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.