Presidential Primaries... 2024

Friday, Washington Post reporter Bob Costa noted that Bernie, now ascendant, is turning his focus on Status Quo Joe, who still leads him nationally, though not in the early state polls. “Sanders,” he wrote, “said that Biden brings ‘a lot of baggage’ with his record and ties to the political establishment. And he argued that Biden is ill-suited to defeat President Trump. A possible long and bruising race against Biden has become central to Sanders’s planning, in part because his advisers see a fight for many of the same working-class voters.”

The 4th quarter numbers are mostly in now. Bernie led the pack— with over $34.5 million ($96 million for the year from more than 5 million contributions, an average was $18. Per donation. It was the strongest quarter of any Democrat running for the 2020 nomination. Despite all those billionaires funding them Mayo Pete brought in $24.7 for the final quarter and Status Quo Joe brought in $22.7 million. Elizabeth brought in $21.2, not terrible, but a dip from the third quarter. And Amy Klobuchar managed to find people foolish enough to waste $11.4 on her moribund campaign.

In a statement, Faiz Shakir, Bernie’s campaign manager, said “He is proving each and every day that working-class Americans are ready and willing to fully fund a campaign that stands up for them and takes on the biggest corporations and the wealthy. You build a grassroots movement to beat Donald Trump and create a political revolution one $18 donation at a time, and that’s exactly why Bernie is going to win.”

Meanwhile, the two billionaires were self-funding massive campaigns. Bloomberg has given himself something in the neighborhood of $250,000, but hasn’t reported the exact numbers yet. Steyer’s 4th quarter numbers aren’t in yet either but he had written his campaign $47,597,697 worth of checks as of September 30 and collected another $2,047,432 from contributors.

Politico published a piece by Bill Scher on Friday about the 2024 race, which would only be relevant for Democrats if Trump wins in 2020. “Will the 2020 Democratic primary establish a new consensus inside the party,” he asked, “or leave it trapped in its old arguments? Will the post-Trump Republican Party be desperate for a housecleaning, or will it crave another Trumpist candidate? We do know that prospective candidates are already thinking that far ahead, trying to carve out distinct profiles for themselves. They haven’t decided when they’re going to run, but they’re wondering if 2024 will be the right year.”

Most of Scher’s lineup is really hideous and it’s lucky they’re not based on anything but his own farts caught in a plastic bag and inhaled. Some are obvious and some are absurd but it’s beyond belief that Politico paid him to write the essay and then put it on the cover of their magazine. First the Republicans:

• Pence: “willing to sacrifice principle for ambition… [with] talent for bootlicking.”
• Nikki Haley: starting rumors about Trump replacing Pence with herself got her a ton of press and the dull-witted media loves her for her carefully calibrated political profile as “a Republican who is loyal to Trump without always agreeing with Trump… Perhaps at some point, her attempts to please Republicans from all camps won’t withstand tough questioning. But for now, she ends 2019 indisputably on the 2024 short list.
• Josh Hawley: “may be the Republican Barack Obama.” More likely: not. His sole achievement is that he’s the youngest senator, although he’s “wowed conservative commentators with a series of speeches and bills that seek to evolve Trump’s crude conservative populism into a governing vision with a sustainable intellectual foundation.” Or how about closet case and warmonger Tom Cotton instead?
• Ron DeSantis: we’ve just wandered off into the realm of idiotic. Supposedly his best trait is that he isn’t as bad as other Republican governors.
• Don Jr: I’m not making this up. “While his sister Ivanka has earned a reputation as an ineffectual inside player who is ideologically out of step with her father and the Republican Party, Junior has been a caustic, partisan warrior on social media, and a rock star on the campaign trail for his father and congressional candidates.”
• Don Sr: “If the incumbent loses this year, he would remain constitutionally eligible to run in 2024. And the elder Trump is not one to slink quietly away after a defeat.”

The Democratic line-up in Scher’s brain is also the result of his plastic bag full of farts. Or maybe he was on psychotropic drugs.

• AOC: “Whether the big-d Democratic Party will want to embrace small-d democratic socialism depends on developments that cannot be foreseen, especially this one: Which ideological faction will the 2020 Democratic nominee represent, and how will that person fare in the general election against Trump? But no matter what happens in 2020, Ocasio-Cortez has made it clear that the democratic socialists are not going anywhere, and that she is prepared to lead them. If she is ready to run in 2024, there will be a movement behind her.”
• Cuomo and Newsom: two hated neocons or, as Scher admiringly put it, “Despite their achievements, neither is receiving universal love from progressive activists… [a]ngering the activist left isn’t necessarily disqualifying to many Democratic voters.”
• Andy Beshear: very conservative though not as conservative as John Bel Edwards.
• Stacey Abrams: isn’t she supposed to be governor of Georgia by then?

How about Bernie is president ’til 2028 and then Vice President Warren takes over for 8 more years? That 16 year progressive stink is what the country needs now… not a Trump dynasty or a parade of neocons. Then it will be Senator AOC's turn. And one question: Julian Castro, Amy Klobuchar, Beto, Mayo Pete, Tulsi... none of them are going to run again?