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With Election 2020 now swinging into full action, I urgently appeal
to all thinking Democrats to rapidly gather up all of their energies and get behind Joe Biden.
They need to do this quickly so they and he can focus on their real objective – defeating Donald
Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
While I am registered as an Independent, I tend to view myself as
a conservative and generally lean toward the Republican Party because of it. And, as a
conservative, I support many of Trump’s policies and programs, but
I cannot vote to keep this egotistical buffoon in office for a second term. He has proven to
be an embarrassment for this nation and for the office he represents. I held my nose and
voted for Hilary in 2016, because I viewed Donald Trump as being unfit for the office of
president of the United States. Some three years later, I am convinced more than ever that
this man should never have been elected in the first place, and, based upon three very
discouraging years since, my fears have been validated. Donald Trump most definitely
must not be re-elected!
If Donald Trump is to be defeated in his bid for a second term in office,
the Democrats must get organized and quickly focus on selecting one or two qualified candidates.
Having some twenty mostly no-names and look-alikes fighting among themselves to be nominated
distracts everyone – candidates, their supporters, and the voting public – from setting their
sights on the target on which they have focus – Donald Trump. The Democrats must use all their
energy to defeat Donald Trump instead of wearing themselves out fighting with each other.
As Joe Biden pointed out in his candidacy announcement, “The question
was whether Trump's tenure would turn out to be an ‘aberrant moment in time’ or an eight-year
presidency that ‘forever and fundamentally’ coarsened, cheapened and divided our society.”
(Ref. 1)
After more than two years of Trump’s unpredictable antics and
embarrassing behavior, thinking voters want exactly what Joe Biden offers - a return to
civility, normalcy, experience, predictability and “presidential behavior”. Americans are
tired of wondering whether they will wake up to a trade war with China, a hot war with Iran
or another 180-degree about face on any number of issues. Americans don’t want to put up with
another four years of insulting tweets.
Since the start of his presidential campaign, Joe Biden has consistently
held a lead over the rest of the crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates. His has
been a simple, yet powerful message: I can beat Donald Trump.
Biden may have one significant drawback - he’s 76 years old. But at
least he can boast of being younger than his closest competitor in the polls, Senator Bernie
Sanders, who is 77. And Donald Trump is only three years younger than Joe. So, the
difference in age between Biden and Trump is actually quite insignificant.
Biden has consistently led in national polls over all other Democratic
candidates. As of 20 August, Biden had 26% registered voter support in a Harris Poll.
His nearest opponent, Bernie Sanders, had 17% registered voter support and no other
Democratic candidate had more than 10% registered voter support. Among the
rest of the Democratic field, only senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris had more
than 5% registered voter support.[2]
Name recognition has a lot to do with Biden and Sanders leading the
pack — Joe Biden has been on the national stage since before most Americans were born, and
Bernie Sanders came close to beating Hillary Clinton for the nomination in 2016.
Joe Biden should do very well with two widely disparate groups —
the white working-class voters in the Rust Belt who gave Trump his 2016 victory; and the
African Americans without whose support no one can win the Democratic presidential
nomination.[1]
“If liberals, independents and former Republicans agree on any
one thing — and there are very few things about which anyone can seemingly agree these days —
it is that finding a Democratic nominee who can beat Donald Trump in 2020 is of paramount
importance.
“And, if we learned anything from 2016 {it is that the} nominee will
need to transcend party politics and appeal to moderate voters, swing voters and independent
voters . . . who no longer have a political affiliation after that dumpster fire of an
election.
“That is why Joe Biden is arguably the party's best hope for 2020.
As the most established, qualified, experienced, likable, popular and bipartisan Democrat
exploring a bid for the presidency, his ability to relate to blue-collar Americans and his
jovial demeanor make him the ideal candidate to go toe-to-toe with Donald Trump.
“When it comes to Biden’s likability, he soars among almost every
demographic and is more favorable than Donald Trump (56 percent unfavorable and 40 percent
favorable). However, Biden also sits atop all the potential 2020 candidates as the only
candidate with a favorability over 50 percent, according to late December {2018} Quinnipiac
polling.
“Biden has a track record of working across the aisle to get things
done. Biden was the guy who negotiated the fiscal cliff deal with Senator Mitch McConnell
as well as a major part of the 2010 deal that extended the Bush tax cuts, because he doesn’t
view Republicans as enemies, he knows he needs to work with them in order to get things done.
This is exactly the right tone that needs to be set on the campaign trail especially as
Republican voters in general and Trump supporters in particular feel vilified by the media.
- - -
“The eventual Democratic nominee would also have to appeal to young
voters, who have been the most disaffected by Trump’s presidency — and Biden polls best
among voters under the age of 35 with a 60 percent favorability. . . .
“Whichever Democrat candidate becomes the nominee will also need
to have a name recognition that matches that of Trump, and Biden can handily compete with
that as the former vice president of the United States and a long time senator.
“Furthermore, there are two key demographics that swung for Trump
in the 2016 election that Democrats need to win back in 2020: Independent voters and most
importantly, suburban female voters. In the 2016 election, over 47 percent of Trump’s voters
were women — a statistic that still shocks many pundits and analysts to this day. But due
to the rhetoric and blunders of the White House, nearly 30 percent of those women now have
a very poor impression of Trump according to a recent Pew Research Poll.
- - -
“And, suburban swing voters were the ones who were fed up with
career politicians and willing to shake things up — but have been left shocked by how Trump
has conducted himself in the Oval Office. These same voters who wanted to try doing away with
business as usual are now looking for stability.
“And . . . voters are not going to ignore his long history of
leadership on the issues of domestic violence and sexual assault as the writer and champion
of the Violence Against Women Act in 1990. But, his work on the issue didn’t stop there:
When he served as vice president he worked with college campuses to address the issue and
even after leaving office penned an op-ed on changing the culture around sexual assault.
“To put it bluntly, Biden has everything he needs to run against
Trump and actually win — he just needs to . . . convince others in the field to move
aside so as to not fall victim to a tough primary the likes of which the Republican Party
saw in 2008, 2012 and 2016. All the resources of the Democratic party ought to go toward
defeating Trump, not fighting one another. [Emphasis mine]
- - -
“Not only does Biden’s likability and down-to-earth personality make
him the ideal candidate, he is the right candidate for the moment — and that moment is a dire
one. It’s time to return common sense, bipartisanship and stability back to our government and
to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in particular.” (Ref. 3)
Rather than continuing with the currently overcrowded field of candidates,
Democrats must winnow the field down to Joe Biden or to Biden and one or two others. If Democrats
are serious about taking back the White House, they need to stop tearing themselves apart or
they will hand the election to Trump on a platter.
There are just too many contenders on the Democratic side. Fortunately,
some have already quit the race. Most have no chance of winning the nomination and their
continued presence lessens the Democrats' chances of winning back the White House. The excessive
number of candidates confuses voters and prevents them from backing a real contender.
What about Bernie Sanders? Is he a viable Democratic candidate to
oppose Donald Trump?
“Bernie Sanders’ father was a high school drop-out, who tormented
his family with rants about their financial problems. He blamed society and economic inequality
for his plight, though as a white male in a middle class neighborhood, he was hardly among the
downtrodden.
“This was Bernie’s inspiration to take up the cause of economic justice,
though he would spend half of his life as an able-bodied college graduate living off of
unemployment checks, and the women in his life, between odd jobs.
“By his own admission, Bernie was not a great student, starting at
Brooklyn College and transferring to Univ. of Chicago, but his enrollment kept him protected
from the draft.
“He joined socialist organizations and dabbled in far-left communist
politics, gaining national notoriety by petitioning the school to let students have sex in the
dormitories. This was before birth control and abortion were legal, when there were still very
serious repercussions for women if the condom broke, but that didn’t stop him from crusading
against those silly rules that were an obstacle to his own satisfaction.
“He participated in the 1963 March on Washington, a few demonstrations,
and was arrested once, but his activism for civil rights ended when he became obsessed
with socialism, not ‘democratic socialism’, but oppressive far-left Marxism.
[Emphasis mine]
“Bernie married his college sweetheart, Deborah Shilling, and spent
his small inheritance on a summer home in Vermont on 85 acres. The shack had a dirt floor and
no electricity, maintaining his proletariat credibility, but not impressing his new bride. He
refused to get a steady job, so his wife didn’t stick around long, divorced after 18 months.
“The Viet Nam war was escalating, and when the next draft was announced,
Bernie applied for a conscientious objector deferment. His deferment was denied, so he dodged
the draft by having a kid out of wedlock in 1969 with his new girlfriend, Susan Mott, even
though he still wasn’t working, and had no way to support the child. By the time his draft
number came up, he was too old to be drafted anyway. He continued to subsist on odd carpentry
jobs and unemployment checks, and occasionally selling $15 articles . . . He still refused to
get a steady job to support his child. His girlfriend left him.
In 1988 he married Jane Driscoll, and they took a cold-war era
honeymoon in communist USSR.
His new wife supported Bernie financially through his many attempts
to win a public office, and shared his radical leftist political views. They visited the
pro-Soviet Sandinista Government in Nicaragua known for their human rights violations,
support for anti-American terrorists, and the imprisonment and exile of opponents. Bernie
blindly overlooked the carnage to stand with fellow socialists. They also traveled to Cuba
in hopes of meeting Bernie’s hero Fidel Castro, but access to him was denied.
“Bernie Sanders managed not to hold a full-time job his entire life
or vote in a single election, until he finally ran for Mayor of Burlington at the age of 40.
After several failed attempts, he finally won the office of Mayor of Burlington, VT, and
eventually a Senate seat, which he has managed to keep off and on. For all of his
years representing Vermont, Bernie Sanders passed a total of three bills (out of 364 he
proposed), and two of them were for naming post offices. [Emphasis mine]
“He’s a draft-dodging deadbeat dad, a globe-trotting communist
dilettante, and a petulant detractor of hard-working Americans. His one skill is yelling
about how unfair the world is, and how everything SHOULD be. He has no real plans for how to
make it happen, and no idea what goes on in the rest of the world or how to deal with problems
overseas. . . His socialist friends are bitter about what they see as a betrayal of their
values by Bernie’s pursuit of the Democratic nomination. . . Bernie’s past, including a brief
stint living in a kibbutz in Israel is cloaked in secrecy. Former employees and coworkers
describe him as hostile and belligerent. All of the Democrats in Vermont’s government endorsed
Hillary Clinton. The people who know Bernie best cannot stand him. His supporters cannot
explain how he is qualified to be president.” (Ref. 4)
With qualifications like these, how could anyone expect
Bernie to come out ahead in a battle with loud-mouthed Donald Trump?
What about the next presidential aspirant, Senator Elizabeth Warren?
Warren is the fake Indian masquerading as one of the unwashed masses who
has unrealistic solutions for every problem. First, and perhaps foremost among the reasons for
rejecting Warren is the fact that, as of August 2019, she is far behind both Biden and Sanders
in the polls with only 9% registered voter approval.[2]
In her effort to pre-empt Donald Trump’s familiar refrain of
“Pocahontas,” Warren has shown that she would not be able to defeat him in the 2020. The
presidential campaign would come down to a name-calling contest and, in that kind of race,
Trump will easily win re-election. Nothing illustrates this more than Warren’s bizarre
decision to release a DNA test to prove her family’s Native American ancestry.
“During the 2016 campaign, Trump successfully annihilated the
Republican primary field using nicknames like ‘Low energy Jeb,’ ‘Lyin’ Ted’ and ‘Little
Marco’ as his favorite weapon of choice. Once Trump saw how successful his elementary
school-style attacks were against the GOP, he deployed it against every perceived opponent
from ‘Crooked Hillary’ to the ‘Failing New York Times.’
“For whoever Democrats nominate in 2020, playing in the place where
Trump feels the most comfortable is a recipe for losing.
- - -
“{Warren’s} DNA test revealed that her Native American ancestry
is as small as 1/1,024. And the stunt provoked the Cherokee Nation to release a blistering
statement pointing out that ‘a DNA test is useless to determine tribal citizenship’ and that
‘using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation,
even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong … Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests
with her continued claims of tribal heritage.’ Other Native American writers have similarly
objected to the methodology and implicit message behind Warren’s announcement.
- - -
“Make no mistake about it, Democrats running against Trump need to be
prepared for a vicious onslaught of insults, lies and attacks. The thing is that, like all bullies,
Trump is massively insecure. It’s in these insecurities that Democrats can neutralize his schoolyard
tactics and effectively fight back.
“But the Elizabeth Warrens of the world can’t hope to win this fight
if they let Trump dictate the terms of their own life story.” (Ref. 5)
Warren’s “fierce indictments of Wall Street electrify Democrats
across the country. Her unapologetically progressive brand and fiery style match the mood
of her party’s liberal base. . .
“But according to interviews with two dozen senior Democratic
strategists, activists and early-voting-state officials, Elizabeth Warren still faces one
major challenge: convincing Democrats that she can defeat President Donald Trump.
“ ‘She is classified as a far-left liberal’ . . .
“The question of which candidate is best-positioned to beat Trump
is, according to polls, the defining issue of the Democratic presidential primary, and
candidates of every ideological stripe will have to make their electability cases.
“Yet the issue is particularly charged for Warren because voters have
already seen her attempt to go head-to-head with Trump—and come out diminished, in the eyes of
her critics.” (Ref. 6)
To many Americans, Democrats have become left-leaning socialists and
with candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, this perception has gone unchallenged.
Warren may not be the field’s furthest-left candidate on economic matters — democratic socialist
Bernie Sanders takes that mantle, but Warren is still seen as “one of those idealistic,
impractical liberal socialists.”
While Warren tries to depict herself as one of the middle class
hard-working Americans, the facts betray this portrayal as highly inaccurate. Elizabeth Warren
is a former ivy tower Harvard law school professor specializing in bankruptcy law, a Senator
from Massachusetts since 2013, and a millionaire with a reported net worth of $8 million, per
celebritynetworth.com.
The Massachusetts senator has taken a shotgun approach to the issues
by proposing solutions to nearly every problem facing our nation, but without the necessary
fact-based proofs to back up her claims. As has been famously asked by Wendy’s pitch-woman,
Clara Peller: “Where’s the beef”
Senator Warren has “pointed to issues such as health care, affordable
education, infrastructure and even climate change, and spoke of a responsibility to ‘make that
case to all of America about how it is that we can come together and we can fight for the things,
the values that we all believe in.’
“Yet Warren is still better known, among many voters, as the left-wing
Ivy League professor who catapulted onto the national stage by crusading against Wall Street in
the wake of the financial crisis.
- - -
“Fairly or not, that image stokes concerns in some corners that she
is not just anti-corporate greed but is more broadly anti-business, a reputation that bothers
not just Republicans and independents, but also some Democrats, especially those looking beyond
the primary and to the general election.
- - -
“{According to the Pollyanna-like views of her supporters,} ‘Elizabeth
is fighting for big, popular structural changes—like ending corruption in Washington, giving
workers a strong voice on corporate boards, universal child care, an ultra-millionaires tax —
all focused on making our government and economy work for everyone, not just the wealthy and
the well-connected’ “(Ref. 6)
Warren faces the inevitable question: Is she another unrealistic
liberal with lots of smoke but no fire? What would be the real consequences if her pipe dreams
were to be enacted into law? And, are Warren and Sanders just two more socialists who can’t
understand the lessons of history – that socialism has always failed to live up to the dreams
and aspirations that capitalism has so-abundantly delivered in America?
Joe Biden may not be the most charismatic Democratic candidate and he
may not espouse the most dynamic agenda should he be elected, but he can serve as a presidential
place holder or White House caretaker until the next presidential elections in 2024. The United
States, and indeed the rest of the world, would breathe a large collective sigh of relief, knowing
that stability and good old common sense had returned once again to the oval office. And that
may be what the American people need most – deliverance from the insults, boorishness, incoherence,
egotism and hostility that have characterized the office of the president of these United States
of America for the last 3 years.
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References:
- Eugene Robison: Biden has the best chance to beat Trump, Eugene Robinson,
The Washington Post, 26 April 2019.
- National 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary Polls , FiveThirtyEight,
20 August 2019.
- Joe Biden is the Democrats' best chance to beat Trump in 2020. No other liberal darling
even comes close., Ashley Pratte, NBC News:Think, 24 January 2019.
- The Truth about Bernie Sanders?, https://purdue.forums.rivals.com,
4 July 2019.
- Elizabeth Warren Just Proved She Can’t Beat Donald Trump In 2020, Kurt Bardella,
Huffpost, 12 October 2018.
- Warren’s big test: Prove to Democrats she can take on Trump, Katie Glueck,
https://www.mcclatchydc.com, 1 March 2019.
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