Monday, May 20, 2019

Road to the White House: Part Two: The Underdogs

--> JAZZMAN CHRONICLES:  DEFEATING TRUMP. 




A LONG & WINDING ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE

A Presidential Election Analysis from Pretenders to Contenders

Part Two:  The Underdogs

By Jack Random


In part one of A Long and Winding Road I discussed the prospects and substance of seven announced candidates for president under the banner of the Democratic Party.  I pronounced them pretenders though they represent sincere issues and segments of the electorate.  They included former US Senator Mike Gravel, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam, author Marianne Williamson, entrepreneur Andrew Yang, billionaire investor Tom Steyer, Starbucks CEO Howard Schulz and Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg. 

Of the seven, only Mayor Pete has gained traction in the early campaign.  By virtue of money raised and excitement generated he has earned a prominent place on the Democratic stage of presidential hopefuls.  While I respect the mayor for his eloquence and intellect, I stand by my pronouncement that he is in fact a pretender.  On the long and winding road to the White House he will be forced to admit that one does not jump from Midwest mayor to commander-in-chief in a single bound. 

At a time when Democrats are obsessed with electability, the odds of any pretender advancing to the White House are less than hitting a trifecta on three 100-1 underdogs at the Kentucky Derby.  Supporters of Mayor Pete and the others will peel off to other candidates as the campaign progresses. 

I know the counterpoint:  The current occupant of the Oval Office skipped all electoral offices and went straight to the presidency.  To which I reply:  Exactly.  He was not qualified for president and it shows in everything he does, says or tweets.  He is being played and outplayed on the international stage by China, North Korea, Israel and Russia.  He has weakened NATO and alienated our traditional allies.  We are extremely fortunate that his actions or inactions have not yet led to an absolute and irreversible catastrophe – unless we consider climate change.  If we make it through the rest of Trump’s term, let’s not press our luck. 

The next level of candidacy includes those technically qualified to run for the highest office in the land.  Some have made a name for themselves on cable television for their opposition to Trump in the Russia Gate hearings or the Immigrant Child-Parent separation scandal.  Others attracted the national spotlight in their previous campaigns – most notably Beto O’Rourke.  Not coincidentally, most of them are or were members of the House of Representatives.  The only member of the lower chamber of congress ever to be elected president was James Garfield in 1880.  It was not a memorable presidency. 

TIER TWO:  THE UNDERDOGS.

FORMER CONGRESSMAN BETO O’ROURKE

Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke represented the sixteenth congressional district of Texas for six years before challenging Lying Ted Cruz to represent Texas in the United States Senate.  He captured the nationwide interest of liberal Democrats and raised an extraordinary amount of money in a losing campaign.  O’Rourke announced early his intention to run for the White House and immediately launched his impression of James Dean in Rebel without A Cause.  Recently he decided to stake his claim as the Green candidate by announcing a five trillion dollar plan to combat climate change.  That is serious money.  He plans to raise it by restructuring the tax code. 

I like Beto.  He’s as good as it gets for Texas Democrats.  It’s a shame he could not knock off the man nobody but his mother likes – and even she’s not sure.  There’s still time to take aim at Republican Senator John Cornyn in the upcoming election.  Want to make an impact, Beto?  Take another shot at the senate.  That’s where the balance of power resides. 

CONGRESSMAN ERIC SWALWELL

Swalwell of California possesses the same All-American athletic look that John Edwards once parlayed into contender’s status on the presidential stage.  Like Edwards, he is well spoken and can be charming.  Unlike Edwards, he is not and has never been a United States Senator.  He has not in fact run for a statewide election. 

Swalwell serves on the Intelligence and Judiciary committees.  He has frequently appeared on cable news programs where he has launched spirited attacks against the most corrupt president since Warren G. Harding of Teapot Dome infamy.  Oddly enough, Representative Swalwell has chosen gun control as his key issue.  It makes me wonder why impeachment is not his central theme.  It makes me wonder if his handlers have informed him that impeachment is not a winner.  It’s too bad.  Impeachment is where his passion lies.  He has made his reputation on impeachment.  Who will take up the issue if not Swalwell? 

CONGRESSMAN TIM RYAN

The 45-year-old Ohio representative has gained some notoriety in his effort to challenge the leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  In the vacuum left when Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown decided not to run, Ryan considers himself the labor candidate.  The party definitely needs a labor candidate but Ryan has a marked tendency to pull back on every issue in an effort to stake out the middle ground.  He must believe – as moderates do – that it makes him appear more reasonable when in fact it makes him appear weak and without honest conviction.  Take it from the Hillary Clinton campaign: we don’t need another triangulator – especially when it comes to labor. 

