DEMOCRATIC DISORDER in 2020
Democrats want the White House in a very bad way. Yet candidates jockeying for the nomination have turned talking to voters about issues that do not matter into an art form. And in presidential politics, the only issues that matter are the ones that get you to 270 electoral votes.
Green New Deal. Reparations. Socialism. Medicare for all. These policies have constituencies – particularly so if you represent New York’s 14th District in Congress. But in 2020, a winning national agenda these issues do not make.
The Democrats’ ultimate success will be directly linked with their ability to choose a nominee who can defeat Donald Trump. Their failure will be directly linked with their conscious decision to speak to and flatter the left-wing intelligentsia over the voters who matter (and actually vote in large numbers).
Data gathered from Democratic respondents back up this thesis. In a February Monmouth University poll 56% of Democrats prefer a standard bearer who can defeat President Trump even if they disagree with the nominee on most issues. In the same poll, only 33% say that they prefer a nominee with whom they agree on most issues even if that candidate would have a difficult time defeating Trump.
Further manicuring the Democrats’ path to victory is an embattled incumbent president. Trump’s approval rating is consistently in the low 40s. His character is attacked and decision-making publicly derided and disparaged by the media each day. He’s a beacon of blame for everything that goes wrong in the world.
Democrats should be on cruise control. Leon Lett couldn’t fumble this ball.
Yet, against almost any announced candidate in today’s Democratic field, President Trump cruises to reelection.
Here is why.
The late Arthur Finkelstein used to say that in a race between a crook and a fool, the crook always wins.
The theory goes that voters generally accept that all politicians are marginally dishonest or corrupt. But a fool can destroy everything.
Turn your opponent into a fool and the election is won.
This is the 50 state strategy of President Donald Trump in 2020. And unless Democrats choose to nominate a candidate whose policies are not seen as extreme – and sad! – to a wide swath of voters, the “fool” appellation is unlikely to be shaken.
If Democrats want a preview of this reelection approach there is a clear, well documented, and potent model enacted by President Nixon’s 1972 re-election campaign team.
Nixon arguably would have cruised to victory against any Democrat in 1972. His popularity was solid and both his foreign and domestic policy successes bolstered his reputation as a very effective president. But his personal insecurities and deep paranoia laid the foundation for an objectionable campaign blueprint that a less popular president today can – and probably should – study.
Nixon was convinced that the only way he could win was to run against someone seen as a left-wing radical, unpalatable to conservative Democratic and Independent voters. His dream opponent was an unapologetic liberal senator from South Dakota named George McGovern.
Nixon’s team worked hard behind the scenes to influence (see:Watergate) the Democrat selection process. McGovern eventually emerged as the Democratic nominee and Nixon immediately began the work of tar and feathering him, rebranding the Democrat’s platform: “acid, amnesty, and abortion.”
Nixon’s popularity, in coordination with his savvy in turning McGovern into the fool, led to one of the largest landslide victories in American history (520 electoral votes for Nixon to McGovern’s 17).
Whether President Trump is able to harness and leverage the American electorate’s distaste for extreme, left-wing politics depends on whether the Democrats have the instincts to get out of their own way and nominate a candidate who can actually win.
After all, if you don’t know who the fool in the race is, guess what? It’s you.