Potential candidates for president in 2024 are considering their options and laying the groundwork.
They had better be.
It isn't early. It's late.
The election in November, 2024 is the endgame. The real period of nominee selection takes place throughout the year prior, 2023, and it is coming up shortly. By April, 2019, there were three or four Democratic and Republican candidates holding events in New Hampshire on any given day. Within a year candidates will have campaign staffs and offices working in New Hampshire. That takes time and early money.
Campaigns for president are made or lost in the early primaries when a field of plausible candidates--governors, senators, military officers, business people--get winnowed out. Perfectly competent people get lost in the scrum. It helps to have a well-established brand going into the New Hampshire contest. Pete Buttigieg essentially did it from scratch; he had a story, the gay wunderkind.
For the process to work as it did for the 2016 and 2020 election, both Trump and Biden need to get out of the way. That would create a path for a successor to re-define the party. They would be a successor, not a rival. Lightning could strike with a message that goes viral. Speeches like the one by State Senator Mallory McMorrow made on the floor of the Michigan state house can take a "nobody" and make them an inspiration and superstar, on everybody's radar.
More typical is John Delaney. On paper he was a plausible candidate for president in the early months of 2019. He had already held about 50 town-hall events in New Hampshire by the time I saw him at two events on April 14, 2019. He would have over a hundred more of them. He was a former three-term U.S. Representative. He was a lawyer who made several hundred million dollars as the founder of businesses he built than sold. He could self-fund his early campaign. He was 55 years old. He had center-left political positions, along the lines that Democrats eventually selected when they chose Joe Biden. He was a younger, gaffe-free Biden. But he stayed a "nobody." He wasn't a celebrity and his talks didn't inspire people. His events drew 20 to 40 people and never grew from that.
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| John Delaney |
Later that day I saw Jay Inslee, the governor of the State of Washington. Inslee had a brand: Climate. I saw cars with climate-oriented bumper strips parked for the event. About 35 people attended. He never caught on.
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| Inslee |
On April 15 William Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts was the featured speaker at a Foreign Affairs Forum event at a New Hampshire college meeting room. He was challenging Trump. The event had its usual audience of 50 people. He, too, had a brand: The sensible, responsible, non-Trump Republican. It was what the audience wanted, but not the GOP's voters.
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| Weld |
April 17 and 18 I saw events by Marianne Williamson, Beto O'Rourke, and Eric Swalwell. Williamson had a following of New-Age self-actualizers, O'Rourke was famous for having taken on Ted Cruz and narrowly losing, and U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell was a frequent guest on CNN and MSNBC. They never caught on.
We are back to all this in less than a year. If Donald Trump or Joe Biden step aside there may be over a dozen Democratic and Republican candidates. If both Trump and Biden seek a re-match, the candidates will be fewer. Possibly Liz Cheney, if she loses in Wyoming, would run as a symbol of the still-pure old-style GOP. Mike Pence might do so, too. A Democrat who contested Joe Biden for the nomination would be taking a risky bet and might be accused of damaging the party and disrespecting Kamala Harris, a mixed race woman. Perhaps Stacey Abrams, if she wins her Georgia governorship campaign, would be a symbol of the successful and impatient younger generation. If she won or came close in New Hampshire, Biden--like Lyndon Johnson back in 1968--might fold up his tent. That would put her in a lead position. She would have shown she was unafraid.
5 comments:
Her name is Marianne Williamson.
Not sure why, but seeing a pattern in these blogs. Greta Thunberg's last name was initially incorrect. (She also was compared to adorable and talented child actress Shirley Temple, even though Greta is not an actress and does not sing and dance as part of her work.)
Also the definition of a woman question at the KBJ confirmation hearing initially was attributed to Ted Cruz, instead of Senator Marsha Blackburn.
Marianne Williamson is well known in New Age circles and beyond (I am not a new ager). She is a best selling author, among other accomplishments.
Dear Anonymous,
Thanks for the correction on Williamson. I fixed it. You do indeed see a pattern. I make errors in spelling sometimes, my text sometimes repeats words words (like that.) Sometimes people disagree with me, even if it isn't an "error" exactly, but a simile or analogy people think is "off." Yes, Shirley Temple sang and danced and Greta Thunberg doesn't. Both were young women whose youth was an intrinsic part of their brand and message. But they are different so perhaps I should no have drawn a comparison. Marianne Williamson is a best-selling author of books I consider New Age oriented. The most noteworthy thing about her presentations is her rapid-fire and self-confident delivery. The real impact of her talks is that she is a hugely confident and decisive person. I did not mention that, for reasons of space. I was making the point that her campaign went nowhere.
I am thrilled to have good close readers of my blog. Thank you for being one. Thank you, too, for being an early reader who reads me when I first push "publish." Some readers like yourself contact me off-line and I fix errors. I am doubly gratified that my blog is taken seriously enough that close readers actually remember things, including misspelled names from years prior. I resigned myself early on that if I published opinions on current events that I would get both corrections and disagreement. More disagreement than praise. That is how it has worked out.
A local volunteer reads my blog about 9 a.m. Pacific Time every day and he routinely finds errors which I correct immediately. I don't use hyphens consistently. I don't always adhere to my own style guide, i.e. when to use Arabic numbers and when to spell out a number. And I make flat-out errors. Anonymous' read my blog shortly after it was published and it had not yet had my in-house 2nd pair of eyes proofreading.
I wait until my 2nd party proofreader sends me corrections before I send out the email to my 1500 or so Substack subscribers. Errors on this site can be fixed immediately, like my correction of Williamson's name. The email--once it goes out--is what it is, errors and warts and all.
Again, thanks for your help.
Peter Sage
I hope and pray that 2024 will not be a race between the same too-old white geezers.
To catch on with GOP voters, a younger candidate would need to be like Trump: a compulsive liar who shamelessly foments fear, anger and hatred. Maybe Matt Gaetz, or even Tucker Carlson (inexperience is obviously no obstacle). Seeing someone like Stacey Abrams run against such a candidate would certainly highlight America’s split personality. It’d be like the best we have to offer vs. the worst.
First of all, it is a mistake to assume that either Biden or trump will not run again. 80, for some, is the new 70 (not for me, but for Biden). If we are lucky, trump will be "unavailable" in 2024. Wearing orange to match his hair.
Some of the candidates you mentioned are just a big YAWN! They will not bring democrats out of the woodwork to vote. Yes, maybe Stacey Abrams. I am afraid I do not think that Harris could win the presidency, nor do I think Pete could.
I watched the fiery speech given by the other day by Liz Warren on abortion. We never gave the best choice a chance. But again, she may not be able to win the general election. Too bad.
I also like Senator Sherrod Brown. or Joe Kennedy III.
Where are the fiery and fierce speakers?
Agreeing with Mike about hoping that The Old White Geezers retire well before 2024, and I specifically include Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein in that group. I suspect (and hope) that The Former twice impeached Guy is so far gone in his increasingly apparent Dementia that even his most feverish supporters must admit he's not capable of being a resident of the Oval Office.
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