Like so many before him, Ryan laments the loss of US manufacturing and the related decline of the American middle class but his solutions fall lamentably short.  Just how would you bring back manufacturing?  Tariffs and trade wars?  Spell it out.  Just how would you fight back robotics and automation?  Would you advocate the government as an employer of last resort?  I think not.  I believe you are afraid of the S word and will backtrack at its mere utterance. 

The American economic system has embraced elements of socialism since well before Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal:  the prohibition of indentured servitude and child labor, the forty-hour work week, safe working conditions, labor unions and the right to organize, Medicare and Social Security.  Anyone who is afraid of the S word need not apply for the presidency in 2020. 

We really do need specifics.  It is not sufficient to be from Ohio.  You have to have real solutions. 

FORMER CONGRESSMAN JOHN DELANEY

The former representative from Maryland is yet another candidate hoping to catch fire from the middle ground.  Let me run through just a handful of reasons a moderate cannot and should not win the nomination:  Climate catastrophes, mass shootings, runaway technology, income inequality, climate change and climate change. 

Delaney supports Free Trade – including Fast Track legislation and the Trans Pacific Partnership.  He believes Trump’s trade war with China is representative of Fair Trade.  He is wrong.  Fair Trade requires representation of labor and labor interests.  Trump may be the most anti-labor president in history. 

JFK didn’t say we want our children to dream of going to the moon someday; he said we would go to the moon by the end of the decade.  The nation desperately needs someone with the same urgency on climate change.  It will not come from the middle ground. 

CONGRESSWOMAN TULSI GABBARD

The nation’s first Samoan American and Hindu member of congress, Tulsi Gabbard represents the second congressional district of Hawaii.  Gabbard is a leader of the movement to stop supporting the Saudi slaughter in Yemen.  A veteran of the tragic war in Iraq, she strongly opposes the nation’s reckless entanglements in the Middle East.  She opposes military intervention in Venezuela.  She endorsed Bernie Sanders in the last presidential election and falls in line with Bernie’s politics.  She wants Medicare for All and supports the Green New Deal.  Anyone who does not should switch parties. 

Gabbard has attracted controversy in her interactions with PM Narendra Modi of India and Bashar al Assad of Syria.  Much ado about nothing.  She does not endorse either leader.  She is a Fair Trade advocate and a leading opponent of American imperialism.  She stood with the Standing Rock warriors against the Dakota Access Pipeline.  If you take those stands, you will be criticized. 

There is a lot to like in the young representative from Hawaii.  She is seemingly fearless and speaks out whenever she perceives wrongdoing.  She deserves the support of all Sanders supporters who want someone younger – myself included.  If she secures a place on the debate stage she will be heard and I for one will stand and applaud. 

GOVERNOR JAY INSLEE

“Inslee is the only candidate in the race who is treating climate change the way that science says climate change should be treated: not as one issue among many, but as the overriding emergency of our age.” – Ezra Klein, Vox 5/13/19. 

The Green Governor of the state of Washington was the first to step forward and proclaim climate change as the central issue of the 2020 presidential election – Beto O’Rourke was the second.  He is of course right.  All politicians like to talk about our children and grandchildren, our legacy and our posterity.  Few politicians match their policies to their rhetoric. 

The naysayers of Global Warming proclaim that the whole Climate Catastrophe scare is a hoax perpetrated by a cabal of elites determined to reconstitute the planet under their control.  These clever conspiracy theorists have captured the precise opposite of the truth.  What is the truth?  That a cabal of elites have perpetrated the lie that global warming is a hoax to protect their interests until the last drop of oil and the last block of coal are spent. 

Governor Inslee is out to prove that the Green New Deal is not only environmentally but also economically sound.  Under his leadership Washington has pushed through legislation on clean energy, energy efficient buildings, electric vehicles and efficiency standards.  He tried and failed to pass a carbon tax. 

Inslee correctly points out that placing Climate Change on a long – or even short – list of priorities virtually assures that nothing of substance will prevail.  Obama never got past health care – or rather, health insurance reform – and Trump has failed to accomplish anything after tax cuts for the elite. 

Yes, I wish the governor had more style but he has substance.  At this early stage in the process those who are inclined should contribute to the cause of getting his message on the debate stage. 

