Will Anyone Care-- Or Even Notice-- That Delaney Is Dropping Out Of The Race?

After crackpot neo-liberal Congressman John Delaney (New Dem-MD) sold his seat to multimillionaire New Dem David Trone, he declared he was running for president, packed his bags and "moved" to Iowa. He also gave his campaign a personal loan of between $11 and $16 million, which quickly started spending. In a YouGov poll released this week, his favorability among Democrats was at 17%-- but 60% of the respondents didn't know who he is. More people know who non-politicians Andrew Yang, Howard Schultz and Marianne Williamson are. And none of them spent anywhere near what Delaney has spent. The Real Clear Politics national polling average shows him sitting at 0.6%, beating Frackenlooper but no one else competing for the conservative lane for when Biden self-destructs. Kamala is at 12.6%, McKinsey Pete at 4.8%, Beto at 2.8%, Klobuchar at 1.0% and Steve Bullock and Michael Bennet each at 0.8%.

In Iowa, where Delaney has spent most of his money, he's at 1.3%, still far from the top contenders for the conservative lane-- with Pete at 10.3%, Kamala at 9.3%, Klobuchar at 2.7% and Beto at 2.3%, Delaney isn't a factor in New Hampshire, Nevada or South Carolina or in any of the Super Tuesday polls. So who could have been surprised by Axios' scoop Friday morning that Delaney staffers are telling him to drop out? Normally staffers urge wealthy pigeons like Biden to stay in so they continue getting their weekly paychecks.

Alexi McCammond wrote that "On July 9, John Delaney's senior team sat him down and told him to drop out of the presidential race by mid-August.... He's been running for president for 721 days. He's spent nearly $19 million as a 2020 candidate since 2017. He's loaned over $11 million of his own money to his campaign this year. He's visited all of Iowa's 99 counties already, including at least 14 stops in Carroll Country alone. And it's all been for nothing." Delaney says he'll make up his mind after the debates at the end of the month.

The staffers all hate his interfering wife and say the sooner they never see her or hear from her again the better. Like many failed candidates, the spouse calls the shots. But what his staffers told him is that "he flopped at the first debate in Miami. There was no real breakout moment-- nor even an unreal one-- which is what everyone in leadership had been hoping for. One of McCammond's sources said, uncharitably that "'Every other day he would have a different position,' whether on economic policies or racial issues. That's a common refrain that came up in my conversations with these sources close to the campaign, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. Some said he's not spending enough money to run a competitive race, and that all the money he's spent so far hasn't moved the needle for them. One source close to the campaign argued he'd be better positioned to run for governor or get a Cabinet position if he drops out before September. And others, who made sure to tell me they 'genuinely' like the guy, painted Delaney to be the most Republican-Democrat who's just 'not made for the moment.'"

Delaney, a New Dem, never made much of an impression in Congress-- just another back bencher kissing up to Wall Street and corporate special interests. In 2015 one of his colleagues told me that "He is my poster child for what's wrong with the Democratic Party. Recruiting clueless, rich people who have no real values is almost always a failure." He'd always be writing virulently anti-progressive OpEds for the Washington post and whining to anyone who would listen that "both sides are equally wrong." Never a fan of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt values you could always count of Delaney to say something like "[W]e need a philosophical shift in the Democratic Party, a new willingness to support programs that create pathways for nongovernmental and philanthropic innovation and investment to help solve the problems of society. We should embrace approaches, such as social impact bonds, that combine private-sector capital and expertise with public-interest goals to produce better government services. Such changes will require Democrats to leave our ideological comfort zone and move away from the idea that government, and government alone, is the answer to our problems But instead of being used to voice an agenda that can bring the country together, the party microphone has been hijacked by people more interested in scoring points than in solving problems. They propose expanding Social Security rather than prioritizing serious efforts to preserve the program-- even though it will be unable to provide full benefits as soon as 2032, the Congressional Budget Office has made clear. The only way a large-scale expansion could work is by allocating new revenue away from needed investments in the next generation or by shifting the financial burden to workers or our children."

You could always depend on hearing Republican Party talking points from Delaney, attacking things like Social Security and, in more recent times the Green New Deal and Medicare for All. He was a big advocate for raising the retirement age and for Chained CPI-- each part of the anti-working class Republican Party agenda. "[W]e should do the hard work required to reach a long-term grand bargain," he wrote for the Washington Post in 2013. "This means three things: (1) reforming entitlements by adopting a form of 'chained CPI' to lower the long-term costs of these programs, adjusting the retirement age for those not engaged in manual labor and raising the cap on Social Security taxes; (2) generating more revenue through a 'Buffett rule' approach that makes sure high-earners pay a similar rate to that of the middle class and by closing certain corporate tax loopholes while lowering corporate tax rates; and (3) adjusting discretionary and defense spending to better reflect our country’s priorities, which are vastly different from the indiscriminate cuts imposed by the sequester. With this framework, we can manage our fiscal trajectory in the next 10 years, and beyond, while also investing in our children, caring for the less fortunate and protecting our nation."

One of the bills he wrote (HR 2084)-- thankfully it failed, like all of his bills-- was designed to reward big corporations that avoid taxes through overseas accounting tricks, encourage more future offshore tax dodging, while failing to create jobs in America and increasing the deficit was another tax holiday for the wealthy like Delaney himself that is nothing more than a blatant attempt to escape their tax obligations and shift the burden onto taxpaying Americans, small businesses and domestic firms. His co-sponsors were a dozen conservative Republicans like Ted Yoho (FL), Luke Messer (IN), Steve Stivers (OH) and Andy Barr (KY) and a pack of Blue Dogs and New Dem DINOs like Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Ami Bera (CA), Ron Kind (WI) and Scott Peters (CA).

Delaney was always a bad fit for the Democratic Party. One of his former colleagues in the House told me "no one liked him and no one trusted him... everyone was glad when he announced he was retiring. Now he feels the only way forward for him is to tear down Biden," who dominates the conservative lane Delaney had hoped he would have to himself. Delaney goes on Fox to criticize Bernie and Kamala and Elizabeth Warren and to rage against progressive policies. Recently he praised Biden as "very well known and he’s very well liked, and I admire him greatly." BUT... "I think my ideas are better. I think I’m a new face, which I think is what the party really wants. I think we want new ideas and new people... I think in many ways it’s a reminder that we need a moderate candidate who can win the center to beat Donald Trump... The only way we’re going to beat [Trump] is with a candidate the center believes will not derail the progress we’ve made economically. For example, if you put socialism on the ballot, we’re not going to win. If the economy’s doing well and we’re running on socialism, I think that’s a disaster for us."