"Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.Woo, woo, woo."
Paul Simon, "Mrs. Robinson" 1968
Trump rivals are stepping up.
It is not too late for a Democrat to do the same.
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| Candidate Tim Scott |
People will misunderstand. Friends will criticize. It is OK. Joe Biden is so weak a feather will topple him. Democrats need someone to be the feather.
Robert F. Kennedy is polling at some 20%. There is a hunger for an alternative to Biden. I consider Kennedy a crank candidate, not unlike Marianne Williamson. Kennedy's anti-vaccine activism made him a public ally of Louis Farrakhan and Steve Bannon welcomes him into the race as a useful "chaos agent." I have heard Williamson multiple times. She offers uplift for self-actualizing individuals. Both are running because nature abhors a vacuum and they have no real credibility to lose.
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| Lindsay Graham, New Hampshire, 2015 |
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| Buttigieg in Iowa, 2019 |
Biden has fringe-candidate opposition, but this leaves open the lane of spirited opposition from the far left. Possibly a Jill Stein/Nina Turner-style candidate will emerge with a message of defunding police, banning the sale of gasoline, reparation payments to Blacks, or confiscation of guns. Those ideas have appeal to a segment of left-oriented Americans, but they are not Biden's positions, and those positions are not broadly popular in a general election. A spirited and articulate campaign from the progressive left would give credence to the Republican critique that a weak, manipulated Biden will carry out their mission, not his. Biden has difficulty communicating his own mission. He is not a bad legislator. He is a poor communicator.
The solution is at hand. A nationally-electable, center left Democrat needs to step forward and articulate a case for the new generation of Democrats to continue the general policy direction of Biden. Democrats need a spokesman and hero. Grab the platform. Sell yourself. Where are you? Where have you gone?
[Note: to subscribe to the blog and get it delivered by email every day go to: https://petersage.substack.com Subscribe. The blog is free and always will be.]
16 comments:
I strongly agree that it would be good for Biden to get a real primary challenge from someone a little more formidable than crackpot RFK Jr. and woo-woo Marianne Williamson. And I totally agree that the Democrats push to make South Carolina the first primary state is blatant attempt to hand Biden the nomination on a platter even if he were challenged. In my mind it makes 0 sense to use a state that the Democrats have a snowballs chance in hell of winning in the general election as the first primary state. If the goal is to appeal to and galvanize the support of black Democrats, then use Georgia as the first state. Very similar high relative numbers of black voters, and also very winnable in the general election.
Where I disagree with you is on the Trump side. If anything having more candidates in the race will help Trump since none of the folks who entered on the GOP side will have any shot at stealing away from Trump's rock solid 40% minimum in any Republican primary. Republican voters, especially the hard-core ones in the primary LOVE Trump, which will leave the other bunch of candidates struggling over the leftover share of voters that aren't already fully enthralled by Trump. Very similar to what happened in 2016 actually when the establishment Republicans couldn't agree on one candidate to back and ended up splitting their votes which allowed Trump to waltz to the nomination with a minority of support even within his own parry. The Jimmy Carter and Clinton situations aren't at all similar either, in both those cases there was not a dominant figure at the top of the party who was guaranteed a strong base of support, it was totally wide open both times. For the Republicans it's not wide open at all, it's Trump's party and it will almost certainly be firmly in his grasp until he dies.
The desire for a charismatic challenger to Biden is understandable, but these are not the times. The barbarians are at the gate. Democrats just need to hold the line. Biden can get us through and after that we'll make whatever changes are needed.
If enough Republicans get into it there's a good chance the base will get sufficiently fragmented to push Trump to the sideline. If it comes to a real battle for the nomination I question whether he will be able to take on a dozen challengers. All of them have nothing to lose by running, and all of them will embrace Trump if they fail.
It's interesting that in 2016, Hillary Clinton's win seemed so certain that no one credible ran against her. Now, with the Republican party held hostage by extremists, anyone credible has been purged.
Biden actually has some major accomplishments to boast of, but the fact is he’s just too damn old. The best that can be said is that he’s not as bad a choice as Trump.
The question arises, what if Trump isn’t the opposition candidate? Considering how crazy the GOP has become, that seems unlikely. Biden would still probably win, because how many MAGA hatters are going to bother coming out to vote for a woman of color, a Black preacher or some self-proclaimed tough guy who can’t even beat up Mickey Mouse?
