With just two plausible contenders left in the Democratic primary race, I've decided the time has come for me to make my official endorsement: Joe Biden.
I don't love either of the choices (I never developed strong feelings for anybody in the entire field), but I also don't have a big problem with either of them. I'm blue no matter who, which everybody should be, not as an everlasting rule, but as a pragmatic course of action for now. I'm basing my decision solely on who I think has the best odds of winning in November. I think it's Biden. I could be wrong. But I could be wrong if I picked Bernie too. As I've been saying from the get-go, nobody really knows anything, and future events like this are impossible to predict with precision. I can't see the future, so I'm doing the best I can, based on the available information -- what else can I do?
Here's my rationale...
Let's start with the case against Biden, which is by corollary a case for Bernie. In this version of events, Biden is a repeat of 2016 -- a tired, "establishment" candidate, who doesn't excite anybody and will fail to turn out voters. As a friend on Facebook said, "Biden is just a male, senile version of Hillary. We already lost that race. Can we just not?"
I completely understand my friend's apprehension. I feel it myself even to some degree. But I don't think the premise of his argument totally holds up.
1) Biden ≠ Hillary. This is an immediate consequence of the fact Nobody = Hillary, but Hillary. We've simply never had a candidate like Hillary Clinton, and we never will. Think about all the things her name evokes -- the positives and the negatives. It's an entirely different set of emotions from Joe Biden. A lot of people found her very unlikable as a candidate -- in part because of sexism, but definitely not entirely (there's also, for example, the fact her husband is a total lech). I just don't think Biden carries the same baggage as she does. As a lifelong Democrat I know once said, "I'll never vote for another Clinton or another Bush again."
Also, she was completely dogged by the media because of her stupid email scandal, and it was announced by the head of the FBI, in one of the worst political miscalculations ever, that she was under investigation a week before the election. Some analysis by FiveThirtyEight shows that that might have been enough to swing the whole damn thing.
I'm sure Trump will try to find something like this to pin on Biden, probably the Ukraine thing with his son Hunter, but I'm not sure it will stick. For one thing, bringing up Ukraine will remind everybody of the improper actions that led to the impeachment trial, and the name Trump is practically synonymous with nepotism. (I mean, hello, Jared and Ivanka.) Even "senile" Joe Biden should be able to parry such attacks and hopefully even throw a few counter-strikes.
2) Even if Biden isn't a much stronger candidate than Hillary, just because we already lost that race once doesn't mean we will necessarily lose it again. The 2016 election caught a lot of people by surprise, and I think that might have affected the result. Democrats probably weren't as aggressive as they should've been in the Midwest, and some potential blue voters might have gotten complacent and sat it out or voted for a third party. I've always felt if it was best two out of three, Clinton would have won, but that's just my gut feeling. Regardless, I think the larger point holds: a similar set of conditions to 2016, while obviously not ideal, is not the certain death sentence for Dems a lot of people think it to be.
Implicit in my friend's comparison of Biden to Hillary, and made explicit by many Sanders' supporters (and Sanders himself), is that Biden represents the "establishment," and that the people -- the real working-class people, not the billionaire fat cats who want to buy control of the party -- don't want this type of candidate, and they want somebody like Bernie instead. The problem with this argument is that it is utter horseshit, and it is my least favorite thing about Bernie and his supporters. They occupy an alternate reality when it comes to Bernie. They can't view him objectively and honestly. They can't accept the real reason he's not the preferred candidate among most Democratic voters: They don't like his policies; they don't like his politics; and many don't like him.
That's it. That's the reason. He's too far left for too many people, and he's obnoxious about it. Everybody knows Bernie; everybody hears Bernie; everybody understands his positions; he's been a major figure for four years; media of all stripes have covered him extensively; he's been a major player in all the debates. It's a credit to him that he rose up from relatively obscurity to legitimate presidential hopeful through sheer force of will (and shouting). He got his message to the voters, and a lot of voters are rejecting it. He does worse than Biden among the working class, his so-called people. This is what many Bernie supporters cannot accept. They want democracy only when it works in their favor; when it doesn't they turn into pouting, truth-averse, take-my-ball-and-go-home little babies. If I wanted to be in a political party run by people like that, I'd become a Republican. It's terrible politics. I know a lot of Elizabeth Warren supporters who are so turned off by BernieWorld that he's not their second choice, even though the two are very closely aligned ideologically.
