Haven't seen a thread on this so far so thought this would be an interesting topic to discuss.
Seems like Bernie Sanders has established himself as the front-runner in the Democrat primaries and the others need to move fast to chase him down.
Big problem for the others is that there are basically 4 chasing the same 'lane' (centre-left Democrat 'establishment') - Biden, Buttegieg, Kloubachar and now Bloomberg. In 2016, Hilary had that lane to herself as the Democrats kind of accepted it was her 'turn' (although Bernie pushed her harder than expected back then).
Personally my favourite is Elizabeth Warren. I think she's the most intelligent of the contenders and I'm familiar with some of her work on competition policy and she's very good. I think she suffers from being perceived as too left leaning for the establishment Democrats to like, but she's not got the track record or campaigning infrastructure behind her as Bernie who has been around a while as the leader of the American left.
Bloomberg I think is throwing away his money in this campaign. I think he is just trying to test the theory that money buys elections as he's richer than anyone and doesn't need to suck up to donors so can self-finance. It will buy him a lot of coverage but it's hard to see where his core vote will be. Trump at least appealed to a 'base', but the people that don't like Trump will not warm to Bloomberg, other than the fact he insults Trump on twitter.
Buttegieg, Kloubachar - a bit lightweight. They are struggling to get heard.
Biden is probably the only one who could beat Bernie but I think Biden's time is gone, he should have been the front runner with his name recognition and being the 'safe' choice for people who don't want to see much change, but have a President who is more of a "uniting" figure rather than divisive like Trump. Biden has built his reputation on being bipartisan and working with Republicans. He's probably struggling because the country is so divided, you're either for Trump or you hate him, and the Trump haters want to rally round an obvious anti-Trump like Bernie more than Biden.
If Bernie gets the nomination, as seems likely at the moment, it will be like a mirror image of Trump. He would start the Presidential campaign as the big underdog with people predicting that nobody 'like him' could actually become President and once the establishment media flings mud at him saying he's unelectable/a disgrace to America he will get smashed. Which is what they said about Trump. In 2016 people underestimated how strong and loyal Trump's 'base' was, and they might underestimate Bernie's base too. Back then a lot of Republicans who found Trump odious held their nose and voted for him anyway, because they wanted to get Republican things done (judicial appointments, tax cuts etc). Bernie's route to the White House requires the same kind of effect where moderate Democrats hold their nose and vote for him to get Trump out and end the Republican control of the ability to rig the system, figuring that a largely moderate Congress would act as sufficient constraint on him. Add enough of those to his hard core base and he'll be the Trump of 2020.
Statistics: Posted by sally cinnamon — Mon Feb 24, 2020 9:42 pm — Replies 2 — Views 51