FORMER HUD SECRETARY JULIAN CASTRO

The former mayor of San Antonio, Texas, is the only candidate of Hispanic descent with even a remote chance of making it to the final stage.  Castro served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Obama administration. 

Castro is well spoken with an appealing immigrant back story but his campaign hit the road in low gear and has hardly picked up speed.  He seems to be making his stand on education with a promise of free preschool through four years of college.  Castro also promises to recommit the nation to the Paris Climate Accord and submit a plan for universal healthcare on day one of his presidency.  So there’s that. 

The trouble is the candidate hit the stage without a message.  Maybe he thought it would be sufficient to be the only Hispanic/Latino of substance.  Some years it would be sufficient but not this year.  There are too many candidates and too many issues of immediacy for identity politics to once again prevail. 

For the life of me, I can’t understand why these Texas Democrats don’t take aim at the senate.  I’ll say it again:  That’s where the action is and if by chance Castro or O’Rourke should prevail the pathway to the White House would open like a bouquet of roses on a sunny spring morning. 

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO

With approximately 22 official candidates already in the race, the first question that arises with the addition of NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio is why?  Does he fill some fundamental need that is as yet missing from the field?  The mayor’s signature issue is income inequality – an issue that is amply covered by presidential heavyweights Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.  He is uniquely positioned to attack fellow New Yorker Donald Trump and wasted no time in calling him out with the nickname Con Don.  I would recommend Don the Con if only because it sounds better.  Trump fired back with the accusation that De Blasio is the “worst mayor in the history of New York City.”  That was it. 

Come on, Donald.  You can do better than that, can’t you?  It seems he won’t take the mayor serious until he secures a place on the debate stage. 

In many ways de Blasio is an appealing candidate.  His family is multi-racial and multi-cultural.  He has instituted universal free preschool in America’s main metropolis.  He put a stop to the city’s “stop and frisk” law that targeted minorities and blatantly violated the constitution. 

Unfortunately New York continues to have a number of serious problems, including dilapidated public housing, homelessness and deficiencies in America’s most advanced and neglected subway system.  The mayor counters that much of what is wrong with New York is attributable to policies in Washington.  Good point. 

His popularity in the city has held in the low forties and most NYC voters – 76% according to Quinnipiac University – do not want him to run for president.  Given those numbers and the crowded Democratic field, it’s a little difficult to understand why he feels compelled to throw his hat in. 

GOVERNOR JOHN HICKENLOOPER

The governor of swing state Colorado, Hickenlooper has felt for a very long time that the nation needs a moderate and the Democratic Party needs someone from landlocked America.  He considers himself a pragmatist who knows how to get things done.  Unfortunately, that’s the same line every moderate gives and there’s no reason to believe that a Colorado governor would do any better than a former Illinois senator.  Believe it or not, Barack Obama was a moderate who tried to work both sides of the aisle.  We all know how that turned out.  Sorry, Gov, the Republic has never had a four-syllable president.  You’re not likely to be the first. 

At risk of sounding like a recording on continuous loop, Republican Senator Cory Gardner is up for re-election in 2020.  Take him on, governor.  Work on both sides of the aisle from the majority in the US Senate. 

GOVERNOR STEVE BULLOCK

Governor Bullock of Missouri is yet another Middle America moderate.  I don’t know why every Middle America moderate thinks he or she should be president – or maybe I do.  Bullock, Hickenlooper and others are stuck in the old way of thinking: that the political divide is all about ideology.  I believe that once held great validity but not any more.  Many of the policies advocated by yesterday’s Democrats, from trade policy to first amendment rights, would find themselves more comfortable in the Republican Party.  Democrats are being held to a new standard:  Voters want their candidates to stand up and be counted.  They want a presidential candidate who will take on Trump and his minions.  The moderates do not fit the bill. 


This concludes my review of the underdogs.  Each of them is qualified for high office and each has something to bring to the forum.  Unfortunately, too many of them add little to the debate.  The question for the second tier candidates is:  How long can they last? 

Most of these candidates are not really running for the presidency but rather for the vice presidency.  That race is wide open.  The consolation is that some will gain favorable name recognition for future pursuits. 

Jazz. 

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES AND FOUNDER OF CROW DOG PRESS.  HIS NOVELS INCLUDE HARD TIMES: THE WRATH OF AN ANGRY GOD AND PAWNS TO PLAYERS: THE CHESS TRILOGY – THE STAIRWAY SCANDAL, A MATCH FOR THE WHITE HOUSE AND THE PUTIN GAMBIT. 

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