By the way, I'm saying this as somebody who personally likes a lot of Bernie's policies. I've been to Denmark before. It's nice. People are happy there. I like the idea of everybody paying more to get more. I would gladly vote for raising my own taxes and giving up my private health insurance, if it meant single payer healthcare for everybody. All other things equal, I would sign-up for a Bernie Sanders presidency in a heartbeat. But all other things aren't equal, and if Bernie is not what most people want -- and it seems he isn't -- then we need to stick together and move on.
Okay, now, let me make the case explicitly for Biden.
He's turning out voters. Super Tuesday was bigger than it was in 2016, and Biden was the undisputed winner. He won in states without even really trying. I heard David Plotz of Slate Political Gabfest aver that this was only because of fear of losing in November and that nobody is really a Joe Biden fan. To that I say: yeah, so. If Biden is the anit-Trump avatar everybody rallies around at election time, so be it.
Plus, it's not correct to say Biden doesn't have an real supporters. From the moment he entered the race, he was the preferred candidate among black voters, particularly older black voters, by a significant margin. He's "Uncle Joe." People are comfortable with him. It's true, he doesn't have a little army of hardcore stans the way Sanders does, but so what? Your vote doesn't count double because you really, really want somebody to be president.
Here's the other big thing Biden has going in his favor: He fits the profile of the type of candidate who won "purple" elections in the 2018 midterm. The Dems didn't win the House on the strength of super left progressives winning safe blue districts; they won because a lot of moderates (men and women) won swing districts. That's who voters turned out for. It seems to me 2018 is a more valuable data point (because it's actually many data points) than 2016.
And that's what it comes down to for me: The revolution Bernie is promising just doesn't seem to be coming. There are no troves of new, enthusiastic, young voters. If there were, Bernie wouldn't have gotten whupped so badly on Super Tuesday. What we have instead, I think, are a bunch of tired, stressed out people who just want to return things to normal. And Joe Biden, for all his flaw and foibles, is a pretty good candidate for that. So, he's my pick.
Until next time...
I don't love either of the choices (I never developed strong feelings for anybody in the entire field), but I also don't have a big problem with either of them. I'm blue no matter who, which everybody should be, not as an everlasting rule, but as a pragmatic course of action for now. I'm basing my decision solely on who I think has the best odds of winning in November. I think it's Biden. I could be wrong. But I could be wrong if I picked Bernie too. As I've been saying from the get-go, nobody really knows anything, and future events like this are impossible to predict with precision. I can't see the future, so I'm doing the best I can, based on the available information -- what else can I do?
Here's my rationale...
Let's start with the case against Biden, which is by corollary a case for Bernie. In this version of events, Biden is a repeat of 2016 -- a tired, "establishment" candidate, who doesn't excite anybody and will fail to turn out voters. As a friend on Facebook said, "Biden is just a male, senile version of Hillary. We already lost that race. Can we just not?"
I completely understand my friend's apprehension. I feel it myself even to some degree. But I don't think the premise of his argument totally holds up.
1) Biden ≠ Hillary. This is an immediate consequence of the fact Nobody = Hillary, but Hillary. We've simply never had a candidate like Hillary Clinton, and we never will. Think about all the things her name evokes -- the positives and the negatives. It's an entirely different set of emotions from Joe Biden. A lot of people found her very unlikable as a candidate -- in part because of sexism, but definitely not entirely (there's also, for example, the fact her husband is a total lech). I just don't think Biden carries the same baggage as she does. As a lifelong Democrat I know once said, "I'll never vote for another Clinton or another Bush again."
Also, she was completely dogged by the media because of her stupid email scandal, and it was announced by the head of the FBI, in one of the worst political miscalculations ever, that she was under investigation a week before the election. Some analysis by FiveThirtyEight shows that that might have been enough to swing the whole damn thing.
I'm sure Trump will try to find something like this to pin on Biden, probably the Ukraine thing with his son Hunter, but I'm not sure it will stick. For one thing, bringing up Ukraine will remind everybody of the improper actions that led to the impeachment trial, and the name Trump is practically synonymous with nepotism. (I mean, hello, Jared and Ivanka.) Even "senile" Joe Biden should be able to parry such attacks and hopefully even throw a few counter-strikes.
