Until JFK in 1960, the Democrat candidate for president was ultimately selected by a bunch of power brokers sitting in a smoke filled room at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago. Maybe we should revisit that system with inclusive power brokers who don't smoke.
Why does Iowa, a caucus state, count at all? Its very low minority population certainly doesn't represent most of America and yet, we are told, there are only three tickets out of Iowa!
12
Being a Democrat, I would vote for a dead dog over Trump in 2020.
Being a realist, I must admit that the field of Democrat candidates will probably not garner much votes from Trump voters who would like someone else. And there is not much to inspire Independents to vote Democratic.
I believe that the good potential Democrat candidates are sitting this one out. Just like many potential Republican candidates did in 2008.
Unless the economy goes bad or there is some October Surprise (maybe in the form of some undeniable and infallible proof of Trump's corruption), I fear Trump will have a second term.
The only person who may have a chance to defeat Trump is probably Bloomberg. He is a Democrat, he is rich, he may be able to unit Democrats, and best of all he's not Trump.
But on the other hand maybe I dislike Trump so much that I will grasp and any lifeline thrown out.
I am getting nothing from the other candidates.
15
nickgregor,
You have voiced my opinion exactly except that I will not vote for Bloomberg either, this former Democrat will, for the first time in my life, swallow hard and vote Republican ticket.
Other than perhaps some gains in environmental controls that would be great with Democrats, I must consider the immigration pitfalls of voting for the looney left, so I am with the erratic Trump, instead.
13
Great choice for a running mate.
1
“Four white front-runners, three of them 70 or older. What is this primary telling us?”
So what? Trump is over 70. Doesn't seem to be a liability for him.
15
Best column on the race I have read in quite a while. Thank you.
1
She has zero charisma. Nobody cares what professional pundits think or care about. The public will decide. As for Cory Booker, he should be happy he is a Senator and start doing his job. His performance as Mayor of Newark wasn’t particularly inspiring.
18
How could not include Andrew Yang in your analysis? He is not white and he will be a final front runner.
5
Frank waited until the last sentence to say "she ain't got it."
1
Enough with identity politics, please.
25
what people don't understand is most Democrats are truly afraid. Not afraid of losing an election, of losing this election. Biden may not be the prefect candidate but he hits the buttons. Black women understand this better than anyone [see Trevor Noah's excellent commentary on why Black Women stuck with the Virginia governor post blackface scandal]. We can hope for another Obama or a woman whose charisma would over shine the misogyny of much of the electorate, but in 2019 we don't have that. Whether Biden can win isn't a sure bet, but I can tell you Warren, Sanders and Mayor Pete will lose. Heaven help us.
5
Every one of the two dozen Democratic candidates will fail to win the nomination, except one, so there will be "something wrong" with each of them.
I was an early Harris supporter (starting from her victory speech in November 2016) but became distanced when more and more it struck me that she hadn't really thought through what it meant to be running for the nomination in 2020. She was vague or contradictory on policy in a race when policy was unusually important. She tried to be the one to recreate the Obama coalition without figuring out how to make herself a sustainable alternative to Biden, the other one trying to recreate that coalition.
I like and respect Harris. I hope she continues to be a wonderful senator from my state. And the vast majority of people who run for President don't succeed. She's in worthy company.
4
It should be a Bloomberg/ Tom Snyder ticket. And they should offer each voter $1,000 to vote for them. They will win in a landslide.
5
I question the idea that a majority of Americans will vote for someone simply because they say "I'm not Trump so trust me".
6
There is an old 'saying', that 'familiarity breeds contempt', and this may explain Bruni's observation that various subsets of the US population seem to be less than excited about a candidate from their group. If you have observed the foibles characteristic of your group for many years, you unconsciously assume those foibles exist in such a candidate.
3
Harris is great just not great enough for now. She'd be a wonderful pick for AG. Let the best one win the primary and let the rest of this talented field help our country in the cabinet or other federal government roles.
2
"For a party that celebrates diversity, pitches itself to underdogs and prides itself on being future-minded and youth-oriented"
What they may say is not what they are. The Democrats are the party of the DNC, the party of the establishment, of the "deep state" so revered in recent days, of invading Iraq and Syria, and war with Iran, of Neo Cons and renewing the cold war, of Russia phobia, of unchecked international interventions and unfettered free trade, of domestic surveillance and intolerance, That is the Democratic party.
8
It is a hot mess and it's a shame. However, once the nominee is picked, I expect EVERY person who ran for the nomination to get behind him/her. I think Bernie's lukewarm support of Clinton really hurt in 2016. I think many of these candidates could have a position in the cabinet or in government somewhere - there is a great skillset among them - but they ALL need to be moving in the same direction. That is one thing repubs have going for them...they are in lockstep with their talking points and branding.
5
Anyone could have volunteered to participate in the Democratic party primaries. Of the few that have, some have elicited more interest than others. No votes have yet been cast, yet. It's simply a democratic process playing out. Bruni's bafflement is baffling. If Bruni's unhappy with the Democratic party candidates, he should persuade someone he likes to enter the race. Eventually, it's the voters who will decide on the nominee. Hopefully, all progressives and patriots will wisely support the eventual nominee to remove the Russian puppet from the White House.
3
Glad to hear Frank question conventional wisdom. While there is lots to criticize about the process, much of what the media et al celebs say about it is always highly questionable. Harris didn't survive, despite having tons of good will from this class.
1
I disagree that the Media isn't at least partly responsible for this mess. Very little attention has been paid to the issues or a range of moderate candidates. There was almost no media follow up to the CNN "debate" on climate change -- probably the most important issue of our time. I have several times written the Times asking for a comparison of Democratic positions on health care (maybe by a 1st rate economist, like Paul Krugman), and no response. So, the media is contributing to an environment where voters have to figure out complex issues based on 75 second responses at the debates. Maybe you all could try to do better?
17
@Kris
Democrats did not realise that the impeachment hearings and press coverage would take up all the oxygen less than a year before elections?
3
Very simply, Frank, this primary shows the limits of social engineering by the media and the top of the DNC. You used internet popularity, either in the form of name recognition polling or in the form of funding gathered from thousands of small donors, as a metric for deciding who to put in the debates, and pretended that fitting them on a stage was relevant to picking a president at all.
And the media picked the debate moderators, so we got zip zilch nada on foreign policy. There were exactly two questions in four debates on foreign policy. And the media got to judge the debates and pronounce the winners and losers. And the media got to handicap candidates with hit pieces and loving cuddles beforehand.
And then came Trump's October Surprise going off early because he got caught. Did it fail? No! The media has been treating Joe Biden as terminally wounded ever since, and so they, not Brad Parscale, brought the crazy, cloud cuckoo land, Giuliani-Putin conspiracy theory through to completion to damage the Biden campaign.
Maybe all the ministrations over the field, including working overtime to eliminate people, and forcing people who had regional and not national recognition out of the campaign long before any elections took place wasn't such a great idea.
It isn't just the color or age of the outcome that isn't right. More than half the candidates have no traditional experience for the job, and billionaires with none stay in no matter what.
Thank you, Press.
10
"But given the choice of going left or going right, Harris too often seemed to be trying to choose both." Karen Tumulty, Washington Post, 3Dec2019) To paraphrase Ricky Nelson's song "Garden Party":
"You can't please everyone,
You've got to be yourself."
2
I am a progressive Democrat, and I am fed up.
Bumbling bozos. The Democratic party is inept and unable to function effectively in the hardball world of American politics. As a political party, their primary goals should be gaining control of both houses of Congress as well as the legislative bodies of the individual states. Conservative Republicans understand this and have been very effective in identifying and supporting strong candidates for office.
At this point, the Republicans control the US Senate. That means that Trump will not be convicted after an impeachment trial and Justice Ginsburg will be replaced by another conservative.
Moreover, apart from its failure to gain control of the Senate, the Democratic party was unable to win the presidency after 8 years of Obama against a candidate as severely flawed as Trump. That is barely comprehensible.
Finally, the current crop of Democratic presidential candidates makes the "seven dwarfs" of 1988 look like giants, even though one of them was, remarkably, Biden.
I am fortunate to be a sixty something, upper middle class white male. For the poor, soon to be poor, people of color, LGBTQ, women who want to terminate pregnancies, people living at or near sea level, people at risk for pollution related lung disease, and pretty much everyone who will be alive in 20 years, the future looks bleak.
13
Mess? You failed to mention that Joe Biden leads by a comfortable margin in the consensus of national polls.
Who will be the first NY Times writer to address statistics, polling, and Electoral College projections when commenting on the 2020 Democratic primary?
We don't need political gossip. We need hard, fact-based reporting. Thank you.
5
Other than finances, Harris is out because she had no consistent and coherent policy positions
15
Harris' message was shambolic. She seemed lost. Running a campaign from California and the east coast was crazy. Maybe, just maybe Americans will choose ideas or entertainment this time round.
4
There was indeed a "cabal" of DNC leadership that severely limited Bernie's debate time with Hillary in 2016, thus hobbling his candidacy. Its unrepentant leader is still representing a district in Florida. Different leadership, same myopia. What makes you think it's any different now?
6
'Electability' is the ploy by corporate Democrats to get someone in there who won't raise their taxes and preserve the economic status quo. Corporate Democrats would rather fight the culture war.
4
Sorry Mr. Bruni, but to this old Lefty's eyes this election is shaping up to be a replay of the 1972 Presidential Election when the Democrats lined themselves up to beat the struggling Republican Richard Nixon but, 12-18 months before the people went to the polls, forgot to tell their leadership to stop aiming their biggest guns at each other and direct them solely at the failures and corruption of the Nixon Administration.
8
It is a profound insult to intelligence to have to donate politically to block or reverse unconstitutional legislation, and an even further insult when one's challenge to the legislation is denied because it protests state sponsored religion.
My unscientific take is that’s what’s driving the leaderboard is a complex interaction of voter familiarity with the candidates, perceived authenticity and perceived competence. I reckon what tanked Harris’s campaign was her shortfalls in domains one and two.
6
I can't understand how the article title ("Democrats' Baffling 2020 Mess") fits the content of Bruni's article, which I carefully studied. Bruni does a pretty interesting analysis of the uncorrelated nature of the many unique Democratic Party Candidate's campaigns and the theories being offered by media "experts" to explain the relative appeal of these campaigns. I see the plethora of campaign messages, candidates and funding as dynamic and interesting. I don't see a "mess," I see an interesting contest of ideas evolving.
Second, Bruni implies the media are doing a reasonable job in covering what people want, noting detailed coverage of Warren and Buttigieg and Warren as examples. Me, I'm not so sure about this. For instance, I noticed there is nothing at all mentioned about "government policy" in Bruni's article. It bears repeating that the media constantly need to be reminded to tell us what the government is actually doing, and what it plans to do. So far Trump has said a bunch of crazy things, tried and failed to kill the Affordable Care Act, tried and succeeded in giving billionaires a $1 trillion tax cut and, in order to curry favor with as many people as possible before getting booted out of office, appointed people to the administration whose philosophy of government is to wreck it then claim it doesn't workt. Despite the hoopla, Trump has governed as an typical hard right Republican.
Report on that.
Democrats seem fine to me. Trump's the "mess."
12
A big problem for Democrats, is the primary calendar. If they were smart, Democrats would cluster swing state primaries, early in primary season. Knowing who voters in Iowa or New Hampshire favor, is pointless, as (TBH) is knowing who voters in NY, CA, MA, NJ, CT etc favor (ie reliable blue states which will ALWAYS vote ONLY for the Democrat candidate). What would be very useful, would be holding the Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania etc primaries first, since only the candidates that emerge first or second in all of those states, has a prayer of winning the general election. The quaint traditional ordering of the existing primary calendar is a luxury the Democrats can no longer afford.
13
Maybe more attention should be paid to the CA voters. Senator Harris won ~62% of the CA Senate votes in 2016, but just before her withdrawal from the current POTUS primary race, she was in 4th place (or 5th, depending on which poll is used) among candidates.
Yes, CA is safely Democrat, but it is moderate (relatively) Democrat, not progressive Democrat.
As has been noted, what starts in CA is often an indicator of what's to come for the rest of the US.
2
Watching the 2020 election show on the sideline with no stake in the outcome makes clear that American Democracy is the most wasteful game show searching fruitlessly for a star with charisma and entertainment value to lead the country, which is desperate but clueless about how to make it great again. The conclusion is self evident.
4
@Observer: Politics is universally out of favor here because all of the ads are about how awful the other side is,
3
Economic indicators point to a recession. We’re looking, at best, at a Democratic President dealing with Trump’s recession and complete obstruction by a Republican Senate. Perhaps we should impeach him and sit this one out.
1
I disagree with the premise of this op-ed.
We have a great Democratic field, and a healthy primary debate. I would be proud to support and vote for any of the Democratic candidates who eventually emerges as the nominee.
Each and every one of them believe in a better future, with opportunity for all Americans.
Vote your conscience in the primary, and vote blue no matter who in the general election.
Volunteer. Donate. And VOTE!
13
The winnowing reflects the confluence of the impact of the debates and, too, prior familiarity with the candidate.
The little known Governors didn't have a chance to establish themselves in the awareness of the public in that debate format. The debates rewarded charisma and tabloid newsworthiness. The Governors would have shined in a tabletop discussion of the issues with just a few people present.
Voters knew Sanders, Warren and Biden best. That made them seem more able to compete with Trump.
Buttigieg is the most talented speaker in the bunch, by far, and was able to break through based on that.
Harris decided to emphasize combativeness and thereby turned voters off. She thought she was being tough, but voters saw this as obnoxious.
Klobuchar should be a very strong candidate, but is devoid of charisma.
Democrats are all focused on the requirement that the candidate can beat Trump -- and this distorts the usual patterns of vetting and support.
8
As a lifelong liberal Democrat I have long felt that there is one fundamental problem with the Democratic Party> We subscribe to the adage once said about baseball umpires; they have to be perfect with the first pitch and then get better as the game goes along. The current Republican Party prefers candidates that have to check only a few boxes; pro gun, anti-abortion, anti-gay; pro tax break and pro archly conservative Judges. Democrats? We have three pages of boxes and I completely get that. We as a party are fundamentally different in our DNA than the GOP; we look different; we care about society and social justice, fairness and the general welfare. But we punish our candidates who are not perfect, who misstep, who may commit the egregious sin of offending a particular group. I'm not suggesting that we settle; I am thrilled that we hold our party to higher standards. But Al Franken is sitting home watching the Vikings and Donald Trump is President.
27
You hit the nail squarely my friend.
4
What a nail it must be!
1
Nicely put. At the end of the day, we are not looking for a saint but for someone who we believe can lead effectively -- leadership means being able to connect with the masses, having vision, and earning the trust of citizens to get the important things done through the right people and policies.
Political acumen and charisma are indeed what gets you up there; not your race, age,....
At the end of the day if you are a democrat, support the candidate that wins and go vote for him; learn from the Republicans.
2
We can thank Republicans for Citizens United! They put our elections up for sale, regardless of who and where that money comes from. This, also, explains why they're so accepting of Trump's shake down of Ukraine. Meanwhile the very things they're accusing the Biden's of, Trump is currently doing with his entire family. Once again Republicans are the do as I say, not as I do party!
5
So much confetti.
We will have the right candidate.
2
Bernie, Elizabeth, Pete.
Take your pick from the Trifecta.
5
Democratic voters have every right to be dissappointed in their party and the candidates we are presented with. Beyond Bloomberg, every candidate in the race will lose to Trump. Our party's representatives full-throatedly embraced this sham of an impeachment investigation, sacrificing all strategic and future objectives for a sugar-high. How can voters trust their destiny in the hands of 'leaders' who make bad decisions about the future for the sake of short-term feelings and sentiment. All of the candidates who were in the race prior to the investigation have lost their legitimacy. They are jokes. They are clowns. None can be trusted with handling our affairs with dignity nor wisdom. They are all fools and they expect the American people to choose a fool as their primary representative? Say what you will about Trump but he never would have made this specific strategic error. Bloomberg would not either. Voters know this. Even if they aren't the one actively seeking to get their opinion published in an opinion poll. Every day American people know that our party's candidates are not cut out for the presidency. We can either sacrifice the election or those who are in the race prior to impeachment could step aside with honor and do the right thing for the country-if in fact they believe that not electing Trump is an important objective.
But I think they are all more concerned with their personal fortunes so this is unlikely-tho that doesnt make any less dishonorable
10
@nickgregor
"Beyond Bloomberg, every candidate in the race will lose to Trump."
I strongly disagree. If Bloomberg is the Democratic nominee, I will enthusiastically support him and vote for him.
That said, I lived in Manhattan when he was mayor, after moving to NY from my home state of NC. His positions don't easily resonate with most Americans. He has the money to sell his point of view, but he is no silver bullet for the Democratic Party.
If the Democratic primary were held tomorrow, I would vote for Pete Buttigieg.
8
We'll never see a great candidate for POTUS again, not with what the media and social media put them through.
1
@Average Citizen
We're seeing one now. His name is Bernie Sanders and he may well be our last opportunity for a statesman with integrity.
5
What is this primary telling us? It's telling us that the pretzel knots that is modern journalism is killing us. The candidates and Democrats are scurrying to find a candidate and strategy to survive the false equivalence, and other heavy yokes, put on them by our less-than-civic minded journalism businesses.
Exhibit A: "Deepening Divide Turns Impeachment Into Another Partisan Brawl" on your web front page, with no comments section.
Exhibit B: If this criticism is not posted.
5
It's not a mess at all and saying so is extremely negative for no good reason.
Biden, Warren, and Sanders are on top because they have higher profiles and are well-known to the public. Biden has decades of public trust. The positions of Sanders and Warren are passionate and well-thought-out and they have displayed steadfast commitment to them. Sanders ran for President, and Warren created CFPB and has been the most vocal anti-corporate voice with a very specific focus. Then you have the wildcard Buttigieg fresh-face Obama-phenom guy. He triggers nostalgia for small-town, traditional Jimmy Stewart goodness with a soupcon of modernity because he's gay. Dems always want a Kennedy style hero and he's it this cycle.
Yang is too unproven and random; he self-admittedly ran only to draw attention to the idea of UBI. If he doesn't expect to win, why should I vote for him? Steyer is a billionaire with no political track record or position besides opposition to Trump. Castro, Bennett, Harris, Klobuchar and Booker I like and respect but they really don't stand out for anything special they've done at all. Good zingers in hearings and being a decent person is not enough. They all seem perfect for the high-level team player roles they already hold, not the Presidency.
If Democrats are all about "equality" it means qualified people will rise, even if they are old and white. The polling makes sense. Everybody needs to relax.
7
I am more worried about the American voter than any Democratic candidate. From what I can see from media polls or interviews of the ‘woman or man in the street,’ more Americans choose their candidates the same way they think about the latest musical phenom or movie star. Charisma rather than substance counts. In 2016 we were told that our candidate had more experience than previous candidates going back to LBJ, yet she lost largely because she wasn’t ‘inspiring’ or ‘likeable’. Voters can remember the latest goofy video that went viral, but they don’t have a firm grasp of what their preferred candidate has proposed. Just how much do Americans value their democracy, if they aren’t willing to put in the hard work of researching the views of candidates, then reflecting deeply on how those views interact with current events (another area where Americans are woefully unprepared). I’m baffled, but if I am exasperated about candidates, it’s because in order to attract any attention from voters, they have to stoop to the lowest form of communication.
3
“Finally, there’s political acumen. There’s raw talent. The last Democratic president, Barack Obama, had plenty of it. The next Democratic president will, too.”
It’s an orderly chaos Frank. It’s up to the democrats to get out and vote for whoever wins the candidacy. My biggest fear is a replay of the Hillary-Sanders episode. If that happens, you will have a messy, dangerous end.
1
I do not want a prosecutor as President. It's the wrong temperament and the wrong skill set. Kamala Harris has had a good start in the Senate and I would like to see her continue to develop her political and policy skills for at least another term, continuing to transform herself from prosecutor to politician in the fullest sense of that term. There is still plenty of time for a President Harris. As for being "over 70", I respect experience, so for me, being over70 is no problem. In fact, it appears that the older candidates have better rapport with younger voters, something I often observe in the workplace too.
2
Of the six remaining debate-qualified candidates: When you remove the utopian candidates who are left on the list you drop to four. When you also remove those lacking the real experience that can bring a polarized nation together you drop to two; Joe and Amy. Frank, if you would seriously examine her record and what she says, without thirsting for flashiness, you would realize how well Amy exemplifies the adult moderate we need.
9
Ranked voting would solve (most of) these problems with the primary system.
2
Let’s also acknowledge that the way we nominate Presidential candidates and run the Presidential elections is completely and totally insane. It’s lasts over 2 years! It is totally corrupting in terms of the amount of money required to run - only Sanders and Warren are not owned by the plutocrats, all the others are either owned by the plutocrats or are plutocrats themselves. Trump has been actively campaigning - raising money, holding his cult-like rallies filled with propaganda and overt lies - since 2017. Trump is running a full 4 year campaign.
Until we overturn Citizens United v. FEC, until we have publicly financed elections, true voter rights and participation, we will never have a truly representative election that is based on real democracy. America has never elected its Presidents that way. It used to be smoked filled rooms, Party bosses/machines that determined the Party nominees for decades. There is no requirement that political parties have primaries or caucuses - smaller parties simply nominate someone based on internal party decision making. Even in 2016, most progressive Democratic voters believed, accurately I believe, that DNC favored Clinton over Sanders. That perceived or real bias cost Clinton enthusiasm and support from the Democratic base in the general election. Clinton, thoroughly qualified, was a terrible campaigner, Russia and Comey helped Trump, Trump’s lies worked for non-majority Electoral College win.
The DNC is being fairer this cycle/circus.
4
Sometimes I think people are looking for something more like "Star Power," something super human, even beyond charisma, something unforgettable about their smile and the style they exude.
Please folks, throw that all out! We consumers have watched too much TV, too many movies and too much media. We want a fairy tale talent to save the country, we want "Camelot" back. Not gonna happen. Please, everyone be smart, be practical, leave emotions outside the voting booth. Don't trust your gut. Trust your head for once!
When we consider a candidate, think of them not at a press conference but seated behind a desk with stacks of reports and bills and correspondence with a sharp pencil and underliner, sleeves rolled up and working. Working. Not super human, but fully human. Doing the job we sent them to do. Govern.
9
Many people think that Hillary should have been elected because she was a women (and talented) and that Kamala Harris was a Black woman (and talented). They also seem to believe that they were not elected because of sexism, misogyny or racism or some combination of those items.
Those people are wrong.
Americans don't pick their favorites for political office for such rational reasons or simple matrices. Both Hillary and Kamala didn't have the secret sauce of personality, humanity, and emotion that a candidate needs to have to excite, motivate and persuade many voters. Simple people and the media like to believe that voters pick favorites based on reasons such as positions on issues etc. In part, yes. But the more important part is the secret sauce. Let me be clear, I don't know exactly what that secret sauce is. But it is not primarily positions on issues, it's the person, personality, and the humanity of the candidate. So I would appreciate if the media and columnists with stop the simple minded blather about sexism, racism, etc. Let's look for what moves people- the secret sauce of humanity.
8
Why are you baffled, Frank Bruni? It's the nature of politics that are now played out on a TV screen wherein a candidate has a few precious minutes to establish his or her credibility in something that is NOT a debate but called one. Harris had gaffes in that situation and flip-flopped in her policies often so maybe this has nothing to do with the diversity of the Democratic field. And isn't it ironic, if not amazing, that a Republican pundit would speak to diversity when his own party is so lily-white, so male? If more progressive voices and votes had held sway we would have a different kind of primary and national election: without private funding; without the Electoral College; with fair voting throughout the nation; without gerrymandering; without all the powerful entanglements of the oligarchic capitalism that Republicans and Democrats have created and that the media have helped to foster. Please turn your attention to the real corruption here and stop wasting our time.
We have no candidates for the Democratic nomination with the charisma and credible experience that we would like. Trump is a disaster for the country but he knows how to speak what his constituents want to hear. The Democrats have been doing the same with their’s, it’s been tough impressing upon this group that their constituency is not a majority of the people and the result will be another dead even contest of the polarized right and left.
@Casual Observer
"We have no candidates for the Democratic nomination with the charisma and credible experience that we would like."
I disagree. Pete Buttigieg is that candidate. He has a quiet, calm charisma that is resonating with more and more people as he gets better known. And that is the antidote to Mr. Trump that a majority of Americans are seeking.
Mayor Pete reminds me a lot of Barack Obama in 2008. But Mr. Obama campaign on revolution, and governed through evolution. Pete is campaigning on evolution, but I believe he will actually get things done that will be positively revolutionary for our nation. He is not a demagogue (like Mr. Trump and arguably some Democratic candidates), but rather a calm and rational voice for progress and a better future with opportunity for all Americans.
Cheer up. We can, must, and will do this on Nov 3, 2020.
3
So it's not enough that Kamala Harris quit because people didn't like her message, she ran out of money and treated her staff poorly. People should have liked her, the press should have treated her better, factions in the party didn't like her because she's a black woman. White men with less money are still continuing their candidacy and two old white billionaires are out to buy the Democratic nomination. The Democrats have begun the process of cannibalization and are going into political battle with a candidate they deeply despise, old, white, male and money.
1
Mr. Bruni. Yes, the Democrats are a baffling 2020 mess.
But whoever said Democracy isn't messy?
There is nothing particularly difficult to understand. We have all seen many times. It is the story of an abusive relationship and the abused being in denial. The GOP will never stop be an abuser and Democrats are unable to face the fact the abuse will never stop.
It is time for the Democrats to pack their bags and find a new place to live.The GOP will not change its ways it is at its core misogynistic, racist and ethnocentric and is unwilling to change.
There is no human being to change the reality and only a new constitution or the formation of new countries will put an end to the screaming, the false accusations, the lies and the contempt. The second amendment is based on article five of Bill of Rights passed by the house in 1789 which protects the freedom and security of conscientious objectors (Quakers) making second amendment solutions a farce with only tragic endings.
Maybe independant outside notaries can settle your dispute there is too much history to allow direct discussions.
Lots of us are sick and tired of identity politics. Exactly why was Kamala Harris considered for the presidency? Because she scored some points in a debate? Bernie Sanders may be old and white but he has set the agenda for the democratic party. He's got something important to say. Apparently Harris and her supporters still cannot comprehend that.
7
Yes Frank!
And who is that next Democratic President?
And what year?
Just as I have felt that 1968 and the 60's were worse than right now...(see a review of the 1969 movie "Z" in the 12/7 WSJ) I am very suspicious that Jan-Apr will be every bit
as surprising as 1968.
See McCarthy, TET, NH Primary,RFK enters, LBJ drops out,
MLK and RFK assassinations
1
1. Having an all white primary from this point on is a serious negative. Did Andrew Yang drop out? If not or if so why isn't he mentioned here. Unconscious racism takes many forms.
2. Given the constant ageism of Times columnists having three people in their 70s is a positive.
3. Having a Jew as a leading candidate in a significantly anti-semitic country and not acknowledging it is a serious distortion. And if Sanders wins the nomination we will see that virulence of that hatred come towards him.
4. Having a democratic socialist running is a major positive.
5. Having a gay man running is a positive.
6. Back to the first. An all white primary is a serious, very serious negative.
6
Oligarchs in the Democratic party have been pushing Biden.
Even Diane Feinstein endorsed Biden and has thrown big-ticket fundraisers for him, instead of her fellow CA Senator, Harris. A real slap in the face.
Biden's disgusting display and attack on man asking him a question in Iowa yesterday (see the video footage) is all the proof anyone needs that he is unfit to be President.
His arrogance, bizarre's statements and behavior, his views against women, is sickening and will keep people from voting for him.
He even went on 60 minutes proclaiming that he WAS going to be the nominee as his wife looked at him with disbelief.
I am a moderate Independent. I will not support Biden. I believe the Democrats have made a big mistake trying to take down other Democratic candidates and roll the dice on Biden.
The Warren and Bernie supporters that want CHANGE will stay home on election day if Biden in the nominee.
The Democrats aren't listening.
Old Man Biden is not the future of the Country. He is more the same ole, same ole.
4
I believe it's obvious that Democratic voters don't know what the he'll they want!
3
Demographic diversity is relative. The four front runners each bring a bit of it compared to the demographics of the men that have held the job all but two times. If you don’t know what those factors are, a bit of research will quickly let you know.
Donald Trump is not an anomaly.
Liberals have used every recent Republican President - Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush 1, Bush 2, and now Trump - as a convenient crutch for their own sour performances and political malpractices.
Even with the election of a promising Barack Obama - they quickly lurched so far to the Left that in just a few years the voters decimated the Democratic Party across the nation, at the State levels as well as in both the House and Senate - before Trump even came on the scene. They still have not recovered.
And what have they changed since then, other than promising trillions $$$$ more in free stuff and leaning even more toward undocumented immigrants?
In fact, the leading voices of today’s Democratic Party are those very same politicians who were part of their 2010-2014 disaster.
Which soon after resulted in Trump and a conservative Supreme Court.
And which just might result in a totally Republican controlled government next November.
5
It’s telling us that the private commercialism over & of our democracy has gradually grown over generations that We The People are a quaint notion of sentimental feel good pretenses. Our democracy is a business enterprise pure & simple.
The DNC, RNC and media rite large are the staging platforms. ‘We’ hope for honorable & critical thinking public leaders and settle for actors who pretend by pitching appealing well rehearsed script. Where are the Communist, Socialist, Liberation and countless other idealists & independent thinkers; we see on our Election Ballots ‘before’ our ballots are cast? They don’t exist because they have been ‘systematically’ made publicly invisible by established leadership.
