Poll: Michelle Obama Would Be Frontrunner in 2020 If She Ran

Michelle Obama in New York signing copies of her $65 million memoir. To date it has sold more than 10 milliion copies. Photograph: Richard Drew/AP (source)

by Thomas Neuburger

It's no secret that the Democratic Party establishment wants nothing more than to eliminate the possibility of a rebel ("change") candidate getting into the general election under its banner. That means, no one like Bernie Sanders — not Sanders himself, nor Elizabeth Warren, nor anyone else who would actually implement policies of broad, real, Sanders-like "change" — will be allowed to represent the Party in 2020.

Faux-Change candidates, yes. No-Change candidates, yes. But no actual rebels. The history of the 2016 primary, plus the histories of any number of races interfered with by the DCCC, the DSCC and the DNC, attest to this fact. We could expand on that, and will, but not here.

Which means that the current leaders and controllers of the Democratic Party have a problem, a Sanders (or Sanders-like) problem, since Sanders-like policies are extremely popular with actual voters.

So how could these leaders defeat the Sanders-like candidate? There can only be two ways: A) find a corporate-friendly Faux-Change or No-Change candidate who can acquire more delegates than any of the rebel candidates, then let the superdelegates confirm her on the second ballot; or B) prevent a front-running rebel candidate from winning enough delegates to win on the first ballot, then let the superdelegates select a "compromise" none-of-the-above candidate and confirm her. 

• With the current field of candidates, it's hard to imagine the first option occurring. Look at the polling below.

If Biden enters the race then falls below Sanders, he won't be able to recover. People now think as well of Biden as they will ever think. As soon as the truth about Biden starts getting splashed in people's faces and they start really paying attention, they'll turn away. None of that truth is good.

Who among the rest of the candidates can overtake Sanders, or Warren should she surge? Top cop Kamala Harris, lingering well below the leaders, the hardnosed California prosecutor who proudly and coolly bragged about smoking dope, then jailed anyone else who did the same? How does that play to millennials? Cory "Don't be mean to Bain" Booker? The fast-rising Mayor of South Bend, Indiana? Robert Francis O'Rourke, the fossil-fuel-friendly, corporate candidate in JFK clothing? Amy "Clean my comb" Klobuchar? She's tied for seventh tied "Someone Else" and the needle for her isn't rising at all.

• Which leaves option B: Keep the Sanders-like candidate's delegate count below 50%, then introduce a "compromise" candidate, someone acceptable to both corporate Democrats and the voting public, to take the nomination (reluctantly of course) on the second, third, or fourth ballot.

Yet who has enough popularity, and clean enough hands, to pull that off? Certainly no one on the list above.

Enter (reluctantly, of course) Michelle Obama.

Michelle Obama would be tied with Biden as frontrunner if she ran in 2020, poll shows

Former first lady Michelle Obama tied with former Vice President Joe Biden as the top choice among Democratic voters when asked who should be the party's nominee in 2020.

A Hill-HarrisX poll released Tuesday [February 19] found that 25 percent of Democrats said they would back Obama in the party primary over nine other declared or potential candidates, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas).

Obama has said she is not running[.]

And there, I think, is the knight in neoliberal armor, someone widely popular with the Democratic voting public, acceptable to return-to-the-status-quo independents, and more than acceptable to pro-corporate Party leaders. No other surprise, waiting-in-the wings candidate has this combination of qualities, not one, and I've looked at the whole list, from Oprah to Stacy Abrams to Tammy Baldwin.

The only question, of course, is how to manage the switch without leaving the country in shock and filling "change" voters with rage. That will be the subject of a longer piece. Stay tuned.