WHAT WILL IT TAKE FOR THE DEMOCRATS TO WIN IN 2020?

…Democrats vs Republicans in 2020

What will the Democrat’s run on in the 2020 campaign?

The Democratic Party is feeling pretty bullish with all the mistakes that are coming out of the Trump administration.  But what is the Democrat’s message for 2018 and 2020?

I was amazed when I saw that we could possibly see up to 25 candidates vying for the nomination for a presidential run in 2020.

Obviously, the goal if Trump succeeds in not being impeached, is for the rest of us to not allow more years of having only Republicans running the government.

That’s why those 25 possible Democratic candidates include mayors, governors, entrepreneurs, members of the House and Senate that have all hit the road to workshop their vision for the nation.  They are experimenting with various catchphrases and test policies that could possibly keep President Trump from winning a second term.

They have also been booking late-night TV gigs, waking up early for morning drive-time radio programs and showing up at watering holes in rural counties to try out their new material.

Many of these potential candidates are of course denying that their actions have anything to do with a coming presidential run.  However, they are playing off the chords of campaigns past, while seeking a way to break through a political situation that up to now, has been focused more on the latest actions of the president and the coming midterm elections.

“I don’t want to speak to Democrats only,” says Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who recently appeared on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” to discuss the Founding Fathers’ vision of patriotism and love. “I’m talking to us as Americans, about how this is a moral moment.”  Needless to say this was in reference to the actions of an immoral president.

At a time when the message to the Democrats has been that it’s time for some new blood in the leadership of the party, but look who’s apparently already doing tune ups for the 2020 event.

The former vice president, Joe Biden has been updating his own background for the middle class, repeating his theme and refrain that “America is all about possibilities.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has broadened her calls for people to “fight back,” and the new Senator, but long-time California politician, Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-CA) has demanded that “we must speak the truth.” 

But where is all that so called “new Democratic blood”?

“This is like taking the play to Topeka and New Haven to see what works before you even get to Broadway,” said David Axelrod, a former strategist for President Barack Obama who hosts would-be candidates for public forums at the University of Chicago.  But he is correct when he states that it’s a bit early as, “The 2020 season hasn’t even opened.”

The point is that there is no unified position for the Democrats as yet.  There is nothing that has congealed around a positive vision for what the Democratic party is offering the public.  That is other than being against Donald Trump.  Whatever it will be, needs to be something that can be stated in a few sentences as a 30-45 second elevator speech.

As the old truism says, “You just can’t be against something…..you have to be for something.  And that something has to include an answer to the public for, “What’s in it for me?”

“The Democratic trajectory right now is more uncertain than it has been since I started in politics in the ’80s,” said Simon Rosenberg, a longtime Democratic strategist and president of New Democratic Network (NDN), a progressive think tank. “And I think no one at this time has a leg up.”

                                                                                                                            

The questions about what are the messages are big ones.  And they are about both style and policy, and they can only be answered in the story told that is told by the one candidate who eventually captures the party’s imagination.

Some stories so far promote a vision of a youthful future, while others speak of their own past experience.  Some stories use the language from the private sector, while others have begun to promote guaranteeing public-sector jobs for all unemployed Americans, (now there's a bizarre thought!).  Some speak of class in America is defining the American divide, while others ­focus first on racial and gender inequality.   Some are brawlers ready to take on Trump, and others pose as healers to call the country back to our better angels.

The reality is that Trump’s presence has erased all of the old political rules, even for the Democrats, and the party should consider looking outside the standard roster of governors and senators.  Even perhaps to look at a business executive-entertainer like an Oprah Winfrey.  However, she has so far resisted any calls for her to run.

Here are some examples of some new individuals that are out there today:

·       “My theory of this election is you are going to basically have a swing back,” said Julián Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio and secretary of Housing and Urban Development, who has been traveling the country talking about “expanding opportunity.” “People are going to look for someone who can unite the country instead of divide it, someone they can trust.”

·       Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who spoke at a graduation in the first primary state of New Hampshire, has ­focused on another theme, the wisdom that can be brought to Washington from those working outside the dysfunctional city. “At this moment you have leadership in D.C. that defines itself by dividing us and subtracting us,” he says. “In local communities, we still are decent people who are about the politics of addition and multiplication.”