Many of us forget that Obama’s election wasn’t made possible just because of his talents but that he was the first to use info tech to raise enough campaign money or be his own man! Now such sourcing is commonplace. We still have an outdated Electoral College that trump’s over 180 million voters nationwide. That’s irrational & absurd!
1
No Mr. Bruni, you cannot exempt the massive power and reach of both the old and new media in this campaign and the playing of favorites. Moreover it didn't start with Democrats.
That person in the White House came straight from "reality" TV , his introduction to a middle America who hardly knew him as we New Yorker's do in all his flawed and warped "glory". Then for ratings his rallies were covered wall to wall while Cruz, Rubio, Jeb,et. al. were treated as uninteresting nobodies.
Now the media copies a flock of starlings. You all wheel as one to cover the flavor of the moment. Warren was it until she wasn't and now she's flawed. Harris was the darling for attacking Joe until the media decided she was too confused in her messaging. Mayor Pete took over only when you decided Beto was as shallow as he is. The coverage of Biden is a biased affair looking for or exaggerating every real or perceived or invented stumble. He's just too boring for Gen X media types I guess. So yes, the media does have a king/queen maker role despite denials.
2
How is it possible that Andrew Yang, who is currently polling in 5th place, was left out of this article entirely? Does being Asian American no longer count for diversity? Or is “diversity” just a code word for certain ethnic groups and not others?
It feels like you purposefully left him out of the discussion since there’s literally not a single mention of his candidacy.
10
Nothing "baffling" about it -- the DNC is calculating that hating the other candidate, including Trump, would substitute for their only task, finding the Best and Brightest.
The racist, ageist headline illustrates their methods -- pit single interest groups against each other, promising each gifts and (best of all) revenge. "Four white front-runners, three of them 70 or older".
Bloomberg, an amazing innovator and leader, got in late. Many of our Democrat Governors have the on-the-job training working with a legislature and an Administration. One even sat on the Cabinet of the US.
What is "baffling" is why American voters do not force our two parties to do their job of "hiring" and forget party-line-ballots.
2
I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that said:
Any Functioning Adult
2020
3
as they did in 2016, today's Democratic Party has no platform acceptable to Americans. Americans want freedom, prosperity and safety. Hillary insulted a large portion of America as deplorable and insufferable, another as racists while providing no answer as to how she would preserve and protect freedom of all Americans, work for prosperity for all Americans and keep the nation safe. All we could see from her would be more years of gratuitous self promotion to make her even more wealthy at our expense. Nothing much has changed today with the party. It's really quite unfortunate for America and seems likely it will suffer through another four years of MSM attempting to stay relevant.
4
Wow, kind of unweighting that one leading candidate is gay, one Jewish, and one a woman. And, concerns about vitality aside, why would anyone view age as detriment on its own? As it turned out, the African American candidates were weak this time around. The previous African American nominee was the strongest that the Dems had put out in decades. The Dems need to stop self-flagellating that they aren't "representing" well enough and keep the focus on how they're going to beat Trump and what they'll do once in office.
2
Obtuse column. Kamala lost support because she attacked Biden in the first debate. Gross misjudgment. Joe is not our enemy. Trump is. Her attack on Joe’s anti-busing views in the Seventies was irrelevant, outdated, stupid and undeserved. She never recovered. You only get one chance to make a first impression.
6
In case you forgot, there hasn’t even been a primary yet, and you’re already making predictions about the lack of options? A lot can happen in a year’s time. Sanders is Jewish, Buttigieg is openly gay, and Warren could become the first woman president. The only “stereotypical” white guy is Biden. You can claim that the NYT is being unbiased, but your reporting on the “dangers” of Bernie and Warren as socialists plays right into the Republican talking points. Young people see past these labels, and yet the media continues to perpetuate them.
2
Frank, it’s the message, stupid!
Bernie and Warren are addressing structural inequality like no other candidates in my lifetime.
Perhaps some would like to put a United Colors of Benetton face on pre-2016 inequality, but there’s a reason why ‘woke’ young millennials are overwhelmingly supporting the platform of 78 year old straight white man over everyone else.
3
What this should teach everyone is simple. While within your liberal elitist or journalistic circles, you believe intersectionality and diversity are the most important traits a candidate have, yet the masses of people who vote do not agree. It shows you are all out of touch with the American people and no matter how much you teach these virtues from your high castles, it’s not going to matter on Election Day. Just like when you were all shocked when Trump won.
2
You are complaining about lack of diversity and yet you fail to even mention Andrew Yang’s name. MATH. Do better. Thanks
8
It is telling us that the DNC donor class doesn't want to appeal to younger voters for fear they may want more progressive candidates as Presidential nominees. Indeed, with only the partial exception of Buttigieg, all the more youthful conservative Democrat candidates have gone nowhere.
It tells us, IOW, that big donor DNC Democrats don't like what's on young people's minds. And it tells us the feeling is mutual. It tells us finally that the Democrats, like the MAGA Republicans, don't want to have a future, one that always lies with young people.
2
I like Harris and initially thought she would probably be very popular with voters. But as I listened to the debates, my overall impression was that she was very good at describing the flaws of other candidates, but I could not get a sense of what kind of president she would be, or what her main reason for running for president was. Buttigieg always stood out to me, since his comments were thoughtful and seemed sincere. The debate format has not been good for anyone. It has not been a discussion of how to solve problems, but more of a chance for candidates to highlight each other's weaknesses. Squabbling among candidates is not helpful.
1
I think columnists have too much free time and too many deadlines to meet.
Let's just let the people of Iowa, NH, SC and CA vote as they see fit. Usually this works out. Then there will be a national election.
At this moment before Articles of Impeachment are presented I will vote for any Democrat over any Republican. Period. I will vote for the guy called a "socialist" and a "communist." I will vote for the woman called "Pocahontas" or for the gay guy or for one of the billionaires. And, don't mess with the lady speaker. Politics is pretty simple these days. The American Republic is under attack.
7
@John
Thank you. My sentiments exactly.
2
Sorry, Frank, but I think Pete Buttigieg has loads of charisma. I was knocked off my feet the first time I saw him on the PBS Newshour. Seriously, 37 is not all that young, and I'm saying that from my middle seventies. So what if he's gay? Is that really more of an impediment to being elected than being black? My guess is that lots of the people who are attacking him for being too young or for having worked for McKinsey are really homophobic.
Saying this may get lots of negative responses, but Kamala Harris reminded me of a sorority girl. That's not necessarily a bad thing to be, but perhaps not as President.
7
Is nobody worried that Putin’s puppet wasn’t actually elected? I wish The NY Times would follow possible meddling by the Russians.
5
None of the four Democratic front runners can beat Trump. A gay man or woman can’t win the battleground states. Sanders is too old and Biden is old and brain addled. Just the truth. Bloomberg is old, but has tons more money than Trump, and has his own media network and a good track record as mayor. Plus, he can’t be pushed around by Trump. Bloomberg will kill Trump in the debates.
5
@jbk
"A gay man or woman can’t win the battleground states."
That's what everyone thought about a black man in 2008. You might be surprised. Even the Roberts Supreme Court has no problem with gay people.
---
Beyond that, enough with the identity politics. Let Mr. Trump own identity politics in 2020 - meaning the idea of white, straight, European-descended men (of which I am one). He does not have my support, and I am not alone.
3
There will be no debates.
1
Petey won’t get my vote unless he’s the last man standing. And then he’ll be like an Obama lite republican. Ugh.
Shouldn't we keep in mind that Elizabeth Warren is part Native American? (Or so she says?)
6
You know, why not a big pillow fight? Just give all the candidates....ALL 20 of them...a big pillow and put them in a big ring and let it rip! Let the raw greed and need for power be shown for all to see. Who really wants it so bad, who needs to be a President so much, who yearns for it with burning passion and will do anything to reach the top.
All the other stuff and nonsense out the window. Let 'em go at it, nobody gets hurt and we will see who is a President.
It worked for the Three Stooges. It's a no-brainer.
1
What's all the hullabaloo Frank? Look at the GOP race in 2016.
They nominated an imbecile and he won, be it with a little help from Vladimir Putin. The democrats will find their nominee and the majority of the country will get fully behind that candidate to defeat Trump. That is the only goal.
3
Perhaps if columnists like Frank Bruni concentrated on the issues instead of the horse race, the outcome might be different, ya think?
4
Is nobody worried that Trump wasn’t actually elected? I thought he was Putin’s lapdog.
1
The simplest explanation for why Kamala Harris flamed out has nothing to do with sexism or racism. The campaign began to implode when another woman of color (Tulsi Gabbard) took her down hard for being an inauthentic opportunist who had risen to prominence because of the minorities she unjustly put and kept in prison.
7
Seems to me that you are in fact offering an implicit, or unconscious, defense of Buttigieg. You say that the Democratic Party “celebrates diversity, pitches itself to underdogs and prides itself on being future-minded and youth-oriented” — isn’t that a good description of three of Buttigieg’s attributes?
Give me a break Frank. Quit your whinging.The Dems have a very strong field and are doing just fine. Are there issues? Sure there are, but you and I and everyone else knows there would be complaints no matter what is happening.
Get over the need to replicate the gripes that all the other talking heads are voicing. It is not warranted and it not helpful.
The Dems are going to have a very strong ticket and they are going to win the popular vote by a very large margin.
Winning the swing states, that is the question. Get on board buddy.
4
Here’s a hint, Rachel Maddow hasn’t been right on anything, in years
6
The Democratic primaries have de-evolved in an exercise of selecting the most disposable candidate to lose to Trump. Faced with a robust economy and the resulting inroads into their sacrosanct hold on the black vote, the Democrats are willing to abuse the constitution with sham impeachment as a final roll of the die.
Is this not the same “media” that propelled Trump to victory? By media we are now including any source of information, opinion, rumor creation, bias, lies and conspiracies. When you feed this garbage to a mostly uneducated public, this is what you get. The ridiculous, poorly staged debates were the final nail in the coffin of true democracy. The candidates became “winners” and “losers” and that’s what sticks, not who they are or what they stand for.
4
Let's get it through out heads.
The one true gift that Trump has is smearing his opponent. He has that in common with the master of kompromat and disinformation, Vladimir Putin.
Trump & Co. will use the impeachment trial in the Senate to smear Joe Biden. Over and over. Will Mitch call Giuliani? Of course he will.
Trump & Co. will use Ukraine the way they exploited the Comey/Clinton e-mail faux scandal. It won't be But her e-mails. It will be But Burisma. (Echo of Benghazi.) But Hunter Biden. But corruption. But the server. But Crowdstrike. But the Steele dossier. But but but.
And Trump will, once again, have planted buzz words in the minds of his most rapid Trumpkins, who don't follow policy, who don't have a clue about the world or what Trump is really up to. But when asked why they still hold true to Trump, they will parrot the mantras.
Hard to believe, but a cunning con man like Trump has managed to shake our Constitution to the very tippy toes of our Founding Fathers. Men of principle and character and sons of the Age of Enlightenment who used reason and logic to forge our unique founding documents. Their project is threatened by a brand master who only knows slogans, and to paraphrase Adam Schiff, Trump doesn't give a you know what for America. It's all Brand Trump, all the way.
2
I was speaking with a former political hand not long ago. We agreed that, essentially, *we don’t care who wins the primary*. Almost all of the candidates are stellar people who would do a better job than the caricature of incompetent greed currently in office.
Perhaps others really have favorites, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find that the Dem voters just kind of want to get to the general and spend every moment blasting away the foundations of the Trumpist lie factory, and they do not care enormously who is the foreman (forewoman? foreperson?) at that demolition job.
1
Than you for the article, Frank! Agree with most of what you wrote. I find it fascinating that the under 35 Democrats love Bernie, and the African-American vote is squarely for Joe Biden. Love that Pete Buttigieg has Boomers in Iowa very interested in him and Warren is something the Middle.
My husband who is an Independent, just told me that if he had to vote today, this morning, hw would vote for Joe Biden with Amy Klobuchar as his Vice. Wow! This surprised me, I’m a progressive Democrat.
About Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, both excellent candidates (all the Democrats would make superb presidents). I will be brutally honest: America elected an African-American twice, Barack Obama. Americans will not elected another African-American for a while. Why? I will be nice...bias. This is truth.
Lastly, none of my Democratic friends and family members have been donating yet to any of the candidates, we are all waiting for the for to runner to emerge. Personally, I like each of the candidates, each one has their unique gifts and ideas. Most importantly, we, Democrats, Independents and Never-Trumpers must ban together to oust the Republican president and the Republicans out of office, in a Blue Tsunami!
PS. Frank, tell your editor to stop with the hit pieces against Pete Buttigieg! It’s pure hypocrisy when the NYT didn’t expose Trump’s corruption in 2016 when he was the GOP candidate!
3
We put them on display and give them sufficient time to make a mistake, say something stupid, have some skeleton come out of their closet. Or just let the world spin a bit along with our current infatuations.
What do we get out of our cockamamie system of months-long, YEARS-long (never-ending?) campaigning? Better leaders?
Hmm…how did that turn out last time?
In the meantime, the UK announces a general election at the end of October. Campaigning begins November 6; nominees are determined by mid-November, and the actual vote is December 12. Then back to work.
Just how much do we want to know about our potential leader? And do we get at it this way. What an egregious waste of time, money and talent. For what?
Grist for the entertainment mill.
Large numbers of Democratic voters are not in love with Sanders, Warren or AOC. Nor at they waiting with baited breath for what pundits have to say. They want to throw Trump out and go back to a Presidency like that of B. Clinton's or B. Obama's.
2
I really wish the media would focus on the issues not on race , age , and the polling system .
Why can't we have real debates with only 3 to 5 people on a stage ?
We all saw what happened last time. The most dangerous and unqualified person in our history became our resident of the White House.
https://www.usnews.com/news/photos/2015/08/06/photos-the-first-2016-republican-presidential-debate
2
I'd vote for a ham sandwich before I'd vote for trump.
3
This article is the a prime example of the lefts inability to deal with the messiness of reality. All this 2020 primary commentary is basically “this country of 300 million is behaving exactly according to my hyper specific, always changing morality code, therefore it is racist”
4
Let's see - the first two primary events are Iowa and New Hampshire - and you are wondering why old white folks are at the top of the field?
Yes, but we had 8 years with a black president. What does that say?
I also remember when everyone was saying he wasn’t experienced enough, he was black, he wasn’t black enough, he was too liberal . . .
2
Even with four white front runners...we’ve got diversity. Gay. Economics. Diverse platforms. Women. Socialist. The youngest candidate ever, etc. All four are welcoming to those different than them, and have policies to help people “belong,” and prosper in our Society. Your freaked out you see no color. This isn’t a staged marketing add...it’s an election. These are the people that are rising to the top. That’s all this is telling us. A diverse demographic will decide...not your need for circles in round holes.
3
You never once mentioned the guy they’ll run against: a 73 year old who thinks it’s the 50’s, who is fast approaching his toddler years again, being unable to speak in full sentences, having the attention span of a gnat, having constant temper tantrums, I guess the only thing missing us the full diaper and I’m not certain about that when I see him sitting.
1
"Four white front-runners, three of them 70 or older. What is this primary telling us?"
It tells us what we already know - that the Democrats ts, simply pay lip service to minorities but the limousine liberals don't ever want to give up their perks.
1
Harris failed not because of the media but because she is Harris.
4
Pla-lease. If the only topic argued at the next debate is the demographics of the democratic candidates we will implode as a challenge to tRump. How about finally talking climate change and in a way that the Fox/GOP machine can’t use as sound bites.
1
I haven’t settled on anyone, yet, but Klobuchar is still on the debate stage. If the Dems want a moderate, she seems a more reliable choice than Biden, who doesn’t look like he has the stamina to last a year, let alone five.
3
I'm not convinced Harris isn't still running for president, just not in the conventional way. Before writing her political obituary let's see what she does with the impeachment trial. Remember, this is the woman who brought Brett Kavanaugh to the verge of tears and left Jeff Sessions a stuttering, self-incriminating wreck. Surely if she wants to she could put on a prosecutorial performance that would remind everyone of those events and cause many, many voters to take a second look. Personally I hope she goes for it. Although she's not my first choice, I've always thought she may be the one best suited to split the difference between the Sanders/Warren and Biden/Buttigieg factions. The Dems' 2020 race is much better with her in it.
Mcconnell will not let Dems question like that.
I voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary, and Hillary Clinton in the general election. I have a great deal of respect for Elizabeth Warren. If either Sanders or Warren is the Democratic nominee, I will enthusiastically support and vote for him or her. (I will say the same about whomever is the eventual Democratic nominee.)
That all said, if the primary were tomorrow, I would vote for Pete Buttigieg. He is the antithesis of Mr. Trump in all the right ways. He looks to the future, not the past. He is a pragmatist and a doer, not an ideologue and a rabble rouser. He is the adult in the room (despite his physical age), rather than an out-of-control child. He is calm an rational, not boisterous and mercurial. And he is a patriot who volunteered to serve our nation in war, not a coward and draft dodger.
I think Pete Buttigieg is the right person for our times today. I think the priority for our nation is to return to a calmness and civility that we have lost.
I support many of the policy goals that Sanders and Warren espouse. But I think that, in many ways, they are the generals fighting the last war (2016). I think Sanders (or Biden, for other reasons) would have defeated Trump in 2016 -- but the world looks different today in 2020.
7
While it may not have been the purpose of this column, it is yet another negative piece about the Democrats. Let’s look at the half full glass, get behind the candidate of our choice, and decide in the primaries. For now I’m backing Warren and think it’s high time for a real progressive but will vote for the primary winner. I’d prefer to see the DNC step back.
Big donors, party elites, and media favoritism are all more of a handicap than a help these days. That's the legacy of the 2016 election. Biden should have been a shoe-in. In 2016, he would have been president. However, all the things that make him the "natural" primary leader then are considered handicaps now. Elite endorsements are pulling him down rather than propping him up. He's supposedly "working man Joe." That's not how he looks leading the FiveThirtyEight endorsement scale.
Buttigieg faces a similar problem. He is popular among big donors. He is himself in fact an elite. Buttigieg doesn't need elite endorsements; he is his own elite endorsement. Rhodes Scholar, Ivy League, War Veteran, and so on. The McKinsey episode is only the latest in an image burned into Buttigieg's persona. It's part of his brand and not in a positive way. Inexperience and sexuality are secondary to these problems. Let's be honest: Republicans conceded the argument on experience when nominating Trump anyway.
Bloomberg and Steyer are just icing on the cake. Bloomberg is a billionaire who founded his own news organization. Need I say more?
I don't think the Democratic primary is a mess. I think moderate Democrats are a mess. The progressive side is pretty well wrapped up with a bow. Whether Sanders or Warren wins doesn't matter. Either one is fine. The moderate side has a huge problem though. Their two major candidates appeal to vastly different electorates. There's no consensus.
3
The Democrats don’t have a “shot” As bad as Trump is, he will tout the Democrats pick. Trump appeals to the masses in the South and the people that hate the smug candidates that the Democrats put up. The only candidate that would have a chance in my humble opinion is Cory Booker, but the Times blew him away. Trump will romp and I personally know that Trump is a pompous fool, but he wins going away.
3
@Woodman
As someone who grew up delivering sandwiches in Newark, Booker was never anything but a long shot. He's alright but I'm not surprised he faltered. Jersey won the Revolution but we're commonly disrespected. Jersey candidates aren't generally loved. Gover Cleveland is the only Jersey President and he was elected non-consecutively.
New Yorkers are worse. That Trump was elected as a city-boy in the first place is miraculous. That's why everyone doubts his legitimacy. The only way Trump can win an election is against a self-proclaimed New Yorker with tons of baggage and help from Russia.
Just saying.
We have a diverse group running, two billionaires one a former Republican and mayor and one a Never trumper. We have a woman that is also a former Republican, Harvard law professor who became an advocate for consumer credit protections and has a plan for nearly everything. We have a man who has a successful track record as both a mayor and Senator who is a champion for the working class. We have another man who has endured family hardship, served as a Senator and then Vice president for 8 years and has a more conservative bent. And we have a gay man who is bright, well spoken and a centrist. I don't vote for anyone based upon race or gender (although it might be very refreshing to finally have a woman president) but on who I think they are as a person and what their plans and ideas are and how they articulate them. Harris and Booker both failed at communicating consistent cohesive plans and ideas. The "gotcha moments" they offered are just fodder for the media.
3
It’s actually playing out based on policy.
Warren made a transition plan for Medicare and it was seen as disingenuous. Harris flip flopped. Biden is damaged goods floating on soft support. Yang has interesting ideas but also misses key ones. Tulsi seems to have mixed issues with Military. Pete answers to donors and plays both sides with flowery words which is why he is peeling off Bidens support from people who derive income from assets not labor. Kamala flip flopped on Medicare for all.
So what it looks like is people are consistent. It’s about the progressive policy. Even Trump shouts such policy but never follows through to gain support.
The American people need policy that helps us through the transition of globalization. The rich have stolen the value and productivity of our labor through market arbitrage. It’s no different than them complaining about copyrights and price dumping. They have done this for 40 years and now we have a populist backlash. It is rational and normal.
I don’t care about rich people being rich. We are not stealing from them. We are taking back our authority of what is ours. The value of our labor which they stole fro us.
3
@Mathias: Labor dilutes its value by sheer numbers.
The committed and participating constituencies of the Democratic Party see themselves as having endured a country which has done all that it can to deprive them of the good things that this country offers, victims of majorities either indifferent or hostile to them. That’s exactly what Trump’s constituents see as their condition. That is the source of Democrats’ mess.
1
And, yea, arose there a new Republican savior for his masses, not of the church or of the government, nor by acclamation and boast from the stalls of the marketplace, but from the noise and gossip of the rabble. And by his fame and by his volume alone he rose to the nomination of his Party, crushing all politicians in his path, and his party’s corrupt minions first spat at and cursed him, but seeing him increasingly beloved among the people of the countryside who have outsized voting power for they are hayseeds, fell into thrall and followed in his shadow unto the Capitol from which they rule again as in medieval days. And the crowds cheer, and don red vestments, and cry against the Foreign hordes battering our gates, thirsting for our blood and treasure. But he, only he, the only one who in his great wisdom and strength and stability can save them, he is beloved through the isolated and despoiled wards of the land, nigh unto the Electoral College and its rural majority who acclaim him as a modern savior. What David can arise to defeat the false ruler who comes from wealth and fame and governs through greed and ignorance? Only another who can wield the flashing sword of fame and the overwhelming might of volume. Moral: forget the wise and elderly politicians and draft a More Famous person, for verily only someone with more dazzling fame can defeat the varlot in those far-off lands where it truly counteth.
Hey Frank,
You mentioned by name the minority female candidate who is no longer in the race eleven times, and the minority female candidate who is still running not at all.
Let me remedy the imbalance.
Tulsi Gabbard
Tulsi Gabbard
Tulsi Gabbard
Tulsi Gabbard
Tulsi Gabbard
Tulsi Gabbard
Tulsi Gabbard
Tulsi Gabbard
Tulsi Gabbard
Tulsi Gabbard
Tulsi Gabbard
12
@Charles Maybe because Tulsi is on the wrong stage. She should run as a Republican where she firmly belongs and peddle her nonsense there. She'd fit right in.
3
@Charles
Yes.
The Conservative and right-wing media just love her!
1
She is an isolationist and a bit angry. The people who support isolationism and are responsive to anger define Trump’s supporters.
2
Mr. Bruni,
Let me suggest you read up on the 1972 presidential election. Albeit the left hates Trump more than Nixon, Tricky Dick was not the NYTs poster child.
History is going to repeat in 2020.
5
You may serve oodles of Mayor Pete, but the slant is beyond critical.
1
Ctrl + F: "Andrew Yang" 0 mentions.
Hmm. Ironic and bizarre to write this article without a single mentioning of the highest polling person of color left, who is 44, and is in ~4th place with young voters.
3
Always looking for a savior as your POTUS. Nothing will change in 2020 unless the Democrats take back the Senate & Schumer makes them all walk in lockstep with Pelosi. Isn't going to happen when I look at the tea leaves.
5
Any Democratic candidate is so much better than Trump, the lying king but will the Democrats whine if their candidate doesn't get the nod and let him win which is what they usually do. Were Gore, Kerry or Hillary worse than George W or Trump? No, so why did the Democrats not support them? Stupidity? They knew the Supreme Court was in danger but??? So if Bernie doesn't get the nod, will the Bernie brats again sulk? Does it matter whether the candidate is progressive or moderate enough? Look at the choice,do you really want 4 more years of Trump? Just support the Democratic candidate. Stop the horror show.
8
Oh but there actually is diversity in the existing candidates! Elizabeth Warren is a woman!!! A black individual has been president, but never ever ever has a woman. So the choice is obvious. Time to get excited and give Warren her due.
We women are so completely sick of all the male based analysis when the gender deficit is right in front of your very eyes!
4
@As-I-Seeit
We men are completely sick of being lectured that each candidate must be viewed as an individual, but that it is essential to elect a woman. Keep it up and you'll be lucky to get a woman in the Oval by 2050.
1
I’ve never voted Republican in my life, but I now consider the Democratic Party....more precisely the so-called ‘progressive’ faction of the Democratic Party...to be a serious existential threat to our country.
Their sanctimonious, virtue-signaling obsession with ‘race and gender’ identity politics....their seditious, tyrannical advocacy and obstructionism, ad nauseam, on behalf of illegal aliens over the best interests of the American citizenry....their whitewashing of Antisemitism and bigotry within their own ranks....their ‘gimme all your money so we can give it to somebody else’ tax plan.
So called ‘Progressives’ have rendered the Democratic Party unrecognizable. I truly fear for the future of this country if they ever gain majority rule.
10
Kamala Harris is out of the race because she came across as affected and all over the place on the issues. It has zilch to do with her being a black woman.
If Michelle Obama entered the race tomorrow, all the other candidates would (or should) drop out by Tuesday. So let's stop the knee-jerk reactions!
5
Harris will more than likely be Biden's running mate. She is preserving her cash.
2
Every opinion writer is complaining about the Democrats who have a very good list of candidates for the Presidency. What’s the problem?
Bit of ageism here? Ok so you have no black candidate. Look what the republicans did to the last one.
The US doesn’t have a democratic presidential problem. The country has a problem with a black candidate. Republicans.
They get away with democratic soul murder and the press is screaming it’s the Democrats fault.
Would be nice Frank if you took on the political perverts of the GOP. For that is what they are doing, a perversion of your system, a selling out to money and foreign interests. Cover that sir.
1
If you think this newspaper has given Bernie the kind of coverage you claim, (and other media as well) then you don't read the NY Times, and don't listen to NPR, read Atlantic Monthly, CNN..... Because they have all pretty much acted like he doesn't exist, other than covering his heart attack.
8
Bernie is not seriously in the running, despite his position now toward the front of the Democratic pack, not because of his policies, not because he is a Socialist, not because of his recent heart attack, not because of his loud New Yorky honesty... but because at some subliminal level the Times and other major media understand that America is not ready to vote for a Jew.
Electability is the most dangerous word in the game. It is literally the single reason why we have a Cheeto orange dumpster fire in the White House, because Hillary Clinton was supposed to be the most “electable”. Look how that worked out and look where we’re at now.
4
"This opinion was was bought and paid for by the Democratic Party.' Just kidding of course, but it sure sounds like it. Oh, and didn't it start off addressing why Harris failed?
2
As far as age goes, one of the older candidates has the overwhelming support of young voters - and this should matter more than the age of the candidates.
https://www.vox.com/2019/3/7/18216899/bernie-sanders-bro-base-polling-2020-president
1
Organizing Dems is like herding cats.
1
It’s really a shame that we don’t have a viable alternative to the endless, self-serving and corrupt Democrat-Republican power struggle. The only real losers are the American citizenry.
2
Bruni ommitted mention of Amy Klobuchar. I guess she is the one that wins it all.
3
Maybe the primary is telling us that pundits and columnists are more hung up on age and race than the rest of us?
3
Once they know you won’t vote Republican for any federal office whatsoever, the Democrats just take you for granted.
3
I expect that it may take someone a lifetime of work and experience to run for the Presidency, resulting in candidates who are 70 . Yet, more than the just three septuagenarians, we have had 4 billionaires in the pack of potential Presidents.
Why do I think they’re not in touch with the needs of average folks today?
I'm a fan of MSNBC and CNN programs, especially Rachel Maddow and Don Lemon. They're wonderful entertainment. Night after night of pundits opining on the outrage of the day. Little or no mention of the actions or policies of the Trump Administration dealing with pollution, climate change, the social safety net, infrastructure, of course-- not suitable for stylish punditry.
2
You know who is not an old guy? Amy Klobuchar. No attention from the national media translates into low name recognition translates into low ( but rising ) poll numbers. She can win Republican areas, and has consistently done so. She is not an ideologue, which in my book is a good thing for this nation at this point in our history. All this hand-wringing and pearl-clutching and not a single vote has been cast yet. We need to fix this primary system for sure, but this time around, I’m pulling for Amy.
5
@Demelza
And Amy can take down Donald in a debate
2
“Four white front-runners, three of them 70 or older. What is this primary telling us?”
