And this crowd of Democrats wants to run the country?
Early February was supposed to be a promising time for Democrats launching the actual competition to pick their David to slay the Republican Goliath, Donald Trump, come November. It hasn’t turned out that way.
In fact, it’s turned out to be a threatening mess for them. What happens in February is important if it becomes a pattern.
But given the humming economy, booming job numbers, impeachment acquittal and rising job approval, this has been probably the most propitious period of Trump’s presidency.
Where to start? The Democratic field was massive and diverse last spring. No longer. Now, in just the second week of actual voting, it’s down to a bunch of whites, most of the frontrunners being career pols in their 70s. The establishment’s chosen one, Joe Biden, who’s led national polls for a year because he’s hung around the public trough forever, probably finished fourth in Iowa.
We can’t be sure because Iowa’s Democratic Party totally complicated and then screwed up the caucus reporting process so badly that no one knew who won for days. Any victory momentum for Pete Buttigieg or Bernie Sanders blew away on the wintry prairie winds. Come to think of it, that might please the party’s Eastern establishment.
The state party blamed coding issues with a new, untested reporting app. Untested? Anyone else remember Democrats’ misplaced trust in a brand-new website that caused Obamacare’s disastrous online launch back in 2010?
Americans rightly ask themselves, do we really want these clowns back in Washington taking over our entire health care system and trimming the nation’s military might again to finance social giveaways?
Neither political party seems wise or courageous enough to question why in the world a national decision as momentous as choosing candidates to become commander in chief begins in two places as disparate and unrepresentative as Iowa and New Hampshire. All good, earnest people there who no doubt mean well. But leaving the crucial first tests to nearly 1,800 caucus meetings and then an unregulated primary where anyone can vote seems, well, dangerously haphazard.
Caucuses like New England town meetings are supposed to be a purer form of grassroots democracy. Here’s another example of such pure democracy. Ever been to a midwinter PTA meeting on folding chairs in a gym to settle any issue beyond the bake sale date?
In Iowa, you must be a registered Democrat to have a say in choosing Democratic delegates. Fine. In New Hampshire, as in some other states, anyone can vote in either party’s primary. Inclusive, but it invites mischief. Self-proclaimed independents play an outsized role, which explains why Biden was campaigning so hard to win them over in recent weeks.
Independents pushed Sanders past Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire in 2016. And back in 2000, on GOP primary morning, Karl Rove, chief strategist for George W. Bush, examined the first wave of exit polls. “Not good,” he said.
It was worse than not good. Propelled by independents voting Republican, John McCain went on that day to spank the front-running Texas governor by 18 embarrassing points.
The next morning on the campaign plane to South Carolina, that result prompted a decisive recalibration meeting of staff, of which I was a part. The end result: No more Mr. Nice Guy. And ultimately, the nomination and two terms.
Recalibration meetings are not uncommon in national political campaigns. They are massive organizational beasts, built largely on other people’s money and young people, who work cheap for the experience. Biden took a valuable day off the New Hampshire trail last week for such a recalibration meeting. It may be too late.
It’s 32 weeks until the general election. But only 21 weeks until the Democratic National Convention. And just three until Super Tuesday when, with or without him, Biden’s party will select 40% of its delegates.
Vice presidents seeking to move up a notch have not fared well with modern American voters. Think Richard Nixon in 1960. Hubert Humphrey in 1968. Walter Mondale in 1984. Al Gore in 2000. George H.W. Bush did win in 1988, essentially as a third Reagan term.
You can’t see momentum. But you can feel it in football games and presidential campaigns. This week’s New Hampshire winner will get plenty. Early winners of either party get momentum — and donations and increased media coverage, which feeds more momentum.
To seek some, Biden moved $150,000 of advertising up a week from South Carolina on Feb. 29 to Nevada’s caucuses on Feb. 22. His organizational and personality problems, however, run deeper. There’s a reason Barack Obama has not endorsed his two-term running mate, as Bill Clinton did for Gore.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch and out of the media spotlight, Michael Bloomberg ignores the early states and focuses on Super Tuesday’s 15 party primaries on March 3 and those coming after. He’s spent more than $300 million already, more than all the others combined. So, the New Yorker is down to his last $55 billion.
By spending so much so fast and ignoring the pack, the savvy businessman has risen from zero at Thanksgiving to nearly 11% and fourth place in the RealClearPolitics national average.
“All the other Democratic candidates have flown to New Hampshire,” he told an attentive audience in flyover country after the Iowa debacle. “I’m here in Michigan because this is a state we absolutely must win in November if we’re going to beat Donald Trump.”
This story was originally published February 11, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "And this crowd of Democrats wants to run the country?."