2) Even if Biden isn't a much stronger candidate than Hillary, just because we already lost that race once doesn't mean we will necessarily lose it again. The 2016 election caught a lot of people by surprise, and I think that might have affected the result. Democrats probably weren't as aggressive as they should've been in the Midwest, and some potential blue voters might have gotten complacent and sat it out or voted for a third party. I've always felt if it was best two out of three, Clinton would have won, but that's just my gut feeling. Regardless, I think the larger point holds: a similar set of conditions to 2016, while obviously not ideal, is not the certain death sentence for Dems a lot of people think it to be.
Implicit in my friend's comparison of Biden to Hillary, and made explicit by many Sanders' supporters (and Sanders himself), is that Biden represents the "establishment," and that the people -- the real working-class people, not the billionaire fat cats who want to buy control of the party -- don't want this type of candidate, and they want somebody like Bernie instead. The problem with this argument is that it is utter horseshit, and it is my least favorite thing about Bernie and his supporters. They occupy an alternate reality when it comes to Bernie. They can't view him objectively and honestly. They can't accept the real reason he's not the preferred candidate among most Democratic voters: They don't like his policies; they don't like his politics; and many don't like him.
That's it. That's the reason. He's too far left for too many people, and he's obnoxious about it. Everybody knows Bernie; everybody hears Bernie; everybody understands his positions; he's been a major figure for four years; media of all stripes have covered him extensively; he's been a major player in all the debates. It's a credit to him that he rose up from relatively obscurity to legitimate presidential hopeful through sheer force of will (and shouting). He got his message to the voters, and a lot of voters are rejecting it. He does worse than Biden among the working class, his so-called people. This is what many Bernie supporters cannot accept. They want democracy only when it works in their favor; when it doesn't they turn into pouting, truth-averse, take-my-ball-and-go-home little babies. If I wanted to be in a political party run by people like that, I'd become a Republican. It's terrible politics. I know a lot of Elizabeth Warren supporters who are so turned off by BernieWorld that he's not their second choice, even though the two are very closely aligned ideologically.
By the way, I'm saying this as somebody who personally likes a lot of Bernie's policies. I've been to Denmark before. It's nice. People are happy there. I like the idea of everybody paying more to get more. I would gladly vote for raising my own taxes and giving up my private health insurance, if it meant single payer healthcare for everybody. All other things equal, I would sign-up for a Bernie Sanders presidency in a heartbeat. But all other things aren't equal, and if Bernie is not what most people want -- and it seems he isn't -- then we need to stick together and move on.
Okay, now, let me make the case explicitly for Biden.
He's turning out voters. Super Tuesday was bigger than it was in 2016, and Biden was the undisputed winner. He won in states without even really trying. I heard David Plotz of Slate Political Gabfest aver that this was only because of fear of losing in November and that nobody is really a Joe Biden fan. To that I say: yeah, so. If Biden is the anit-Trump avatar everybody rallies around at election time, so be it.
Plus, it's not correct to say Biden doesn't have an real supporters. From the moment he entered the race, he was the preferred candidate among black voters, particularly older black voters, by a significant margin. He's "Uncle Joe." People are comfortable with him. It's true, he doesn't have a little army of hardcore stans the way Sanders does, but so what? Your vote doesn't count double because you really, really want somebody to be president.
Here's the other big thing Biden has going in his favor: He fits the profile of the type of candidate who won "purple" elections in the 2018 midterm. The Dems didn't win the House on the strength of super left progressives winning safe blue districts; they won because a lot of moderates (men and women) won swing districts. That's who voters turned out for. It seems to me 2018 is a more valuable data point (because it's actually many data points) than 2016.
And that's what it comes down to for me: The revolution Bernie is promising just doesn't seem to be coming. There are no troves of new, enthusiastic, young voters. If there were, Bernie wouldn't have gotten whupped so badly on Super Tuesday. What we have instead, I think, are a bunch of tired, stressed out people who just want to return things to normal. And Joe Biden, for all his flaw and foibles, is a pretty good candidate for that. So, he's my pick.
Until next time...
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