That people are tired of feeding more time and energy to the black hole that is identity politics, including people of color. This notion is born out in the research. The Atlantic ran a very thorough study about attitudes about race in America and found that minority americans are not that receptive to identity politics and less sensitive about that issue than white americans, especially white liberals. Yet we have white liberals shouting from their privileged positions about how important identity politics must be to them. The weak conspiracy theories around the failed campaign of Kamala Harris are an embarrassment of peak white liberal condescension.
Also Frank, for those of us who visit the NYT regularly, it's really not that difficult to parse out who the paper of record doesn't want to be president. You can talk about how the media doesn't shape the contest and how all your coverage is only responsive in nature but when you dedicate several feet of op/eds to bashing a singular candidate in a single week then it's not difficult to figure out. We've seen this process with Joe Biden (who easily got the worst of it), Pete Buttigieg, and Beto O'rourke. NYT has an editor in chief, it's not rudderless and it's readers aren't fools.
6
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/19/frank-bruni-buttigieg-071721
how frank bruni put Pete Buttigieg on the map.
I have a hard time taking bruni seriously on this subject. he obviously has a horse in this race.
Great article Mr. Bruni. Well put.
Frank Bruni wrote:
"Many Democrats blamed the media for Harris’s demise. They have a point, inasmuch as some news organizations never had the kind of romance with her that they did with Buttigieg and Beto O’Rourke...."
Uh, Frank, news organizations never had a "romance" with Mayor Pete. You're own paper, the NYTimes, has been unsuccessfully attempting to tear Mayor Pete apart over his supposedly overwhelming problem with black voters since almost the very beginning of his presidential candidacy. Failing at that, the NYTimes is now trying to tear him apart on his supposedly overwhelming problem with McKinsey.
The elitists in the mainstream media from their DC beltway bubble, especially the NYTimes, have been trying to destroy Mayor Pete from the moment he announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination, not romancing him. Hopefully those same elitists fail again in their latest attempt to destroy him.
3
Don’t write off Klobuchar, Booker or Castro!
1
At least Lindsey Graham has stopped defending Trump's lies - https://www.yahoo.com/news/lindsey-graham-russia-ukraine-conspiracy-032855396.html
"The next Democratic president will, too." (Have political acumen.)
Problem is...will there be a next Democratic president?
Biden is not a strong candidate, but he is ahead in the polls because he is not wrapped up in all the trendy political issues: prison reform, immigration, race relations, sweeping entitlement programs, feminism, gay pride.
Again - even against an incompetent thug like Trump - the 2020 election is the Democrat's to lose...
great article frank and i agree with pretty much everything you've said....it is just too easy for other columnists....one black one in particular....to blame the media for kamala's lack of support...but as you say....it is the voters....the polling voters....who weren't taken with her.
the democrats need to find some other....younger....but not too young....candidates such as senator sherrod brown a moderate and electable and smart and in his 60's....and if he were to choose a black running mate i think that would be a formidable challenge to the republicans.....this race is too important for the whole world for the democrats to blow it.
2
I’d like to suggest the obvious: “It’s the content, stupid!” Voters care more about actual policies and ideas rather than superficial racial/age classification. The public policy solutions advanced by Sanders and Warren appeal to younger voters. Why? Hardly a mystery. Because their solutions actually address student debt, climate change, political corruption, and wealth inequality.
2
What a knee jerk way to woke article. Could it be that Kamala Harris was just not a good candidate like Baraka Obama was? It seems that you are implying that the Democratic nominee for the president MUST be from a minority group. Why?
1
Hey! Trump was elected. What the heck are you talking about, "electability"? I think that Trump is just so awful and horrible and terrible that Democrats are having trouble competing with his circus stunts. Dems are not responsible for those problems systemic to America's election process.
1
What is this primary telling us? That voters like old white people who are fighters.
3
@Fester
True, but I cannot forgive Bernie for readily giving up his microphone to BLM protesters in 2016.
1
“None of the top four candidates — Biden, Warren, Buttigieg and Sanders — is a person of color...”
WHAT?!
Since when is Elizabeth Warren not a ”person of color”!
3
On another note, one candidate is a woman and another is a gay man.
No diversity?
1
Horse dung. Harris sounded like a Clinton style arrogant politician in ways no longer fashionable. It’s still a high school popularity contest but now the geeks are finally winning.
Stop focussing on color and what’s between their legs. Sanders and Warren, like Nader before them (how dare I mention his name right...? Even though he’s done more for U.S. citizens then any of these jerks...) may be old white people but perspective is huge.
Nader for instance would have done a great deal more for black communities and poor communities then Obama did yet of course he was not cool enough and was sidelined due to 2000 election scapegoating.
Tons and tons of politicians have suffered the same fate as Harris for far worse reasons. People that would have revolutionized this country in favor of the working class and poor voters and actually fought corporate domination... Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel and Ron Paul all come to mind. But again they were not handsome or cool enough. Cut to Trump...
You wanna have an argument about the role of the media? The radical left has been saying that since the 80’s at least... “fake news” was our term only we called it “for profit media”. A term these kids nowadays don’t even understand because of the Democrat and Republican Parties active sidelining of candidates that would have stuck up for the people. Money, that’s what counts in America and if you think otherwise you are fooling yourselves.
1
I can’t believe how stupid the “establishment” thinks that the democrat voters are. What’s with this obsession with skin color? Isn’t that the definition of racism? How about choosing the best candidate no matter if they are gay, female or a minority? The kingmakers in the Democratic Party need to stop with this race stuff. Pathetic.
6
@Thomas Aquinas
I can't believe how the democrat voters keep proving the establishment right.
2
"But some of the conclusions being drawn and complaints being raised don’t fully hold water."
Ahhhh. . . . okay. Patience, grasshopper. Me thinks your glass is not even half full . . . these old guys and gals may surprise you, Frank.
1
It's telling us we're going to lose
1
Donald Trump will lose to whoever runs on the Democratic ticket in 2020. I do not trust columns anymore because the titles of columns are, usually, the most substantive part of most columns due to space limitations. I'm tired of the fancy dancing columns, themselves, and I'm sick and tired of everything with the word, "Trump," attached to it because both America and the world have had enough of Donald Trump and his very pathetic family. At this point, the Trump name/brand can't float a skating rink.
This democratic primary tells you that we are infinitely better than the republicans, who have a corrupt, inept white guy in his 70s as their standard bearer.
The better candidate doesn't necessarily win, and the winning candidate isn't necessarily better. Only winners win.
1
Please do a similar (post-Mueller-report) piece on why Hillary Clinton lost. Be sure to hang on to your high, objective tone.
Congratulations on your front runners.
2
"I get that this Democratic primary isn’t playing out as anyone predicted or in remote accordance with the party’s image of itself and with its priorities."
Image and priorities? What if this is true for climate change, common sense gun control, fiscal and economic policy? Talk about not in accordance.
"For a party that celebrates diversity, pitches itself to underdogs and prides itself on being future-minded and youth-oriented, that’s a freaky, baffling turn of events."
Freaking baffling? You mean how many people may have to rethink the whole Democrat paradigm. Has everything that has been told to us, by the Democrat party and their allies in the media, been a lie? Barack Obama was elected twice. Yet there seems to be a mystery why Kamala Harris is out. Charles Blow thinks it's because of racism. Maybe she just wasn't what people wanted.
Frank it is as clear as the blue sky over Texas, the party that champions the rights of minorities can't get at least one in the top 5. The party that wants to tax rich people on to welfare has 2 billionaires and 2 millionaires in the top 4. And others a little further down.
That is freaking baffling.
Let's just boil down what the problem is here, according to Mr. Bruni. We're stuck, at this point, with candidates who are 1) not persons of color (who came up with this mouthful?); 2) waaaaay old (and wrinkly); 3) rich (an evil everyone in the world prays never falls to them.) It sounds to me as if this is a tad racist, ageist and whatever-the-heck it is against the wealthy. Hate is US.
2
Your paper is now obsessing about Mayor Pete's first job out of college job at McKinsey from 2007-2010 like he did something nefarious there. Just like the NYT obsessed about Hillary's emails.
For 3 days in a row it'd McKensie, McKensie in NYT's articles and editorial.
Mayor Pete left that job after 3 years to do public service as a mayor for 8 years.
From 2009 to 2017, he was an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve, attaining the rank of lieutenant and deploying to Afghanistan in 2014.
Pete could have stayed at McKensie and made a lot of money. Instead by being mayor and his husband a school teacher, they have the lowest net worth of all 2020 candidates ($100,000) and $$131,296 in student loan debt.
5
Folks: it’s the economy stupid/ and that is why Trump will probably win a second term
1
Likability...!
1
'Finally, there’s political acumen. There’s raw talent. The last Democratic president, Barack Obama, had plenty of it.'
None of these Democrats have what Obama had. Obama WAS about 'change'. Sanders ? Biden ? Warren ? Same old stuff.
Harris has some of that Obama promise. But she's too much of a pit bull. Seems like she's always spoiling for a fight. She just turns a lot of people off with that approach.
1
While it's good to puncture conventional wisdoms, as well as basically say: "There's something new happening which I don't understand," there are two areas here that are accepted too readily.
Diversity is being defined too narrowly. I see this all over. Apparently, now, everyone within a conventional demographic is the same. Individuality is dead. We are our demo. How did this happen and why is it acceptable?
Further, I don't care so much that reporters note trends and "bestow coverage based on established interest." I'd rather you beat the bushes, explore unconventional sources, think outside the usual boxes and find ideas and perspectives that we don't know about, and, that once made aware of through stories, might then begin to trend.
Take the attitude, even when covering a conventional story, but particularly when pondering something out-of-the-box: "What am I (and maybe everyone else) missing?" "What if I looked at this differently." Further, "And, if made known, could potentially help with the social, political, and environmental devastations hitting us?
For examples, why did it take the Ukraine scandal to remind us that there are dedicated, competent professionals in The State Department? They were there long before that.
There still hasn't been coverage of the pioneering work of the Clinton-era President's Council on Sustainable Development, or its tragic demise.
Even if true readers didn't obviously care about these things, that doesn't mean they couldn't come to.
1
While it's good to puncture conventional wisdoms, as well as basically say: "There's something new happening which I don't understand," there are two areas here that are accepted too readily.
Diversity is being defined too narrowly. I see this all over. Apparently, now, everyone within a conventional demographic is the same. Individuality is dead. We are our demo. How did this happen and why is it acceptable?
Further, I don't care so much that reporters note trends and "bestow coverage based on established interest." I'd rather you beat the bushes, explore unconventional sources, think outside the usual boxes and find ideas and perspectives that we don't know about, and, that once made aware of through stories, might then begin to trend.
Take the attitude, even when covering a conventional story, but particularly when pondering something out-of-the-box: "What am I (and maybe everyone else) missing?" "What if I looked at this differently." Further, "And, if made known, could potentially help with the social, political, and environmental devastations hitting us?
For examples, why did it take the Ukraine scandal to remind us that there are dedicated, competent professionals in The State Department? They were there long before that.
There still hasn't been coverage of the pioneering work of the Clinton-era President's Council on Sustainable Development, or its tragic demise.
Even if true readers didn't obviously care about these things, that doesn't mean they couldn't come to.
I'm tired of the DNC. I find it hard to believe that the most electable candidates are the one's they have put forth. How is it that we don't like a president who is about nothing but money, but we allow the DNC to make money the big reason anyone gets put forward?. Shy of Sanders I can live without the lot of them, but I liked Harris. People seem to be afraid of Sanders, and I am too a little. He talks of socialism too much. I need it explained to me how open borders actually work for everyone involved before i'd consider voting for it. I just can't get my head around how that can work. If we could get healthcare for all that would be enough. The thing with Bernie is that he's the only one that's true blue, the only one that hasn't changed his story just to become president,and if people would let him know what they are looking for I believe he is the only one that will do it. He has to know what that is though. I also don't think he's the least bit fearful of the president. I'm tired of money candidates, and people that vote for things to remain how they are for fear of change, when they don't seem compelled to look into it. I think i'm really just tired. I still think the president isn't leaving if he's voted out, and i don't see the dems doing anything strong or fast enough for my liking. The lack of leadership is staggering. My own senator is ok, but quiet as a mouse. I don't care for it.
3
As all presidents have been men, electing the first woman president is enough diversity for me - especially as intelligent, committed a fighter for the middle class is Elizabeth Warren. It’s time to get behind her.
2
I liken the American political system of the last few decades like teams on a football field. You, the spectator, are on the 50 yard line before kick off, and the Democrats start on the 50 yard line, but the GOP has started at the 75 line. The object of the game is to meet in the middle of your starting positions. Ideally, you'd want both teams to start equally distant from each other and negotiate to meet at the 50 yard line, more or less. But what has actually happened is that the GOP has moved from the 75 yard line, to the endzone, to the locker room, to the parking lot, all the way to the other side of town, while the Dem centrist leadership has stayed at the 50 yard line or even a little into the GOP territory in an effort to get the GOP to meet them somewhere on the field and appear to be actually playing the game is intended. The end result is that most of what is accomplished is right leaning by default, and that has eroded the institutions of America since there hasn't been a really left leaning voice in the conversation in decades. Warren and Sanders only sound scary to some because their proposals are actually capitalist with an emphasis on the well being of people and ensuring their productivity remains viable. Those that disagree are more concerned that making sure everyone has a fair shot would upend the power structures that have remained in place since Jim Crow, where White Men are and always should be King, despite the fact that is changing, for the better.
1
After reading this column and thinking about the Democrats currently running, all I can think about is how will we be able to survive four more years of Trump.
1
Perhaps Democratic leaning voters
prefer experienced politicians with long records of public service.
That is not a bad thing. Trump proved that electing a political newbie who is a selfish narcissist to bust government was a bad call.
Maybe we'll go with people who want to govern, instead of destroy, these United States for a welcome change.
218
@howard We also need to find a way to limit the GOP's overall agenda of deconstructing government.
10
If we've learned anything from recent elections, it's that experience isn't an asset anymore. Experience simply means more stuff for opponents to attack. John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Mitt Romney had a lot of experience. They lost. Barak Obama and Donald Trump didn't. They won.
Joe Biden's "experience" simply means that if we nominate him, we're going to have Trump tearing him down over Hunter Biden and Burisma the entire campaign, just like he did with Hillary Clinton's emails. Is if fair? No. But, life's not fair when you run for president.
3
@Fourteen14 There is a difference between actual corruption in office and compromise on legislation. No effective politician can get anything done without compromise, even within the ranks of their own majority. Compromise does not mean you've been "bought" by campaign donations of special interests. Like it or not, corporations in vital industries like energy, healthcare and banking play an important role in our quality of life, mostly for good. Their interests have to be considered, not because they have "bought" an elected official but because all of us depend on their products and services. They need monitoring and regulating and brought along when major changes in the public interest must be made.
5
It is natural to look for reasons, find blame when things don't go according to wishes. There is a lot of complexity to it, but for me Kamala Harris did not have the organization, nor the cogent answers to some basic questions she should have been prepared to answer - i.e. Private Insurance, Prosecutorial record.
That said - hopefully she learns from this. She's an impressive person with a compelling background. Maybe next time.
The Democrats have a lot of constituencies. They lined up a lot of candidates. It would be more surprising if there weren't a lot of bruised feelings after an inevitable pare-down.
2
There's still a woman of color in the race. And she's a religious minority as well. Tulsi Gabbard. Veteran, progressive, and member of Congress, the focus of her campaign is ending the crazy military interventions that have kept us at war for the last 18 years. That stance, and her refusal to pander to the far-left wing of the party the way most of the other candidates have (e.g., free health care for illegal aliens), give her great crossover appeal with independents and even some Republicans. She's young, she's experienced, she sounds great, she isn't a stale pale male, and she's electable.
3
@Tom
The Conservative media and right-wingers support Tulsi Gabbard.
Sorry. That's a deal-breaker for me.
1
What does it tell us? Democrats, like their Republican counterparts, prefer candidates with experience rather than candidates with hype.
1
Maybe Democrats will fall in line behind Bloomberg. He's the only candidate that has even a remote chance of beating Trump.
4
@Brian Middlebrooks
I don't think so. But then again, so do many in New Yorkers who haven't forgotten Bloomberg's unprecedented third term as Mayor, and his racist "Stop & Frisk" policing policy -- and his recent comment that Cory Booker is "well spoken" doesn't help matters either.
And do we really need another billionaire President?
It's NO to Mike in 2020.
1
A prosecutor's attitude & talent are appropriate for impeaching the president and possibly removing him from office; with the first objective of improving our checks & balances system as it relates to future occupants of the White House; and then secondarily beating Donald in the general after his tactical political wings have been clipped. That attitude is not appropriate for leading & facilitating us into a new economy. This is why Harris could not gain traction.
From a personality perspective, Bobby Kennedy also with limited experience would address our legal & social-economic needs better and gaining traction; before he was shot in Los Angeles. (last point, hopefully not relevant today).
1
@Peter Liljegren
Bobby Kennedy would have been a first rate President: smart, educated, not open to corruption due to family money, passionate about the poor and disenfranchised. He was a loss to those of us young at the time; after the JFK assassination, Bobby stepped up and gave the most moving plea for peace and justice I have ever heard; he had lost his brother; he walked into a place full of angry people and bared his soul. They heard him; we all heard him. I don't know if we will ever see a family like the Kennedys again, raised for public service and the responsibility to give back. Perhaps the new young Kennedy will carry the torch. I come from a big Irish clan; pain is part of the DNA, as is the willingness to fight for decency and fairness. I hope the friendship between the Obamas, Bushes and Clintons bears fruit. Trump will eventually be a past aberration; we just have to "keep calm and carry on". That got the Brits through WWII; it might get us through the destructive Trump years. Then we can rebuild, better and stronger.
It's all very simple. The voters get to vote. Kamala Harris would be in, if she had significant support from voters. She doesn't, so she's out. Being a Woman of Color guarantees nothing, and neither does being an old white guy.
4
At least the Democrats are consistent. Here we are gearing up to campaign against the most incompetent and corrupt president in modern history most of our effort is going into defeating ourselves. How Many times do we have to do this?
Too old, too young, too white, too male, too gay or not gay enough. To those who think that last one is absurd, you're right, it is. It's also very much a reality in the "Community". Anyway, in however many words Mr. Bruni has described our defeat. All identity and not one word about policy because if you don't look like me I'm not going to listen to you.
Yes, the media has to own some of this. The McKinsey issue is way out of proportion because of coverage and as he admits the press is playing to what sells. The DNC has its own issues. However the bottom line is we need to get over it. The primaries are the elimination round, people are going to drop out, If your favorite doesn't make the cut then find a new favorite. Don't help Trump by tearing down the rest of the field.
I've been following politics long enough to know that this is par for the course. We complain that the Republicans are all in lockstep. Well guess what they're not. They don't agree on everything but they do know that if they don't win the elections they get nothing so they unite around staying in power. The Democrats can never seem to manage that kind of cooperation. That is the difference that is going give Trump another four years.
7
We democrats seriously have to stop all the whining.
Nobody forced Harris out of the race, she decided to quit. In truth, she is a highly charismatic woman who proved to be a poor candidate. (As did Beto).
As a senator from the richest state in the union, she was unable to raise money. As a woman of color, she was unable to get significant African American support. Running for President is The Hunger Games. Lotos of other qualified candidates have tanked. But let's not make this into a national tragedy. It's not.
She is still a top prospect for VP and a sitting U.S. Senator from California. Nobody should be crying a river for her.
7
Quite simple really...In the past, Democrat " elders" sought the best national candidate. Today, most , if not all, are self-anointed.
Now the line up card looks pretty thin:
Biden was and , is proving, to be a problematic campaigner. Anger at 83 year olds asking the "obvious" question is a poison pill.
Sanders is one note and Medicare for All is not a national theme.
Warren should never have learned the word, " structural".
Buttigieg's vulnerabilities hit every demographic : what level of ego imagines you can be President from the 3d largest city in Indiana? Talk about " elite" ...and , to tell the truth, many will not be at ease with a gay President ( not out of " homophobia" but just from a " gut " feeling for family and children , most especially in minority communities.
Booker tries to hard to convince us we are the problem
Billionaires are out of fashion ( much less those near 80 )
As for Harris, we are being told it candidates are symbolic when they are " minorities" but a contests do not work that way.
" Old White Men" is stupid since many old White men vote.
This is the B team in a game in which there is not evident A team who would subject themselves to this abuse and folly.
2
It's called "social class." Now you know.
“We give you a tide of Warren in part because you thrilled to the earlier trickle. We serve you oodles of Buttigieg because we’ve noticed your appetite for it.” Understandable for an organization that wants to sell views, copies, and clicks. But you do see, right, that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, a self-reinforcing cycle? That Bernie, Beth, Biden, Bloomberg, and Buttigieg are on people’s minds in part because you keep them in front of people’s eyes? Isn’t it likely that Marianne Williamson, for instance, would be lifted up in the polls if she had one tenth — heck, one 20th — of the ink that Bernie gets?
I, too, will vote for the Democrat nominee. Period. But it won't be because of the DNC who ~ with their officious debate "qualifications" linked to begging donor funds ~ are determined to turn off voters of any stripe vs. the unindicted-criminal incumbent.
1
What about Blumberg? I find it interesting that none of the commentators to this article mention him... Wuwt?
Please media, quit giving us your OPINIONS and give us FACTS about each candidate!
To a Sanders supporter his prospects look hopeful. He was a close runner up last time around and he has the experience, financial support and a base. He has a message. He has passion.
And since when does an old Jewish guy not count as "diverse"?
2
So if the 22nd amendment limits the presidency to 8 consecutive years, why can't we get Obama to run again?
1
@Sipa111
That isn't what it says. It says a President can't be elected more than twice.
Undiverse? If Bernie wins, he'll be the first Jewish president. If Warren wins, she'll be the first female president. If Mayor Pete wins, he'll be the first gay president and the youngest president. Diversity isn't always about race.
8
Oh brother. More woke articles lamenting the pigmentation "issue." News flash, Frank, nobody really cares. No sensible person is going to vote for someone (or not vote for them) based on their race. Can we set this nonsense aside please? It's boring. And incidentally, the reason Harris is out is because she transparently used her race as a cudgel against Biden. She, like this article, misjudged people's primary concerns in this election.
9
Why don’t we celebrate that voters aren’t AGEISTS...?!
That’s a good thing...
2
News Flash: Nikki Haley likely will be the first woman President.
4
@MarkGrossman
Hardly like after her recent comments about the Confederate flag.
I suggest you read it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/07/us/Nikki-Haley-confederate-flag.html
@MarkGrossman
It is sure looking like she will be. Only one who has a chance to beat her to it is Tulsi Gabbard but Democrats won't even consider her. It could be a choice between Gabbard and Haley in 2024 if Democrats would stop labeling everyone a Russian Agent.
2
The primary is telling you your party is atomized, ideologically incoherent, racially obsessed, captive to a corrupt gerontological elite and descending back into the anachronism of socialism.
5
The Democrats lineup looks positively, well, Republican, LOL. Might as well go with Trump.
1
The reason why Harris had to drop out was because the progressive side of the party took aim at her (along with the media) even before she entered the race.
The attack she made on Biden, and the attack on her by Gabbard (why is she running?!) damaged Harris. Harris was by no means a bad candidate but she couldn’t convince black voters that she would fight for them or progressives that she would have their backs. This was probably an irrational fear built up by far left and the attacks in the debates. The more we demand ideological “purity” we will continue to lose great candidates and possibly the election.
1
"We’ve always been fundamentally responsive, bestowing coverage based on established interest, and we’re more responsive than ever in this digitized age of sophisticated, real-time measures of precisely what our audience does and doesn’t turn to." That's exactly the problem, although not necessarily Harris'.
As Bruni does point out a few paragraphs later, the former governors might have been more effective candidates than any of the front runners. But they started with low name recognition and little support, and the media doesn't seem to believe that part of its job was to provide some basic perspective on who they are. Instead, it just provides pr (albeit sometimes negative) for the front runners.
In my not-necessarily-humble opinion, that's wrong and bad.
1
While it is sad that we have candidates dropping out before one vote is made in the Iowa Caucus, it is a consequence of this 24/7 media cycle that started speculation for the 2020 candidates the day after the 2016 results.
Kamala Harris looked good on paper, but these long haul campaigns are the test to see how well they perform in front of the rest of the country. It does not appear that she translated well beyond referencing the color of her skin, her sex or her checking account, which seems to be the baseline selection requirement for Democrats these days, not necessarily performance. If this process is really about a vision for the country, performance and who is best qualified for the awesome responsibilities as President of the United States, then you have to seriously look at Michael Bloomberg regardless of the disdain people have with the size of his checking account.
In the end, I think Harris could be a great US Attorney General but I was not sold on her at all as a potential president. She fell into the same Democrat tropes that frankly turn off many in this country. Yes, she would be infinitely better than what we have with Trump, but frankly there are much better and more qualified candidates than her. Iowa would have proven that as it historically does...but thanks to the 24/7 media circus, this is why she is no longer in the race.
1
Any mature, decent, moral man or woman with good knowledge and experience, good social skills, and characteristics such as honesty, open-mindedness, et cetera will do!!
We must examine Trump’s success as a political phenom, notwithstanding his mastery of the 3 B’s of politics bigotry, bullying and b/s and his checkered business reputation. Voters gravitate to politicians they perceive to be “authentic.” I believe Trump is play acting authenticity, like his successful role as reality tv business mogul.
Trump’s faithful base is aware of his lying and incendiary bigotry, but they are certain deep down he is true to them; they say he says what they are thinking ( revealed in many interviews) and he will fight for them. His words may be publicly false, but they believe he will truly live up to his campaign promises.
Sanders and Warren exude such authenticity. Does their constituency believe their
plans are always achievable or even realistic? Probably not. But no one can dispute that they will fight for the financial, educational, healthcare and quality of life needs of the average person in opposition to the powerful monied interests. You cannot bet on them to win every fight.. but they will fight every battle.
The press describes Biden as authentic as an excuse for his gaffs. I am not sure his current success is related to “authenticity” or a comfort with his experience. His confrontation at the recent town hall is evidence that he is authentically losing it.
Mayor Pete is literally the new kid on the block. He may lose his luster. Booker,
Harris and others may be qualified candidates, but they have not bonded as “authentic” with voters.
So, the hand wringing starts even before the primaries begin. The Republicans had a "zillion" candidates and it wasn't till well into process did it start to become clearer who was going to emerge the victor and unfortunately it was Trump.
For the democrats, "playing it safe" with a candidate like Biden will ultimately be a disaster and in my opinion a corporate/establishment choice as the candidate will be 2016 all over again.
3
We have fallen victim to a primary system in which the talents needed to win the nomination in many cases, are not those a president needs to govern well. A well functioning democracy needs an informed electorate.
2
In my mind the press is picking the candidates with endless coverage of the 3 leaders and Buttigeig. In 2016 they picked Trump because of his reality tv theatrics. We need a much more thoughtful way to choose candidates, not who is the most outrageous.
3
Nope. They picked Trump. But not Biden, Sanders, Warren or Buttigieg.
The Democratic Party should have one objective for the 2020 presidential election: defeat Trump. His administration's policies defy any norms of American history. The president governs without any foreign policy but by whims and grudges. Trump's stances on immigration, saving the environment, and on civil rights are anathema to any democrat.
We need a transitional presidential candidate who can heal the wounds and unite this country. Going more left and perhaps being a socialist will doom the democrats. We may not achieve everything we hope for this time around. It may not be the first gay president or the first woman president. It may not break through old barriers. We need to have a new steady captain at the helm of our shaky ship and set a new course for the country.
5
It’s nice, from time to time, to read something, anything, about the Democrats and the next presidential election. Personally, I have lost complete track of who is in, who is out, who is still alive, or who has passed on. The Debates? I haven’t watched one yet. Too many people with too little to say in too little time.
On the other hand we have the Impeachment debate. It is probably warranted but also more probably a complete waste of time. It does have one over-arching consequence though. It keeps the name of Trump in full display, everywhere, all the time. Just like 2016, it’s free advertising for Trump, courtesy of the media and the Democratic establishment. At this rate, by the time we reach the Iowa caucuses, Democrats may vote for Trump simply because it will be the only name that will come to their mind, having forgotten who else is running.
Thank you Mr. Bruni for reminding us that someone else is running in 2020.
4
@DJ please get involved in your local politics. Please look for articles and news stories about the Democrats there are plenty. Now is the time to pay close attention. And please vote.
2
I want Bernie but would vote for Warren. The rest of them would do well to join the GOP.
4
@Hector, vote Blue no matter who, otherwise you are voting FOR Trump.
4
@Hector
And it's that type of thinking that landed us with Trump in 2016.
Don't you ever learn?
1
The burden of us, Liberal, Progressives, Democrats, is broad tent. We seek Fairness, Equality of Opportunity, a Fair chance. We believe in our Constitution, the Purpose and Article I Section 8; says...".. to provide for the ... common Welfare".
Yet we never elect a "woke" President. We will never elect a President based on "Identity Politics". We never elect for quite a while, decades, a President soley on the critical Climate Change Environmental Politics.
No, we lost in 2016 for many reasons, but one clear, unarguable reason, was our candidate's lack of toughness vs Trump. To beat Trump in 2020 will require all hands on deck. No Jill Stein, No "hurt people". No sitting this out because you are "offended". Get over it.
Only, and truly only, can this Political war be even close to being won, is with a full throated, aggressive, smart, great messenging candidate. Connecting to all. Speaking not to cliques or sub-groups.
Every single policy, articulated by our Democratic candidates is meaningless. Only when a Democrat sits in the White House, will any Liberal and Progressive policy mean anything.
