race is impressive given that nearly half of likely Democratic caucusgoers have yet to form an opinion of him,” said Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. “He has one of the best positive to negative ratios in the field. He could move up if he is able to maintain that rating as he introduces himself to more voters.”

It’s the second early-state poll released Thursday showing Buttigieg surging into third place. A St. Anslem’s University poll in New Hampshire showed Buttigieg at 11 percent in that state’s first-in-the-nation primary.

[F]ully one-in-four caucusgoers, 26 percent, have an unfavorable opinion about Sanders, who finished a close second to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 caucuses, and 20 percent have an unfavorable opinion of Warren.

A POLITICO analysis finds that 14 candidates have qualified for the debate stage through polling, while Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has also said she has passed the donor threshold. If more than 20 candidates qualify through either method, a series of tiebreakers will determine the final lineup.

Wherever Buttigieg ends up, it has been remarkable to see an openly gay candidate do so well in these early stages of the nomination process.  Meanwhile, as a coming post will note, Buttigieg is making the Christofascists freak out and show their true ugly selves.

Beto O'Rourke Ramps Up in Iowa

As more and more would be candidates enter the fray for the 2020 Democrat Party nomination, one possible candidate has held back on declaring to date, but seems to be taking steps for a presidential run.  The candidate is Beto O'Rourke,  Where he will shake out in the mix is uncertain.  What is certain so far, is that no candidate who has announced to date has set the base on fire with enthusiasm outside of Sander's almost cult like followers.  Biden has not yet announced and, I fear is not electable despite the chatter to the contrary. Ditto for Sanders who, like Biden, is in my view too old.  O'Rouke, who came close to defeating Ted Cruz in deep red Texas might perhaps be able to rally younger voters to actually go to the polls and vote against Trump and others in the GOP who are busy destroying their futures.  Time will tell, of course, but at the moment, no one in the Democrat field so far excites me.  Some like Warren, Harris and Sanders who have meddled in Virginia's politics have already alienated me.  A piece in Politico looks at O'Rourke's seeming steps to launch his campaign.  Here are highlights:

Beto O’Rourke is beginning to staff up in Iowa and has been in talks about visiting the first-in-the-nation caucus state as early as this week.

Democrats organizing a rally for Eric Giddens, a Democratic state Senate candidate, in Iowa on Saturday have told prospective attendees that they expect O’Rourke to appear at the event, a source familiar with the plans told POLITICO.

Norm Sterzenbach, a former executive director of the Iowa Democratic Party, is assisting O’Rourke in the state and was reviewing resumes from potential staffers as recently as last week, according to two sources familiar with O’Rourke’s Iowa operation. O’Rourke, like several Democrats who already have announced their presidential campaigns, has been in discussions about assisting Giddens in his March 19 special election, potentially with a door-knocking effort, according to three Iowa Democrats.

O’Rourke’s outreach comes as the former Texas congressman begins to more intensely court activists outside of his home state. He is preparing for a near-certain presidential run after months of deliberation.

O’Rourke is scheduled to participate in a call with the High School Democrats of America on Sunday, the group said. Its advisory informed participants that questions must be “must be brief and unrelated to Beto as a potential 2020 candidate.”

O’Rourke said nearly two weeks ago that he has decided whether to run for president. In Austin, Texas, over the weekend for the South by Southwest festival, he told reporters, “I want to make sure I do it the right way and I tell everyone at the same time, so I’ll be doing that.”

He said, “I’ve got to be on the timeline that works for my family and for the country.”

A Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll released Saturday saw O’Rourke’s poll numbers slipping in Iowa. He had dropped to 5 percent in the poll, down from 11 percent in December. Former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are running far ahead of the rest of the field in the state.

O’Rourke’s advisers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Nor did Gibbens, Sterzenbach, Tewes or Plouffe.

The Democrats MUST find someone who can defeat Trump or Pence should the lair-in-chief somehow decide not to run.  The nation and the world cannot stand four more years of Trump/Pence.

Democrats May Be Poised to Take Back Multiple Governorships

The Democrat goal: electing more Ralph Northams to governorship's across America. 

