NOT NAMING NAMES: AN IDEAL 2020 CANDIDATE

COUNTRY FIRST, PROGRESSIVE, SELFLESS CANDIDATES – ANY TAKERS? 

The 2020 Presidential campaign starts now. With the 2018 midterms over and Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives, one of the biggest political questions in the United States becomes who the Democrats should nominate for the mission of defeating President Donald Trump. The field will take shape in the weeks and months to come, with the better known candidate announcements likely around the first of January (one Congressman has already announced). We’ll start examining that field in time but, for now, we offer thoughts on what – not who—the Democratic candidate should look like.

The Musts

*Electability --- Adhering to the old adage about the impossibility of saving souls in an empty church, we recognize the 2020 Democratic candidate must (1) hold the states Hillary Clinton carried in 2016  (227 electoral votes) and (2) add the 46 electoral votes she didn’t get in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. That doesn’t require that the candidate hail from that region, but he or she should appeal to the area’s working class voters and mobilize turnout among other potential Democratic voters in those states as Clinton didn’t.

                          

*Issue Discipline --- The 2020 Democratic nominee will, unless lighting strikes, run against Trump and the loud, often irrelevant controversies he stirs up, aimed at distracting the media and the electorate from the nation’s serious problems. His bogus complaints about a dangerous caravan of migrants –

PhotCred: RisingupwithSomali.com

many of them women and children barefoot or in sandals and tennis shoes – threatening an “invasion” of our southern border served as just such a distraction during the 2018 midterms. Democratic candidates didn’t take the bait, keeping their focus on health care.  As a result, Democrats picked up at least 39 seats in the House and kept the net loss in the Senate to two seats, despite having to defend three times as many than Republicans. Democrats also picked up seven governorships, including three in the aforementioned critical states in the upper Midwest. 

Keeping the Democratic coalition in place – This relates to electability, but the ideas are not identical. If Democrats are to win elections going forward and not cede to Republicans control of large swaths of the state and federal governments, they must nurture and expand the coalition that succeeded in 2018. That coalition produced an eight percent voting preference for Democrats over Republicans. Don’t forget Hillary Clinton, unpopular and disliked as she was, got 2.8 million more votes than Trump in 2016. This coming together of people of color, young people, and progressive whites twice elected Barack Obama President. The party and its 2020 nominee, therefore,

must continue minority group outreach, find ways of encouraging participation by millennials, and attract increasing numbers of suburban white women who helped lead the charge in 2018.  We know what this looks like. Even in losing campaigns, Stacy Abrams in Georgia, Andrew Gillum in Florida, and Beto O’Rourke in Texas  showed the Democratic future lies not in running as mushy centrists afraid of “white backlash,” but as committed progressives espousing aggressive policies on health care, criminal justice reform, and inclusiveness of ethnic and marginalized groups, including women, Muslims, and LGBTQs. 

*Women’s rights --- Brett Kavanaugh ‘s elevation to the United States Supreme Court may signal the coming demise of Roe v. Wade, meaning the battle over women’s reproductive rights ramps up, not ends. Democrats must nominate a candidate clearly committed in his or her support for those rights, and one standing as an unabashed opponent of sexual harassment and sexual assault who doesn’t assume women reporting male sexual misbehavior “made it up.”

Things to Hope for

In addition to the above list of attributes and policies a Democrat running for President in 2020 must have, we see other elements of a desirable profile that would ice the cake. 

*Some Charisma --- Extraordinary personalities come along in politics only occasionally. Jack Kennedy’s eloquence, Bill Clinton’s interpersonal skills, and Barack Obama’s unique gifts of vision and inspiration don’t grow on trees. Still, a Democratic winner in 2020 should connect with Americans in ways other than ideological compatibility and policy preference. She or he must inspire us to feel good about ourselves, the country, and our future.

                

*A Sense of History --- The Democratic Party owns a proud tradition of supporting the middle class and helping the disaffected improve their lives. The 2020 nominee should understand that history and embrace its legacy. The

New Deal, the New Frontier, and the Great Society lifted many Americans into the bright sunshine of the American Dream. Even if some of the programs that undergirded those big ideas have fallen out of favor as programmatic approaches to problems, they are part of the country’s progressive past and their objectives, like ending poverty and improving educational opportunity, remain core values inherent in a just society. The 2020 challenge rests in adapting that legacy to today’s realities. In the final analysis, without the commitment to justice and equality that spawned those programs, what good is having the Presidency anyway? 