4
Beating Trump is a far more complicated matter than the more common variety of elections. Here we have an incumbent who lies and cheats and so does Republican Senators, WH staff Bill Barr and the rest of his administration. Any of our candidates might win against a normal incumbent but this is far from normal. The Democrats have to fight lies and dishonesty from the outset and cheating is already underway. If Trump wins, it will likely include foreign interference as well. If we win, it will be an incredible happening against all odds. Biden, Steyer and Bloomberg will have a very tough time against a criminal machine like Trump and his administration. They are already messing with social media and will just turn up the steam as we get closer to the election. As Democrats, we have not prepared ourselves for such antics.
1
My money is on Biden and Stacy Abrams.Joe Biden calling that guy a liar who confronted him gave me comfort. You are not going to beat Trump by playing nice. The full court press should be on to register and get out the vote. We truly need to stop this fear of Trump's base. Our base is bigger if we field the right candidates.It is a binary choice either go back to the stone age with Trump or move to the future.
5
@Steven McCain
He lost me with that exchange. He called an 83 year old guy fat, and challenged him to a push-up contest! Not exactly Presidential.
The premise of the guy's question was faulty, but the fact is that the whole Burisma business stinks, and the real facts do bother most people. And the story broke months ago; why does Biden still not have a smooth, clear, practiced answer? That's just bad campaigning.
2
I think the problem is that the Democrats don't have a candidate who can beat Trump. Biden is demonstrably too old, Sanders and Warren would get clobbered as socialists, and the country, according to polls, is not ready for a gay president. Who does that leave? Nobody.
No scandal has, or will affect Trump's base. The recovery economy appears likely to roll on for another year at least. With headwinds like that, even a strong candidate like a Bill Clinton or a Barack Obama would be facing formidable odds, and the Democrats simply don't have one in the current field.
I'm afraid we're in for another 4 years of Trump. I think that's why the Democrats have a mess, and it's not baffling.
7
Political talent and policies are the main factors influencing voter preferences. In Biden's case it his and Obama's record. Race, age, and sex are much less important in this race.
3
Identity politics is corrosive. Period. The people out and those that remain are there for reasons other than their “identities”. One thing Republicans do right is play identity politics close to the vest. Democrats wear it with neon signs. It’s tiresome.
4
I was immediately turned off by K Harris at the debates because of her contentious attitude and obvious anger. Not who I want representing the U.S.
5
"We give you a tide of Warren in part because you thrilled to the earlier trickle. We serve you oodles of Buttigieg because we’ve noticed your appetite for it."
In other words, you're Fox News. Frank, the media can't just follow. We need the media to report and analyze. There are (still) a lot of Democratic candidates. We need help understanding their positions, not hit pieces on Buttigieg because of his prior employment with a consultancy.
5
This primary is telling us it's going to be exciting, Frank.
I'm looking forward, never back.
Blue tsunami, baby.
5
I don't have time to read through all the comments, so hopefully others have made this point before: Bruini's comment about the media not running the process is only half right. They are not running the whole process, but they ARE definitely doing all they can to undermine Bernie Sanders. Sanders gets so much less time and space than any of the others despite what he's accomplished: if nothing else that he has collected over 4 MILLION donations, he's not taking money from billionaires, and the man has integrity up the ying-yang! Which other candidate can say those things? Let me give you a hint: nada. He would have beat Trump in 2016, and he will beat him in 2020. The media's coverage of Sanders has been disgraceful--and sickening.
For example, how many times have you heard the fact that in red-state Indiana, in 2016, he beat Hillary in the Democratic primary in 74 of 92 counties, and he beat her in all but one county north of Indianapolis? Sanders' appeal is much more than the media can even imagine, especially among younger people, and yet, he can even get fair coverage of his positions and policies--and he's leading in California right now!
Nothing says anti-Bernie prejudice like the coverage in the mainstream media!
3
@Kim Scipes
Bernie is too old; he is now recovering from a heart attack; we don't need another Woodrow Wilson. Elizabeth Warren has the legislative chops to fight for good policies and legislation. Biden is also old, and shows signs of failing health. At the very least we need not elect a potential invalid; FDR was the exception to the rule for years, until he lacked the strength to push back against Stalin. We are now facing a relentless adversary, Putin. Warren might work well.
What the current crop of candidates shows that you still have to prove yourself more if you are a woman or a minority. Even in the Democratic Party primary. It isn't that most people are racist -- otherwise Obama would not have been elected -- but most people have an unconscious bias, which is hard for people to recognize, acknowlege, or accept. This pervades many aspects of our lives, beyond just politics.
2
The simple fact is many Democrats are looking for the candidate that can beat Trump, if there is one. The likelihood of a woman, or a woman of color, beating Trump is slim to none. At this juncture, I don’t see anyone de-throning Trump, as the Democrats haven’t offered up a candidate that has any appeal! Sad but true.
1
We're facing the death of our country. Those who voted for this corrupt grifter, in large part, were giving what they believed was a "poke in the eye" to "the establishment." Unfortunately -- for them and for us -- those of "the establishment" were the ones who kept our democratic experiment going. To those who are really considering voting for this obscene person, please first ask yourself what the outcome could be, long-term. Other than destruction of the U.S.A., we will be facing increasingly deadly weather, increasingly deadly foes, and perhaps the actual collapse of our country. Simply remember this: Ordinary German citizens were forced in 1945 -- often at gunpoint -- to clean up, inter and otherwise remove the dead and dying of concentration camps. Will we face a similar future? Vote with your minds. Vote to preserve what was given us, for our future generation(s).
3
How about credibility, honesty, integrity, a smart policy approach, forthrightness, character, stability...? Name the candidate who has all of those. I dare you.
@Rocky Bernie has all of that in spades.
@Bill
But Bernie STILL doesn't have the African-American vote.
That says a lot.
What's baffling about it? People were just not impressed by Kamala Harris. That happens. She's not a particularly impressive candidate, and has more of a telegenic appeal than a stellar resume. Her management of her campaign shows that she is a poor executive and would have made a mediocre president.
7
We democrats lost the last election because if DNC incompetence and our own arrogance. It is beginning to look like we did not learn anything from the Trump election.
3
The media chases poll numbers, yet early poll numbers reflect nothing but name recognition. That's all. Recognize the name, check the box. That's why Joe Biden came out like gangbusters - people knew his name.
Buttigieg has been gaining ground in Iowa because he has been campaigning in Iowa and people like what they hear. Buttigieg gains, Biden loses. How tough is that to see.
1
The cutoff of age for running for President should be 65...I’m no youngster at 67 but the idea that that two of the three candidates would be in there 80’s before there first term is completed is ludicrous...if you want an example take a look at Winston Churchill when he ran for a second time as Conservative leader, he was an enfeebled old man ravaged by the onset of dementia...you have to be realistic.
1
@doug mac donald
The other WWII icon, FDR, was also in failing health at the end of his Presidency. He was unable to follow Churchill's advice to beat back Stalin; dementia or not, Churchill saw Stalin clearly, and predicted the Iron Curtain falling. Perhaps we were tired after a grueling war; however FDR in his prime could pushed Stalin. Both are examples of an aging process in play. I do not support Bernie Sanders, or Biden; they are both too old. We don't have another young, healthy Obama in the wings; I'll go with Elizabeth Warren.
@Linda Miilu
Churchill did not as I understand suffer from dementia in 1945 this was later in the 1950’s but you make a great point about FDR about his age and sickness they played a great part in his giving to much sway latitude to Stalin...and you are correct again that Churchill saw the threat of Stalin far more clearly than Roosevelt.
Cant we find one candidate to take one for the team? One who would ask China for dirt on Ivanka's business dealings, in exchange for a favorable trade policy under their Presidency.
1
It's not who you are, it's about the ideas you present and how well you present them.
4
The more things change the more they stay the same.....
1
It is telling me of the hypocrisy that is the Democratic Party.
3
Sherrod Brown paired with Amy Klobuchar would be perfect/ some are predicting a brokered convention
Trump is such a clear and present danger to the country that, I believe, voters are seeking above all else someone who can beat him. In that regard, they are looking for someone who is tough, who can give as well as they can take, someone who is experienced and someone who will have the wherewithal to reset the country on the right course once elected. I believe that is why Joe Biden still leads nationally in the polls, despite his gaffes and stumbles. I also believe that many are seeking someone who can attract Republicans and Independents who previously voted for Trump and Biden seems to have the most cross over appeal of any of the candidates.
Harris was a very flawed candidate who ran a very bad and inconsistent campaign, but that having been said, I believe voters are indeed afraid of a nominee of color, frankly, because of all of the overt racism that has surfaced since Trump has been in office. Racism's resurgence in America I believe has shocked many in revealing the pervasiveness of this sickness. And Trump's whole mantra is a hatred of the previous black President, whose entire legacy he has destroyed. Americans do not want to see that again.
Hillary lost and so voters are reluctant to nominate another woman candidate. At the end of the day, America is still an incredibly racist and misogynistic place and voters believe a benevolent white Democrat as President might be the only cure to the disease that is Donald Trump. Some progress is better than none.
3
Kudos to Frank for puncturing the absurd narrative floated by the failed Ms. Harris.
3
The top five candidates include two women (Sanders and Klobuchar) and a gay man. That IS diverse. Stop using the word “diversity” when what you mean is that there are African -Americans.
6
As a lifelong Democrat, I am happy with the group of candidates still standing. It's the media complaining about it that I find disturbing. I have quit a few black friends and acquaintances that were never fans of Harris or even Booker. I don't think most blacks voted for Obama because he was black, we all loved him because of the man he was— he inspired us all — his color had nothing to do with it, it was simply a plus. And to think everyone that leans liberal votes for color/gender and not substance needs to think again, it's insulting. What I am hungry for is stability, experience and dignity. And being 68 myself, I can tell you those qualities get better with age. Oh, except the current mess (the most polite word I can come up with) squatting in our Oval Office.
4
We have developed this carnage over time. We, yes, all of us, basically watched as the climate disaster grew into the clear and present danger of today. We watched as 'economics' somehow enriched the few with many billions and though living costs rose, wages did not. We are criminally, immorally unequal 'economically'. So, ruined the planet and ruined community: this is what today's politics is telling us.
We are so bad at democracy. Terrible citizens. I'll just use a few examples. The electoral college, and yes, the Senate are antiquated vestiges of helping 'smaller population states' and slave states feel more equal. So now, their states' votes count more than the citizens in California and New York and beyond. This is beyond democracy; as illegitimate as our President.
Another example is the single-issue conservative voter that relies on an easy way to vote: abortion or guns or immigration. Or maybe all three (just three of hundreds, thousands of issues). Or, it's the economy, stupid; as if morality and compassion are really for dopes. And about the three issues conservatives stand on, why are Democrats so bad about dealing with those? Jesus, just talk about them like an adult; you won't change most minds but you'll change a few. Promote contraception, education and better jobs for women; these have helped bring down abortion numbers more than all the anger and punitive laws from Republicans. Talk about the need to limit immigration and the rights of gun owners. Real.
1
Democrats should stop obsessing about whether or not there are two many white candidates and start obsessing about the issues that will win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, at a minimum, and Minnesota Ohio and Florida.
2
Mr. Bruni, your last paragraph said it all.
Pete Buttigieg for the win!
- A non-white, non-male, and straight supporter who donated again 15 minutes ago
1
So you mean that the media has treated Mayor Pete (who reminds of no one so much as Eddie Haskell) the same way you treated Elizabeth Warren. Except the questions they are asking of him are relevant to his character while the ones you posed were speculation about how other people felt about the "extreme" candidates you feared.
And now you mourn the loss of Kamala Harris who never really provided a rationale for candidacy after her on point calling out of Joe Biden's hypocrisy.
I believe I can help you find a solution, begin by looking in the mirror.
The Democratic candidates are suffering from brain death, lackluster fundraising, and small crowds at events. The only candidate who can draw a big crowd is Bernie Sanders. He is the only honest candidate in the field. His plan is to massively raise taxes for working middle class Americans - and he is honest about it. They want open borders and free health care for illegal aliens. The only choice for working class Americans is clear: Donald J. Trump.
1
You forgot to add, based on media accounts, that "she was unable to manage her own campaign much less mange the country". In the end, based on the admiring media, she was not qualified to be President. It was the admiring media that forced her to pull the plug....too bad.
1
Are we all bored with the urgent necessity of social change, racial justice, economic redistributionism? That's really all the Dems have on offer. Maybe we just want a little normality. We don't want to treat America like a social experiment designed to please eager leftists; maybe we'd really just like to be left alone by the government to get on with our own lives. Get ready for 4 more years of Mr. Trump.
4
The only people that think it’s a mess is the corporate owner Establishment Dems. They have no idea anymore how to sell their donor class’s demands while giving the 99% what they need to survive and recover from 40 years of sociopathic destruction and duplicity of the Dems and their neoliberal corporate agenda.
1
Mr. Bruni, it’s still very early. At this point in 2008 Obama (in the low to mid 20s) was far behind Hillary (in the mid to high 40s) in the polls. Pundits were writing about how green and inexperienced Obama was. Please stop writing as if it's all done and set in stone. Oh yeah, and give Sherrod Brown a call and get him to jump into the race.
4
Of those top four candidates one is a woman and another is gay. That's pretty good diversity if you ask me. And Booker is still in it -- there's a very good chance he'll be chosen to be vice president.
3
The primary is telling us that we, the people want normal. It doesn't matter what color.
5
From the article:That same month, Rachel Maddow of MSNBC told her, in a face-to-face interview, 'I think there is a good chance that you are going to win the nomination. ”
In all respect to Ms. Maddow, whose show I watch, she really didn't know anything about Ms. Harris the person.
2
My sister voted for Trump because he is “tough” she said. So that was her idea of a tough man? A man who calls people names, makes fun of a disabled reporter, demeans a Gold Star family, and wears orange makeup to look tan. My idea of a joke.
If Buttigieg gets the nomination, he will debate Trump under the table. While Trump shows his lack of integrity, Buttigieg will show his smarts. Some say Buttigieg is too young to be president, but I say that is a good thing.
My sis passed away this past April, and I wonder what she would think of Trump now. Would she think he is tough, or a clown?
She once told me Trump was a mistake, but she still supported him. Go figure.
3
I agree with Mr. Bruni. I will only say that the candidates win or loose,.The losers blame the media and the "stupid" voters. The winners take full credit. It is the ability of a candidate to attract voters and the ability of the candidate to create interest in the media towards one's positions in order to gain coverage. It is the ability to control one's situation nationally that wins. The rest is empty talk.
1
Policies, policies, policies,policies, policies.
2
So disparaging older white men and billionaires is okay for my party that condemns sexism, racial discrimination, and prejudice of all stripes?
And here I thought the GOP had the monopoly on rampant hypocrisy.
1
I’m a black American. I wonder if black voters are confronted with a choice between Mike Bloomberg or Donald Trump, which one will they choose?
I admit stop and frisk was as offensive as possible. But four more years of Trump is far worse.
2
How can a person be “insufficiently” gay? It appears that the LGBTQ community has some real nonsensical drama that sounds really foolish.
8
Disappointed Democrats grousing about Harris dropping out are simply blocking out the fact that she was a poor choice for President. A slick, opportunistic, manufactured, poser from Cal. No conspiracy, racism, or sexism needed. Same is true with Trump and Clinton. The reason Clinton lost is the most obvious one. She was rejected for good reason.
3
Many if not most of us have the sinking feeling we are witnessing a repeat of 2016 in which by a number of means Sanders was frozen out by the power brokers. Of course that he is only a Democrat every four years doesn’t inspire loyalty and I am horrified to hear from my daughter that none of her college chums will vote unless Bernie is the nominee. That too haunted 2016 and indeed may have given us not only Trump but his neo-fascist cabal of the richest of the rich who prefer to destroy our land and the nation to get still richer. Biden makes me cringe and I am more or less his contemporary, but as I and all my exes did three years ago we would hold our noses and punch his dot. Kamala was a terrific candidate at the onset but I read so much nonsense about not being black enough or marrying out of race or being the black woman who put black men in prison that the writing was on the wall as soon as she showed some real spine. Bernie wasn’t electable in 2016 despite pummeling Trump in every poll from first week to last because yes people wanted revolution and he rather than Trump had the street cred to bring it. Trump, like his gilded toilet, was for suckers and the filthy rich, and I mean filthy. When I saw Bloomberg say that Trump would wipe the floor with everyone but him I wanted to remind him that almost nobody I know can stomach the thought of more Trump since it’s always repetition without a difference. Word for word in scene after scene we are watching dementia.
“ there’s otherwise no committee of elders or secret cabal that decrees which candidates” Really? I don’t buy that.
The DNC is corrupted by corporate interests and you still have the likes of Debbie Wasserman Schulz running things behind the scene.
3
Yes, Frank. Four of the past seven presidents (counting the incumbent) were governors. But of the previous six none were governors. You havre tho go all the way back to Roosevelt. So what does that prove? Nothing. You could certainly make an argument that the six from Truman to Ford were—on average—better than the subsequent seven. At any rate, the temptation to manipulate statistics must be very strong. Try harder to resist it.
To answer your headline, it tells us that Trump will win re-election if we don’t put up a candidate that excites the base. So I say to everyone who supports Biden, do you think young people of color will come out in Detroit or Philly for him? If you do then you deserve to shed some liberal tears again on election night 2020.
2
The Times headline labels the Democrats’ field of contestants for the 2020 presidential nomination “a baffling mess.” I call it a voter’s dream of abundant good choices.
3
Stuff that needed to be said. Thank you, Frank Bruni.
Can somebody please explain to me why running for the highest office in the U.S. of A. always comes down to being able to collect money? Any sane person knows that the moment you take somebody's money so that you can 'win' or 'acquire' something (in this case the highest office in the U.S. of A.) you will be expected to advance whatever agenda you money-giver is supporting.
Why isn't it just about ideas/policies to advance the U.S. of A.?
I know, I'm being childishly naive.....
2
Kamala Harris will make an extraordinary Attorney General, and possibly VP. If it weren't for Medicare for All, Warren would be ahead and a sure bet to be 46. A shame, really. Hoping Klobuchar pulls a rabbit out of the hat in Iowa. Bernie is a phenomenon, but apart from the Medicare for All curse he shares, an ancient Jewish socialist will never ever ever be elected POTUS.
It is pathetic, really. What could be simpler or more saleable than "improve ACA and opt-in Medicare?" Why ignore the polling? Because you know better? It's maddening.
And any serious Dem candidate should have a fully worked out plan for comprehensive immigration reform.
4
"She doesn't have a clear message." Media pundits and journalists pounded that one to death, over and over, like they discovered gold after the lean years since "but her emails."
Either you have star quality or you don't.
4
The four white frontrunners tell us that white people have more money and support other white people. Three over 70 tell us that people want political experience and name brands. In politics, it is difficult to build a positive brand image.
I recently noticed a bumper sticker on a car in my church parking lot. "Any Functioning Adult 2020."
264
@JJ
Such bumper stickers are funny but won’t stop the re-election of Trump.
The thought of another Trump term is too painful. There’s at least a 40% chance of his re-election.
2
@JJ which disqualifies the majority of those running for the Democratic ticket.
1
@JJ
Such bumper stickers are funny, a swipe at Trump but the enormous problem of Trump presidency will continue. There’s at least a 40% chance that he will be re-elected. Such thoughts are painful.
I disagree with Mr. Bruni that this is a "mess." Democracy is a "mess," so what else is new? This will all get sorted out in the next few months. Then instead of kvetching about this or that, the ONLY thing we have to focus on is getting Dems and Independents to vote in such overwhelming numbers that not even the Russians can win!
2
The race is far too long, contributing to making it far too expensive. Why should a candidate pull out based primarily on polls. Nobody have voted yet. Harris should have just stopped campaigning while trying to stay in the news, then wait for super Tuesday to see what happens. I know the way it works now is constant campaigning, but why? Nobody should announce more than a year away from election, and campaigning should start until the actual year of the election. And forget the debates, which are not really debates. They hurt a lot more than they help. Some of the moderators seem to be more concerned with creating conflict than actually informing the public.
2
Good assessment but it missed the one candidate, Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, who can unite the Democrats and peel away Republicans who have doubts about Trump. And, when all the wailing and stamping of feet is done Senator Bennet is the true antithesis of Trump.
1
Harris didn't do the policy work needed to make a case for her presidency. Period. Bruni is feeding into the narrative that performance at debates is everything. And, as for electability -- he's asking the wrong question. Why do people support Sanders when he is clearly unelectable given the state of the electoral college balance? That would be because Democrat voters don't like to think about that. They just vote for who revs them up with no thought to electability. That is the tragic error. Biden clearly has the best chance of beating Trump in the electoral college contest.
Who the nominee is in the end will be of little importance compared to the as yet untested power of generalized Trump hatred in the electorate. Will it be enough, powerful enough, to get those whose candidate did not secure the nomination to the polls in 2020? There's also the power of the Trump economy (excellent as of now) measured against what Democrats have been able to do or at least tried to do in the Congress. Too little of the former and too much of the latter will defeat any Democrat nominee fielded in the general election.
In my opinion, Amy Klobuchar has the smarts, the experience
and the right demeanor to take on Trump.
2
Kamala Harris is gone because only one person can win the nomination. This is a process where even to be in the running their candidacy has to last into the primaries. The cost of election to the presidency costs billions of dollars. Hence money not free speech ultimately decides the issue.
2
The Democratic primary candidate mix is experiencing a shake-out, that has nothing to do with race or gender. Rather, I am not surprised that seasoned politicians/legislators such as Biden, Sanders and Warren, are considered to be the front runners. Interestingly, the inclusion of billionaires/politicians such as Bloomberg, adds to the mix an interesting layer of choice. In my opinion, it is a much larger and richer choice of candidates than it was in 2016. The media, however, appears to love making this process confusing. What is needed is a continued, united support of the Democratic party. This will be essential, in the long run, to oust Trump, and the do-nothing Republicans, at every level of government.
4
No doubt each and every Dem candidate is capable. Smart, informed people. However, in this age that is not enough. WE seem, as a nation, to want to be entertained, filled with gossip and controversy. We look not for a capable person but for a personality.
If we were to examine what we need not what we want in a President we would be able to make a wise choice.
Intelligent, informed, open minded. ethical, kind and able to work with others, These should be the criteria and be checked off by every voter.
3
We Democrats, having once again effectively formed a circular firing squad, are in the process of ensuring Trump's second term.
Same old; same old. The Party of new ideas and advancement argues itself into irrelevance in a society that prefers to wallow in the past hoping to be "great again".
Oh well, there's always 2024....
1
There are a lot of good ideas and good candidates, just no one that stands out to me as being great like Obama was. That's the problem in general in politics these days, on both sides. I liked the moderate governors like Inslee and Sen. Mike Bennet but I am a moderate. I think Pete Buttigieg could be a great president some day. I like Corey Booker. Right now, I am leaning toward Biden but I am sorry he is a bit old and stumbles at times. I just want someone who is a decent human being and has experience. I'm tired of people saying we need someone of color on the ticket or they won't vote. There are a lot of groups that have never been on the presidential ticket, like someone Jewish or Asian or of many nationalities. I just want the best person for the job regardless of race, etc. I also am tired of the 24-7 commentators on cable TV, many of whom have an obvious bias.
4
Labels used to walk the walk. I still do.
1
"Finally, there’s political acumen. There’s raw talent. The last Democratic president, Barack Obama, had plenty of it. The next Democratic president will, too." And who exactly shows that potential to be a viable, energizing and electable candidate? If no one has yet to emerge as that person, it is doubtful he or she will suddenly come to nspire voters to support them with vigor. As far as "political acumen," someone like Nancy Pelosi would overshadow the rest and her proven talents would never have to be cultivated. She should actively be courted and drafted by the DNC and would defeat Trump hands down to become our first woman president. The other long shots should pool the money in their coffers (especially the billionaires in the mix) to get behind her for any chance to defeat Trump.
3
Frank Bruni struggles to pinpoint what accounts for the popularity of the top 4 Democratic presidential contenders, ruling out wealth, demographics and media exposure. I would say that authenticity counts for a lot here and what may have been lacking in Harris’ ill-fated bid.
Nobody doubts that Sanders and Warren believe passionately in every word they utter. Buttigieg and Biden also come across as sincere — though the former is more articulate than the latter by leaps and bounds.
The first two articulate what many struggling Americans believe deep down: that it will take a sweeping disruption of the status quo to improve people’s lot meaningfully. The 2 B’s, on the other hand, promise more of a return to decency and fairness, which for other Americans is good enough — and perhaps the most they trust politicians can actually deliver.
All four, though, are the “real deal.” You know what you’re getting, warts and all. Klobuchar and Booker have yet to pass that smell test.
4
It is arguable that Harris' exit from the primaries -- as well as the low polling numbers of other candidates of color -- has an explanation that has a great deal to do with the role of race in our society and the way African-American voters, in particular, politically navigate that reality. Obama being the sole exception -- and he hade prodigious political aptitude as well as enormous cross-racial appeal -- not other person of color has reached the pinnacle of power. It appears to be that African-American voters are less interested in a candidate that shares their color than in one who shares their values and at least seems to care about their interests. And judging by historical standards, it's more likely that a dominant culture White candidate who presents himself/herself in such a light will be far more likely to secure black support than a Kamala Harris who was savaged in the debates.
2
Quit comparing these candidates to Obama. If he was so great, then why didn't voters want to "keep the good times going" in 2016? In reality, no matter how much of an honorable man he was, he did not connect with voters and didn't get much done. Voters vote on their own situation and many (about 1M more than Hillary, if California is removed) determined they were not better off under Obama. If his political acumen was so great, he would have figured out how to deal with the obstructionist R's.
If we elect another Obama, we will be stuck in the mud for at least another 4 years and set the country up for another Trump. No thank you.
3
This is ludicrous. Hillary Clinton never came across as a continuation of the Obama administration. Any other moderate Democrat without her baggage would have beaten Trump hands down. And blaming Obama for all the woes of the working and middle classes is completely displaced as these are trends that started before him and continue to accelerate, exacerbated by Trump tax policies. Lastly, how was Obama supposed to figure out a way around the concerted obstructionism of McConnell and the rest of the Republican Party? Remember Merrick Garland? What options were available for dealing with that kind of unethical and illegal obstruction?
1
Maybe the voters are telling the media that the identity politics that the media, and certainly the DNC focus on, isn't what they care about. Maybe they're telling everyone that they care about fixing a broken system that favors the wealthy and the powerful. Maybe these "important endorsements" have the opposite effect on most voters, telling them that the only people that matter are the "important" ones. Maybe having a long track record that people can depend upon, is more important than being able to speak soundbites that are carefully tuned to the latest polls.
Of the four top candidates, Buttigieg is an outlier because of his small resume and experience, but he's been able to catch fire because he's speaking to the concerns of the majority of Americans, regardless of their demographic identity. Contrast that with Harris, Booker, O'Rourke, and Castro, who go out of their way to emphasize race as a key issue, when the majority of Americans don't agree that it is. If it were, why would an old white guy like Biden be far ahead as the choice for African Americans? Or Sanders be polling so strongly among Latinos? While racism is still a big problem in America, it is not the biggest problem for most Americans. If Booker wants to stay in this race, he needs to de-emphasize his talking points about that, and talk more about how he plans to help ALL Americans. Hint: fixing our broken economic system, MFA, free day care and tuition would be good starting points.
2
My husband & I met Kamala at a friend’s home during a round of fundraising for the Senate. We supported her then but felt that when cameras were on her in hearings she often grandstanded. I know many politicians do this but she seemed so full of promise that we were put off by what we frequently saw & felt in our guts was a lack of authenticity that translated into her presidential campaign. We remain hopeful for Mayor Pete’s candidacy. When I read the NYTimes group commentators take on the debate performances thus far I wonder if I’ve watched the same event—little agreement, which is perplexing.
2
At times I am horribly shocked when I hear or read fierce jabs at Bernie because the attackers seem to be as incomprehensible as the Trump supporters - all snarl but no thought, no content. This tells me that politics here belong to the realm of theater more than ideas.
This worries me a great deal. Somewhere sane discussion has been unlearned. Did this happen because we madly demand that our school teachers and university professors not mention their political ideals? I taught elementary school, high school, community college and state university here in the US. And I was always reminded by my administration to remain "neutral". Where I attended the university in Germany it was quite different. Our professors did pick sides and voiced opinions but they obeyed the rules of "agree to disagree" with their students. In fact, often after class we would regroup - students with the professor - in a Biergarten, Konditorei or Kaffeehaus to deepen the discussion. Our grades (we only had pass or fail) were not influenced by our views but rather by our logic in our classwork..
Maybe we need to send out observers to other countries to get some new ideas about how to raise a politically astute population.
2
To ensure a fair primary, have the Democrats considered a UN oversight of their elections? 2016 was about as unfair as any third world country.
3
The key to Trump's success in 2016 was the economic distress/desperation of millions of voters.
Beating him in 2020 will require the Democrats to counter the fake good news of Trump's fostering any kind of true American prosperity.
It shouldn't be that hard to do.
The job improvements are deceptive.
In large measure, they mask the repairs on the economy achieved by Obama.
And meanwhile:
The national debt is skyrocketing
Americans are increasingly up to their eyeballs in debt.
Many of us will reach retirement age without ever retiring our college loans.
Tens of thousands of unsold/unsalable “million dollar houses” are littering our countryside from sea to shining sea.
Affordable medical care and apartment rents are becoming increasingly unreachable for millions of everyday Americans.
