CT Blue

I know that there’s been a surfeit of crazy the last few days, but events move too fast for a hobbyist blogger, so let me start simply by saying that I was definitely not wrong when I diagnosed Individual-1 as being seriously mentally ill. Everything else that has to be said about recent events has been said elsewhere, so I will turn my attention to the Democrats. After all, this blog is called CT BLUE, dedicated to the proposition that Democrats should win, despite their best efforts.

It is my sad duty to confess error. Sometime in the past few weeks I expressed a tentative preference for Beto O’Rourke as our 2020 candidate. I did not do my homework. He was, of course, vastly preferable to Ted Cruz, but then, who wouldn’t be. He also talked a good game on the campaign trail, but apparently his actual record leaves a lot to be desired:

He’s not that bad. He’d be a better president than Michael Bloomberg or Kirsten Gillibrand or John Delaney. But the Biden people see Beto as a threat and the knives are out. Several Bernie supporters– this one included– feel Beto was getting a record-free free ride towards the nomination and his record– like Gillibrand’s and Biden’s, for example, needed to be examined.

David Sirota’s Guardian piece, Beto O’Rourke frequently voted for Republican legislation, analysis reveals is absolutely devastating. A presidential race is not the same as taking a runner against arch-villain Ted Cruz in a Texas midterm. Beto had nothing to lose and he got better and better as a candidate as the campaign picked up momentum. But his record as an office-holder didn’t change. “[A] new analysis of congressional votes from the non-profit news organisation Capital & Main,” wrote Sirota, “shows that even as O’Rourke represented one of the most solidly Democratic congressional districts in the United States, he has frequently voted against the majority of House Democrats in support of Republican bills and Trump administration priorities. Capital & Main reviewed the 167 votes O’Rourke has cast in the House in opposition to the majority of his own party during his six-year tenure in Congress. Many of those votes were not progressive dissents alongside other left-leaning lawmakers, but instead votes to help pass Republican-sponsored legislation.”

More details at the link.

I think a lot of potential Democratic candidates, a lot of Democrats, and a lot of the media, believe that almost anyone can beat Individual-1 in 2020. I beg to differ. First of all, there is no question he will be renominated, as he is currently in the process of absorbing the RNC into his own campaign organization.and there’s even talk of ditching primariesto make a challenge all but impossible. That setup will make the DNC tilt in 2016 look hyper-impartial. If he’s in jail, he probably won’t be renominated, but he won’t be, and therefore he will be the candidate.

It is already beginning to look like the Democratic establishment will do in 2020 what it did in 2016: tilt the playing field to support its favored candidate. That candidate is shaping up to be Joe Biden, the one candidate most likely to lose to Trump in 2020. It can’t be said that the risk we’d run in nominating him is worth running because he’s good on policy. That’s because he’s not. He’s horrible.

As one small example of what he’d be up against, consider his reputation as being “gaffe-prone”. If he says something even marginally stupid, the media will amplify it for weeks (see, e.g., Al Gore’s alleged dishonesty in 2000). They do this in order to be fair to both sides. As part of that fairness, they will report, and then forget, each and every colossally stupid thing Trump says, because, after all, that’s just Trump being Trump.

Apart from that, Biden will inspire exactly no one.

We need a young, dynamic, progressive candidate. I thought Beto fit that bill, but it looks like I was wrong. The rest of the pack, for one reason or another, present risks of their own. Most of them (looking at you especially, Kirsten) are self seeking, “moderate” Democrats who would do as Democrats have done for the past 40 years: avoid backing the progressive agenda in order to seek votes from brain dead Fox viewers. Votes they never get, but who’s counting?

We thought we were getting a young, progressive candidate in 2008, or, I should say, we deluded ourselves into believing we were. Obama is a very good person, don’t get me wrong, but he blew an opportunity to pursue a rational agenda in the vain and unrealistic hope that he could somehow bridge the gap between the rational and the crazy. I won’t belabor the point, but we don’t need yet another Democrat who will come in on a wave of hope and then proceed to pursue halfway measures that don’t appreciably or perceptibly improve people’s lives. Had Obama and the Democrats, in 2009, pushed through a recovery plan that did more than stop the bleeding, I firmly believe the red wave of 2010 would never have happened. We don’t need another in 2022.

Bernie would fit the bill, if Bernie were 30 years younger, but he’s not. Anyway, the Democratic establishment would move heaven and earth to prevent his nomination.

We may yet be stuck with Beto. He’s not what we want, but he may at least be what we need to win in 2020. As a candidate, he’d be great. As a president, he’d probably be a huge disappointment, and we’d see a red wave in 2022. But, on the bright side (and we should always look at the bright side of life), if he won, Individual-1 might end up in that jail cell, unless, of course, his successor decides to “heal the country’s wounds” by pardoning the bastard.