These are our thoughts.  Let us hear yours.  

THANKSGIVING PERSPECTIVES: DIFFERENT LOOKS AT AN AMERICAN HOLIDAY

As Thanksgiving approaches, then passes, we pause and focus our lenses on this uniquely American holiday. As we’ve said, the three of us, great friends though we are, are not all alike. We see things differently sometimes, as our individual perspectives on Thanksgiving so starkly demonstrate:

Woodson

I feel conflicted at Thanksgiving. I find joy and sadness uncomfortably co-existing within my spirit.

The First Thanksgiving

I remember celebrating Thanksgiving in grade school at Holly Springs Elementary.  My teacher, my mom, invariably led us in a traditional Thanksgiving carol that went something like: “The year 1620 the Pilgrims came over. They landed at Plymouth Rock, then built up their homes. At harvest time, they started our Thanksgiving Day.” My mother didn’t teach us the Pilgrims were European immigrants who had, through war, confiscated from the natives the land on which they celebrated. She didn’t tell us native resistance to European conquest persisted until 1898.

So, each season when I sit down to a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with family and friends, I can’t help but ask myself: How do my Native American brothers and sisters feel today?  The disenfranchisement of Native American voters in North Dakota this year reminded me of their unique struggle.

I am truly grateful to be an American, but what about them? While I have much for which to be thankful – a superb education, a wonderful wife, five great children, a hopeful future, and a guardian of my liberty in a free press – I can’t help but wonder how Native Americans feel. Do they feel as native South Africans felt under apartheid?  I wonder.

Rob

The Tuesday evening before Thanksgiving week, I sat in a church with my significant other and almost 600 others for the 20^th annual Faiths Together Thanksgiving  program near my home in The Woodlands, Texas. This celebration promotes religious acceptance and convenes the area’s faith traditions for an evening of music, inspirational messages, fellowship, and food. Some congregations refuse participation apparently out of a reluctance to join in services with certain other religious groups. Nevertheless, the program brings together  Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus. and many other faith groups in a learning experience about one another and a celebration of commonality, not an accentuation of difference.

As I sat there listening, for example, as a Muslim professor described the numerous references to Jesus in the Quran and watching the joyous faces in a choir made up of

members from seven or eight different congregations, I felt especially thankful for living in a country where such a thing can happen. Despite America’s imperfections, we get many things right, religious freedom being one of them. Increasing hatred based on religious bias notwithstanding, our First Amendment and its twin guarantees of freedom from the tyranny of a state sanctioned church and from government interference in worship, including the right not to worship at all, stands almost alone in the world in its protection of religious choice. Citizens of many countries could never attend a program like Tuesday’s. I give thanks such a thing can happen in my country.

Henry

In my childhood, Thanksgiving was an exceptionally joyful time for interacting with family and friends.  The fall colors,

wonderful aromas, the school and church plays, and visits with family members made my world a beautiful, safe place full of love and enjoyment. There was a continuing expression of thankfulness at home, school, and church.  Our church, in fact, distributed dinners to the needy, though I didn’t then understand the depth of poverty and want in our world.

As the years passed, Thanksgiving became more complex. Yes, we still enjoyed family and friends and I helped our church distribute meals to the needy. I got my kids involved by promising a great breakfast at a restaurant if they woke up early enough to help. The bribe worked.

                          

In the midst of this joy, a pervasive sadness attached itself to me, a sadness I haven’t shaken. As we give thanks for our bounty, I think of all the pain, hunger, loneliness, and hopelessness far too many people across the globe feel. So, I increase my giving and I volunteer more, searching for ways of helping, and I guess, quelling that sadness.

I’ve concluded sorrow may be the price we pay for refusing to express the kind of love that would help those in need. We have the resources and technical skill that would end hunger, but we don’t. Practical solutions are complex and we erect walls of indifference and apathy. Suppose, however, each of us found a way to make some difference each day. We might stumble upon a movement. 

How can I ask for Blessings

On the Universe

And not universal Blessing?

Though I cannot comprehend All

I can entertain the notion of All

And

Wish you well

While enhancing that solitary Blessing

With the constant universal march of Grace

Does absolution follow?