A great big financial collapse dwarfing the one we experienced in the early 2000's is heading straight at us.
But none of the Democratic candidates are telling the country anything about this.
3
@A. Stanton: The country will only believe it when they experience it. Otherwise Democrats will just be called doomsayers. Then almost half the country will blame immigrants (illegal first of all) and the Democrats for it when the crash comes. "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." (Mencken).
1
Good column. When the process started, lo so many months ago, I put my chips down on Harris and Buttigieg. As I wrote in a previous post under a different article, I was surprised that Harris did so badly (like Rachel Maddow, I honestly thought she had a good chance to win it), but perhaps I should have been. Harris's history has a prosecutor/DA contains many elements that put off both the left and parts of the black community. What's more, she got caught up in the "hew left" theatrics that dominated the contest for many of its early months. She was never going to thrill the most left-leaning elements of the party. She took Biden down a peg in the first debate; she should have used that moment to underscore her electability (a key preoccupation this cycle) and take over his space. She didn't. Instead she muddled through such policy issues as healthcare trying to straddle the left and the center-left portions of the party. Huge mistake.
1
"We give you a tide of Warren in part because you thrilled to the earlier trickle. We serve you oodles of Buttigieg because we’ve noticed your appetite for it."
No quibbles with the coverage of these two, who I'd like to vote for, but I thought reporters were supposed to be disinterested ( or at least try) observers.
Watch E.R. Murrow's "Harvest of Shame," and then say he did that piece because he thought the country had an appetite for it.
2
"So if identity group, electability, media bias ... aren't the secrets to success, what are?" How about the raw power of ideas from the candidate, and the lack of actual attempts to compare and contrast by the media? I suggest such a framework by the media would drive candidates to flesh out the details from the sound bite ideas (read = Warren and how to pay for health care for all). The measure of money on hand is an absurd way to judge candidates for inclusion on the debate stage and the national exposure it provides.
1
One thing for sure, the Democratic Party will not nominate a candidate for president who makes any of the members of its various establishments (identities) nervous that he/she may threaten their particular status within the party. (Expected strength in the general election is a secondary consideration.) Hillary passed this test once. She may again if/when the members of the party's establishments become desperate enough. Donald's waiting.
3
Fair or not, we come away with impressions of candidates when they appear on the TV screen. Personally, I tend to think that those impressions are pretty accurate. The first time we saw this was at the Kennedy-Nixon match-up. Kennedy looked suave, bright, idealistic, full of energy. Nixon looked as though he hadn't shaved. He looked shifty. And guess what, Nixon was shifty. I was impressed with Kamala Harris at the start, but she kind of wore out her welcome. She can attack opponents (she's a prosecutor, after all), but what does she really stand for? As for who is electable, we find that out the day after an election.
3
The primary campaigning and media coverage of our candidates has been interesting. I have become a supporter of Cory Booker, even though he is not at the head of the pack right now. However, his campaign has very recently released a video that will help more voters , who do not know much about him, get a sense of who he is and about his goals as president. Booker communicates with heartfelt passion, sincerity, and knowledge about our need as a country to heal.
This country's current division between red and blue needs a leader with Booker's vision, communication skills, and purpose to help bring us together. Booker is the one candidate that strikes me as one that can bring the country together, having character traits that are the antithesis of our current president's. I find his message inspiring because it gives me hope that we can and will make our country a place that I will be proud to live in.
2
@Patti Bezzo
It has been confirmed time and time again, no candidate(including Cory Booker)has a vision when they accept large campaign donations from lobbyists who ultimately dictate the agenda.
@Purity of Your statement is false. I just found Booker's standing regarding public education, which he supports. This link is from his website for his presidential 2020 campaign: https://corybooker.com/issues/public-education/
1
@Purity of I have not heard Booker state that he is against public education. Can you please inform me where you found this information? I'd appreciate having this, since you're saying this as if it is a fact. Thank you.
1
Their is a simple answer to your question. People want Trump out of office by any means possible. They are looking for a sure bet.
The world has changed. We are not in the Nixon era where we can expect people to make morally and socially correct choices. We have devolved to tribalism. I would love to see a woman or man of color on the ticket. It should happen after the Democratic leader is elected and subsequently selects a running mate. Now is the time to gain the presidency and immediately after that attempt to
gain control of congress. So let's not create a racially/gender biased straw man when the real straw man is in the white house.
1
@John NJ
What and whom is exactly a sure bet or do you mean "electability", a rather nebulous(and meaningless) term that described the last two Presidents who were deemed "not electable", they were Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
Even the high-minded recognize the need to appear presidential. And that notion embodies pre-conceived notions that are frequently base and grounded in personal bias. It’s ok to be different. But you don’t get there if you are TOO different.
The whole Debate idea must be scrapped NOW. IF we were looking just for a debate and entertainment, okay, proceed. BUT, this is the most important General Election EVER. It would be more meaningful to have the various candidates sitting down in a group of 5 to 7 discussing their position on one topis and use both positive feedback and some criticism with each other for an hour on that topic. These would all take place at the same time (in different places) and then put them online or ? The next week a different topic with a different mix, etc. This whole process as it is now is not helping Democrats and the RIGHT candidate may not prevail to face Trump. As far as the Presidential Debate, look at 1968 and 1972. Nixon refused to debate due to what happened to him in 1960 (no debate in 1964 - Kennedy Assassination) and Trump's manner, lies, and "character" make any Debate not worthy of the Publics and Democratic hopefuls time.
2
As a lifelong Democrat, I can draw on experience for some comfort about the Democratic nomination so far. Two thoughts: first, I liken this nomination process to what used to go through my mind at the video store (remember going there for movies to rent?). That is, there are lots of good or very good candidates, but, we are trying to differentiate them while looking for a great candidate. We are at the stage where we aren't asking why we should nominate that candidate, but why we shouldn't.
Second, I also look at this as a binary choice. That is, the VP selection is almost as important as the presidential candidate. If Biden gets the nomination, he is likely to serve only one term, so, who is his VP and likely successor before long? If Warren gets the nomination, does she select a VP candidate that will represent the part of the electorate that worries about her hard-left agenda?
We have a long way to go. But the candidates we have before us are all better than the choice the Trumpublicans are going to offer.
3
Good article. I’d add two items to your observations. 1). Even though the packaging of 4 the white leaders may not what Dems ideally want, their message is. And, I for one, would much rather be a member of a party that chooses substance over packaging, any day. 2), I voted for Sen. Harris, and will vote for her again. There was nothing about her prez campaign that told me why she should be the prez candidate in this election.
2
@Scott
The irony is that at the beginning of this process, Harris and O'Roarke were deemed to be the candidates of choice by both the pundits and the MSM. Well, what happened? It would seem as time went on, in the case of Harris, she started to flip flop on her policy commitments and her continuous drop in the polls clearly convinced more and more that she would NOT make a good Presidential candidate.
Unlike 2016, it would seem this time around most democrats are not interested in the MSM and the party itself telling them who they should vote for.
2
There were people of color in the race, they didn't do very well. The older candidates are tracking and they happen to be Caucasian. At this point we need to have a candidate rise above the others. Fringe ideas and policies are not what is needed to bring in independent voters and those Republicans who can' stand what's going on. It is not a campaign for a big change, it is a campaign for a big fix of the problems which separate both sides so dramatically that our country is not functioning as it should. I give credit to anyone who has the big shoulders to taker the project on, age is immaterial.
4
Yes, your primary system is a mess. It was the same four years ago for Republicans. US electors are the ones to blame for not following proposals of electoral reforms. Dont blame anyone else. The cornerstone of this electoral reform would be campaign finance. It should be number one issue in this election, while US government is controled by lobbies raining money on Washington.
This is the war medias should wage.
What will it take to put it on top?
3
@Tristan Roy
Always remember, in America, money prevails over everything else and the media makes BILLIONS of dollars during election periods and they wouldn't want to "bite the hand that feeds them".
1
My friends and I are endlessly debating which type of candidate will be "best"; a moderate who will offend fewer people or a progressive who will inspire and promote bigger change. I will vote for whoever wins the nomination, but I disagree that a "safe" choice like Biden is the "best" choice. Trump rode in on a wave of disgust with the status quo. That disgust can be turned to the Dem's advantage if they put up a candiate who wants more than to go back to the days when malarkey was a word people understood. As for Trump's base, it is a lost cause. It is time for a progressive candidate to step up and lead us back to being our best selves, and not our worst.
8
To begin with. This says far more about America than it does about Democrats in 2020, and just by focusing in on them instead of the larger problem as a whole does nothing to answer the question of racial inequality in this country.
That said, the fact that it all seems to boil down to money and who has the most of it should surprise no one.
It's easy enough to blame the media for the demise of the Kamala Harris campaign, or the fact that they don't pay enough attention to Cory Booker -- or for that Deval Patrick and Andrew Yang.
And why is that?
As a Black voter, these are certainly questions I ask myself.
But then again, if the only alternatives to unseating the white 70-something year-old currently in the White House is just another white 70-something year-old -- then so be it.
Just get him out.
7
While treatment of African Americans in this country is, and always has been abominable, it isn’t the most important item on the 2020 agenda. Neither is the disgraceful disparity between the super wealthy and the rest of us.
The most important problem facing humanity which requires Americans to face and help solve, is the destruction of planetary ecosystems through mismanagement of resources that belong to us all. This includes global warming, pollution of the environment (for g..d’s sake, a whale had 250 pounds of plastic garbage in it’s stomach, what is wrong with us?), overfishing, a global population that outruns our ability to feed ourselves without destroying more of our planet through chemical intervention or destroying more of our planet for the space to grow food, waste removal so that our fresh water supplies are potable, etc.
In my lifetime, (I’m 72), the population has tripled, from 2.5 to about 7.5 billion humans. Think about how many more cows, pigs, chickens that requires. How many more acres are needed to feed us and our animals. How many chemicals including fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and antibiotics are needed.
This, this is what needs to be solved, if our species is to maintain civilization and move forward.
I’d hold out for a Hero, (female or male), but I don’t see one around, so I’ll vote out the anti-Hero, the death’s head autocrat currently running the world government, and hope for a future for us all.
4
@William Feldman
Then out of all the choices, who is the candidate that is most likely to deal with vitally important issue of climate change and that choice certainly doesn't fall under the category of the corporate/establishment.
There is only one, Bernie Sanders and he doesn't have to be concerned about any corporate donors telling him what he may or may not do or say about the issue.
1
@William Feldman
Here's something you might not realize.
Racial inequality and wealth disparity in this country are closely related.
Another thing.
Racism isn't too far removed from anti-Semitism.
So yes, it matters.
Too many of the comments fail to realize that the Dems need a candidate who can energize the big tent that is both the party's biggest asset and its curse. None of the remaining candidates has shown the ability to do that. The last thing the Dems need now is a fractured convention, which looks like a real possibility.
There is only one person who can bring the party together -- Stacey Abrams. She is whip smart, has a great resume, and is a great stump speaker; he would appeal to the big tent far better than any other candidate. She is inspirational and relatable. Her status as a black woman would galvanize a critical component of the party's base. Imagine her in the debates against the president. She has made it clear that she is not running, but if she is called on to take on this challenge, it would be difficult for her to turn it down.
6
The Democrats conduct the presidential selection process like medical diagnosis and with considerable angst. We must get it right and choose the perfect presidential candidate.
So Democrats wring their hands and strive mightily to eliminate the weakest candidates in order to come up with the "the best" One. Hence all the intra-party conflict. Not progressive enough vs. too progressive. Need a woman candidate not a man vs. male candidates have wider appeal. Who can get the black vote and the Latino vote vs. we need a white male to go up against bully Trump.
Meanwhile, look who the Republicans put up for office.
Obviously, they don't seem to care what kind of experience, character, track record, or diplomatic skills--or the lack thereof--their candidates possess.
Republicans will vote lockstep for whomever their party gives them. How do they get away with it? Because after years of Pavlovian conditioning by Fox and right-wing media, Republicans now detest and fear liberals & progressives more than they fear Putin and the Russians interfering in our elections and being given whatever Putin desires by Trump, such as scrapping America's long-term support for the Ukraine against Russia.
Why? My theory is that Democrats truly care about democratic government, so it is very important to them who is selected as its presidential candidate. Right-wing & big business Republicans actually despise and resent government due to taxes & regulations.
The GOP is what is baffling
7
@PB Great comment. You nailed the dilemma. But what is the solution? Seriously, I would like to hear what you think.
2
@PB
Democrats continually fail to understand that those politicians and candidates for office who fall under the wing of the corporate/establishment democrats and who willingly take money from campaign donors are just Republicans with a democratic label. Several democrats have voted in favor of Trump legislation including the democrat in disguise, Joe Manchin/W. Virginia) who stated on Fox News that he would support Trump if Bernie Sanders is the candidate.
The ONLY way you turn this situation around is to get money out of politics and you do that by electing those that are unencumbered by corporate donors who ultimately dictate the agenda and the only candidates that qualify are progressives like Bernie Sanders and others who answer only to their constituents and NOT their corporate donors.
1
" I keep seeing, on Twitter and Facebook..."
That's the problem with your take right there.
What you're seeing on social media has nothing to do with what people in the real world are saying and thinking.
Hence the massive disconnect.
7
@ALW515
The reality is, the under 45 voter in particular, for the most part does not watch mainstream television anymore, hence, they are communicating and getting their information from alternative media, especially "progressive" democrats who the MSM chooses to marginilize or ignore.
There is a very good reason why Bernie Sanders has collected, by far, the most money from the most donors covering the largest cross section of America and he didn't accomplish that feat because he got considerable (and positive) coverage from the MSM.
He also has, by far, the largest support of any candidate from the under 45 age group and that is no coincidence.
@Deus There is a wide range of digital media outlets that informs voters of all ages other than Facebook and Twitter, both of which tend to be echo chambers that reward the most extreme voices.
1
@ALW515 i disagree...i think what people are saying on social media has EVERYTHING to do with what the real world is thinking....they lS the real world
Just another in a long list of fake "Democrats in Disarray" columns the MSM cannot live without.
He heard about Democratic primary chaos when there were 24 candidates in the race.
Now the field is winnowing (there may be as few as 6 candidates on stage in the December debate) and the MSM is STILL calling it all a mess.
I have no doubt the MSM will make 2020 a replay of their campaign reporting of 2016 proving they learned nothing from that yellow journalism debacle that they themselves admit was deeply flawed.
8
@Paul
Remember who their owners are, Oligarchs!
Which is to say...not much at all. It's a pathetically weak slate for all its wokeness, and the idea that Biden has the necessary chops is laughable. The impeachment is the Democratic candidate running in 2020, an attempt to wound Trump enough so that any otherwise unwinnable candidate might beat him.
And I must say that your personal criteria for choosing what to write about and how to write it seems a bit narrow and thin. Writing in opinion pieces what you think we want to hear? That's how you sell mattresses, not newspapers.
5
@Ken
Just like Hillary Clinton in 2016, remember, before this process started, the MSM predicted that Kamala Harris and Beto O'Rourke had the inside track on the democratic nomination. Well, like in 2016, how did that work out? They also predicted that Clinton would easily defeat Trump.
This time around it would seem the majority of the electorate are tired of the media and even the DNC itself, telling them who they should vote for.
1
Democrats like myself are fueled by the absolute terror of facing another four years of Trump. It is a recurring nightmare from which there is no escape. I have read over and over that Dems would vote for a banana peel over Trump. We focus only on electability and that is it. It is no surprise that the top candidates are white after the backlash against Obama which brought us Trump and Miller, the white nationalist who devised a policy to put children of color in cages and then lose track of them.
The rural areas in swing states and the electoral college will decide this election. Biden probably would have defeated Trump in 2016 and maybe we are hoping it will happen this time. He is the only centrist and terror is driving us to believe he is electable. There is no other consideration. None. Before we can move forward in any way, we must first remove the most corrupt and despicable president in history from the Oval Office. This is not about being excited about a candidate. It is only about celebrating in the street as Trump packs his bags to evacuate the White House.
5
@Patricia Caiozzo
Who and what determines exactly what "electable" means and if you remember, the last two Presidents who were deemed "not electable" were Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
Unless Americans want to repeat the horror of 2016, Joe Biden is NOT your candidate.
We need a national primary day. Iowa must end.
5
Harris destroyed her candidacy in the first debate when she implied Joe Biden was a racist because he was against a ridiculous forced busing proposal 45 years ago. And to add insult to injury, that evening she posted a photo on Twitter of her as a little girl waiting for the bus that would take her to a different school. The problem was her busing was voluntary.
Will not miss her one bit.
8
@Erik
I guess you missed the SC Senate hearings on the appointment of Clarence Thomas back in the day when Joe Biden went after Anita Hill. There are other examples of his questionable judgment which is further confirmed by his behavior during his town hall meetings as he attempts to belittle those that question his judgement. Not very Presidential.
2
It's easy to get discouraged about a field of candidates who don't seem ideal; but take heart: any one of them is orders of magnitude better than the buffoon that currently occupies the Oval Office. If the general level of intelligence of the American Voter is so low that they would vote a second time for trumph, well, then maybe it's time to give up on democracy after all. But I'm holding out that only about 35% of Americans are totally brain dead after lifetimes of watching TV and Fox News, and that the rest of us will show the intelligence and strength of character to excise the cancerous lesions of trumpism and the GOP from our government.
6
Most want to believe that the US were a nation. It's a melting pot, only a melting pot in the hands of the rich.
2
Not beholden to either of the parties, I am still baffled by the fact that Trump is our President. So yeah, who knows how this gobbledygook stuff works.
6
There is no reason to see Kamala Harris’ departure as an ultimate defeat for her or a failure of something larger. Remember, Barack Obama lost his first campaign, for a House seat. Did he become a better candidate from that experience, or did he just throw in the towel? And don’t most of us try to grow from our defeats, rather than leave it as the last word?
3
The media selects which candidates give them the most viewers because it is good for their bottom line. The media also is part of vertically integrated Corporations and does what their owners like a GE or an AT&T or others want at the top.
They love to harangue Trump because their viewers love to view and disapprove of the big bad Orange Man who is so out of touch with their likes and dislikes. Manufacturing Consent and given away to naked profit taking.
All of which is to say Media at large’s influence on the campaigns are really where it is at and as well as that of their main financial backers whom are hopelessly intertwined with the “news” reporting.
It’s a hot mess.
One supposes the voter(s) sees through all of the agitprop, propaganda and partisan “news” reporting — however it becomes increasingly difficult to find the truth with the flood of information out there with all of the skewing, spinning, filtering and outright partisanship going on 24/7/365.
1
My concern is not the candidates, but the ticket. To be honest I have not followed the so called "debates" as I find the concept both boring, useless and downright dumb.
In my opinion the Democrats desperately need a ticket that is balanced and moderate not just to defeat Trump, but be successful in maintaining control of congress and gaining control of the senate. Trump and his republican party has done immense damage to our country and to the world in whole.
I sense the egos of the likes of Warren and Sanders are not helping and continue to damage the hopes in winning back the White House and just to extreme at the present. It is time for the democratic hierarchy to work together now to present a strong ticket to defeat Trump and his minions.
May I suggest my preference, Bloomberg/Buttigieg or Sherrod Brown/Michelle Obama? Just food for thought.
3
I think we are all baffled and confused. Anyone of the dems running is better than Trump. If we start eating them up, we will lose badly to Trump. Let's face it, the best politician is Nancy Pelosi--let's nominate her. She's the only one that Trump won't eat alive and spit out. She's our best hope. I say everyone push for Nancy to be our nominee!
1
@ladydoc
You mean the largest money raiser in the party who demeans progressives at every opportunity and supports none of their initiatives that the majority of the electorate actually wants?
No thanks, just another corporate democrat who will guarantee Trump another 4 years.
What you are seeing is seething anger in the populace and confusion between beating the unfit president who was able to channel this anger with his mountain of lies vs electing a person with honest anger who is being falsely branded as socialist and therefore not electable.
There is still plenty of time and plenty of good candidates in the race. There is also the decided advantage of having a mentally unstable, unfit person on the other side whose party is strongly backing russian talking points and regimes of authoritarian countries throughout the world rather than our allies. A party that is fully backing a policy of destroying our agricultural markets around the world as well as placing tariff taxes on the middle class.
3
I wish Bernie and Elizabeth would go into a back room and agree to form a ticket. I wish they would agree that Bernie would hold office for 4 years, and then Elizabeth would go for 8. I wish they would focus all of their attention on getting us universal health care and whatever version of the green new deal we need to get ahead of climate change, or at least stop making it worse.
I wish the billionaires would get off their high horses and put their money towards winning back the Senate, and also toward funding national mandatory education in civics.
I am also very much behind impeachment--Trump is a traitor, no doubt-- and only wish that Congress would uncover every single act of corruption and treason Trump and his Congressional supporters are guilty of.
3
I would offer a name that would absolutely electrify the media and put to rest any notion that racism or sexism is the prime mover here. Michelle Obama. If she said she was interested tomorrow, the race would be over.
3
@marco
Wouldn't it be wonderful to see an educated 'Let's Boogie', good nutrition and good education opportunities for all children against an obese, junk food eater who can't be bothered to read security reports or to shake hands with a loyal ally, Angela Merkel; a large bully who shoved a small man of no consequence so Trump could push in front for a photo op. A boor who strode ahead of a beloved 93 yr. old Queen who represents the Brits at their best; where was he headed? He was headed to the Queen's palace where he was a guest, not some drunken noble pushing peasants around.
My worst nightmare about 2020 is taking shape - the Dems arranging themselves in a circular firing squad and the horrendous trump cleared for another 4 years.
Someone must emerge right away and the others have to realize that Job #1 is healing from the trump disaster.
4
Let's get real: There are too many complainers in the party. Barrack Obama was a diverse and relatively low wealth president. All Democratic candidates don't need to be this way. Diversity actually includes rich white people. Why do people complain about not knowing the details of assignments at McKinsey which were out of someone's control? Why do they complain when A person from a 'diverse' category drops out? Who cares....let's just talk about whether folks are honest, hard working, demonstrate they can build teams and learn from mistakes.
2
Good column. I'm pretty liberal but get annoyed at those who carry on because there's no black or female or gay or whatever candidate. We just had a pretty good black president and a woman candidate to follow who did a lousy job. Let's just pick a winner against the world's worst president and let's congratulate the blacks and gays who want to win more than they want to worry about who's left in the race.
4
You underestimate the role of the media in shaping and shifting the American public's attitude toward candidates. While an individual journalist or network or publication might rightly report out on a candidate or event, it is the massive coverage and repetitive bombardment that blankets a voter's perspective.
A voter is definitely affected by how CNN or MSN or the NYTimes reports Biden's temper tantrum when a retired farmer gets under his skin, or when Warren's healthcare plan is picked to pieces and exhaustively analyzed -- all legitimate stories in a way, yet we are submitted to a constant avalanche of media influence beneath that snowstorm. Gaining viewers/readers is not a not-for-profit venture, either.
How to find the true strengths and weaknesses of a particular candidate? It's increasingly hard to tell -- witness the bizarre individual in the White House right now. Not the media's fault, but to what extent did media have in lulling us into a false sense of security regarding Clinton's likely success?
2
I have two fears about the 2020 election. That the Democrats are incapable of selecting someone who can effectively campaign against Trump. And that regardless of the voting outcome, Trump will not leave office, declaring fraud and defying anyone to remove him as he controls all the levers of power and the GOP Senate is his slave.
3
You bet Frank. Comparing a college graduate competing succesfully to get one of the most desirable post college employment posts to Biden's intentional snub of Anita Hill's arguments, leading to Clarence Thomas's vote to illegally elect Bush, his ignorant vote for the the Iraq war, etc.
May I add, Mayor Pete would never criticize his detractors as Biden did in a thoughtless huff the other day. I prefer a calm intelligent demeanor to defensive Trumpish insults!
Joe is showing his old man true colors.
4
I am shocked at the replies that insist that any candidate is "too far left".
Even Bernie Sanders is basically offering a platform that looks like FDR or LBJ's "Great Society". Just because the Republicans have become the John Birch Society party is no reason to believe that the Democratic Party should simply become the Republicans from the 1990s to prove they are not "far left".
Unfortunately, it is the media who has mischaracterized the Democrats and elevated Republicans who make Nixon look like a leftist and defines those far right wing Republicans as "moderates". If LBJ or FDR were running, this newspaper and other so-called "liberal" media would be claiming LBJ and FDR were left wing Commies compared to the current Republican Party, which has become so neo-Fascist that it has even made right wing Tea Party folks like Justin Amash look like they are on the left side of "moderate".
4
classic ruling class elitism vs. working class. the two parties are pretty much a sham at this point and the dems are just trying to prevent insurgency of Bernie Sanders, who actually believes that the working class can and should have the power
Calm down, the media's obsession with crowning a nominee before anyone votes is tiring and does not serve democracy well.
Also tiring is the obsession with the fact that the majority of candidates are caucasian - there is no "white" race unless you still live in the Jim Crow South. Caucasians are the overwhelming majority of the US population and most of America does not look like New York City, Washington D.C. or Los Angeles.
As to the age whining, the most reliable voter group are the middle aged and senior citizens. With people living longer and working longer, there is no problem with someone who is mentally sharp being excluded because of age.
As to polling, at this point Obama was not ahead in 2008 and in 2016 the New York Times had a graph showing Hillary an overwhelming favorite to win right up to election night. There is also polling that does not fit the media narrative that gets widely ignored in these pages and on most broadcast and cable outlets.
Maybe if the media spent this time profiling the candidates and their proposals and less time obsessing with the horse race, voters might be able to make a well informed choice based upon solid information.
As to media bias, search for #BernieBlackout. It happened in 2016 and this time as well. His huge rallies were and have been widely ignored while the media gave Trump a Billion Dollars of free exposure last time.
How about calming down and trusting the voters to do right.
3
Ever since that CBS guy said that trump is the best thing for media money the MSM truly has continued to drive this political world into all aspects of human life. America has been electing a president for about 30 years now. The constant thrum from the media deafens most thought. Good article though. Just do not believe the media when they deny their own complicate behavior. trump is a tool and a fool but the MEDIA truly loves money so they stay happy.
3
it's the ruling class vs the working class. caught in the "middle" are the ones who believe that this game isn't that bad and can somehow ascend to a life of decent luxury if they keep up their work for the owners of this world
2
Democrats are making a huge mistake assuming that moderate Dems will vote the party’s ‘progressive’ agenda just to oust Trump. We’re not going to vote against our own interests...and so far, what I’m hearing from the ‘progressive’ faction is most definitely NOT in my family’s best interest...nor. I might add, the best interests of the country.
.... M4A and the demise of private health insurance, decriminalization of illegal entry (aka de facto open borders), sanctuary and ‘free’ health insurance for illegal aliens (again, at taxpayer expense), student loan forgiveness (at taxpayer expense), slavery reparations?...
Sorry, but I won’t support our country’s descent into third world status... overpopulated, environmentally and economically overburdened, culturally and ideologically fractured....in a word, chaos. If that’s your dream, there are plenty of countries that meet that criteria. Go. Enjoy.
4
you don't understand... the wealthy people of this country really don't have an interest in protecting the quality of life for everyday americans.. descent into 3rd world status is happening as we speak. infrastructure crumbling, exorbitant healthcare costs, bad education access and the list goes on and on. it can be frightening to take the power into our own working class hands but it has to be done if we want to protect the notion of America as the best country in the world and a place of opportunity to live a healthy and prosperous life
3
They’re dull. All of the them. Trump, Romney, Collins, Grahams. They all ran and try to stay in office because they have no idea what to do with their lives. Bernie’s whole foreign policy is he opposed the war in Iraq. Liz is all about the evils of money. Most of American never knew Harris’s mother was research scientist at McGill in Montreal. Pete is somewhat interesting but not as interesting as Michelle.. And the press is dull. It’s all politics all the time. And the politics is all about the horse race. The debate questioners were dull – imagine if the questioners were Bill Nye, Amy Gutmann, and Juilia Louis Dreyfuss. And the arts too. In the 60s, there were 100 protest songs so you could have a Woodstock. Now, it’s just Randy Rainbow. We need a World’s Fair to generate new ideas. We need conversations across a whole spectrum of ideas. We need something more.
Bernie's foreign policy is to END the wars that we've been wasting huge sums of money on, you can trust him to do it because he has been anti war since before it was known to actually be a good idea
1
We have reached a point where we don't care who will win the nomination as long as she/he will be an intimidating force towering 10 feet over Trump and will mercilessly give him Muhammed Ali killer punches.
We want to see Trump laying flat on his back on the debate stage and election night.
2
Democrats, get away from identitiy politics!! As we approach the 2020 elections, do you think the Republicans are agonizing over this in their own party?
3
Just to be clear... is "employment as a McKinsey consultant" somehow disqualifying?
My first job after college was in a university library. Is that anything?
5
it's not an outright disqualifier, but when the person has only had a few years as a working adult we are justified in examining their resume. McKinsey is known to have been involved in many things that have had disastrous effects on the people of this world so it's not exactly something to be proud of in my opinion, no matter how "smart" you have to be to get there
1
@eeeeee Buttigieg served for eight years as a mayor of a midwestern community and served in the Navy, after his two-three years of experience as a grunt at McKinsey. That's not "a few years as a working adult."
Per his memoir, he joined McKinsey to "learn how finance works" and worked on grocery pricing. Recent articles indicate that he also worked on economic development in Afghanistan. None of these gigs sound "disastrous." If you don't support his candidacy, fine; but be fair with your words.