·       Starbucks executive chairman Howard Schultz, a businessman who has long considered a presidential run, has recently started a personal office as he pulls back from day-to-day control of the company. His public speeches drift far afield from the coffee business.  “This is not a time for isolationism, or for nationalism,” he said at the Atlantic Council. “This is not a time to build walls. This is a time to build bridges.”

All the potential candidates preach both national and party unity while appealing to both white Midwestern voters and the more diverse and urban Democratic base. But in the next breath, they will sometimes state how many different routes there are to eventually reach the goal of re-stitching the Democratic coalition that was been ripped apart by the election of Donald Trump.

“The economy doesn’t have a good answer for people who ­haven’t gone to college, and it hasn’t had an answer for a long time,” said Center for American Progress president Neera Tanden, who will host at least 10 potential candidates for her policy conference. “Trump is proof that a wrong answer will beat no answer.”

Late last month, California Senator, Kamala Harris stopped by the Breakfast Club, one of the biggest morning shows in urban radio, to discuss the importance of blacks voting in the recent victory of Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL). “The math is that a white Democrat won in the south because of black women,” she said, which was her way of simplifying a very close election.

A couple weeks earlier, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) traveled the back roads of Iowa, boasting that 20% of his voters in 2016 also marked Trump on the same ballot. “I show up, as simple as that is,” he said in an interview. “I don’t have the luxury of going places where people think exactly like me.”

Mayors and governors have been talking up their own liberal records of innovation while touring the states, aiming to contrast their competence to the dysfunction of Washington. “We have demonstrated that a policy ecosystem of progressive economic development works,” said Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who has been traveling the country as chair of the Democratic Governors Association. “We have blown up the Republican trickle-down message of Donald Trump.”

Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., who is working on a book due out next year, has anchored his pitch in a broad vision of Democrats as “the party of everyday life”….. a good job, health care and education included. “We’ve got to realize that a lot of this has to do with style,” he said. “That should be fairly obvious …..we have a current president who doesn’t even have an ideology, only a style.”

Others like Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper have begun to speak about the failures of past administrations, as the party struggles to identify an economic message in an age of low unemployment, strong market performance but continued kitchen-table insecurity.  “I think we also have to not be afraid to look back with an honest eye,” he said of the effects of global trade. “What happened in the 1990s with outsourcing was really government malpractice. As a country, we didn’t deliver for our citizens.”

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), who hails from Youngstown, has argued for a focus on the economic threat of China, while cautioning against new government programs that displace the private sector. “We can be hostile to monopolies, oligarchies and concentrations of wealth,” he said. “But we can’t be hostile to capitalism.”

Party leaders have also been floating a set of new policy ideas, which go beyond the 2016 promises of expanded health-care coverage, tuition relief for college students and more infrastructure spending. Cory Booker has introduced a bill to both legalize marijuana and expunge the records of those with marijuana possession convictions. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) has put forward a bill that would allow the US Postal Service to take on banking functions, including short-term loans to undermine the costly payday-loan industry.

Several potential candidates, including Booker, Gillibrand, Harris and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) have signed on to a bill that would create a pilot program, offering guaranteed jobs paying at least $15 an hour in 15 high-unemployment communities. Senator Sanders has said he is working on his own version of the same program.

Most of the potential candidates, including other outsiders such as entrepreneur Mark Cuban, have said they will wait until after the midterm elections to make any announcements about their 2020 plans. “It’s not about Donald Trump,” Cuban wrote in an email explaining his view of the coming campaign. “He is who he is and everyone knows who he is.”

Others say they really don’t know if they are ready to put their families through the two-year strain of a campaign.

But the reality is that everyone in the Democratic Party is throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks for developing a 2020 platform.  So far, it’s anybody’s guess as to what it will look like and what will actually work…..?

Whatever it is will have to turn those that voted for Trump to decide if that was a good vote and would they do it again in 2020?

I would suspect that the outcome of special prosecutor’s investigation will have some serious effects on how people will vote in 2020.

Let's hope that Robert Mueller doesn't need 4 years to finish the investigation.

Copyright G.Ater  2018