This is an opinion. No links, no stats, no blah blah. This is just years of political campaign experience and instinct talking. See I look at the panic the DNC is showing and think, “You bet on Joe Biden. Why would you bet on a man who solidified Bush’s post 9-11 support, threw bankrupt Americans under the economic bus as the “Senator from MBNA” and someone with a history of talking first, second, then third, then thinking about it.”
But they did. They were so sure Obama nostalgia would carry the day and that all the rest would fade away-as if Amy Klobuchar somehow lacked gravitas, as if Pete Buttigieg was a joke. Wrong and wrong. But mostly, they were so enamored with the idea of a combination of “Woke plus Neo Liberalism being the magic elixir they tried to pound a square peg white guy into a round hole diverse party culminating in a comical attempt to make Joe a transrights voice.
See this is the truth of the modern Democratic party. They believe in social justice, however the truth is the party elite run to Wall Street and away from the New Deal. Historically your average Democrat, especially in the rust belt, is socially conservative. Or racist, or bigoted, or whatever. But even going back to Woodrow Wilson the party has a less than illustrious history of being very pro safety net but not so much pro wokeitude.
As we evolved, and more Rockerfeller Repubs joined in, the focus shifted. Suddenly it wasn’t just Teamsters and Father O Malley’s backing JFK’s party. Hmm-you know, if we could just raise elite coastal $$ we could also be greedy Republicans without the social depravity. So they abandon unions. They abandon teachers.
Now here comes two people Bernie and Liz. Both sufficiently woke, but nowhere near Wall Street enough to cover the party’s fundraising bills. So you choose Joe. Then Joe falters. Then you beg Mike Bloomberg. But if you wanted to stop Bernie, you take the less divisive Warren. You hope she wins and perhaps you can edit her economic progressivism in markdowns on legislation, as was done with Obama. But no-they get greedy. They decide to let Bernie and Liz fight over the same voters assuming neither one would knock the other one down enough to threaten the centrist favorite. Wrong again. Liz tried to outBernie Bernie and left herself painted into a political corner on M4A she never could get out of. The last of her moderate support cratered. Bernie won the progressive wing. That’s done. Pete boxed her in on fundraising, Bernie wrested the mantle of progressive firebrand, so our best shot at a united party behind a smart woman appears dashed.
This was predictable once Biden entered. For all the trepidation surrounding Warren, the inner workings of the party have far more trust in her approach than Bernie. But all this goes back to a reticence to allow the economic progressives to ascend. This slip is now obviously showing to even the most amateur of observers. The message is out. The machinery of the party is not populist. They decided long ago, sometime post Clinton’s election, that the future was wealthy, educated, multicultural, and capitalist.
Unless something drastically shifts, Bernie Sanders is going to win tomorrow. He is going to win N.H. He is even now close in S.C. and if he pulls that off Biden will drop out almost certainly. That leaves Bloomberg, or what I call peak “ex-Rockerfeller.” In my opinion If Biden drops out, Bloomberg will somehow, someway, be molded into a liberal enough to force a brokered convention. The superdelegates will decide. He will be the nominee. He might beat Trump but those AOC’s of the world may break off and form their own party. The unions, labor, healthcare conscious Dems will flee the party in droves.
If they had just picked Warren as their ace, they would not be in this spot propping up a starter with no fastball, replacing him out of the bullpen with a guy they just traded for, and doing so with the bases loaded with a complicit Senate and a free swinging monster, Donald Trump, at the plate.
Elizabeth could be the Ace. But she was an unapologetic progressive woman who while able to throw heat, sometimes got wild. The powerful brokers needed to nominate a puppet. Elizabeth, while not sly, is brilliant and most assuredly nobody’s puppet. She was this party’s last chance to unite in my opinion. But they tried to shove Biden down the throat of voters who knew better.
And if Joe doesn’t win, if Bernie leads the delegates but has it taken from him, it will take a lot more than John Kerry to reunify a long disconnected party.
The words Chicago 1968 come to mind. (The disunity part not violence-geesh. I would like to think we have moved on from that.)
Does anybody really know what time it is?