3
@Donna as innocent as it sounds, grocery pricing doesn't mean it's working for the consumer, but for corporate profits, which usually leave consumers to pick up the tab. Finance is an incredibly dirty world and i admire anyone who can remain objective while going in and out of it, but I cannot trust them to be a
President who looks out for the working class...
RE: mckinsey, here's an interesting forbes piece on the firm.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelposner/2018/12/18/how-mckinsey-co-fails-as-a-global-leader/#4f1aa9d7376d
1
I call it That Seventies Show. Not just because many of them they're in their seventies but their political beliefs are from the seventies. They graduated in the seventies to work within the system. As they gained power and grew they didn't realize their world views ended with Reagan.
How twisted things have become when they say they're for unions when for the last fifty years they haven't lifted a finger to prevent union jobs from going overseas. When their chosen candidate in '16 wanted to heat up a new cold war with Russia and received more corporate donations than her Republican opponent.
I have hope for Warren mostly because of her Health care plans. I doubt the country will vote for reparations, the new green deal and free college for rich kids. You know seventies stuff.
What my party really needed was a Savior, a Messiah, a billionaire named Mike Bloomberg. I bet he'll even appoint Harris his AG. Wait, he's a Republican. And so was Clinton.
1
If the Democrats stay woke they will reelect Trump in 2020 ...
3
If people wanted Harris (or Booker or Castro) they would be showing it with small donations and polling. Obviously they don't.
Vote Blue no matter who, all the way down to dogcatcher. RepublicanRussians need to go. I want my country back from Putin.
7
Policy positions matter. The ability to clearly articulate one's policy positions matters. The policy has to be more than: "I have won in a red state."
After last week's NATO embarrassment, it is clearer than ever that the country needs an elder statesman such as Biden.
Biden/Abrams 2020
However, VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO!!!
WE, the majority of the people, will absolutely make sure a Democrat wins in 2020!
1
This might be hard to believe, but you can be white and also be a good person.
5
So, once someone reaches seventy years of age, they become non-persons? It may be true that Trump appears senile (to say the least) but Sanders and Warren are honest people who are mentally alert and have more than earned a chance to run for President.
2
I started out hoping she would win the nomination, but Harris' campaign was uneven. None of the candidates really have "it", that charisma that makes you an actual leader. Not that I care, but the public certainly does, otherwise they never would have voted for an impaired crook and known pathological liar.
This may be the biggest problem facing the Democratic field, but hopefully whoever comes out on top will get the votes to take out the current used car salesman in charge.
1
Enough with the diversity card.
Trump must be defeated. Period. Our nation's future depends on that. Whether it's by a white, brown, purple or green polka dot candidate matters less. Focus on the mission, Frank!
2
The author claims no media bias yet continues to drive the narrative based off a single poll which results in the actual bump. Mayor Pete gets one strong Iowa poll and suddenly the media is all over that he is a top candidate and coverage everywhere. No wonder his polling shot up right after that.
The author claims "we in the media aren’t driving it" in the same article that fails to even mention Yang or Gabbard, two young, non-white candidates polling higher than Booker, Castro, Bloomberg, Steyer, and Klobachar. How can media be so tone def? How does this happen all the time?
2
She's out and nobody has voted. That's what's sad. She is the best civil rights candidate, and she has a prosecutors attitude towards the racist White Nationalists who currently rule in the U.S. I give her high marks for her energy and willingness to run. Perhaps her well thought out positions will still be instrumental in tilting the field towards both social and environmental justice. The lesson here: Being judged on sound bites can work against the best candidates.
61
@loveman0
Best civil rights candidate? What evidence is there to support that? She's a policy flip-flopper who didn't have a coherent take on criminal justice.
Her behavior while Attorney General in California was much the same as many AG's in other blue states - that is to say not particularly progressive and hypocritical in retrospect.
She kept sending people (mostly of color) to jail over marijuana even after it was clear there was zero public health risk, attitudes were shifting towards legalization and she had imbibed in the past. She literally laughed off the idea of decriminalization less than a decade ago.
She also tried to keep multiple people of color in jail even after there was substantial evidence they were innocent or there was police misconduct.
There are many reasons why most young people of color would pick Sanders over her. Kamala wasn't even prepared when rivals criticized her tenure as AG when she had months to establish a narrative.
39
@loveman0
Those who thought Kamala Harris had any chance of gaining traction in the Democratic primary are folks who deal in image, not substance.
Harris was all image, ethnic allure, loved by a certain type of simplistic identity focused centrist.
She has never had any substance, or, any convictions, just political expediency. She never was a progressive.
Cheers to Tulsi Gabbard who so straight forwardly reminded Harris who she was in terms of her actions!
23
@D W
'She kept sending people (mostly of color) to jail over marijuana even after it was clear there was zero public health risk, attitudes were shifting towards legalization and she had imbibed in the past. '
Of course she did. It was against the law in California and she did what the people elected her to do.
Harris' record as a DA and AG stands for itself. She did a better job than either her predecessor or her successors.
I just watched Gabbard's laughable attack on Harris during the debate. Harris was too harsh on criminals ? People in California whined because she was too soft.
I don't think that Harris would make a great president. Why ? Too combative. But that's what we elected her to do in California, and she did it pretty well.
11
Harris was my initial first choice. But when Warren boldly came out in favor of impeachment after reading the Mueller Report, I made a small contribution to her campaign. And when Harris subsequently waffled --as did the rest of the field-- in the wake of Mueller, my alliegence switched to Warren.
IMO, this primary is about strong leadership above all else. Biden has been around so long, he's seen as a leader by default. Sanders' and Warren's willingness to stand against the Democratic establishment tide also brands them as strong leaders. And Buttigieg is amazing good at faking leadership qualities.
The rest of the field have been pandering for votes (and money), and spending enormous amounts of time explaining why they are the best candidate to beat Trump. They are running as representatives of the establishment, and have inspired no one as a result.
3
It's is a mess because there are too many candidates. It's difficult to remember who they all are and in some cases, what they're doing there. But Sanders deserves to be there. This is his second time around. Both times he's been near the top in polling and fund-raising. He's a durable and successful candidate. He's got raw political acumen and talent, shown over years of winning elections and forming nearly unbreakable bonds with those who support him. There are questions about him, such as his age, his health, his often grouchy demeanor, his socialist plans, his small state origin. But the biggest question is his electability in 2020. If he's nominated and indeed wins, that will be the most baffling of all.
1
Not sure where you're going with this, Frank. Way too much identity politics, as if Latinx or blacks should blindly support one of their own. Well, if that's true, they didn't (and you didn't ask them why).
In 2016, we had a candidate that was roughly Warren's age. Bernie was the only other notable challenger. Were you saying all of this back then too?
Personally, I don't want a young president. I want someone who thinks young, but who has experience and wisdom. Mayor Pete is too young and inexperienced for me, but no candidate is perfect.
I'm a white male, but I don't care what color or ethnicity the ultimate candidate has, but he or she (preferably she) must have the appropriate experience and wisdom to meet my expectations. Sorry, but Harris did not, and I used to work for her. She doesn't have a sufficiently fixed set of principles or a reason for running, and should get more federal experience. Cory Booker should be doing better (experience as a mayor and senator), but he's not. Why? I'm not exactly sure, but in debates he seems more concerned with his turn of phrase than persuading Biden supporters to switch to him.
In short, what the primary is telling us is that we want experience and vision, whatever age or color that shows up in.
3
Yes, Barack Obama had enough raw talent to make it appear that he had political acumen.
Let’s hope the 2020 Democratic nominee actually has more political acumen than raw talent.
There is a difference.
1
Kamala Harris excited me for a few weeks. After six months of primary action I can safely say none of the remaining candidates excite me but I will vote for whomever the Democratic nominee is. Our party has two problems though:
1. There are stubborn Democrats who will sit out if their person isn’t nominated (more likely to happen with Sanders and Warren supporters).
2. We will be hard-pressed to win over independents and more moderate Republicans who aren’t Trump supporters but will only vote for the right kind of Democrat.
This election cannot be won by a candidate who only has partial support from Democrats and little support from independents and moderate Republicans. The electoral vote numbers are not in our favor. Electability beyond passionate Democrats is a huge consideration and ignoring that fact is a recipe for disaster.
7
"What is this primary telling us?"
It is telling me that voters no longer will support a candidate just because of their perceived 'race' - ideas are paramount. A big percentage of Democrats want positive progressive change - real change, not fake Trump change. Just because a candidate is Black, Brown or whatever is not a definitive reflection of their core political beliefs or political pedigree. Booker, Harris seem to blame their failure to catch fire with voters - especially minority voters as something due to their skin color rather then their history of catering to their corporate donors and their campaign reliance on wealthy individuals. Is it a race thing because more Hispanic voters prefer Bernie Sanders to Julian Castro? Or Black South Carolina voters prefer Biden over Harris or Booker? Rather then any kind of racial bias it shows voters are getting smarter and no longer consider race or ethnic background as the defining issue.
12
You might consider the possibility, Mr. Bruni, that the voters are simply interested in the candidate they feel is most capable of booting the incumbent. Nothing else matters at this point, I'm afraid.
9
@Mark Merrill
Vital as booting out the incumbent is, it isn't enough. What this campaign season shows is the importance of issues that matter very much --issues like healthcare access, climate sanity and economic policy that puts citizens first. I
2
I don't think we Democrats can have it both ways: we can't complain when insiders pick the nominee and then when insiders are no longer doing that complain that the party isn't doing enough to deal with the plethora of candidates.
The primaries favor the extremes. For Republicans, that works out well, for they almost always support the candidate, regardless of what they say they will do. Sort of like Jeff Flake did.
For Democrats, the primaries favor the extremes and the loud mouths. Unfortunately, one of the big disadvantages of diversity is just that....diversity. A race to see who can be furthest left will nominate a losing candidate in November. Maybe far left voters equal far right voters, but these days Republicans outnumber progressives, and that inequality is what needs to be remembered.
3
South Carolina chose Biden and the big money went to those with the polls. If Harris or Booker had the polls or the donors they would still be real contenders - so whose fault is that?
There are too many candidates vying for a slice of the same pie. Every day my in-box is flooded with requests for donations, sign petitions, etc. I do what I can, but it's a bit overwhelming. Republicans have a sitting president raking in mountains of long green for one candidate.
Give Democrats credit for making the process open and, yes, even chaotic. Don't forget what Will Rogers said: "I'm not a member of any organized political party...I'm a Democrat."
7
This headline is misleading. There's a slew of names that dropped out of the race long before Kamala Harris did. Why? They didn't do well in the polls and they weren't raising enough money. The fact that we have three over 70s and one younger man that are currently in the lead in one state says nothing to me except that before a single vote has been cast, many voters like their message and give them support. That's it, period. Booker and Castro seem intent on turning Harris' demise into something it's not for their own political futures.
3
As asserted by Frank Bruni, 'broad name recognition' implies that it is a result of media coverage. People don't become familiar with a candidate (or any other prominent public figure) without frequent coverage of that individual in the media. And as to media outlets gauging what readers want, that recipe also includes what advertisers want. The incessant coverage of Trump during the 2016 Presidential election was driven as much by ratings as interest from the public. And the provocative nature of that coverage as opposed to the droll coverage of a more qualified candidate was intended to increase both readership and sales. Remarkable how the media touts its critical importance to public awareness given its coverage choices but denies any responsibility for outcomes.
3
"What is this primary telling us"?
It's telling us the Dems stand for everything under the sun while the Republicans stand together no matter what.
Maybe the Dems don't deserve to govern?
2
It tells us that it takes more than laughing, dancing and identity politics to win a nomination.
7
It’s telling us to give Amy a closer look. Moderate, midwestern, younger and with a strong resume.
6
Maybe the point is that Dem voters are listening for POLICIES they want to see enacted and not the gender, age or race of the candidate? And that is all to the good!
8
The mess is the party think Black voters are going to vote Democratic by default so they really don't have to lure them. It is true that Black voters are loyal Democratic voters but more and more we are feeling we are taken for granted. The fact that Mayor Pete have almost no support in the Black community does not seem to bother the party. Mayor Bloomberg tepid apology for Stop and Frisk is suppose to heal all wounds and inspire Blacks to vote for him. There is a visceral dislike for Trump in communities of color but it should not be taken as a given that there is going to be excitement for any white person with a D in front of their name.Hillary took the vote for granted in 2016 and lost by 73000 votes spread across three states. If the urban centers in those three states were excited to vote Trump would not have won. Those who fail to remember are doomed to repeat.
3
In other words, 4 more years is just fine with us.
Mike Bloomberg figured out a year ago that he can not win the Democratic nomination. He was right then and he is correct in his analysis that Biden can't beat Trump. But that still doesn't mean he can win the Democratic nomination. Cross him off the list.
Ditto Biden. Both Bernie and Warren are too far left. Maybe not to garner the nomination, but certainly to win in November. Buttigieg is a fad.
This race is actually starting to look pretty interesting. Booker, Klobuchar, Yang? Sounds pretty unrealistic, right?
Well, Bloomberg is going to spend a $100M to kill off Biden and play on America's fear of Socialism. This article was right about one thing--50% of the population will vote for anyone but Trump. My advice to Mike--don't be so obnoxious that Amy Klobuchar won't offer you the Vice Presidency. And don't be so haughty that you won't accept it if she does.
1
I think it's a big positive that we Democrats have three compelling front-runners 70 and older. One of them is a woman, one a Jew, and none of them is a megamillionaire business owner or heir of a family fortune. Two of them chose public service as their career and the third, education before public service. The fourth front-runner is not only young but gay and not only gay but married and a veteran too. The same Democrats chose our first black president. Democratic voters respond to the character and personality, the vision, values, ideas and issue positions of candidates more than any sociodemographics. I'm very proud to be one of those "messy" Democratic voters .
5
Two thoughts. First, haven't we proved that poling, at least the way it is currently conducted, is outdated. Second, I heard Rachel Maddow say this, "You vote with heart in a primary and with your head in an election." Oh, and a third thought. It's not over until its over.
4
Bruni writes: "Finally, there’s political acumen. There’s raw talent. The last Democratic president, Barack Obama, had plenty of it. The next Democratic president will, too."
There you have it: it's either Mike Bloomberg in 2020 or some player to be named later in 2024.
1
@Mack Obama had political acumen? No, he did not. But his handlers did.
1
Most of these candidates are staying in the race because someone will have to be vice president.
1
I find it amusing that the a near majority of the American voters has actually elected as president someone who can accurately be described as a near fascist. Someone with a comic book understanding of the history of our country, its foreign policy and its founding principles rooted in what was then a revolutionary concept of government by and for the people.
Yet here we are, nitpicking the qualities that a Democratic candidate must possess both on the ideological spectrum and personality wise in order to keep the near fascist from being re-elected. When was the last time you heard earnest entries by the Republican party that they must nominate someone who isn't too far right and must appeal to that broad moderate center of voters? You haven't.
Yet, in dire terms, the Democrats must walk on eggshells and be ultra-cautious lest their candidate slip over that imaginary line of too far left.
Let's be clear, if a majority of American voters choose someone who is an ignorant near fascist again, rather than a Democratic candidate with all the qualities that a good, decent, and capable candidate should have, then the people have spoken and that's what they prefer. Let's stop making excuses. That's the kind of electorate we have.
It's an ugly prospect but there it is.
3
I wanted a woman of color to be the nominee - but it was never going to be Harris, who never appealed to me or to many others. Stacey Abrams would - and I’d bet money that she’s the Veep candidate for whatever white male or female gets the nomination, solving the “color” problem. Anyway, it wasn’t going to be Harris. I love Booker and Castro, but they won’t beat Trump. So it’s whoever, most likely, the white male is + Abrams. That’s the winning ticket, and we’re just waiting to hear it declared. That ticket will win in 2020.
2
Warren perseveres...and persists! The mistake is to underestimate her. She’s not going away , and once everyone realizes this, she will start pulling away.
1
In Biden's case, it's telling us that Americans are too easily manipulated by corporate media. In Warren's case, it's telling us that women support women. In Sanders' case, it's telling us that no matter your age, color, or sexual orientation, policies that benefit the common man, and a proven record of supporting basic human dignity MATTER.
1
The best candidate who could have fulfilled all the requirements got kicked out - Al Franken.
5
With so much anxiety about the possibility of Trump being re-elected, Democrats are going for familiarity--meaning candidates who have been in the run the longest; namely Biden, Sanders, and Warren. Someone like Buttigieg can still break through though. I for one am open to giving him a serious second look.
3
That is one hellava closing! Who in the present ranks of Democrats, in play or on the sidelines, has both the political acumen and raw talent to become our next president?
Raw talent is usually known and waiting for their time. The acumen usually comes from experience. C'mon Frank, it's your call. Or are you suggesting that the said candidate will arrive in 2024? To quote a beloved cartoonist, "Good Grief!"
2
"For a party that celebrates diversity, pitches itself to underdogs and prides itself on being future-minded and youth-oriented..." I thought for sure this is where you were going to pivot and devote the rest of your column to Bernie Sanders, which, when you stop to think about it, appeals to all 3 of these groups about as strongly as one possibly can.
3
It can't be said in the NYT. This is another 1964, 1972, 1984, 1996, and 2008 election. The odds are over 95% that Trump is going to `win. That is why the natural candidates--Cuomo and Sherrod Brown--refuse to run.
That is why the party does truly dumb, desperate things like impeachment that only makes the situation worse. It is time to think of 2024 and 2028 and get responsive candidates that deal with issues like immigration .
It is time to reject the notion that ending 18 years of war is treason. General Westmoreland has taken over the Democratic Party. The last time that occurred the Democrats won one 4-year term between 1965 and 1992.
4
Sorry Frank, my fellow Columbia classmate, you, like nearly all of your fellow political pundits, are failing to nuance your discussion and description of Tom Steyer, whom I’ve known for close to 50 years.
Lumping Tom with Bloomberg as fellow billionaires is unfair, namely because there is a huge difference between having about $1.6 billion and $52 billion.
Technically, because Tom and his wife Kat have already signed the giving pledge to give away half of their fortune during their lifetime, they are more like multimillionaires rather than billionaires.
And finally, as Andrew Yang in the last debate rightly noted, why condemn and criticize a man who is spending his wealth to save our democracy and the planet?
The media gave billionaire Trump billions in free advertising as he, too, spent his own money and was supposedly not beholden to anyone but the people, but when an honest and decent billionaire likewise positions himself as his own man, he is ignored and subjected to a systematic media disinformation campaign.
Is it because gangsters, crooks, and mob bosses are more exciting than a decent and honest family man?
3
We'll all be surprised by the surprises to come.
2
I tell My Democratic friends that Trump is going to win again and they just continue to dream that this will not happen, But Trump is going to win 2020. The Democratic party has imploded into a form of hate and rage I have not ever seen in my long life time. This is very sad due to the total non acceptance of the 2016 election. It happened and this ridiculous attempt to overturn this election is driving more and more people away from the Democratic Party. And I was once a very staunch Democrat.
6
That sums it up. This lifelong Democratic voter is totally repelled by the current candidates and platforms. Speaking to many others we are far from alone.
3
I don't think the serfs have had enough of Trump yet. They like him. He acts like a dictator and that's just fine with them. Democrats too, don't want to ask for too much. They will likely back a nice safe moderate who will surely enact policy that is at most half measures and more likely entirely superficial lip service to a given issue. Don't want to upset the wealthy overlords. Know your place America. The wealthy know best and their politicians agree with them.
1
Yes, the media may have had an influence in Harris's demise. I would go so far as to say that the media may have a big influence in Donald Trump's reelection in 2020. Trump seems to pop up on the White House lawn rather frequently for one of his impromptu press conferences, and reporters are always waiting with their latest round of questions. Trump rambles on and on about something which usually contains mostly lies which are seldom challenged by members of the press. So, in the end, the press is giving Trump an unchallenged platform to indoctrinate the public with his lies.
1
"So if identity group, electability, media bias and personal wealth aren't the secrets to success, what are?"
It's like the spaghetti sauce. You know, it's in there somewhere.
1
This is quite entertaining to follow. Post-Modern Democrats (the face of the party, really), struggling to keep their sanity when it turns out the concepts indoctrinated into them by Feminist and Marxist professors in college don't pan out in real life. No, Female candidates don't fail because of the "Patriarchy", and visible minorities don't fail because of creeping White Nationalism. They fail because their message doesn't come through, or they come off as incompetent. Not as a demographic, as the Identity Politics types believe, but as individuals. Hence Obama's 2-term presidency in a supposedly "systemically racist" country: he appealed to a large demographic rather than solely his own, and he had real experience in office.
Thank you Mr. Bruni for acknowledging the solid counter-arguments to the simplistic reasoning still found in many Leftist publications: that Castro's and Booker's lagging and Harris' dropping out are proof that we are a sexist and racist society. The ubiquitous "Four white front-runners" headline, and the racist sentiment hardly concealed within it, has all the Identity Politics crazies stirred up, and that's not helping things. What worries me, and will keep me from voting Dem in 2020, is that there are zero classical Liberals in the lineup; the closest to that standard being Joe Biden. But he unfortunately has his own host of issues which make me doubtful he'd be a good president, or even able to complete his term.
3
Frank, you've thrown this whole candidate choosing process into a terrible muddle. The more I hear about Biden, Sanders and Warren, the more I tend to feel partial to Buttigieg and Klobuchar.
Maybe democracy has run amok after being presented with this bevy of candidates. Who knows. We have to thin the herd somehow. And by the way, Bloomberg is an excellent candidate too.
1
The winning candidate is Mayor Pete with 8 more years and Senate experience. The point is that the Democrats haven't come up with one good candidate who can beat the worst president we've ever had.
4
Who organized this Democratic fizzle? Wasn't it Perez? Why is he not, at least occasionally, the focus of our complaints about the results of this muted crusade?
1
If you don't excite the base you are going to repeat 2016. Three years all we have heard about is the much feared Trump base. Trump's base strikes fear in Trump's party formerly known as the Republican party. While this all is going on The Democrats ignores and takes its base for granted. Having the first two primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire where the population is almost totally white is brain dead on the part of The DNC. The most non diverse states in the union having the most influence on who goes up against Trump is ridicules. Sadly the current top tier candidates are about as exciting as watching paint dry or grass grow. The media effort of trying to push short on resume Mayor Pete down our throats is not working. No matter how many times Pete meets with Al Sharpton at Sylvia's to get his blessing it is not working in communities of color. Pete's short resume and his dealing with the minority population is his town of 100000 may be his Bridge too Far. Bloomberg's tepid apology for Stop and Frisk is suppose be his amends to those affected? Sure the Dems can count on their loyal base, people of color, to turn out in 2020 but if there is no excitement in that base they will lose. Every day we hear about Trump's base while nothing is being said about The Left's base? To the party I say ignore them at your peril. The base is going to come out because they detest Trump but if their kids don't also come out we will lose.
2
Maybe the reason the campaigns of these also rans didn’t catch on is because they did a poor job organizing and conveying a message.
2
If we continue to play identity politics we will lose. Not sure what Mr Bruni is trying to accomplish here but while diversity is always an admirable goal the candidate who most captures our hopes and dreams will be the best contender no matter their tribal membership. And we will lose if we stay glued to woke and cancel culture pressure. Case in point, Mayor Pete references the absence of male role models in urban black communities as problematic and gets called out by the social justice warriors while just a few years ago Rev Al Sharpton orchestrates the Million Man March to highlight the absence of positive male role models in the urban black community. What's the difference really?
2
"We in the media aren’t driving it, either, though there’s constant carping along those lines. We’ve always been fundamentally responsive, bestowing coverage based on established interest, " This is a ridiculous statement. PBS just did a review of the race and didn't mention Sanders! Part of an obvious pattern. Can you imagine if Trump had not been mentioned in 2016. Almost anyone can explain Bruni's confused state by looking at the issues which he refuses to do.
1
Make the first two Democratic contests be California and New York instead of Iowa and New Hampshire and we'd see the non-white candidates hanging in there a lot longer. And while we are at it let's cut the campaigning time to two months. This entire race is run for too long in districts that are far too white and rural.
2
"We in the media aren’t driving it...We give you a tide of Warren in part because you thrilled to the earlier trickle. We serve you oodles of Buttigieg because we’ve noticed your appetite for it."
Except that all coverage isn't equal and the media chooses whether that coverage is positive or negative. Which public was clamoring for the recent almost exclusively negative coverage of Buttigieg? Could it be the same that have driven the almost exclusively positive coverage of Warren?
3
Time to relax people. Nobody has voted except for what they have donated. Enjoy the holidays and then get some rest as it will be a long year ahead. Kamala does not yet possess certain skills, like management ability. Hopefully she will learn that success requires execution which requires strategy, work, effort, teamwork and maybe not choosing your sister isn't such a smart idea just because she has a law degree. People who run campaigns need management experience too. Politics isn't the study or practice of jurisprudence, its a whole lot more. We will see others fail in the process and that's ok because it doesn't make them a bad person. What we all need to remember is the goal and what we must always remember to do, vote for the Democrat because the alternative is a banana republic at best and the death of America as we know it at worst. There will be Russian disinformation and attempts to divide us, to weaken our spirit and our resolve. Russia wants Democrats to have infightings that FOX can use against us. This is the moment we stand together, we fight together, and we support each other while we democratically determine a leader for all of us. And many Republicans and Independents who still value truth, integrity, facts and the rule of law will also vote for someone who has the decency and commitment to moving our country forward. And the planet is rooting for us too. We can't let petty differences divide us from our goal.
1
Excellent rebuke of the whining going on out there about why Harris didn't catch fire. She wasn't Obama, didn't have political acumen, didn't have raw talent. Neither do Hickenlooper, Beto, Booker (even if he thinks he does), Castro, Bullock.
1
There is no obvious front runner because there are several exceptional candidates. We should be celebrating this rather than buying into the narrative that they are all mediocre. This is a GOP talking point and the media is resonating it. Bad media, already repeating the mistakes of 2016. For example, the inflation of this non-story about Pete’s first job ... is distortion and corruption of the process. Bad media, please grow up. Freedom of the press is protected so that you can reflect honest opinion, not so that you can manufacture scandal.
2
About a year ago I was thinking about the upcoming election. I thought that the next Democrat to run for President should be a woman. Male Democrats and Republicans are unable to talk to each other. We have become blinded by the perceived life and death struggle between Red and Blue. The 2020 candidate should be from Middle West where it seems that the contest for electoral votes will be sharpest. Then I saw Amy Klobuchar on CSPAN a couple of times and was impressed with her knowledgeable presentations in committee work and when giving a speech to the Black Action Network, Al Sharpton’s group.
I was also impressed by her back story regarding her entrance into politics. When she said on the debate stage that if you wanted some who would take private health insurance from people, then she was not your candidate, then I knew she was my candidate.
I think she is the real deal.
Amy Klobuchar for President.
1
You write that voters kind of did determine K.H.'s fate. But that's absurd, with Iowa and NH stills months away. The state of the race so far is entirely determined by press coverage, fed by polls.
All of these polls are quite literally meaningless. Whether or not they are well made, polls are not votes. The contemporary use of polling is such a scam. They generate stories, but when actual votes come in, if the pollsters were wrong, everyone shrugs and says, 'oh well, polls aren't votes!'
I'm sorry to sound old, but it used to be, back before 24-hour news cycle, with the practice of democracy paced like a reality TV show, that campaigns got very little coverage until just a few weeks leading up to Iowa, and voters didn't pay much attention at least until NH results were in.
It tells one a lot about the politics of "electability" discourse that Saunders would be disqualified from it. As the concept is being used in columns today, it basically means "must appeal to working class white men in swing states." Especially those who voted for Trump last time. It seems to me that Saunders is the obvious choice when it comes to that kind of "electability." His socialism offers a partial alternative to politics as usual, just as Trump's vulgar proto-fascism offered a partial alternative to politics as usual...
1
All our Presidents have been WASP's except for JFK and Obama. JFK had to reassure the people that his Catholicism wouldn't get in the way. Obama had to talk more like a professor than a preacher. Hillary had to be"strong", no crying allowed. And Butigieg has to be able to deceive those who claim to have "gay-dar."
There is a collectively-held pre-conceived notion of what passes as "presidential" and it is a product of our history and of what Hollywood has to offer. So black, female, gay or other hardly matters. All minority candidates have to act as if they fit the typecast. You don't win unless you appear to be cast well for the job.
1
The circus -- and I do not use that word in a gratuitously insulting manner, but simply as a straightforward statement of fact -- that has become the presidential primary season, for both Dems and the GOP, brings to mind Bismarck's comment that politics is like making sausage: You don't want to see what goes into the final product. We have a system that exposes every candidate's strengths and weaknesses, which then become endless fodder both for their rivals and the pundits. Harris didn't catch fire because....she came across as a wet blanket. In addition, she both lacked sincerity (unlike Obama and Jimmy Carter) and the ability to overcome a lack of sincerity through force of personality (Clinton). On the other hand, if she learned from her campaign mistakes and can maintain a high profile as a senator, she may indeed have presidential potential if she can be as tough-minded as she appears to be.
Why are Biden, Warren, Sanders and Buttigieg leading? The first 3 because of name recognition. The 4th because of impressive oratorical skills (hence being called the gay Obama).
The 3 governors - Inslee, Hickenlooper and Bullock- would make fine presidents. But none have the dynamism, especially on TV, to make up for their relative anonymity.
The most electable seems to be Biden. Yet I fear Trump will embarrass and crush him in the debates. I’d prefer to take my chances with a Warren.
1
Frank, the problem with the Democrats is a lack of focus.
