Do we beat Trump by promising a reset to the time before 2016 or by promising to deliver on the disruption and swamp draining he has largely failed to do?
Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have the answer. For Biden, this will be a reset election. Restore the Obama coalition and make inroads with the Romney-Clinton voters that can deliver NC, AZ, PA, MI, and possibly FL and GA, and TX into the fold. For all Biden’s symbolic talk about the white working class voter, he is really going after the suburban moderate woman who delivered big time for Democrats in 2018. The Conor Lamb and Kristen Sinema Republican or Independent.
For Bernie, this is a revolutionary election. It is about winning back the white working class AND record turnout among young people and people of color. It is about promising big structural change while being vague about the details so you are not pinned down to unpopular taxes or budgets like Elizabeth Warren was. It is about betting the future on the popularity of the Green New Deal and Medicare for All.
The media and the candidates themselves have no idea who is right. Neither do we.
At the moment, I think the most likely winner in 2020 is Mike Pence.
The nominee is going to be able to need to raise the resources to build either path.
Today we’re looking at Biden raising $22.7M in the 4th quarter and embracing major donors while Sanders raised $34.5M entirely from small donations.
I vote for some from column A and some from column B.
Wisdom right here. It is really tempting to predict the future and act like we know what’s going to happen. It gets clicks and is rarely called to account. It is very tempting to imagine that our preferred choices are shared by the most people, because of course they are.
I realized in 2016 that my political Spidey-sense needed a serious recalibration. I used to “know” things. Nope.