Democrats Trying To Second-Guess Electability Should Remember That Swing Voters Won't Go For A Democratic Version Of Jeb Bush

The B-Team

Last Sunday, Jeff Greenfield, writing for Politico noted that if the Democrats nominate Status Quo Joe, they may be safe, but also sorry. Like Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush were in 2016, Biden "doesn’t inspire big rallies, isn’t the face of a movement, but is just, you know, expected to win." The Republican rejected that'd the Democrats embraced it. You know who won. Greenfield: "if history shows anything, the Democrats have a problem... What happens when a party nominates a candidate who triumphs because of familiarity, or because 'it’s her turn,' or because he’s steadily ascended the party ranks despite no defining passion or cause? The track record of these 'default' nominees, at least in modern political history, is bleak."

Hillary Clinton is the latest and, for the Democrats, still most painful example. The combination of her experience, her family ties and the sense that (in the words of a proposed campaign slogan) it was “her turn” drove every potentially serious rival out of the 2016 race. Bernie Sanders’ surprisingly strong primary challenge was a foreshadowing of her vulnerabilities, even if the signal was mostly dismissed until about 9 p.m. on election night in November.

Four years before Hillary Clinton was defeated, the Republicans trotted out the reliable, central-casting Mitt Romney to lose to President Barack Obama, a campaign that seemed to rhyme with the time the Dems unenthusiastically fell in line for John Kerry against President George W. Bush in 2004. Keep going back, and you see candidates like these over and over, marching under flags of pale pastel, all going down to defeat in November: Al Gore, Bob Dole, Walter Mondale, Gerald Ford, Hubert Humphrey and even Richard Nixon, in his first run, in 1960.

Not every election has a default candidate: The race between Obama and John McCain, for example, pitted a “maverick” Republican against an inspirational Democratic newcomer. But most do, and they tend to lose to rivals who can claim novelty or outsiderhood: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Obama, Donald Trump. (During the 2016 campaign, Trump knocked his own party’s default candidate, Jeb Bush, out of the primaries.)

The seemingly obvious implication is that a candidate who wins without enthusiasm is doomed, that a candidate who inspires is a better electoral bet than one who has simply endured. Find a candidate who can trigger turnout among the most reliable Democratic voters, the argument goes, and the party will have a much better chance than trying to beckon back disaffected Democrats with a safe, familiar face who may not be magnetic but who will not repel. That’s what Sanders means when he talks of a political “revolution” that will sweep his ambitious economic program into law. That’s what Elizabeth Warren argues when she inveighs against cautious incrementalism. And didn’t the past two Democrats (as well as the current president) take the White House by challenging and defeating the safer, more familiar choices?

Greenfield should have quit while he was ahead. Being who he is, he then said Biden might be an under appreciated default candidate who could actually win-- like Harry Truman did in 1948. Harry Truman did win-- but not because he was remotely like Status Quo Joe, an absurd comparison. Greenfield concluded-- as he often does-- on the fence: "It’s fair to question the political appeal of a default nominee, but it is also reasonable to ask whether a candidate steeped in familiarity might be able to beckon voters who are unsettled by a clarion call to ideological battle, however mild the enthusiasm behind that vote-- particularly if the familiar candidate offers a respite from the endless turmoil triggered almost daily by an emotionally unmoored incumbent. A vote accompanied by a shrug counts just as much as vote accompanied by a clenched fist. Maybe there’s even a new slogan for Biden to play off that series of TV commercials: 'Just OK is a hell of a lot better than what we’ve got right now.'"

Over the weekend, the right-wing NY Post giving a little proud of how Trump would attack Biden if Biden gets the nomination, ran a Peter Schweizer piece How five members of Joe Biden’s family got rich through his connections. Schweizer, a Breitbart editor and New York Times best-selling author, wrote an attack book largely about Biden, Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite. In the book, Biden "emerges as the king of the sweetheart deal, with no less than five family members benefiting from his largesse, favorable access and powerful position for commercial gain. In Biden’s case, these deals include foreign partners and, in some cases, even U.S. taxpayer dollars. The Biden family’s apparent self-enrichment involves no less than five family members: Joe’s son Hunter, son-in-law Howard, brothers James and Frank, and sister Valerie." It's mostly true... but still not as bad as the Trump family. But is this what we want the 2020 election to be about-- who has the less corrupt family?