Yes, they have to stop Trump, but they need a hope, a dream.
MLK, jr, said that he had a dream.
In South Pacific, "If you don't have a dream,
how you gonna have a dream come true?"
I suggest the dream of a new democracy wave.
Democrats might use the "Democracy" song of Leonard Cohen.
"Democracy is coming to the USA"
The Times could do a story on a democracy focus and the song.
"Democracy is coming to the USA"
As Will Rogers said "I am not a member of any organized political party - I am a Democrat" Nothing changes.
All of this age-income-polls-he-said-she-said blah, blah, blah, reminds me of gossip magazines (when we still had magazines) and silly star oriented television shows. The worst thing Democrats are doing is having these "debates" broadcast, making political candidates look more like game show contestants rather than serious leaders of our country. I suggest something far less sexy; round table discussions. Have them sit in small groups of no more than five at a time, give them an issue like the economy, gun violence, the middle east, and so forth. Just let them sit there and talk for an hour or so. No script. No limits to how often they can or can't talk. No moderator. Just an open discussion among themselves. Then mix the groups up and go at it with other issues. Let's see them in action. Put it on C-SPAN, and record the discussions so people can watch them over and over. Let's see who knows how to handle a discussion, who can compromise on good ideas, who can improvise, and who can just plain get things done. I have a feeling the cream will rise to the top. Face it, it's gotta work, because what they are doing right now is reducing the whole field into a bunch of contestants on Survivor, and I don't want a survivor. I want a leader.
2
Instant clarity, Mr. Bruni. Only one candidate is overwhelmingly the choice of young voters. And only one candidate is a Socialist. And they're both the same old pain in the neck with the thick Brooklyn accent. What a contrast his integrity and honesty will make with lie-a-minute Trump. You claim you want diversity? Bernie Sanders will be our first-ever non Christian President.
1
Too bad the so-called "Big Money" has been ignoring Amy Klobuchar. I have heard her reel off a 45-minute stump speech without a note, and barely taking a breath, that made my hair (what's left of it) stand on end. If a high percentage of Iowans are really still undecided, as they claim, and if electability is the most important issue, as they claim, she may well emerge out of the shadows. She is Trump's worst nightmare (just as she was Justice Kavanaugh's).
At this given point of time and space, Trump would probably win by plain old Default.
It is not set in stone that a presidential candidate has to be anything other than someone who can speak to the widest
ranging number of Americans and inspire hopes and dreams.
We have proven that a man of color can win the hearts of so many Americans with grace and integrity.
But we have also proven that a hotshot babbling buffoon from New York City can break down the rule of law in less than his term.
America will always be “an experiment in democracy”.
The once belief that “ our baby could one day be president of the United States” was the ultimate prayer of so many homes across America. No one says that anymore.
At this point, can we dare to hope that that candidate will arise that will once again set us back on the track of American greatness once again?
1
"We’ve always been fundamentally responsive, bestowing coverage based on established interest, and we’re more responsive than ever in this digitized age of sophisticated, real-time measures of precisely what our audience does and doesn’t turn to. We give you a tide of Warren in part because you thrilled to the earlier trickle. We serve you oodles of Buttigieg because we’ve noticed your appetite for it."
Telling information here for those who wonder why coverage ebbs and flows.
2
As long as fundraising is the measure of political popularity in the US, plutocrats will rig the game.
2
Should it not be obvious that what is going to rid us all, around the world, of the terrible Trump, is leadership that will be calm,
quieter, and with a steadiness of hand demonstrated by
Obama. So that kind of rules out the ranting styles of Sanders and Warren which leaves Biden emerging as the steady hand.
Next will be locking in that really good, also calming and smart,
female running mate for Joe. She's got be out there and should step forward now.
If you believe that we need big change in this country, then you should cast a vote for Bernie in 2020. Real reform is what his candidacy is all about.
“Democratic socialism means that we must reform a political system that is corrupt, that we must create an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy. — Senator Sanders
3
I have read some opinions that this primary is somehow stacked against people of color. I believe this is nonsense, plane and simple. If you cant raise enough money to fund your campaign its clear you don't have enough people willing to support you or vote for you. If you are a billionaire and want to spend your money to run for president, good luck because in the end voters will decide if you are a good fit. I believe I am a typical DEM. I will vote for whomever is our nominee because my primary goal is to oust trump however at this point I support Amy Klobuchar.
3
Money is speech, or so we are told. The wealthy seem to have a distinct advantage in being able to out”vote” people who work for a living, leaving us with only nominees that favor their interests.
I suspect that if all the money in this country had been kept in Afro-American families over the years, we might be looking at four old, Black front-runners. Which is to say, don’t be baffled - the explanation, one way or another, is money.
Republicans rarely have other identities.
They are not women or black or gay even if they are.
They are just Republicans and seen for their background and stand on the issues.
Democratic party politics always involves identity. Which boxes you check. How many purity points you've accrued. How you will make history.
If Democrats would just leave all that behind and focus on what they are going to do in office, we would all be better off.
2
I think Mr Bruni is selectively myopic. The field of dem candidates has been and continues to be very diverse when you take all factors into account. Give the party some well deserved credit.
1
I think everyone needs to stop hyper ventilating and let the voters decide.
2
"What is this primary telling us?"
We're not in Kansas anymore.
Have a real hard time believing the net worths of Sanders ($2.5M), Klobuchar ($2M) and Buttigieg ($100k).
What people who are not on twitter, the vast majority of voters, are telling you is that when a train goes off the rails you have to get it back on track before you can move forward.
Look, you could elect a smart French poodle to beat Donald Trump. Enough people are fed up with the GOP that they fully expect to be slaughtered in 2020. Never mind the Senator from Trumpistan (formerly the honorable Lindsay Graham of SC).
The demographics are changing. The youth vote isn't distracted by college anymore: they're worried about keeping their jobs when the economy goes south after the cheap oil is gone. Of all the candidates who do you think has the economic experience and the political experience to save the economy: that would be Liz Warren. The rest of these candidates are party hacks ---- sure they can attack an idea, but they have none themselves.
I have zero idea why the Democrats come across as scattered, rattled, and inept. One thing for sure was that awful debate schedule, orchestrated by DNC chair Tom Perez.
It seems as if his goal was to showcase a cast of thousands over a more stringent winnowing process that would produce a set of 3-4 truly viable candidates who could duke it out on the platform of ideas, not take-downs.
The more urgent this election becomes, the more Democrats appear in total disarray. Enough with the hand-wringing! It's not enough to lament the end of the Republic if party leaders can't get stop trying to find what's wrong with each candidate rather than what's rignt.
Look who they're up against: the most unqualified president in US history who just happens to be an expert in "branding"even if said brand is based on a mountain of lies.
It's a totally uneven contest, when the battle isn't being fought on the same battleground.
132
Absolutely. Tom Perez is the major problem. Bring back Howard Dean.
22
@ChristineMcM
I totally agree, Christine. Enough of the -or your - hand-wringing: if you can't handle retail politics, and the ugly unfairness of it all - a process that has occurred during every election cycle since the founding of the Republic (or, perhaps, since the appearance of Homo Sapiens), then you are simply unfamiliar with politics. The weeding of Democratic candidates during the lead up to this election is not unusual nor illogical (nor is it 'scattered, rattled, or inept'!). It is what is ...and what it has been since the founding of democracies.
14
@ChristineMcM
Scrap the debates, they contribute little of worth while encouraging picking at old scabs. They hurt the D candidates much more than they help.
9
Time to kill off, once and for all, the notion of "I just want someone who can win." It's a trap. None of us can see that far into the future, and it creates the temptation to clear the decks by declaring a candidate The One before a single vote has been cast, then pressuring voters to pick The One or be shunned.
Pull for your favorite candidate based entirely on that individual's merits, and stop worrying about what the Joneses think. It is a waste of time and energy.
278
@Mark Lebow
Elect-ability is clearly the #1 issue for Democrats. The primaries are coming right up, so we'll see who they feel can beat Trump. There's a pretty good chance Democrats will be facing a brokered convention next summer.
3
@Mark Lebow Agreed! This is the time for voters to inform themselves on the candidates views and plans. It’s not a horse race!
11
@Mark Lebow
Thanks, Kellyanne
4
Candidates! Your message should be:
Medicare for All Children.
Benefits everyone by keeping future adults healthy. Lower cost because most children do not need parts replacements. Benefits lower income and middle class families. Helps ensure America’s competitive edge (increased educational funding would be great but THAT’s not going to happen).
1
Fine. Four of them are white and over70, but that says nothing about whom any of them might pick as a running mate.
And therein lies the cut.
In fact, that's the point most American voters seem to forget about -- all of these front-runners are going to have administrations that won't necessarily look like them.
After all, we have Donald Trump for that.
1
Today's Internet-saturated world has made everyone a political pundit (and, of course, a movie critic). Thanks to the post-Watergate "reforms," we're deluged with primaries and debates, which only add to the general bafflement. No "ideal" candidate can emerge because every candidate is labelled with a big no-no that begins with the word "too." Too old. Too young. Too progressive. Too moderate. Too much baggage. Too little experience. Too white. Too black. And so on. Time to bring back the smoke-filled room." Let the guys (and gals) with the cigars decide.
"We in the media aren’t driving it, either." Are you sure? Because to no one's surprise this article finds reason to mention eight current or former candidates who all polled lower and raised less money than Andrew Yang. But somehow Yang is invisible.
3
I would like to see the nomination of the candidate who will provide the most help for those who most need it, which may not be ourselves.
When all is said and done it will come down to the wisdom of the American voter we keep hearing about. And that's not very reassuring.
I agree with your last point. It is about the candidate. His/her personal connection with voters. His/her persuasiveness and clear concise message. And. If that is true. A Democrat will not win the general election in this cycle.
I voted for Mike in 2016. Wrote him in. I'd do it again. But. I don't think he'll play in Peoria.
1
The Democrats don't have a strong leader, they don't have a development program for leaders, they simply have a focus on getting rid of Trump. That's not a formula that will put forth a leader from within the party structure. Bloomberg is trying to save the Democrats from themselves, are the Democrats willing to eat their rhetoric and elect a proven leader who knows how to get things done? At thus point their collective ego seems to be in the way.
4
I recoiled at the headline to this piece, because primaries are inherently messy (particularly 2 months before any voting occurs.) But the meat of the piece seems dead-on: At the end of the day, it's voters, not the party or media, who determine advancement. The final paragraph sums it up perfectly: raw talent and ability tend to win out, as they should.
6
Indeed it is quite a quagmire. The way out and the path to victory is an old marketing trick: if you don't have a great product, you need an even better message. What do I mean? Since the Dems are likely to have a weak ticket, they do not campaign on the individuals, they campaign on the issues and big ideas. They advocate transformational programs, a return to honesty and integrity in leadership, making healthcare affordable for everyone, and most importantly, they position this race as one of democracy vs. autocracy. And Trump and his pro Russian comrades in the House, Senate and FOX News have given them all the best marketing material the world has to offer. It's US vs. Russia in the next election. Take your vote.
4
This is extremely thoughtful, but as an admittedly “centrist” individual, it misses a larger point that makes watching Democrats both comical and frustrating. None of the candidates (or their supporters) seem able to reflect on their shortcomings, or take responsibility for not catching on in the polls. It is always somebody else’s fault. The notion of taking ownership of one’s endeavors and their outcomes seems alien to the Democrats, an attitude I suspect is off-putting to most Americans outside of the liberal base.
9
Indeed it is quite a quagmire. The way out and the path to victory is an old marketing trick: if you don't have a great product, you need an even better message. What do I mean? Since the Dems are likely to have a weak ticket, they do not campaign on the individuals, they campaign on the issues and big ideas. They advocate transformational programs, a return to honesty and integrity in leadership, making healthcare affordable for everyone, and most importantly, they position this race as one of democracy vs. autocracy. And Trump and his pro Russian comrades in the House, Senate and FOX News have given them all the best marketing material the world has to offer. It's US vs. Russia in the next election. Take your vote.
1
It’s telling us we the world needs wisdom more than trendy ideas.
2
None of the Democratic candidates have the experience of Joe Biden particularly as to foreign relations and the mess Trump as created overseas. Since the economy continues to thrive, national security and foreign relations are critical factors in Trump's record of coddling Russia, making a fool out of himself with North Korea and his hasty retreat from Syria. Kamela Harris would make an excellent vice president to Biden.She would shine on international relations and could be seen as the backup as Biden ages. Just remember Harry Truman as VP in 1944.
1
"While an official party entity, the Democratic National Committee, indeed set criteria for the debates — which had to have some criteria — there’s otherwise no committee of elders or secret cabal that decrees which candidates prosper and which don’t."
Frank - Don't be so naive. The DNC cheated Bernie Sanders out of the nomination in 2016 and Howard Dean in 2004. The backroom party hacks are the biggest threat to Elizabeth Warren's run for the presidency. We should call it the Dinosaur National Committee.
8
I thought Kamala Harris, by reason of personality, temperament, and training, was probably best-positioned to defeat Trump in the general election. But that perception may have contributed to her undoing. With the Democratic field as large as it still is, the preprimary focus on the deficits of each candidate that has been taking place may not bode well for whoever ultimately emerges as the nominee. Whatever negatives might be expressed about Republicans, they do seem to get the concept of publicly uniting behind a candidate they might ( height of understatement ) not personally be all that crazy about, for the sake of party unity. If only Democrats could sign onto that same message - real soon, not six months from now - and unite behind someone who has the best chance of winning, instead of chipping away at their same-side-of-the-aisle opponents' imperfections, they would have a much better chance of turning things around in November.
2
As radical (Sanders & Warren) or as retro as their positions may be (Biden), it is obvious that having a position - any position - and focusing on what they will do is a key to success. Trump was elected because he laid out a definitive program and promised action in a manner many people found refreshing, forthright and appealing. That appeal was enough for voters to overlook his many obvious shortcomings. People are tired of business as usual and want something new - look around the world - people are desperate for change and will risk almost anything to get it. Candidates who lack that recognition haven’t a chance.
8
The fact that no democrat has emerged as a clear front runner at this point is greatly benefitting Trump. Party leaders undoubtedly realize this, but the candidates are too divergent in their platforms and ability to communicate/appeal to voters.
As I see it:
Sanders, who will get my vote in the primary, is still too progressive for the masses, sadly. It what a fun presidency it would be.
Warren, who suffers in a different way to some of the same issues as Sanders — outspoken, brash, too idealistic— will not garner support from moderate liberals. But she would unquestionably crush Trump in a debate.
Biden will likely win the nomination based on his background and “electability”, but will ultimately lose to Trump. I don’t look forward to seeing him debate Trump. It will be a disaster.
3
Let's just be clear that Bernie Sanders came into this $millions very recently with his runaway best seller book, "Where We Go From Here." He has always pursued social, judicial, and economic justice rather than money. I can't say that for any of the rest of them.
7
Here's a clue: the candidates who advocate major change such as Sanders and Warren are able to draw a lot of money from small donors. Those who claim people don't want major change rely on money from big business and finance. Different people may decide which different candidates are viable.
8
Mr. Bruni has shown that the Democratic electorate is more interested ideas than the physical appearance of the candidates.
In other words the electorate is not as vulnerable to manipulation as the big donors who promote identity politics would want us to be. The efforts of the big donors to get the electorate to vote for one of their pawns based upon mutual identity alone have failed. The only identity politics plant doing reasonably well is Buttigieg, but it is doubtful that the demographic of his gay identity is large enough to overcome his alarming record concerning African-Americans in South Bend.
The election is not going the way they had planned! So in desperation big donors like Bloomberg and Steyer are now using their enormous financial reserves to sell themselves to the consumer as a substitute for all those carefully cultivated pawns.
Never have the results of 40 years of tax cuts and deregulated campaign financing been revealed in such stark naked theatrics.
But in the meantime Bernie Sanders has more financial reserves from an average donation of $18 than any of the candidates other than the billionaire set. Hopefully true democracy will triumph over plutocracy in the election of 2020.
5
The more the DNC promotes Identity the more I am forced to lean RED. The Democrats have forgotten the Middle and Working class families and they will pay for it in November.
Remember Gross Wage Disparity, the Opioid Crisis, Out of Control Drug Prices, Awful Trade Deals with China and the Loss of Manufacturing jobs occurred during a Democratic Administration.
President Trump is hard to accept but if the Democrats do get a Broader Message, they will lose the election again.
5
@HPS
I agree! And that is why I support Bernie Sanders. He advocates for all of what you point out.
This column reminded me of the phrase 'unreliable narrator' in the sense that all narrators are unreliable. Mr. Bruni discounts every easy formula to interpret how we arrived with this collection of leading dem contenders. Their viability is no more inexplicable than Trump's candidacy in 2016. However, Bruni is also spot-on that political acumen (and some flavor of charisma) will be critical - as it was for Trump - to succeed.
1
Although the argument about the excessive amount of money in politics is agreeable the need for absolute diversity on stage becomes harder and harder to attain as the notion of diversity becomes more and more nuanced and multivariate. That will likely weaken the stage as the party tries to find ways, no matter how nonsensical, to have a bundle of candidates that are representative of the population. And, for how long? This is simply impossible to achieve and striving to achieve that will likely weaken the Democratic nomination process.
It is the wrong drum to beat every election cycle, from the beginning to the end.
When the Democrats as a party finally realize they must first show a pattern of consistently supporting policies and initiatives that improve life for working, taxpaying Americans, instead of focusing 100% of their energies and resources on undocumented immigrants and the removal of a duly elected President, plenty of voters will readily be available to them.
10
I suspect the busing issue ultimately sunk her — a classic case of winning a big battle but losing the war. Except for wealthy liberals who often sent their children to private schools, very few people on either side of the political spectrum liked the idea. Because Harris felt she derived some benefit from it she naively assumed others would feel that way. That’s political tone-deafness.
3
"So if identity group, electability, media bias and personal wealth aren’t the secrets to success, what are?"
How about POLICY? Maybe the electorate is finally ready to grow up and realize it's POLICY, NOT IDENTITY.
15
A couple of thoughts have come into my mind recently. First, it would be good if pollsters were able to indicate their firms/names on their calls to cellphones. Many of us routinely don't answer calls from unknown parties. If I saw it was Quinnipiac, I'd answer!
Second, it surprises me that no one is watching Amy Klobuchar, that little engine that could, husband her limited financial resources, and walk her way through Iowa and New Hampshire and still be here to tell the tale. She dresses simply, is an intellectual heavyweight (especially in contrast to Kamala Harris), seems to spend her money on what is most important and not a penny more; and clearly has the psychological strength to go the distance. How Klobuchar manages her money is a good indicator how she might govern. I hope she does well in the next debate.
12
@VHZ
It's a petty thing, but I'm pretty sure America is not ready to elect to the presidency either a woman nor anyone with a name like Klobuchar - or Buttigieg (or my own last name). This reflects exactly how close-minded too many Americans are, and it's tragic, but I'm just trying to be realistic - and it does keep coming back to "electability."
1
@Ambient Kestrel Really? We elected a black man named Barack Obama twice. I don’t think it has anything to do with last names; it’s charisma and policy positions combined with an effective campaign.
2
@Ambient Kestrel It occurred to me that I should mention the last name issue: with the exception of Obama, we've never had anyone with a Slavic, or Italian name, for example.....but maybe we can get past that.
1
If the Democrats don't nominate someone who can win,they will never get to implement any of their dreams and ideas. Trump will win and continue to do what he has a pretty good start on- destroying this nation.
Go ahead -fight your good fight and if THAT is more important to you than winning, then continue to squabble and fight,instead of unite. You will insure Republican victory.
5
The latest poll shows Bernie leading in California. If Bernie has the most delegates in the primaries through California, his candidacy could truly take off. There would be nothing at all "baffling" about this. Sanders is by far the most electrifying speaker in the field, and the one with the greatest capacity to inspire passion. That's why he has the biggest crowds, and always has had. Now that he's seemingly shoved aside worries about his health, he is going to be truly formidable. If he consolidates the left lane, he will definitely win the nomination. Instead of this being a "disaster," that result will take us back to the situation on Election Day in 2016, when all the exit polls in the Rust Belt proved incontrovertibly that the voters there preferred Sanders to Donald J. Trump, and thus would have crushed him nationally, if Wall St. had not conned black primary voters into nominating the most hated candidate in party history.
8
It is past time to get money out of politics. We do not get the best candidates because they either have to have tons of money or they have to get folks with money to support them.
Although I am aging boomer, I feel that Biden, Sanders and Bloomberg are too old, Warren may have trouble defeating the liar in chief in the WH and Mayor Pete is basically a Republican.
Although I cannot afford to contribute much, if any money to the candidates, I am very interested in how the race is shaping up. I would love to take some of the good things about each candidate and put them together (expand the ACA Not "Medicare for all," reduced tuition for those that cannot afford college or have to borrow tens of thousands to go to college, infrastructure spending, tax on higher incomes, stronger action protecting the environment, campaign finance reform, modest reform of gun laws, equal rights for women, protecting voting rights).
I prefer candidates like Klobuchar, Harris, Castro and Booker (Where are you, Stacey Adams?). However, they did not get enough in contributions to continue their campaigns.
The choice is obvious in this election. We need to win back the WH AND the Senate to move the country into the 21st Century.
3
Frank Bruni leaves me on the cliff with his last paragraph. The next Democratic president will have political acumen and raw talent, he predicts. When will that occur? Who, among those presently running measures up with those ingredients? Bruni doesn't tell us. Could it be years in the future? Of those running now, not my favorite but meets those criteria, Sanders comes closest.
5
It is certainly disheartening to see Harris leave the field. I have worried all along that there is a solemness to her personality as a candidate that is not attractive to a wide swath of voters.She's had a couple of strong moments of outrage, but her usual mode is humorless, overly earnest, low energy, and hesitant. Candidates like Warren, Sanders, Pete, and even Biden often show humor, passion, and spontaniety (even if it is well rehearsed). Voters want to be able to relate to a candidate.
1
Dear Frank Bruni,
Thank you for your column today. I concur with you Mr. Bruni: it's the talent of having a warm open personality, and, intelligence. Senator Sanders has these in spades. He listens to questioners: it's all there-- you see it in his face, his eyes, the occasional nod of his head, the broad smile, and it's in his truthiness. Sanders speaks straight-on the Truth.
All of us add a day, everyone ages. That's life. What's remarkable for Senator Sanders is his ability to give full responses, with facts, dates, times, his documenting the issue in question, added with his tone of sincerity. Whether you are hearing and seeing him from your armchair at home, or when driving and his voice is on the radio, or he's speaking from the well of the Senate, Senator Sanders nails it. He has my vote.
6
If everyone in the party told the truth they would all be landing on the ‘progressive’ positions of Sanders and Warren. Progressive in quotes because those policy positions are not really political any more. Everyone wants affordable health care that covers everyone. Debate over because any plan that provides a path to universal coverage ends in a ‘progressive’ position because that is, economically, what will occur. The urge to find a moderate who will have more ‘broad’ appeal is just disingenuous because these Democratic policy positions are no longer political. The moderates can’t find themselves because when they actually do it’s progressive. What’s left are the ghosts of the past. A fear that these things will be viewed as leftist or just too radicle. Attempts to position themselves in the ways that have been proven losers. The coin has been flipped. In the past the moderate pulled the progressive along to win the vote. But now the ‘progressives’ are pulling those last vestiges of hedge betting and false reassurance forward. Again, that is because the truth of the policy positions of Sanders and Warren is that they are addressing very old problems (old because of the Republican and plutocratic refusal to be responsible about them) in THE ways that are sensible to solve them.
6
Sounds very ageist right off the top. Unfortunately, millennials have been taught that only "young" is good and "old" is not worth a whole lot, while those who still believe in God continue to respect their elders and benefit from their years of wisdom.
2
It's tough to decide this early. My candidate preference is based on their ideas. If they are inspirational, that's what attracts me. Right now, I'm taking another look at Andrew Yang. It's really difficult to get info about him, yet he has a tremendous following among young people--perhaps because they understand what he talks about.
If it hadn't been for a podcast interview on the Axe Files, I'd never give him any consideration. After hearing the interview, I'm impressed by his ideas. He's the only one who has a grip on the type of future we are creating. He is imploring us to take more control of it. I'd only gotten mini glimpses of him in the debates, and it was hard to get an idea of what he is saying. He shines in penetrating interviews with his ideas, and his easy-going and delf deprecating humor. He is playful, erudite, solution-seeking, plus he's a minority. Take another look....give him some more coverage please.
4
I am puzzled how Mr. Bruni could fail to mention the role of identity politics from the left and how that has affected this election. Personally, I've gone from advocating and voting for Democrats for decades to the realization that now that I'm the evil-white-male enemy and as a result I will be voting for whomever the Republicans put on the ticket; all entirely due to identity politics. One may disagree, but I assure you that more than a few of my evil-white-male fellow citizens feel the same, and it's worth talking about.
9
Don't dismiss the 'silent minority' still standing with Bernie Sanders among the millennials & other youth as well as the well insulated in liberal enclaves.
Bloomberg will take votes from Biden even if he names Wonder Woman as a running mate and that's not to disparage Kamala Harris who'd be the strongest choice for VEEP in his aspiring administration.
Again Bloomberg is anathema in rural America & will ultimately help Trump.
In 2020 anything goes.
1
I am in the vote blue no matter who crowd, and will work to get out the vote and defeat Trump and his Senate enablers. I am confident that when we work together we can reclaim our democracy.
7
My daughter, who for years worked on various national and state campaigns continually says to me, campaigns go from week to week, picking the winner this early is foolish. In her words there are just too many variables, quirky variables, that can turn a winning campaign into a losing one and vice versa. The other point she made is the key variable---emotion---that often pundits and the media tend to ignore. Some candidates have that rare gift of exciting the electorate, while others put them to sleep---e.g. Trump and Sanders bring out visceral responses from their followers. While most of the democrats on stage so far would be better than what we have now, almost all of them were in words of my daughter, "vanilla."
2
I'm with Warren! She is the best candidate that would make for a great POTUS - if given the chance.
3
The dynamics of the primary are fascinating, but I prefer to focus on any candidate who can articulate a succinct vision for the country and cogent policy on healthcare, climate change, infrastructure, immigration, national defense and restoring the values of the United States that Trump has sullied to maintain his campaign of fear and hatred. As Obama said about Clinton, "..she is likable enough." So likability is essential. The us against them stuff at the extremes like that of Trump with his attack on decency and normality or Sanders and Warren with their attack of those with the most money do not present accessible solutions to the problems most of us face daily. Yes, they polarize the country, but that is not want will win the election, it will be much more participation that will define the winner.
Yes, political acumen will be essential in the street fight that Trump will bring to the campaign, so will a weapons grade message and vision along with a boatload of money for media saturation to counter the Fox machine supporting Trump. At this moment, that person is Mike Bloomberg to me. To expect the DNC to steward a candidate's campaign is a naive wish given its conduct in 2016 and so far in 2019.
Let us not forget that our finances are a disaster, so at least one political should describe an honest path to solve the debt problem, but not with more taxes, just a fairer tax system and prudent and efficient spending. Bloomberg can definitely do that.
It's not the democratic party or its supporters that will hand the victory to Trump. It's the die-hard Trump supporters like Maureen Dowd's brother and the moderates who value money/economy over character. To the latter, we as a country can AND should tolerate a president who lies everyday, insults anyone who criticizes him, values loyalty above all things, and governs by Tweet as long as the stock market is doing well. To the latter, having an emperor with no clothes is far better than having a Democrat POTUS. Character and soul are merely collateral damages to rising 401k.
1
About that broad name recognition. Sanders has it now but back in 2016, he had virtually none and Harris never came close to what he accomplished back then despite coming from a state many times larger than Sanders'.
And I have to laugh about Booker trying to sell diversity. Back in 2009, he supported Bloomberg for mayor of NYC even though he was running against an African-American Democrat who was well qualified. He did it because he was hoping for Bloomberg's financial support in future races. Where was Booker's concern about blacks being closed out back then?
It seems that the only black candidate he really cares about is named Cory Booker.
3
“And many gay Democrats have rejected Buttigieg as inadequately progressive and even insufficiently gay.”
If memory serves, Harris has been criticized as being inadequately progressive and even insufficiently black.
And, on it goes. Every current Democratic candidate is too inadequate and too insufficient to meet to perceive needs of some part of the party.
What Democrats are failing to recognize is that while their identity is paramount to them, other members of the party really just are not all that interested. So, why pretend?
Whether or not the multitude of identity needs in the Democratic Party can be over come by the desire to defeat Trump remains to be seen.
4
Democrats ought to keep in mind is that candidates from prosperous coastal cities don't play so well elsewhere. We don't want to hear that all would be well if there would just be more affordable housing available in New York or Boston or San Francisco so that everybody could move there where the jobs are.
It may be more than coincidence that Massachusetts is 0 for 3 (including Romney) in the past 50 years.
@Jim S.
I guess affordable housing is not an issue in Cleveland, Dayton, or Cincinnati? Sorry, but I thought Milwaukee and OKC are in the Midwest.
2
@John C
No, affordable housing is not an issue in Cleveland. $250K will get a very livable house in a suburb with very good schools. And passable housing/school situations are available in the $150K range.
Everyone wants to find that mythical, perfect, anti-Trump candidate. Fortunately for all of us, recent elections keep indicating that Trump seems to have succeeded in fulfilling that role himself. The long-term problem is with our flawed, un-democratic electoral system. And as for the wildly out of balance senate, Bill Maher is spot on whenever he laments “why do we need two Dakota’s ?”. Between campaign finance reform and more than a few other design flaws severely impacting representative equality, the constitution itself is coming due for a three hundred year tune-up.
