"This is your captain speaking."

Democrats need a leader who knows what to do in a fight.   It isn't complicated and it isn't policy.  

It is February in the Season of Democrats.  February is the month when roots begin to stir underground.  The new season is starting but most of the changes are invisible, happening underground and inside of plants that only appear to be dormant.   Democrats are considering a run for President.  Crocuses emerge.  

Right now there are a few US Senators and Governors who are being told by staff and donors and friends that they could be president!

Already Plausible as a candidate.

And they could be.  Almost anything is possible.

Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton came from obscurity.  Donald Trump came from tabloid celebrity.  Sarah Palin was pulled out of the thin air of Wasilla and Juneau, Alaska.  In the old way of thinking, the realistic bench for a Democratic presidential candidate was one of the 20 or so present or recent Democratic governors or one of 50 or so present or recent senators.    Figure 15 candidates in crocus stage, among that pool of Senators and Governors.  This is a group of people who know how tough and ugly politics is.  They are evaluating what that first wife might say, how to finesse that photograph taken in college, how to adjust positions to deal with the realities of a national, not statewide, race.

The range of plausible candidates has increased outside that group.  

Already plausible

We can add in business people who are comfortable talking politics and policy: Mark Cuban, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg.  Delete the Republicans.   Subtract a few more because they really are too old (Buffet) then add a few you know are out there but don't yet know of,  because they are multi-billionaires and can self fund an legitimate third party race or party takeover.     Figure 5 crocuses

Add in some news celebrities, people who have an audience because they talk policy and are famous for it, like Ronald Reagan had done with his 60 second GE commentaries.  Add in some people from Hollywood or comedy.  Alec Baldwin.  Tina Fey.  We have seen people on The West Wing playing the role of mature, wise, ethical leaders.  Robert Lowe and Allison Janney could do this.  After all, we had been exposed to Donald Trump as decisive business leader from his TV show.  His candidacy was a continuation of that role.  John Harmon on NCIS seems to be able to lead a team to solve murders, in a likable, mature, effective way.  He was a quarterback at UCLA, he leads a team of detectives on TV.  He is familiar and plausible to audiences.   Someone like him.

There are hundreds of these potential crocuses, but we subtract out the people who don't want the campaign or the job or the vitriol and we subtract nearly everyone.  People love TV celebrities but dislike political ones.  Still, there might be 5 more of this type of Hollywood crocus out there, thinking about it, roots stirring.

Already plausible as hero

There is more.  There are some sports or sports news celebrities and coaches who talk politics:  Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Charles Barkley, and any number of current or former football quarterbacks.  Voters like quarterbacks, especially good looking ones.  We have seen them in leadership positions on the field.  Start with maybe 20 plausible candidates, subtract the Republicans and the ones who don't want to do it and there might be 5 crocus candidates, although they are not evident to me yet.

Then there are celebrity heroes from some other walks of life:  Astronaut, Airline pilot hero,  possibly a Navy Seal or sniper, possibly a retired general we don't know yet, possibly a celebrity from music (Bruce Springsteen) or ministry or science.  Could there be 5 crocuses here?

Total plausible bench: maybe 35 people total, most of whom do not even know that they are plausibly on a bench because they are busy being actors or retired sports stars or hedge fund billionaires. The most plausible candidates remain the Governors and Senators.  They are already in the game.  The sports and TV stars are thinking about the game.

This blog followed the 2016 election closely and concluded that currently politics over-estimates policy issues and vastly underestimates the power of non-verbal branding and personal charisma.     

I will continue this discussion tomorrow, but I raise the question today as we begin the process of winnowing down the potential Democratic candidates.  Whose voice will command confidence when there is an issue in the campaign or a policy problem announced, or an angry attack from Trump.   Whose voice says:   "This is your captain speaking."

Frequent guest post commenter, Thad Guyer, returns to a theme of immigration policy today, and he discussed it in yesterday's post and in a published comment.  He is saying this policy matters and Democrats need to get it right.  

Third of Three:  Guest Post by Thad Guyer

"The Democratic to Unseat Donald Trump in 2020:  Gov. John Hickenlooper"

Who is John Hickenlooper? That was exactly the question in 1992:  Who is Bill Clinton?  It was the same question in 1975:  Who is Jimmy Carter?  

Hickenlooper

Relatively unknown centrist governors can steal the nomination from superstar liberals.  If a Democrat is going to unseat Trump in 2020, it will be a centrist pragmatist like Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, who has so far made every list of likely Democratic candidates for 2020.

Yesterday I argued that support for sanctuary cities and states will be fatal to any Democrat challenging Trump. My position is based on pragmatist Bill Clinton stealing the 1992 nomination from a slate of liberal candidates who played to Democratic rage following 12 years of Reagan-Bush rule: California Governor Jerry Brown, Senators Tom Harkin and Bob Kerrey, and former senators Eugene McCarthy and Paul Tsongas.  I think Hickenlooper would similarly knock off our favorite leftist/”progressive” candidates like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Deval Patrick, Jerry Brown and others.  Besides sanctuary cities, any candidate endorsing single payer (i.e. “socialized medicine”) will be unelectable in 2020 and 2024.  Hickenlooper has rejected both.

  

Remember, the historical analog is a Democrat challenging a Republican incumbent, not a Barrack Obama succeeding a full two term Republican.  Like Clinton, Hickenlooper need not worry that Northeasterners Warren, Sanders or Patrick will claim the early plurality wins in Iowa and New Hampshire. The field will be so crowded that none could likely win even 40% (except for their home state).  Thus, no candidate reached 50% in 1975 until the seventh primary when Carter won North Carolina.  Similarly, no candidate (except for their home state) reached 50% in 1992 until Clinton won the sixth primary in Georgia. This gives a centrist lots of time to persuade Democratic voters that pushing a purist liberal or progressive ideology is not worth suffering more Republican rule.  That will probably be the deciding factor for Democrats in 2020-- the hell with progressive ideology, nominate whomever is best positioned to draw cross-over voters from the Midwest, South, West and Southwest to unseat Trump. 

Hickenlooper’s centrist policies position the two-term Colorado governor to do just that: 

1. Sanctuary cities and immigration: He favors immigration reform, DACA, driver licenses for illegal immigrants, but not sanctuary cities. He pushed back hard on Fox News earlier this year when O’Reilley falsely suggested Denver had been a sanctuary city when he was mayor. He pledges unequivocal full cooperation with ICE in enforcing federal immigration law.  

2. Single Payer:  He rejects single payer or any health care plan that can’t win bipartisan support.  He recently co-sponsored a bipartisan plan with Ohio governor John Kasich.  

3. Trump bashing:  He rejects Trump trash talk as counter-productive and has urged Democrats to look for common ground, and get more in touch with the millions of white working class voters who rejected Hillary Clinton and installed Trump.

Like Clinton and Carter, if Hickenlooper runs, he will likely beat his far more liberal rivals. It took centrist relatively unknown governors, not icons with star appeal, to save Democrats from themselves to end Nixon-Ford and Reagan-Bush.  It’s going to take exactly that to get rid of Trump at the end of his first term.