Status Quo Joe and Mayo Pete are battlting desperately for the centrist/conservative lane among Iowa Democrats. Matt Viser and Chelsea Janes, reporting for the Washington Post put it like this: "Amid a high-voltage fight between the presidential campaign’s leading liberals, more-moderate [NOTE: The Post uses the word "moderate" to describe conservatives; it's a long-standing problem with the establishment elite] candidates are redoubling their efforts here, pouring time and resources into the state while tweaking their closing arguments to emphasize party unity and their electability." Biden is spending his time, though trying to smear Bernie for doctoring an undoctored video that shows Biden trying to cut Social Security and Medicare in the name Austerity, something he has favored for his entire career but is afraid of in a Democratic primary-- where an Austerity agenda is extremely unpopular.

The media agrees that Biden is lying about the video and even The Postpublished Viser's observation that "The video does not appear doctored" and also quotes Bernie's campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, noting that Biden "is on tape proudly bragging about it on multiple occasions," "it" being cutting Social Security benefits. Example:





Biden admits he tried freezing Social Security and Medicare 4 times and is trying it again. Does he claim Bernie doctored this too? Did Bernie sneak into the Congressional Record and doctored that? Because Biden is in the Congressional Record advocating cuts to social programs including Medicare and Social Security, just like the Republicans do. Biden defenders who see this video say "but he only wants to freeze Social Security, not cut it." First of all, he has talked about cutting benefits over and over-- like increasing the age of retirement. Second of all, let's look at what Biden means by freezing Social Security. It's not about the temperature; it's about the guaranteed cost of living increase that is meant-- by progressives, not by conservatives like Biden-- to keep the buying power of Social Security from being destroyed by inflation. Without the cost of living allocations, which are so detested by conservatives and always something they want to cut, many seniors would soon be starving and homeless.

As Ryan Grim correctly asserted last week in The Intercept, Biden has advocated cutting Social Security for 40 years. Now he's lying about it to confuse seniors, his only base of support. "As early as 1984," wrote Grim, "and as recently as 2018, former Vice President Joe Biden called for cuts to Social Security in the name of saving the program and balancing the federal budget. Last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders highlighted Biden’s record on Social Security in prosecuting the case that Biden isn’t the most electable candidate."

[A]fter a Republican wave swept Congress in 1994, Biden’s support for cutting Social Security, and his general advocacy for budget austerity, made him a leading combatant in the centrist-wing battle against the party’s retreating liberals in the 1980s and ’90s.

“When I argued that we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security as well,” he told the Senate in 1995. “I meant Medicare and Medicaid. I meant veterans’ benefits. I meant every single solitary thing in the government. And I not only tried it once, I tried it twice, I tried it a third time, and I tried it a fourth time.” (A freeze would have reduced the amount that would be paid out, cutting the program’s benefit.)

...Biden himself, at least on his campaign website, now supports making Social Security more generous, not less. But that’s at odds with decades of his own advocacy, a record that could become a major political liability among voters concerned Biden will finally get his wish to trim back Social Security checks. Because about half of black seniors on Social Security rely on it as their primary means of support, any trimming of the program hits those beneficiaries particularly hard.

...With this year’s presidential contest being fought over the terrain of electability, Biden’s 35-plus-year effort to cut Social Security, arguably the most popular government program in existence, is potentially a major liability among older voters-- and hypocrisy has never held Trump back from making an effective political attack. Biden’s historical position also stands in stark contrast to Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, both of whom support increasing benefits and have offered ways to make the program solvent indefinitely.

