The Trial
The Trial of Donald John Trump continues in the US Senate. Last night’s session went deep into the early morning hours, as Democrats forced the Republican controlled Senate to vote down each piece of new evidence and each possible witness. Their strategy caught the President’s “Team” unprepared, their pants beyond even down; they forgot to bring them. But they managed to come back with echoes of the House Republicans, even Jim Jordan’s four part litany made its appearance.
Surely the Republican Senators were squirming through the night, both because of the votes now on the record, and the national contrast between the sharp and articulate House Managers and the buffoonish “Team”. But technically that didn’t matter: in the end, Mitch McConnell has blocked new evidence and witnesses, at least for the moment.
We’ll probably get to do the whole thing over again in a couple of weeks.
Polls
Today’s latest polls for the early Democratic Primaries (courtesy of RealClearPolitics):
- National – Biden 27, Sanders 20, Warren 19, Buttigieg 7, Bloomberg 5, everyone else ≤ 3 (1/18/20)
- Iowa – Biden 24, Warren 18, Buttigieg 16, Sanders 14, Klobuchar 11, everyone else ≤ 4% (1/20/20)
- New Hampshire – Sanders 16, Biden 15, Buttigieg 12, Warren 10, Yang 6, everyone else ≤5 (1/21/20)
- South Carolina – Biden 36, Steyer 15, Sanders 14, Warren 10, everyone else ≤ 4 (1/10/20).
Polls are a lot like a picture of a scene taken from a car speeding down the interstate. For a split second, the moment is captured forever “on film”. What happens the next moment, or hour, may completely change the story. But you have the snapshot.
Joe Biden
So looking at the “snapshots” above, Joe Biden seems to be in a good position. He is strongly ahead in the national poll. And in the more significant local polls, Joe is somewhat ahead in Iowa, within a percentage of New Hampshire, and outdistancing the field in South Carolina.
And yet, Democrats are not at all sure about banking the future on the former Vice President. In part, that’s because they feel one “outstanding gaffe” from Biden himself changing the entire scenario. He’s made a political career of those gaffes, and every time he speaks, we are on the cusp of another (Biden’s Gaffes through history).
Biden may be the Democratic “lowest common denominator” that all sides can get to, and he may be the surest chance of beating Donald Trump in November. But he has to keep it together, and he needs to gain support from all wings of the Democratic Party.
Winds of Change
So the Democratic nomination is not “wrapped” up. There is a strong force on the “left” wing of the Party, Democrats who want a sea change in America’s economy and corporate structures. And they are split between two candidates: Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
For the purest in the Social Democratic set, Bernie Sanders is the gold standard. He has led the cause for more than thirty years. He stood so long for his independent brand of “Democrat-ism” that he is the icon, the symbol of radical change. Elizabeth Warren grew under his shade and protection. Her campaign must seem a bit more than “ungrateful” to Bernie’s supporters. They must feel that it’s Bernie’s turn.
There is a simple calculation that makes Warren’s candidacy even more difficult for Bernie’s supporters to swallow. The math is pretty simple, subtract Warren from the race and add her votes to Sanders. It puts him ahead nationally, and everywhere else except for South Carolina. Warren dilutes the field, leaving it open for Biden to sweep in and take over.
This is politics, not tidily-winks, and all things are fair in politics and war. Warren didn’t have to get anyone’s permission to run for President, and her supporters would say that it’s Bernie that is diluting the race. And we now know that Warren and Sanders had serious discussions about this problem two years ago. Part of that discussion certainly had to be how to get one of them to NOT run. Whether the question of a woman running came up, and what either said about that isn’t the point, though that issue is now a serious concern on the campaign trail.
Clinton’s Attack
At least one person sees a path to the nomination for Bernie Sanders. Hillary Clinton has weighed in on the 2020 election campaign, using a “Hulu Documentary” to attack him. Unable to run herself, she is loath to allow Sanders the nomination. There are probably several reasons for this. There was no love lost between Sanders and Clinton in 2016, and her mathematical calculations probably conclude that Sanders cost her the Presidency. Secretary Clinton may simply be getting paybacks.
But there are two other factors that might be influencing the former candidate. One is the close ties the Clinton’s have to Wall Street. The term “Republican lite” was defined for Bill Clinton’s Presidency, and if nothing else, Sanders presents a threat to America’s investment houses.
Snapshots
Or, like many moderate Democrats, Hillary may have reached the conclusion that Sanders might be able to win the nomination, but could never win the Presidency. Even against an impeachment-wounded Donald Trump, Sanders would be painted as a “radical, socialist, communist,” an image that could be fatal. Unlike Clinton herself, or Biden, or other seasoned candidates; no one has gone “full negative” against Bernie Sanders. Democrats haven’t, because they needed Sanders’ support and his supporters, just as Clinton did in 2016. So no one has even tipped over “the rock” of Sander’s career as a “millionaire socialist”.
So today, as we stand at the edge of the Democratic primaries, we wait. Wait to see if the Bernie supporters have really found a font of political support in the young. Wait to see if somehow Warren/Sanders becomes one movement. And, we still wait for Joe Biden to “drop the ball” once again.
Elections are snapshots too. Few Democrats in America believed that the Trump snapshot taken in November of 2016 could happen. But it did; now Democrats are haunted by the possibility it could happen again. And, unlike polls, those election snapshots have consequences.
