Vice-President Joe Biden meets Pope Francis, 2016
If you follow the mainstream media, Fox News or liberal blogs, you might think that all activity on the Democratic side is at the liberal end of the spectrum, with attention placed on new House members like the female minority trio of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilan Omar. You might think such activity and attention also translates directly to the field of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. However, the person who currently tops the Democratic presidential polls is Joe Biden, who is considered a moderate and definitely not a fresh face. Although the media would portray this as a Democratic Party “rift,” it’s more like a disconnect. Folks following the latest media shiny objects might have forgotten, for example, that the last time the Democrats nominated an all-out liberal for president was U.S. Senator George McGovern in 1972, and he went down to one of the greatest defeats in presidential election history.
Perhaps Democratic voters are desperate for another White House win (which arguably they got in 2016 with Hillary Clinton but the election was stolen from her). Perhaps the Democrats feel that the number one goal for 2020 is to defeat Donald Trump, and deny him four more years of serving the interests of Russia and North Korea, wrecking the environment on behalf of big oil companies, nominating extreme right wing judges to the federal courts including the U.S. Supreme Court, and more. For those reasons, the Democrats in 2020, as both parties generally do every presidential election, need to select the candidate they feel can best unify the different factions of the party. Those factions heavily include minorities (blacks voters, Hispanic voters, Asian voters, Jewish voters), women, blue-collar workers, folks with lower incomes, progressives and other groups.
Right now, even though he is yet undeclared, that unifying Democratic candidate may be Biden. Indeed, the most recent poll from South Carolina, notable for its large percentage of black Democratic voters, puts Biden at the top. One likely reason for Biden’s polling success, besides his obvious name recognition, is his strong service as Vice President for eight years under President Barack Obama. At the same time, both moderate former Republican Michael Bloomberg and more liberal U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio have just announced that they will not run for president, decisions that are thought to be partly a result of a likely Biden candidacy.
Another candidate who might fit that bill and become the party consensus candidate is U.S. Senator and former California Attorney General Kamala Harris. Although Harris is considered to be more liberal than Biden, she also has a “tough cop” prosecutor persona from her days as District Attorney in San Francisco. The Kennedyesque Beto O’Rourke from Texas, still not yet a declared candidate, could also potentially reach across and unify the different Democratic Party factions, as could others such as U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Cory Booker of New Jersey.
One candidate who is not considered a unifier, however, is U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. On the contrary, Sanders was one of the most divisive candidates in the 2016 presidential primaries, where he attacked the Democratic Party itself, using pejorative terms like “corporate” and “Wall Street” against fellow Democrats. Sanders also has a problematic voting record on guns and Russia sanctions, as well as trouble regarding his campaign’s treatment and hiring of women, all issues that are extremely important to Democratic voters. And despite being asked for years to provide multiple years of historic tax returns, Sanders still has not done so. This raises the possibility in some voters’ minds that Sanders has something to hide. At minimum, it makes him and his wife (whom Sanders blamed in 2016 for their failure at the time to provide their returns) look incompetent.
While the differences among the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates are vast, and even more candidates are likely to enter the race, hopefully they and the Democratic primary voters will remember that the “unifying” principle is to defeat Trump and the Republicans. On that score, the Democratic field is strong and diverse, and they have an excellent chance of success.
Photo by Ninian Reid, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/h2XKzt