10
Trump has focussed a laser on how profoundly unfair and illegitimate the process that nullified unnumbered millions of votes to install the most spoiled brat ever birthed in the US its president has come to be.
The Democratic Party is a messy conglomeration of diverse causes and proposed solutions. It, in contrast to the other game in town it has been the only party where new immigrants, LBGQTG, unionized workers, and feminists can achieve a sense of comfort.
Why would any African-American choose the party historically on record as officially opposing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a national holiday for MLK, or a list of slights that range from Willie Horton to
”good people on both sides”?
Every aforementioned group has its own list of slights.
The Democratic Party errs on the side of openness and inclusion and sensitivity to historical injustice. That just makes things messy, as we are now seeing.
The various candidates in this field have foundered only when they initiated uncharitable and self-serving attacks on one another. Julian Castro did himself no good in going after Biden, not did Harris in doing so. Buttigieg’s fear mongering about M4A, was a great way to gain a temporary advantage over the frontrunner at the expense of toxifying one solution for universal healthcare for a very persuadable group of voters.
Sanders and Warren ought to have responded by thanking Mayor Pete for demanding a clear explanation of their proposal and pivot towards explanation--not with defensiveness and rising hackles.
Surrogates for the frontrunners now encourage them to attack one another about tax returns, past consulting and advocacy for clients. It will doom whoever gives in.
...bestowing coverage based on established (public) interest...
This is not a very civic-minded criterion. Interest (or attention) can be acquired in many ways, some of which are quite destructive for civic discourse. If the your purpose is actually to sell "newspapers" then don't claim to be an objective arbiter of the candidates' positions.
1
@Jesse Thank you--I'm glad someone else noticed this. The criteria Bruni lists is indistinguishable from that of The National Enquirer or the UK's Daily Mail.
And given that the NYT ran negative articles, often front and center, about Biden almost daily for awhile, beginning on the day he announced and touted Harris with the same placement and same regularity also gives Bruni's explanation the lie.
I wish the candidates who have no chance—and I include Bloomberg and Steyer in this number—would turn their assets and attention toward voter registration, turnout, and secure election systems.
Unscrupulous actors are looking for ways to steal this election, in part aided by Mitch McConnell’s unwillingness to address the huge vulnerability in our voting systems.
6
There could be quite a bit of randomness in the superficial identity markers -- things like skin color, age, gender, sexual preference, and religion -- of any collection of audition participants. If, instead of running for president, these 15 or 17 candidates were competing as songwriters who also sing their own songs, Bob Dylan, say, might not even make the cut -- have you ever understood the words to his songs the first time you heard them? (Only a few. Most needed close rehearing or else a translator.) Can we draw inferences about the audience -- the voters -- from this particular talent show ?
It's the electorate, not the candidates. Unfortunate that Michael Bennet, Jay Inslee, and others mentioned did not make the cut as finalists for the very unhelpful debates which required an entrance fee of sorts.. Hickenlooper was out of the gate dissing "socialist" candidates and socialism. Perceived low energy, was a pure turn-off with other runners otherwise of quality. Castro and Booker are great but I am at a loss as to why they are not doing better. Harris is an attacker who might have been good against Trump on the debate stage (if Trump agrees to debate) but she knew she did not have the support to go on. And so every other candidate had/ has pros and cons. Voters are vacillating between what the goals of the candidates are and their ability to defeat Trump.
Goals are of concern with Sanders and Warren's supporters who want deep change and reform. Unfortunately Warren's growing support flounders because of (media fueled) fear of change and what that would take from us and not what we would gain.
In the end we have Biden who I insist is a perception (that others feel can win over Trump) of a perception (that he can actually win over Trump) despite his lack of vision. His support might collapse.
Come election day, it will be Trump or anyone but.
What are Booker et al saying about voters of color, who, as the author points out, are overwhelmingly rejecting candidates of color, including in their home states? It may be perverse that, say, African-American voters in South Carolina don't trust the eligibility of two accomplished African-American candidates. But the solution, then, would be to prove them wrong, as Obama did in his first presidential campaign; and indeed as Harris and Booker both did when they campaigned for the Senate and won in states where African-Americans are a minority (a small one in the case of California). Conversely, some outstanding candidates such as Hickenlooper and Bullock got lost in a sea of heterosexual middle-aged white male faces. In their case, they can hardly complain that the identity that has brought them so many privileges ended up dooming them.
Obama blew everything. Led down the primrose path by Republicans into a box, he accomplished practically nothing. He really should have let the lady go first.
What it's telling me is that the Democrats have some terrific candidates to choose from. If a Democrat wins the election, you will see many of these candidates, including Ms. Harris, in cabinet and other public positions.
Which is why electability has to be the voters' main concern. If a Democrat doesn't win, all the ideas, all the talent, in this campaign will go for naught. To be electable a candidate must set up a BIG TENT. He or she must draw in both moderates and progressives, and why not a few true conservatives (not Trump reactionaries) as well.
337
@David Gladfelter
Those who thought Kamala Harris had any chance are folks who deal in image, not substance.
Harris was all image, ethnic allure, loved by a certain type of simplistic identity focused centrist.
She has never had any substance, or, any convictions, just political expediency. She never was a progressive.
Cheers to Tulsi Gabbard who so straight forwardly reminded Harris who she was in terms of her actions!
Barack Obama may have had political acumen and raw talent. He also was a decent guy, but he had no strong convictions, no courage, not enough knowledge about the world, and he was easily rolled.
Frank Bruni got it right, Democratic Establishment endorsements, have no use,
Voters want substance. Pontificators aren't used to people wanting substance.
Ordinary people value Sanders' integrity, his lifelong commitment to the needs of working people.
They value Sanders, bold ideas, vision, and courage.
The Democratic Establishment and its media are uncomfortable with candidates who cannot be bought and whose ideas and vision might upset their beloved status quo.
I hear/read, that Sanders is not liked by Washington types, probably because he can't be bought and he makes them look sleazy.
Bruni calls the Democratic primary a "baffling mess".
It is only baffling and messy to those Establishment types who expect voters to accept candidates the candidate[s] they choose... who are easily bought and carefully protective of the status quo.
16
@David Gladfelter
Who exactly among the remaining candidates fits your criteria? I can think of no one and that's truly scary.
5
@Lucy Cooke
You say Obama got rolled, but that is not true, he was defeated because the democrats standing behind him are the ones who cowered. They could not see the forrest for the trees. In 2010, unions were unhappy with the lack of progress, so they stayed home. And so rose the tea party and Trump. There have been many progressive groups that did not stand behind Obama since he was not progressive enough.
Bernie Sanders proved his metal on who he was back in 2016. Upon losing a nomination that he gamed with caucuses (a great feat but not as great as he claimed) he did not really support Hillary and we are where we are. He is the only candidate that has a record and it clearly is not in his favor. He made a decision to enable Trump and have a go again in 2020, vs, enabling a Hillary win and putting an end to his presidential ambitions.
I'd like to see each and every candidate swear an oath that they will campaign for the winner of the nomination as if they are the candidate themselves. That would prove who is truly worthy.
13
The TV spectacle aka debates has certainly led to this mess. From the start the moderators anointed the front runners by giving them more time. Shocked that they became the objects of greater media coverage and then the leaders in the polls. All the more bizarre because those who perform best, and I am not sure what best is, would not necessarily be the best president. Wish we could see more of Michael Bennett, Cory and Amy.
7
While Democrats are frequently characterized as obsessed with identity politics, this obsession does not seem to be on display in this year's Democratic presidential candidate preferences among Democrats. Voters seem to be focusing on winning and policy preferences. Good news !
5
It can be frustrating. I'm still gutted that Sherrod Brown decided not to run, and that Beto chose to run when he could have done so much good otherwise. But close your eyes and listen to the wonderful, thoughtful, doable range of innovative policy proposals from the democratic field--change we could count on. It give this voter hope.
8
I will vote for the Democratic candidate, whoever it is..... all are far more recent and intelligent than Trump. The more important matter is winning back the Senate. Without a Senate majority, a Democrat as President would be blocked from any meaningful progress toward the overwhelmingly important challenges of the country.
6
The Democratic Party cannot be said to have failed until it has lost the 2020 election to Trump once again.
Democratic voters would be best served with a Democratic convention that proclaims the candidate with the most delegates won in primaries as the nominee. If that nominee be an older white man, then it would be provident for the nominee to select a younger woman of color as VP.
And beyond that, I believe it would also be wise to designate other Democrats, candidates this time around or other notables (preferably women of color or younger men) to cabinet positions as well.
Consider a ticket of Joe Biden and Stacey Abrams, complimented by cabinet secretaries Pete Buttigieg (Defense,) Kamala Harris (AG,) Susan Rice (State,) Corey Booker (HUD,) Andrew Yang (Commerce,) and Elizabeth Warren (Treasury, if she would accept it.)
This gives almost everybody in the big tent, except maybe Sanders followers a horse in the race. Then again, Sanders may be the nominee, so just cross out Biden, and write in Sanders above.
Allowing the whole team to campaign together acknowledges the support each of the candidates can bring to bear on winning big in 2020, big enough to flip the Senate and withstand a vicious counter-attack by Trumpists in 2022.
It also focuses the Democratic Party on the true goal for the next election which should be to thoroughly defeat Trumpism and begin to restore the Republican Party as a counter to the day when Democrats become corrupt or stupid.
231
@Dennis
Nothing against Abrams but Harris and Booker have a national following and both have been successfully elected. To that end, both have a wealth of government experience. I have not counted Booker out just yet though it is not looking good.
17
@Dennis This is a really good idea. Knowing who the cabinet nominees are likely to be (even if there's no absolute guarantee) not only gives voters a picture of the likely color and tone of the prospective government, it also saves all the horse-trading and distracting speculation in the period before and immediately after the election. Prospective cabinet appointees can also add their weight to the campaign rather than being branded 'losers' because they didn't make the nomination. This has to increase the chances of the opposition party winning.
16
@Dennis Apply as campaign manager. You make more sense than DNCC. Just one piece of advise;m Watch the trumpistas use facebook...clever, impacting and, of course, decietful
13
Buttigieg once released his campaign bundlers, but he no longer does. And he won’t allow reporters into his high-dollar fundraisers. He has called small donor money “pocket change.”
Buttigieg’s climate change advisor is David Victor, whose research was funded by BP. It is “experts” like Victor that bamboozled the public about climate change for two decades. We can no longer afford to kick the can down the road as climate change is an existential threat, not just to the human species, but every species on this planet.
Buttigieg is a personal friend of Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. Half of all Americans get their news from social media, and Zuckerberg has done nothing to protect our democracy. Zuckerberg is privately meeting with Trump (and Brett Kavanaugh) so that he can keep a grip on his social media empire.
Buttigieg has received more money from Big Pharma and health insurers than any other candidate. The Partnership for America's Health Care Future, a special interest group created by the healthcare industry, bought half of all political advertising in Iowa over the summer. Their message: Health care reform will take away Americans' "choice" and "control" and empower government "bureaucrats" by forcing everyone into a "one-size-fits-all system." Sound familiar? It’s the same message as Buttigieg.
It’s no wonder that Buttigieg will not disclose his campaign bundlers or allow reporters into his private fundraisers.
10
@Ed
Buttigieg is not a white knight to save the people; he is a stalking horse for the plutocrats. When people figure that out, he will fade. The boyish face conceals a calculating ambition.
I agree with everything Bruni says except the following: “ We in the media aren’t driving it, either, though there’s constant carping along those lines.” Rachel Maddox saying Harris might be on her way to the nomination is an example of media bias at work. So were the countless attacks on Biden that went on for months and came from both pundits and “straight” reporters alike.
Voters (including me) got excited about Mayor Pete in part because of the emphasis on how many languages he speaks and his military background Etc, and the lack of early coverage of his shortcomings as a mayor. Ditto for the early Beto coverage: it took a huge leap of the imagination to see Beto as presidential, and yet (as Bruni admits) Vanity Fair was on board early on. Similarly, rumors that Klobuchar was a nasty boss drove early coverage of her campaign—at a time when NO voters were demanding such coverage. One of the media’s biggest flaws is that it never accepts responsibility for anything it does. There have been a few mea culpas about the saturation coverage of Trump in 2016 (CNN’s Jeffrey Tobin comes to mind), but not many.
7
@Mike
The media also tries to ignore Bernie Sanders and not because there is no interest in him. There is plenty. He has a base of support to rival Trump's and just as dedicated and millions of individual donations. He is ahead in California and within the margin of error in New Hampshire and Iowa but you would hardly know it from the dismissive attitude of the pundit class. But they don't try to select the winners, right?
6
@Mike Agree completely.
I remember being astonished (naive, I know) during the last campaign about how the media gave the back of its collective hand to Bernie Sanders, constantly characterizing him as "old man yells at cloud." It wasn't genuine disagreement via an examination of his policies--he wasn't afforded that respect.
We now see that Sanders' message has resonated and that all that 2016 coverage of Trump was not such a good idea. The paper of record should facilitate voters' knowledge of the candidates' history and positions, not put its journalistic thumb on the scale for its favorite "racehorse."
1
For a candidate to succeed in our long primary season, they need to raise tons of money. Media attention helps them raise money. A candidate does not end their campaign because they decided they no longer want to be POTUS. They end because they don't have enough money to continue.
We need a much shorter primary season. We need to get PACS and big money out of the election process (somehow).
Donald Trump is promising GOP leaders in congress some of his war chest funds. That is one reason they are supporting him. They need his money. "Trump is tapping his vast fundraising network for a handful of loyal senators facing tough reelection bids in 2020. Each of them has signed onto a Republican-backed resolution condemning the inquiry as “unprecedented and undemocratic.”" (POLITICO)
3
What do voters want?
I can't speak for everyone but I can speak for myself. I want a President who I can trust to work hard to make the changes that our country so desperately needs. That will take experience, judgment, grit and passion. I want someone who who doesn't change their positions on the issues at the slightest shift in the polls but in the past has shown the flexibility to work with people he or she might disagree with on other things to get things done. Finally I want a strong communicator, someone who can stand up to Trump's bullying tactics from a position of authenticity and a sense of humor.
Of the current candidate my favorite is Bernie Sanders. My least favorite is Joe Biden. The rest are arrayed along a constantly shifting spectrum. Sometimes Warren is ahead of Klobuchar sometimes Amy stops Liz.
The good news is that I feel that all of the candidates meet my criteria to a greater or lesser degree and I would not have to do serious damage to my nose to vote for any of them. That could change if the DNC starts to put their thumb on the scale like they did in 2016. So let's continue this battle of ideas and personalities and please, don't panic. The last time the Democrats had this sort of battle was in 2008 and we all know how that turned out.
15
It's not a hot mess, it's a competitive primary with many good candidates. Positively promote the one you think has the best chance of winning, or the one you feel would actually make the best president, but please remember the main objective - winning the key states eleven months from now.
We should not be destroying each other in a search for the perfect President, but instead preparing ourselves to rally behind whoever is nominated. If you are progressive, liberal, a Democrat or an independent frustrated by Trump, ANY of these candidates are infinitely better than what we have. Whoever is ultimately nominated may not be your favorite or even in your top 5 - you still need to find a reason to support him or her. They are all left of center, they are all qualified, they are all good people, and they are all light years ahead of Trump and the Republicans.
15
I’m in a place now where every time I look at a candidate, I picture them in a debate with Trump. Hillary absolutely won every debate as Trump was a know-nothing interrupter, bully and stalker. But somehow, some people saw that obnoxious behavior as powerful. I keep thinking that we need someone that won’t find themselves off-balance when Trump flings unflattering nicknames or comes up with some dramatic distraction, such as bringing Bill Clinton’s accusers into the audience. Do not put anything past him - his meanness will be on full display.
I will vote for the Democrat, period. I despair that there will be those will will stay home and pout if their preferred candidate is not on the Democratic ticket. It’s a numbers game this time. ANY of the Democratic candidates will be preferable to the current Occupant. We have to begin the process of getting our country back. We’re sunk otherwise.
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@Kathryn How Dem candidates would do one-on-onedebating Trump is what got me interested in Cory Booker, in whom I’d had little interest before the Dem debates.
Cory’s message and demeanor and sincerity came thros), and I could envision him humiliating Trump in a debate. Warren, Sanders, or Biden — not so much.
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@Kathryn - I would think by now they should not be thrown off-balance. They know this behavior and rhetoric is going to happen. It will depend on whether they choose to engage him or ignore it.
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@Kathryn I'm wondering if Trump will refuse to debate. It seems to me like it would not be helpful to his strategy, which is to hold onto the devoted base he knows he will never lose. I believe he will continue to carry on his rallies, and (if not convicted in the Senate), use online Russian propaganda.
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For what it's worth, Frank pretty much mirrors my own bafflement.
Why, for instance, is Inslee gone? 16 years of national legislative experience. Two successful terms as governor of the most successful state economy. Election success in red as well as blue districts.
In Inslee's case I blame not the eligibility rules but rather the debate format. The format (including the moderators and their questions) favored the extremists, the arm wavers, the one-note wonders, the loudest voice in the room, the pretty, the glib, the wild promisers.
I disagree with the Sanders people who have never stopped ranting about media bias. That is a conspiracy theory. The election has not been bought. The claims of "corporate, elite, wall street" democrat" are also just a conspiracy theory.
As for Harris, in the debate where she was just herself (a moderate in the Obama Biden camp), she hit it out of the park.
Obama had gobs of political acumen. Plus he had excellent advice. That's why we elected him twice. All the same, he would have accomplished more had he also had more experience.
Booker, Harris, Castro all have promise. None right now have Obama's acumen. And none of them have had the advice Obama had.
Buttigieg has Obama's acumen and Obama's lack of experience. Were he the nominee I would certainly vote for him.
I haven't fallen for him, however. Why? He talks too much like (and neither better nor worse than) the other ex McKinsey people I met in graduate school in Cambridge.
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@Robert
Give me a break. Obviously you don't remember much about the 2016 nominating process and how the DNC repeatedly put its thumb on the scale to favor Clinton.
While the Republicans were have multiple debates, the DNC initially limited them and put them on at times of minimum viewership to keep Sanders out of the public eye.
That's the truth, not a conspiracy theory.
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@Robert
I'm still pulling for a Klobuchar/Inslee ticket, though Klobuchar/Bennet also would be sensational Amerian leadership.
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@Maggie
Yea that's definitely going to happen.
The polling 1%ers will do what 5%ers at this point in the race have never done before.
Those people you listed have zero appeal to much of the electorate. Klobuchar, Inslee and Bennet are collectively polling at what 5%?
They have no inspirational ideas or appeal to people of color.
I hope moderate voters are ready for a Sanders or Warren presidency because no one under 40 is inspired by the 'centrist' candidates who promise to go back to the untenable pre-Trump status quo.
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I love how centrists like Frank Bruni, seeing Bernie's surging candidacy but mentioning him only tangentially lest further attention be attracted, declare the Democratic scene to be a "baffling mess." It is nothing of the kind. Not just here but throughout the West, voters are fed up with the ruling elite and their bought and paid for government representatives who ignore if not actively denigrate their needs and concerns and govern only for themselves. They are giving a big middle finger to the establishment through the limited choices the electoral system affords them. That, not Russians, is why the Rust Belt went for Trump after voting for Obama twice and being reliably Democratic in Presidential elections for thirty years -- they were sick of Democrats who fed them only rhetoric about their very real economic concerns while voting the agenda of their corporate donors. Such duplicity is what did in Harris. The idea that Biden, the very architect of much of their woes (NAFTA, anti-union legislation, bank-favorable bankruptcy "reform") will bring them back because he hails from working class Scranton only demonstrates how out of touch the centrists and party leadership are. Bernie carried the Rust Belt primaries in 2018 despite the DNC's heavy thumbs on the scales by speaking directly to their problems. He knows that if voters are offered nothing of substance, they will gravitate to the xenophobic and racist siren songs of the authoritarian right. It's no mystery.
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@Boris Jones If he doesn't win the nomination, he may help Trump win again. I will support whomever the candidate is but I fear Democrats are tribal and will not support anyone other than their chosen one.
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@getGar
I will tell you this -- millions of progressives are not going to be brow-beaten or faux-guilted into voting for yet another neoliberal centrist nominee by invocation of the Trump bogeyman. If you perceive that as having been a problem last time, I assure you it will be worse by many orders of magnitude this time. Progressives recognize that Trump is only the symptom of a much larger, more pervasive problem -- the capture of our political system and government by an oligarchy of Wall Street and the one per cent, which has left us with only the forms of democracy without the substance and which permits debate only within a very narrow band of the political spectrum. Candidates like Biden, Harris and Buttigieg are avatars of that oligarchy. Limiting our choice to candidates like that is no election -- it is merely "herd management" by a small elite that George Carlin correctly identified as "the owners of this country." Sorry, no sale.
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"There’s raw talent. The last Democratic president, Barack Obama, had plenty of it." That in a nutshell is why there isn't a Democratic candidate who seems to be "the one." Barack Obama was able to inspire. He had charisma, something Hillary Clinton and the current slate of Democratic candidates lack. Something I might add Trump lacks. as well. He is just a narcissistic bully when it comes to campaigning. He does not charm, he throws flames.
Charisma is not something that can be taught, you either have it or you do not. When Barack Obama smiled, the charisma flowed. When he sang "Amazing Grace" in a church hurting from loss, the charisma flowed. A Barack Obama has not emerged as of yet. Elizabeth Warren comes close, and I think she does have an enthusiasm that to a certain extent makes up for a lack of charisma. As my Mother (who was very politically savvy) used to say:"we'll see" - words I dreaded to hear, they were always ominous. That said, whoever the Democratic candidate is, I will vote for her or him, charisma or not, warts and all, billionaire, socialist, bumbling and prone to gaffes, woman or man, gay or not. That person will have my vote.
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@Diana
Diana, Trump does have charisma, and a powerful one at that.
Charisma is the ability to project emotion. Emotions come in all shapes and forms.
Hatred and fear, in particular, are very powerful emotions, and Mr. Trump is a natural at projecting those.
That is why nothing matters to his followers: neither his illiterate English, nor his personal record, nor his lies.... nothing.
They identify with him, not him as he is to himself, but him as he projects himself to them.
A few weeks ago the Times published a brilliant piece about the Trump phenomenon. Have you read it?
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@Diana
Charisma is all Obama had.
It worked, which is why the party has been in disarray ever since and bona fide sensible poltiical leaders with proven years of experience are overlooked.
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@Diana
Bernie is by far the most charismatic candidate in the field -- just look at the huge crowds at his appearances and his surging poll numbers. Elizabeth Warren has none, and has revealed herself to not even be progressive, which is why she is fading. The old status quo as it was under Obama, which centrists are desperately trying to ressurect, is gone and never coming back because it was unsustainable. It, not the Russians or Jill Stein, is what gave us Trump. Voters are tired of being left behind by neoliberalism and its accompanying crushing wealth inequality. They want to see climate change and our crumbling infrastructure, topics studiously avoided in the so-called "debates," addressed. Trump is but a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. Democrats will either address those problems forthrightly, or cede the ground to the racist authoritarian xenophobes with their simplistic but superficially attractive "solutions."
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The media is almost as corrupt as trump. It focuses on the money chase, ignores policy unless it is to tear it into tiny pieces, and without one vote cast, determines for us who is losing.
There's big media money in elections,which seems to be why campaigns start 36 months before the election, and self funded campaigns by billionaires succeed. Churn and controversy are very profitable for the media.
Billions will be spent on attack ads and mailers while 1 in 14 Amèrican kids don't know where their next meal is coming from.
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To answer your headline question, it tells me that a lot of the punditocracy will continue to see elections through an identity filter because they are financially secure. Politics remain an intramural sport for the overclass and the scribes that are tasked with telling them what they want to hear. The 85-90% of the rest of us out here aren’t so lucky, ours lives are more or less on the line. You would do well to remember that when next you revisit this subject.
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@Steve Bruns
Indeed a divisive focus on identity politics serves to weaken popular movements, thus benefiting the status-quo of corporate oligarchy. What actually unites most of us are issues we share as working class citizens across ethnic and gender differences. Overcoming divisions of identity with the realities of class commonality is key which is why Sanders is so popular and why Trump employs fake populist rhetoric. The cultivated culture of division which feeds this must be challenged with a unifying culture of class -- one example is the Blue Collar Review , a journal of working class literature.
http://www.partisanpress.org/
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@Steve Bruns
No one should find anything inherently wrong with "identity politics" unless they don't believe historically excluded minorities should finally be given a seat at the table. Economic justice for the poor and working class cannot be separated from social justice for women, people of color, the LGBT community and others -- it is all of a piece. What is pernicious are attempts by the neoliberal establishment to co-opt identity politics for its own ends by reducing it to a formula -- front a candidate who checks some race and gender boxes and demand support from the base even when the policy positions of that candidate are counter to the interests of the base. Millennials got it when they flocked to support a crotchety Jewish man in his 70's because he was espousing policies that resonated with young people and were in their interests, even though he himself was their demographic opposite. Generalized attacks on identity politics are only meant to divide the left, but cynical exploitation of identity by neoliberals who hate progressives is meant to both divide and co-opt (Hint: neoliberal Democrats are not in any way, shape the "left").
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@Boris Jones Since I agree that “Economic justice for the poor and working class cannot be separated from social justice for women, people of color, the LGBT community and others -- it is all of a piece”, you will notice that it is not me doing the separating here, it is Mr. Bruni.
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My heart is with Sanders and Warren, but my head is with Biden. Why? Because I think Joe can win over the moderate voters in the Rust Belt states who will decide the the Electoral College, while Bernie and Elizabeth may drive them away—for a repeat of 2016 when Hillary won the popular vote, but lost the Electoral College. The polls suggest that many Democrats outside the coastal urban centers, share my view.
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@Ron Cohen It's a reasonable concern. But have you checked the polls? Bernie has huge support in the Rust Belt (not surprising being a support of workers and union and opposing NAFTA). In Michigan, he's ahead 14% on Trump in some polls. Even in 2016, polls suggested Bernie would have cleaned up in the Rust Belt (and nationally).
I think Biden will do well in Rust Belt, but I think like Hillary, he's far more vulnerable to Trump's attacks when reminders voters that Joe supported NAFTA, is a big supporter of Wall Street, supported the Iraq War, etc. IMO it's riskier to choose Biden, over Bernie (who has big cross party appeal as an independent).
Warren's better on policy for the rust belt IMO, but I also worry the media has successfully branded her as an "elitist Harvard professor" that she may not be able to overcome in working class areas. It's totally unfair to Warren, because she's a true working class woman who worked her way from a public school teacher to the Senate. But it's gonna be difficult to change public perception of her.
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/bernie-sanders-rust-belt-rebound-220478
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Harris "folded her tent" when she apologized for prosecuting criminals, which was her only accomplishment.
"Identity politics" is destructive because its foundation is "prejudice", that is "prejudging" individuals based on their "identity group" rather on their character, experience, accomplishments, and policy positions.
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Nothing is more important than winning in 2020, so the Democratic Party should turn to a proven winner: Hillary Clinton. Hillary amassed more than 3 million more votes than Trump in 2016, and is the progressive, healing, competent and diverse figure the nation needs now. I'm still with her.
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@Richard
Richard, unfortunately for the Democratic Party, you are not alone. I say "unfortunately" because Hillary is a polarizing lightening rod for most of the country. She was disliked by millions (forget about the reasons for a minute and just focus on the reality) long before she entered the race.
We don't need her baggage now. She will only rev up Trump's base. They hate her, and they are not alone, either.
Hillary needs to visit some remote island in the Pacific and stay there until after the election is over. Her supporters need to accept that they did their best but she lost. It is over and that is not going to change.
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@Richard oh, god, no. Hillary would have made a very competent president, no doubt. But, she is FAR too tainted. The Clintons need to step aside.
One or two minor quibbles with a useful essay. You say the media doesn't play favorites, and yet I recall the mountains of free ads Trump got and the statement that he "might be terrible for the country, but he's great for ratings." You then excuse the Democratic Party leadership, when in fact there is a New York -- D.C. group pushing decisions and Wasserman Schmidt famously skewed things to favor her candidate in 2016. That leadership often seems to anoint itself and one another to act without reference to voters outside the axis of self-importance.
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Usually I get on here to take issue with something someone has said, but this is a rare occasion when I want to thank someone for making points that needed making. Attacking the party or the media whenever political things happen that we don't like lets the real culprits off the hook too often, the public and the candidates themselves. Many critics and pundits out there see everything narrowly through an identity politics lens, so every explanation for something happening becomes identity politics driven. But, as Bruni points out, if the problem here is that we are looking for a white guy savior, "electability," what happened to all those white guy candidates whose campaigns crashed and burned? I would argue that Harris's campaign failed for the same reason Beto's campaign failed: mistakes made and opportunities lost. Both suffered in the debates when attacked (by Gabbard, by Castro), both suffered from shifting rationales for their candidacies, both suffered from a lack of trust from the voters and thin resumes, both made bad strategic calls. If you were trying to rebuild the Obama coalition, which has certainly demonstrated "electability", a Harris-O'Rourke pairing should have been pretty ideal on paper for 2020 but both bit the dust without a vote cast. And, while the media should surely get some criticism here in terms of coverage, every candidate has had a period in the frying pan because that's the cycle. Buttigieg is having his turn now, we shall see how he holds up.
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