Remember when we had plenty of choices?
Unlike many here at Daily Kos, I have not settled on a preferred candidate in the 2016 primary. Despite what may be clear choices between the current contenders, I'm rather underwhelmed by the Democratic field as it stands now, and am disappointed that it does not reflect the increasing diversity and youth of both the Democratic Party and the progressive movement at large. Not fielding a single competitive Democratic candidate that is under 65 or a person of color is an embarrassment, and activists should be demanding more.
When Newt Gingrich says the current Republican field makes the Democratic field look like a "gerontocracy", I credit him with a good zinger, because he's not wrong. The average age of the two frontrunners is roughly 70. Hillary Clinton will be 69 on election day in 2016, and Bernie Sanders 75. Jim Webb will be 70. Lincoln Chafee, barely an asterisk in this contest, will be in his mid-60s as well. Only Martin O'Malley, currently 51, breaks the mold, and the man has no oxygen as yet in this race.
The Democratics frontrunners are currently from a generation previous to that of the current president, each of retirement age, even as Democrats skew younger, and voters under 45 voted overwhelmingly Democratic in both Obama elections. Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and JFK were all in their mid-40s when elected president. Jimmy Carter was 52. FDR was 51. Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency at 55. In fact, the Democratic Party has not successfully elected a new president over the age of 60 since before the Civil War. It has simply not happened in the modern era.
Moreover, the present primary field is an exclusively white one despite a Democratic Party that is composed of more than 40% people of color. In 2012, nearly 3 in 5 Democratic voters were women, yet there's only one woman in the field. Each current candidate is also from the Northeast of the country, representing a small cluster of states from Vermont to Virginia. This despite the fact, for example, that Democrats have seen their greatest successes in the GOP waves of 2010 and 2014 from their West Coast firewall, from states like California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada and (to a large extent) Colorado.
This homogeneity is disappointing. It's frankly unacceptable, and it makes the Party extremely vulnerable at a time when it desperately needs a reboot.
If folks don't see this as a problem, I think they should. Democrats have been most successful in presidential politics with young, upstart candidates who have related to and energized the young, and have helped build movements, not based on extensive resumes and perceived "electability", but based on energy, vision, and young grassroots armies that ultimately recruited and mobilized activists, and subsequently helped regional and downticket races. Carter, Clinton and Obama were relative unknowns who caught fire. On the other hand, our last "safe" and "electable" candidate, age 60+, chosen based on resume and a cautious, poll-tested platform? John Kerry. And we know how that went.
Whenever Markos Moulitsas reflects on the Howard Dean burnout of 2004 as reason to be skeptical of Bernie Sanders' chances this cycle, I'm always curious about the specific lessons he learned from that race. I was also active among Dean/Clark advocates here on Daily Kos at that time as well, and remember the disappointment of that collapse, even though the 50-state infrastructure Dean put in place, and the passion he inspired, was as responsible as anything else for the resounding Democratic victories of 2006 and 2008.
Like Markos, however, I'm skeptical of Bernie's chances, because of his age, his lack of experience representing urban populations and people of color, and his lack of foreign policy chops in a time of increasing global instability. While his policy positions may largely align with my own, I think a 75 year old socialist with a laser focus on domestic policy will be a tough sell in a general election, especially if things were to degrade in the Middle East in the next year or so.
But I'm also strongly skeptical of Hillary Clinton's chances. Frankly, she seems like the right candidate at the wrong time – a candidate better built for 10 or 20 years ago. When I reflect on the lessons of 2004, those don't thrown me into Clinton's arms like they do Markos. What I see in Clinton is a candidate very much like John Kerry – late to the game, cautious, relying heavily on symbolism and an aura of electability, failing to excite large portions of the Democratic base, or excite new voters. Her strength, like Kerry, is perceived to be foreign policy, but the GOP is strategically excellent at neutralizing this supposed advantage through faux scandals like Benghazi, State Dept email security lapses, etc. The GOP is already testing various narratives to blame the creation of ISIS on her. If you think this is preposterous, well, it certainly is, but then recall how effective the repulsive swift boating strategy was for low information voters. Once a couple of billion dollars in attack ads hit her, and the GOP places a Susana Martinez or Carly Fiorina on their ticket to neutralize the symbolism of Clinton breaking the glass ceiling, I suspect she will limp into the November contest like Kerry before her: bruised, little-loved, vulnerable.
Some Clinton supporters may disagree, but I think most progressives do acknowledge that the current Democratic primary field lacks the diversity and youth of the GOP field largely due to dynastic politics and the presence of Clinton in the race. Because of how 2008 played out, younger professional politicians feel she is owed this final opportunity, and worry that "jumping ahead in line" could severely damage their own political futures.
But what if that was not the case? What if neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders were in the race? What if the majority of candidates were between 40 and 60, like the Republican field? Is the Democratic bench really as weak and the GOP bench really as deep as pundits suggest? Or is the current field just the network effect of one candidate's outsized presence in the race?
Can we imagine a field of 17 Democrats every bit as diverse in age, ethnicity and experience as the GOP field at present? I think we can, and I give it a go just beyond the orange cloud of unknowing below.
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