The far left of the Democrat Party - think Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren - has been taking it on the chin in many state level primaries where moderate, common sense approach Democrats have been winning the primary elections.  Elections, after all are about WINNING as opposed to anointing one's perfect candidate or staying home in a huff if one's preferred candidate doesn't win the Party nomination.  This concept was lost by many in 2016 and, as a result, we have the utterly foul and toxic Trump/Pence regime in the White House.  In the run up to the 2018 midterm elections - as was the case in Virginia in 2027 where the more moderate candidate won the primary and went on to win the general election - moderate Democrats who can appeal to independents and even moderate Republicans sickened by Trump's lies and moral bankruptcy  are winning gubernatorial nominations.  If they win in November, such successes could cause major problems for the GOP as Democrat governors are poised to block Republican gerrymandering of districts.  The long term impact could be significant.  Yes, Democrats need to retake control of Congress, but they also need to win back governorship's.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the Democrat opportunity.  Here are highlights:

The backlash against President Trump and the steady rightward journey of the Republican Party could sharply shift the distribution of political power in state capitals across the nation in this fall’s elections. And because reapportionment is coming, this could change the contours of American politics for more than a decade.

Strengthening that possibility is the success of pragmatic Democrats in gubernatorial primaries who are stressing issues that appeal simultaneously to the center and the left.

 

On Tuesday, Wisconsin Democrats chose Tony Evers, the state schools superintendent, to face two-term Republican Gov. Scott Walker. In Minnesota, Democrats nominated Rep. Tim Walz to defend his party’s hold on the state’s governorship. Both Evers and Walz advance progressive priorities in areas such as education and health care but cannot be cast as ideologues.

Democratic gubernatorial nominees are similarly positioned in Ohio, Iowa and Michigan, all pickup opportunities.

At the same time, Trump’s dominance of the Republican primary electorate and the long-term flight of moderates from an increasingly conservative party have led to victories by right-wing candidates who may not be attractive to a broader electorate.

One of Tuesday’s headline results was the defeat of former governor Tim Pawlenty in Minnesota by Trump-supporting Jeff Johnson, a county commissioner who castigated Pawlenty for criticizing Trump toward the end of the 2016 campaign following the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape.

 

And in Kansas on Tuesday, Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer finally conceded the GOP primary race to Secretary of State Kris Kobach, after a week of tallying ballots. Kobach is a Trump loyalist with far-right views on immigration and restricting access to voting. Kobach’s victory greatly increases the chances of the Democrats’ nominee, state Sen. Laura Kelly. The Cook Political Report immediately reclassified the race as a toss-up in a traditionally Republican state.

 

Like many Democrats, Kelly is focusing on schools. It’s an issue with particular power in Kansas. Former governor Sam Brownback (R) — he left office before his term was out — had reduced education spending to pay for large tax cuts.

 

The program became so unpopular that it was rolled back on a bipartisan vote in the legislature, and Kelly has targeted the Brownback plan (she calls it his “big tax-cut experiment”) in her advertising. “Sam Brownback’s massive education cuts weren’t numbers on a spreadsheet,” she says. “They were an attack on who we are as Kansans.”

 

Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee, the chair of the Democratic Governors Association, says Kansas offers a particularly dramatic example of what is happening in many other Republican-led states. “Everyone knows about the Trump effect, but the untold story is Republican governors going on ideological tears in their states,” Inslee said in a telephone interview. “You have a one-two punch to Republican prospects both from the White House and from the damage that’s been wrought out of the statehouses.”

11 of the Republicans’ 26 governorships at stake this year appear vulnerable. Illinois and New Mexico already lean Democratic, and seven others are toss-ups. These include the powerhouse states of Florida, Michigan and Ohio. The GOP will also have to struggle to hold on to Wisconsin and Georgia.

 

The governments elected this year will be key to drawing congressional and state legislative district lines after the 2020 Census. So even Republicans who demonstrated slavish loyalty to Trump to win primaries are likely to regret his presidency (and their own ideological enthusiasms) if 2018 leads to a statehouse catastrophe. They have been playing with fire, and it could consume them.

One can only hope that these pragmatic Democrats replicate the ground game used by Ralph Northam in 2017.  While defeating Republican gubernatorial candidates is the goal, defeating the by significant margins would be even sweeter - and would send terror through the GOP.