...Biden's fixation on cutting Social Security dates back to the Reagan era. One of Ronald Reagan’s first major moves as president was to implement a mammoth tax cut, tilted toward the wealthy, and to increase defense spending. Biden, a Delaware senator at the time, supported both moves. The heightened spending and reduced revenue focused public attention on the debt and deficit, giving fuel to a push for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

In the midst of that debate, Biden teamed up with Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley to call for a freeze on federal spending, and insisted on including Social Security in that freeze, even as the Reagan administration fought to protect the program from cuts. It was part of the Democratic approach at the time not just to match Republicans, but to get to their right at times as well, as Biden also did on criminal justice policy.

“So, when those of my friends in the Democratic and Republican Party say to me, ‘How do you expect me to vote for your proposal? Does it not freeze Social Security COLAs for one year? Are we not saying there will be no cost-of-living increases for one year?’ The answer to that is ‘Yes, that is what I am saying,’” Biden said in a Senate floor speech in April 1984, referring to the adjustment that millions of seniors look for every year.

Biden was facing reelection to the Senate in 1984, which was shaping up to be a heavily Republican cycle, and continued returning to the issue of Social Security.

His plan with Grassley was backed, the New York Times reported in May 1984, by a bevy of business trade groups, “including the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, Business Executives for National Security and the National Association of Manufacturers.”

The Biden-Grassley plan was ultimately rejected, but Biden never wavered on it, arguing in 1988 that had he been able to cut Social Security, he’d have been able to save other social programs and force Republicans to cut defense spending.

...In November 1995, he again reminded the public of his deficit hawkery. “I am a Democrat that voted for the constitutional amendment to balance the budget. I have introduced on four occasions-- four occasions-- entire plans to balance a budget,” he said on the Senate floor. “I tried with Senator Grassley back in the 1980s to freeze all government spending, including Social Security, including everything.”

“When I introduced my budget freeze proposal years ago, the liberals of my party said, ‘It’s an awful thing you are doing, Joe. All the programs we care about, you are freezing them-- money for the blind, the disabled, education and so on,’” Biden continued. “My argument then is one I make now, which is the strongest, most compelling reason to be for this amendment-- or an amendment-- that if we do not do that, all the things I care most about are going to be gone-- gone.”

He was wrong about that and you can usually count on him to be wrong about everything. What he will surely do if he gets into the White House is renew his jihad against the social safety net and team up with the Republicans and other conservative Democrats to cut Social Security and Medicare.

A few days ago, in Iowa, even Elizabeth Warren noted that Biden is a liar in this Social Security bullshit. "Bernie Sanders and I established the ‘Expand Social Security Caucus’ in the Senate. As a senator, Joe Biden had a very different position on Social Security, and I think everyone's records on Social Security are important in this election."

That's the "moderate" lane (the conservative lane)-- the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. And it's what Biden and Mayo Pete are fighting over. "Biden’s campaign largely has been void of raw inspiration or excitement," wrote Viser; "he and his surrogates, including a church deacon and a former secretary of state, have tried to make a pragmatic case, that he is the most electable person to face President Trump. Biden’s campaign, and the super PAC supporting him, have flooded the Iowa airwaves."

While the two of them were fighting for the conservative lane, Bernie just received another powerful endorsement, this one from Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Pramila Jayapal. Watch:





One more thing: New Hampshire.

Yesterday, the WBUR poll of New Hampshire's likely Democratic primary voters was released. It was massive for Bernie, whose support nearly doubled and has put him ahead of the pack by double digits.

• Bernie- 29% (up 14)
• Mayo- 17% (down 1)
• Status Quo Joe- 14% (down 3)
• Elizabeth Warren- 13% (up 1)
• Klobuchar- 6 (up 3)
• Yang- 5% (flat)
• Tulsi- 5% (flat)
• Steyer- 2% (down 1)
• Bloomberg- 1% (down 1)

Steyer and Bloomberg has each spent more in advertising than the rest of the field combined and each has lost half their support once the barrage of ads began bothering the hell out of New Hampshire voters. The two biggest issues for New Hampshire Democrats: healthcare and the Climate Crisis. And who do they trust on those two issues? Bernie, of course. Oh, and Status Quo Joe's new ad isn't true-- no matter how much corporate cash he spends repeating it over and over and over. Biden, who generates the least enthusiasm of any candidate, is actually the least electable candidate, despite the nicely cut new ad: