DEMocracy 2020: February 2019 Edition (It's Getting a Bit Crowded in Here)

This is the second installment of a monthly blog series that follows the candidacies and headlines of the 2020 Presidential Election. If you wish to view the first article, you can click here!

Welcome to the February 2019 edition of DEMocracy 2020! I decided to stick with this name because of the emphasis on the Democrats this time around. The candidate count is almost in the double digits! For this month, I will go over the candidates who declared in February and then some headlines that took place this month.

2020 Declared Presidential Candidates: Democratic

1) Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ)



To the surprise of literally nobody, Cory Booker has entered the 2020 Presidential race as a Democrat. The timing of his announcement correlated with the beginning of Black History Month. In hindsight, this was a great day to launch the campaign. Unfortunately, his campaign launch coverage got cut short when in the mid-afternoon hours, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam's yearbook controversy began to dominate the national news coverage for days, overshadowing this strategic launch. Regarding the candidate, I don't believe he really has much of a shot in the primary. Yes, he's drawn similarities to Former President Barack Obama, but this field is too crowded and I believe all his candidacy will do is take votes away from whomever the "establishment" frontrunner will be. Will it be Kamala Harris? Will it be Joe Biden? Will it be Beto O'Rourke? We don't know. But I DO know that Cory Booker will likely never reach that status and will take votes away from any of those three (barring a surprising twist in our story). He's also a super corporate candidate who is running a campaign very similar to Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. That won't work this time around. Democrats want and need a candidate who will energize moderates AND farther-left voters, and Booker's history of being a "corporate Democrat" will make that next to impossible.

2) Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)



But Jacob, didn't you talk about Warren last month? Yes, I did, but I only talked about her exploratory committee. On February 9th, she made things official and became a candidate for President of the United States. I don't really have that much to say outside of what I said last month, so you can view last month's post for that analysis. If anything, the odds of her winning the nomination have gone lower since last month with the announcement that Bernie Sanders is entering the race (which I'll be discussing more below). I'll also save my comments on Warren's Native American controversy for the headlines portion, which I actually meant to touch upon last month but did not get to do so.

3) Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)



I don't really have too much to say about Amy Klobuchar. She's kind of boring and she doesn't really excite many people outside of her state. Some argue that she'll be able to win over blue states that turned red for Trump in 2016 because she works with Republicans, but there's a big problem: she won't be able to excite the Democratic base, much like Hillary couldn't do in 2016 (a big chunk of Dem voters actually voted for Trump because of their disgust for Clinton). In order for Democrats to win in 2020, they need to nominate someone who will energize the Democratic base. I disagree with the notion that the nominee needs to appeal to moderates as much because most anti-Trump Republicans (moderates included) will vote with whatever option will get Trump out, and it will become more apparent throughout the cycle that the Democrat will be that option. Dems will also vote for their candidate no matter who they nominate due to their disgust with Trump. Oh, it's also important to mention that she came out against Medicare for All and free college during a CNN Town Hall; these are two things that the Democratic base and the mainstream Democratic Party are trying to adopt as their platform, so coming out against them does not look good at all. Will I vote for Amy Klobuchar if she is the nominee? Yes, because of my disgust with Trump as a moderate-turned-independent. Do I think she'll win the nomination? Not a chance.

4) Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)



Americans were ready to #FeelTheBern at a record pace after he decided to enter the race. In 24 hours, he raised about $6 million from 220,000 individual donors. This destroyed Kamala Harris's first day fundraising, which was $1.5 million from 38,000 donors. He then went on to raise $10 million in less than a week. He also has over 1 million supporters promising to volunteer for his campaign. Those are crazy numbers, and I believe that is one of the biggest reasons why I believe that Bernie Sanders is the current frontrunner in the Democratic nomination fight. Other reasons are that he has most of his 2016 support still behind him (Tulsi Gabbard and Elizabeth Warren's campaign numbers are lacking, and I think they will continue to slip as the race progresses, especially if/when Bernie stays in the race and starts winning a lot of primaries) and he brought a lot of policies into the Democratic mainstream. Thinking with the mindset of a Dem voter, why would I want to elect or nominate someone who has only started acting like they support things like Medicare for All and free college when the guy who started it all is in the race? Also, Bernie consistently beats Donald Trump in the polls and by some of the largest margins in the entire Democratic field. You want to know why? Because he excites the Democratic base AND he'll get the vote of most if not all anti-Trump Republicans and moderates (believe it or not, Bernie has some moderate views on things like criminal justice reform, gun control, and ending the regime-change wars). Bernie is the one to watch right now. I will be supporting him in the race (I'll write a more in-depth post later on why I've made this decision), and I hope you can, too.

2020 Exploratory Committees

1) Gov. William Weld (R-MA)



Honestly, this one kind of shocked me. I thought John Kasich was the only one who would actually pull the trigger on a Republican challenge to Donald Trump, but Bill Weld just single-handedly ruined all hopes of a legitimate primary fight (not that there was really one in the first place, but you know what I mean). It did not get much press coverage, but Weld made this announcement at an event in New Hampshire. Will he get much coverage? I don't see it happening, but I can't say for sure. My main worry about Weld's potential candidacy is that he'll be taking the challenger spot from Kasich; I've said already that only one challenger can arise in the primary, as more than one will split the anti-Trump vote and give Trump an advantage, and Kasich is the strongest of all the potential challengers. I seriously hope he reconsiders. If he declares a run, I will go more into his policy stances and his past political history in that month's edition of this blog series.

Headlines

SPEED ROUND! These are just a few quick headlines that caught my attention during the month of February.

1. Elizabeth Warren apologizes: Boy, this is embarrassing. So we found out that Warren used her 1/1024th Native American ethnicity to get ahead on her Harvard application and her application to become a lawyer. This was a story that would have gotten more coverage if the State of the Union had not been given the same night this story broke, but anyhow, this is bad for Warren. She has always been criticized for calling herself Native American, but the fact that she used it to get ahead is a whole different ballgame. Most people have forgotten about this story, but if I was on the opposition team of any Democratic campaign (minus Sanders, who doesn't do negative campaigning on non-policy issues), I would make this an important issue because it shows that she would do anything to get ahead. 
2. CNN gives town hall to Howard Schultz: This was a questionable move by CNN mostly because they billed it as a "presidential town hall" even though he had not declared yet. I actually sat down and tried to watch the event, but MAN, it was BOOOOORING. The only part that was interesting was when they asked if he would drop out of the race if his independent bid gave Trump an advantage. He said yes, and I could hear the sigh of relief across the nation. Let's just hope he follows through with that promise, or better yet, lets just hope he doesn't run at all. 
3. DNC Primary Debate Qualifications: Because I want to make sure the language is correct, I am quoting a lot in this part. In order for a candidate to qualify for the DNC debates beginning in June, according to FiveThirtyEight, "a candidate will need to get at least 1 percent support in three national polls or polls of early primary states, or raise money from a minimum of 65,000 donors from 20 states, including at least 200 unique donors per state. If more than 20 candidates meet this criteria, the party will give preference to candidates who clear both the polling and fundraising thresholds, and if that's still too many people, invitations will go to candidates who have the highest polling averages". The party also said that they will be willing to hold debates on multiple nights instead of cramming two debates into one night like the Republicans did in 2016 with their undercard debates. I think the donor requirements in particular will be a challenge to those polling under 1 percent in the polls, but because each candidate only has to accomplish the polling requirement OR the donation requirement, I still see the debates being very crowded. I think this will eliminate some candidates, but not many, and definitely not enough for only one debate stage. 
4. Kamala Harris smoking weed in college: This is such a dumb story and here's why. Marijuana should be legalized anyway because people are going to jail for a long time for selling so little of the drug. If not legalization, I think we can all agree that it should AT LEAST be decriminalized. Regarding Kamala Harris, I don't CARE if she smoked weed in college because so many people do nowadays and most younger people support it, and this story is even dumber because she lied about the dumbest thing possible: who she listened to while she did it. Because of her pandering to millenials, she said that she was listening to Snoop Dogg and Tupac while she was high. The twist? Neither existed at the time of her smoking it. Stop lying, Kamala, and stop trying to pander to millenials.  
5. The Tale of Two Rallies: Donald Trump held his first official rally of the 2020 campaign in El Paso, Texas. Beto O'Rourke hosted a rally across the street as a protest to the President's visit and his border wall. Beto's rally wasn't all that well attended, but President Trump's rally was. This should surprise nobody. Trump brings large crowds to his rallies because people want to hear the president speak. If they don't want to hear him speak, they'll protest outside of his rally. Where were a lot of Beto's supporters? Probably protesting outside of Trump's rally. This was a political stunt that failed on Beto's end. If he runs for President like I think he will, I have a feeling that that will end the same way. He can't use a failed Senate bid against an insanely popular Senator Ted Cruz to elevate his national profile, especially because this Democratic field is so large. He did come close to beating Cruz, but it wasn't enough. He'll need to focus on his policy stances, and those are pretty weak if you take a hard enough look. 

That's all for this month. I'm sure March will be even more eventful!

In Liberty,

Jacob Stech

DEMocracy 2020: January 2019 Update (First Impressions)

Presidential elections are one of my favorite things about politics, so I'm excited to see that the 2020 race has already begun! I'm still considering an overall title for this strand of articles. Right now, I'm going with "DEMocracy 2020" because of the emphasis the Democrats will have on this cycle, but I am open to changes for sure.

Anyway, the last time I wrote anything for this blog, Corey Stewart had just won the Virginia Republican Primary for Tim Kaine's Senate seat (Spoiler Alert: Tim Kaine won in a landslide). Since then, Democrats took the House and Republicans surprisingly gained seats in the Senate, ushering in a new era of divided government, which began WITHOUT a functioning government as the 35-day partial government shutdown became the longest in US History. It's extremely apparent that things in Washington have become more polarized than ever before. But, as Oprah Winfrey said back in 2017, "a new day is on the horizon." What is that day, you ask? November 3rd, 2020.

Beginning this month, I will be keeping a close eye on the 2020 Presidential race, which has already begun. Election Day 2020 is only 642 days away (as of 1/31/2019), and we have had many candidates declare either a presidential bid or an exploratory committee. My current plan is that on the final day of each month, I will give a brief synopsis of each newly-declared candidate and my first impressions of them. Once the debates begin and the field is set, I also plan to give "power rankings" of those candidates and how I think they will perform against each other. I will also discuss any headlines that are important to that particular month, such as town halls, debates, gaffes (do those exist anymore?), and such. The Democratic Primary is expected to be even more crowded than the 17 Republicans that ran for their party's nomination in 2016 (I believe the number of Democrats expected to run is closer to 30, but I honestly believe the number will only hover around the 20 mark, which is still a very large field of candidates).

As for MY current scenario: I am open to anything, but the only thing I am certain about is that I have decided AGAINST supporting President Donald Trump in 2020. In fact, I will never vote for him or any other Trump-like Republican ever again. I can explain this in more detail in another post, but the summarized version is that Donald Trump's immaturity, racism, and divisiveness is enough for me to not vote for him. To this day, I still regret voting for him in 2016 because I had absolutely no idea how horrible of a President he would be. Anyway, my current plan is to support a Republican challenger in the slim chance that one emerges (please run, John Kasich!). If a Republican challenger does not emerge, I will most likely support the Democratic nominee. I have always considered myself a libertarian-leaning Republican, but due to the takeover of the alt-right, I can no longer in good faith consider myself a Republican until the Republican Party returns to the roots of less government and economic freedom that were apparent before Trump took over. The current Republican Party is NOT the one I used to associate myself with, and if things keep going in this direction, there won't be a Republican Party for much longer.

I'll start with my first impressions of each of the candidates:

2020 Presidential Candidates: Republican

1) President Donald J. Trump



Currently, the only Republican to declare their candidacy is President Donald J. Trump, which should surprise nobody. It is extremely unlikely that this will change at all unless Trump faces impeachment (which is looking more likely as the days progress). We know that Trump is the clear frontrunner of the Republican nomination AND the General Election; incumbent presidents have a built-in advantage when running for re-election, and I believe that unless something HUGE happens between now and November 3rd, the race will be closer than we think. For some odd reason, Trump's popularity among Republicans is very high at 80 percent while among all voters, his approval rating is 39 percent according to the Washington Examiner.

2) Vice President Mike Pence



I kid...unless Trump is impeached. Then expect him to run.

2020 Declared Presidential Candidates: Democratic

1) Former Rep. John Delaney



Do you know who this is? If not, I don't blame you. This guy has been running for President since 2017 and has little to no name recognition. I fully expect him to drop out before the Iowa caucuses begin next February. There's even a chance he'll only be in one or two debates.

2) Former HUD Secretary Julian Castro



You've probably heard of this guy at least once or twice. He served as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Barack Obama and has often been seen on Democratic VP lists (he was a top contender for the VP position during Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, but as we all know, she eventually chose Sen. Tim Kaine). From his campaign announcement alone, I expect Castro to run as an unapologetic supporter of immigrants coming to the United States. This will be notable if he wins the nomination; he could gather votes by bashing against Trump's border wall and his other abhorrent policies on immigration, such as separating children from their families and locking them up in cages. During his campaign announcement, he framed himself as an "Obama" candidate who supports Medicaid for All, the Green New Deal, and a pathway to citizenship. Even though he is a longshot candidate, I expect Castro to do a lot better than the mainstream media is predicting. Because he is the only Latino candidate expected to run, I think he will gain a fair amount of support and he'll be able to separate himself from much of the pack.

3) Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI)



Honestly, Gabbard is one of my favorite candidates to run so far on the Democratic side. The biggest thing I appreciate is her non-intervention foreign policy plan, which means she doesn't want to go to war with every country like many in the Trump Administration do. I think it will be difficult for her to gain any traction, however, because in a Democratic primary, Gabbard is going to have a lot of difficulty addressing her past LGBTQ comments and her meeting with Syrian Leader Bashar al-Assad. She has apologized for her past views to the LGBTQ community and she has defended her meeting with Assad by saying she went through with the meeting because if she can find a solution to end the violent conflict in the country, she will do whatever it takes to bring peace. That's something I can support, and she's my current choice so far until Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders enter the race (if a Republican challenger does not run, I will more than likely support either Biden or Bernie, but it's too early to tell which of the two has my support at the moment).

4) Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA)



I believe that Sen. Kamala Harris is the clear frontrunner so far, in my opinion. She was asked by CNN to be the first candidate to participate in a town hall, which I believe helped her gain national attention since it was CNN's most-viewed town hall ever (Trump holds the record for a Fox News town hall because of obvious reasons). She's also a very young candidate who is running off of her record as California's Attorney General and her early Senate years. Oh, and she's also an African-American AND a woman. Based on identity politics ALONE, she has been able to separate herself from the pack even though she's only been in the race for a little more than a week. Announcing on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was also a smart move for her because it was one of the biggest news stories of the day and it paid tribute to Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American candidate for a major party's nomination and the first woman to run for the Democratic nomination. Expect Kamala Harris to dominate the news cycle until Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders eventually jump into the race.

2020 Exploratory Committees

Some candidates have not announced their candidacies but have instead announced that they have filed exploratory committees. This means that potential candidates file these committees so that they can continue to coordinate with their PACs, which cannot be done once you file your candidacy with the Federal Election Commission. Basically, these potential candidates wish to raise a ton of money through their PACs before they begin an official run, giving them a bigger war chest to spread their message and attack other candidates once they sever ties with their PACs. We only have three candidates so far with this status.

1) Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)



Sen. Elizabeth Warren is by far one of the biggest names in the race. Expect Warren and Bernie Sanders to fight for support once they both declare their candidacies since they are both farther-left candidates. I honestly hope that Warren drops out before the Iowa caucuses and endorses Bernie Sanders because I have a feeling that Bernie has the best chance of defeating Donald Trump in the general election. But anyhow, Warren had an odd rollout once she chose to host a livestream on Instagram soon after her announcement; this was odd because she was drinking beer and hanging out with her husband in her kitchen, which looked like a really bad attempt to appeal to the younger Democrats. It took me back to Hillary Clinton's "Pokemon Go To The Polls" gaffe, which was very cringeworthy and showed that she did not know how to appeal to the younger generation that well. It's very ironic how Bernie Sanders does a much better job than both Warren and Clinton at appealing to younger voters considering he's pretty much an old man; he appeals to them well because he strictly talks policy and doesn't try to act "cool," which is all that the younger generation wants to hear. Anyway, she recently proposed a new "wealth tax" that taxes the top 1% of American families, which actually isn't a bad idea because it will raise trillions of dollars and it could help alleviate stress in areas such as student loans. It also only affects 75,000 households and the odds are if you are reading this post, you will not have to pay this tax at all. Even though I hope Warren drops out to support Bernie, I expect Warren to stick around for a while and be one of the top contenders throughout the Democratic nomination fight.

2) Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)



Like Warren, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand had an interesting committee rollout. She announced that she was filing an exploratory committee with the full intention of running for President on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which is an odd place to announce that you wish to be the most powerful person in the world (for the record, I think Colbert is one of the funniest and smartest people on television, so anytime Colbert is in the picture, I tend to enjoy whatever is going on). Soon after her announcement on Colbert, the reaction was mostly negative because people were still angry at Gillibrand for being the first person to pressure Sen. Al Franken to resign when he had his time under the #MeToo spotlight. Franken was widely expected to be a frontrunner in the 2020 Presidential Election until this scandal, which basically ended not only his presidential hopes but his political career altogether. It was a slightly hypocritical move for Gillibrand to pressure him to resign because in America, everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and Franken had to resign in shame even though he was never proven guilty (in Gillibrand's defense, there were pictures of Franken groping another woman, but the move nevertheless creates a horrible precedent for the #MeToo movement). I expect Gillibrand to talk about the #MeToo movement a lot during her campaign, and I expect it to blow up in her face. I do not think Gillibrand will be able to separate herself from the pack all that well because she is seen by many as another Hillary Clinton, which is exactly what the Democratic Party does NOT want right now.

3) Mayor Pete Buttigieg (South Bend, IA)



I'm going to be completely honest about Pete Buttigieg. I like him a lot. I don't know much about him at all, but he seems like a genuinely good guy who wants to make America a better place. I plan to write a separate post about each candidate's records once I am able to research them, but from what I have heard, Buttigieg has done a good job running a city of about 100,000 people. It is also important to note that he would be the first openly gay president in the slim chance that he was to win the election. He would also be the youngest president ever and once he announces, he will be the youngest in the field at 37 years old. Buttigieg's committee announcement was barely covered by the mainstream media, so I hope they do a better job at covering his official candidacy announcement whenever that may be. I look forward to learning more about him and I hope he sticks around for a long while. Considering he is the first ever openly gay Democratic presidential candidate, I have a feeling that he will be a dark horse in the race.

Headlines



These are just a few quick headlines regarding the election that caught my eye in the month of January.

1. Richard Ojeda becomes the first presidential candidate to drop out of the race. He was only in the race for about two months, but he decided to end his campaign because he was not getting any coverage and he did not want people donating to a campaign that would not get off the ground. I'm sad that he dropped out because he promised to be a different voice within the party; he tended to care about teachers more than most of the other candidates, making it one of the central topics of his campaign. I hope he endorses Bernie Sanders once he announces. 
2. Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announces that he is considering an independent run for President. I seriously hope that he reconsiders, as this move splits the Democratic vote and  hands the election over to Trump. His best move would be to either run as a Democrat or not at all. I hope he chooses the latter because he has received nothing but hate from most people since the 60 Minutes interview. 
3. Former Sen. Jeff Flake announced that he would not be challenging Trump in the 2020 Republican Primary, but he hoped that someone will. I hope that someone does, too, because the President and the Republican Party both need wake-up calls that say that the party's current route is a bad one and that they are killing off any hopes of gaining younger voters with their bigoted and racist policies. I hope John Kasich runs because he has the highest name recognition of all of the prospective challengers. Also, we only need ONE candidate to challenge Trump because we will repeat 2016's mistake if there are more than one, meaning that multiple challengers will split the vote amongst each other and Trump will win the nomination easily. 
4. Hillary Clinton was rumored to be mulling another run, but as of January 30th, her old campaign manager John Podesta put those rumors to rest by announcing that she will not be running again. Good. We don't need her anymore; the Democratic Party needs something different, and it will be up to the Democratic voters to determine what that will be. 

I hope you have enjoyed my take on the 2020 Presidential Election thus far! I can't wait to see how this cycle unfolds. It will be one of the most consequential ones for sure. Feel free to let me know what you think; I'm always happy to hear other's opinions!

In Liberty,

Jacob Stech