This has certainly been an interesting Democratic primary so far, hasn’t it? I have some thoughts about this that I wanted to get down before whatever plague is heading my way starts to eat my brain and soil my memories. Let’s start this out by saying that I’ve already voted in the primary, so you can get mad at me for my opinions but the die is already cast, so to speak.
I voted for Elizabeth Warren in the Presidential primary. I doubt anyone who knows me is surprised by this. To me, she was a near-ideal combination of ideology, effectiveness, and preparedness. She’s the closest thing I’ve had to a no-compromise candidate in my 36 years of voting in national elections. She’s off the board now, as are many other attractive alternatives, so we’re down to two options, both of whom are less than ideal to me.
Let’s start with Bernie Sanders. On the plus side, I agree with his hopes and dreams almost 100%. Almost everything he wants is what I want as well. I may agree with him more than I do Warren, which is saying something. He’s an inspiring speaker who seems younger than his physical age. He’s able to get people excited about things that I’ve wanted for ages. There’s a lot to like here.
So why is he “less than ideal”? Let’s start with the most important one: Most of the people in the Democratic party prefer Joe Biden and that is a really big deal. His winning the nomination as a non-Democrat was always a moon shot, and it turns out that he drives a lot of people to the polls to vote against him. Once significant numbers of minority voters got a chance to cast their ballot, it was over. Even if he were to cross that hurdle, I remain unconvinced he’s a superior candidate in the general election. If he were to hit those two jackpots, what’s his upside? Carter? A president elected by a popular groundswell who has the support of neither party and, thus, neither house of Congress. The downside is Goldwater. Sanders’ record in the Senate suggest that he’s an uncompromising leftist who has struggled to get results.
Goldwater’s an instructive example here. He was the ideologically pure right-wing candidate that the true believers on the right wanted. He got clobbered in the general, but the movement Republicans learned an important lesson: You can’t start at the top. Nominating or electing a President to represent your movement is attractive, but it’s not really effective.
Both of my parents were movement Republicans. The lesson they took from Goldwater was that you start at the bottom. You take the school boards, the city councils, the county infrastructure first. Then, build from that. I vote progressive in every single local election, and I donate to those campaigns, because that’s where the change comes from. Electing a President without the structure to support their goals is a short-cut that just doesn’t work.
And, you’ll note that I say “goals” and “hopes” and “dreams” and not “plans” (not that “having detailed plans” has ever helped anyone get elected). Senator Sanders hasn’t shown much of a gift for building consensus, making compromises to get things done, and all of the stuff you have to do to effectively govern. I love his uncompromising ideology. I fear that he would be utterly ineffective at implementing it.
And then there’s Joe Biden.
Sigh.
I don’t like Joe Biden. I don’t like what little he stands for. I don’t find him inspiring. He’s a corporatist centrist who is somewhere right of Obama (and well right of Clinton, H.). His congressional record is mediocre and punctuated with some genuinely awful votes. I know, I’m really selling him here, huh?
So what does Joe bring to the table? He’s going to get the Democratic nomination and he’s not Donald Trump. That’s the #1 job, because without beating Donald Trump, none of the rest matters. I don’t care how beautiful a candidate’s agenda is; if they can’t win the primary, they can’t beat Donald Trump, and if they can’t do both of those things, then why are we having this conversation?
Anyone who tries to tell you that there’s no difference between the two of them is simply being obtuse. There are more differences between Trump and Biden than Biden and Sanders. I’ve seen the charts on the policy positions. They’re great. They don’t list things like “Believes the Constitution grants the President unlimited power” and “Doesn’t believe that Congress has any legitimate oversight over the office of the President”. I could go on, but you get the idea. You want to say Biden is like Romney? Yeah, OK, I’ll buy that. But Trump? I struggle to believe that that’s an honest opinion.
And make no mistake about it: Joe Biden almost certainly is going to be the Democratic nominee. I might even agree that he should be, even though I have very little agreement with him on policy. He is the more likely to beat Trump because he will be nominee and Sanders won’t. I want Sanders to do well and to stick around until the convention and I want him to be able to force a few promises from the establishment and for his people to have a seat at the table.
The wild card, of course, is that if/when Sanders doesn’t get the nomination, a lot of his supporters will either sit out the election, vote third party, or even vote Trump. There might even be enough to do this to throw the election to Trump if it’s close. I cannot wrap my head around the thinking, but there was a lot of it last time, too. Tired of voting for the lesser of two evils? Me too! But, unfortunately, that’s all that’s on the menu. In fact, that’s almost always what’s on the menu. You very seldom get exactly what you want in a candidate. And, on those rare occasions when you do get a unicorn but they don’t win the primary? It hurts. That’s what I’m dealing with right now. In November, I’ll hold my nose and vote for the candidate who I believe will be better for the most people because that’s my job as a citizen.
-RK
P.S. I wish that policy had more to do with winning elections, but there’s just no evidence that it does. I’ve seen posts suggesting that Democrats lose when they nominate a centrist: Clinton, H., Kerry, Dukakis, Gore (which is weird, because he was probably the furthest left since McGovern). What they leave out is that the Democrats also win when they nominate a centrist: Obama (who ran in the primaries on the left, but abandoned that upon winning the nomination), Clinton, B., Carter…the Democrats almost always wind up with a centrist as the nominee. It’s been almost 50 years since someone I’d describe as “significantly left of center” was the party nominee.
Sigh.