On the other hand, if our current leadership can't even agree not to default on our debt, all bets are off.
The haters and backstabbers are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy by constantly tearing down Joe Biden, which you have been doing since the last presidential campaign. You sound like a big sore loser, who still can't get over the fact that Joe Biden won. So you have something in common with the Orange Traitor, whose political skills you perversely admire.
The comment about South Carolina sounds like a racist rant.
You didn't mention VP Kamala Harris in your tirade against President Biden. Hello Reality.
Support the team. Stop giving Biden the Julius Caesar treatment. The strong stench of negativity is helping the GQP. It is time for Danny Downer to take a long vacation. Russia is waiting for you.
Waiting for Michelle Obama to suddenly get involved sometime in the mid-Primary season.
Many want Kamala Harris to stay invisible.
Back in the 2016 campaign, Trump never got much of the R vote early on; with 17 candidates, the voting was spread all over snf no clear winner right away.
Alas, still looking like a never-Trump vs never-Biden matchup.
Pete Repeat. How many versions of the same blog are you planning to publish? We got your point the first time. We know that you are not a sports fan, but dissing and booing your own team is very low down.
I've been catching an enormous amount of heat from many FB friends for saying this same kind of thing for the last 5 Months, and even more heat for being critical of the way The President is handling a looming economic crisis. Thank you, Peter for stating so clearly what I've been trying to get across.
It seems to me if I become a cheerleader for the Presidents "efforts", I'm imitating the lock step Republicans, supporting Former Guy no matter how badly it turns their stomachs, and I'm not giving up my rights as a Veteran and Citizen to criticize the President if I think he's wrong.
I am in agreement with Rick Milward, above, that Biden can still win, and should. There are no good candidates to equal him. We might have the California governor as a possiblilty in 2028. But I guess I like the idea that if something happened to Biden, Kamala Harris would be the first woman president. She would rise to the occasion, I believe, and is currently under-valued and under-used at present.
Other candidates in 2020, Liz (who I supported in the primary), Buttigieg, I believe cannot win in the general election.
I have disagreed with Peter about Biden's health and mental acuity. I see no decline. There are lots of congresspeople in their 80's and mostly (except Feinstein) doing well, and there are so many examples of people in their near-80's still out there performing, like Willie Nelson and Mick Jagger.
If the debt ceiling crisis goes south, tho, it is anyone's guess.
I dare you to write about Vice President Kamala Harris. You seem to be avoiding that subject. What say you?
Someone anonymously denounced us as “haters and backstabbers” for having the audacity to bring up Biden’s obvious faults. Sounds just like Trump. Then s/he/it said we should put party above country and “support the team” regardless. Sounds just like the twisted excuse Republicans give for supporting Trump. I can see why s/he/it would be too embarrassed to give their name. Let’s not sink to that level.
I would love to see Jon Tester run again. In case you forget who he is, he's a Democratic Senator from Montana. I saw him on Bill Maher a year or so ago and was very impressed. He even sports a crewcut. As a Midwest guy, that might appeal to the Middle sector. He would do well on the coasts, so he might be the ideal candidate.
So you shouldn't boo your team when they are doing things poorly? I'm guessing maybe you don't follow sports too closely because that's EXACTLY what sports fans do when their team is letting them down, and oftentimes the team deserves it.
Applauding Biden and giving him credit for the things he has accomplished is very different than unthinkingly lining up behind his reelection campaign when it's very clear to many people, and this is coming from a very progressive liberal, that Biden isn't what you would call a strong candidate.
Really? To the best of my knowledge, Joe Biden is not a traitor, a crook, a racist or a misogynist. He is the Democratic incumbent.
This comment only goes to show that you don't understand politics, teamwork or how to win, which is very sad. You sound like a whiner who was born yesterday. Now dry your tears and go outside to play until the sun goes down. You can also have a cookie.
That last anonymous vitriol is nothing but a lame but snarky personal attack and doesn't really belong here.
With respect, I think you might be thinking of Steve Bullock, former Governor of Montana, when it was still relatively sane. He ran in 2019/2020, and I think would make a very good President, but the Horserace Media pretty much ignored his Candidacy, as they do with most wouldbe candidates without a very high profile. I would like to see him run again. Jon Tester is a valuable Senator, no Joe Mansion, but does appeal across the middle of the Country, and has been quite emphatic about running forcteelection as the Senator from Montana.
I'm the anonymous who posted about Steve Bullock.
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