The first round of Democratic presidential primary debates last week featured two nights of full stages, with 20 candidates making an appearance. Even that historic number wasn't the entire field; Vox notes that several candidates (Steve Bullock, Seth Moulton, Wayne Messam and Mike Gravel) failed to meet the minimum qualifying standard of an average of 2% support across a list of polls, and weren't invited.
The Chicago Tribune reports that another round of debates this month will feature the same large field - but after that, the Democratic National Committee will tighten the debate qualifying requirements, and all but a handful of candidates are expected to fall away:
Of the 20 candidates who qualified for the first round of debates in June and July, just six are sure to appear in the September-October round, when the Democratic National Committee requires participants to hit 2% in multiple polls and 130,000 individual donors. Though many campaigns are worried, DNC Chairman Tom Perez has resisted pressure to relax the requirements.Even that paragraph overstates the certainty of the fortunate six: if the decision were made today, only five would be shoo-ins, with the sixth not far behind:
Currently, the only locks for the fall debates are former Vice President Joe Biden, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, California Sen. Kamala Harris and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke is likely to qualify, but after an underwhelming debate performance last week, even he is not guaranteed to make the polling threshold. Only polls taken between June 28 and Aug. 28 will count.Predictably, candidates not on that list are now pulling out the stops in an attempt to meet the more stringent criteria:
The do-or-die nature of making the debates has forced many second-tier candidates to dump money into online advertising at an unprecedented rate to generate new donors. Some strategists concede campaigns are spending upward of $40 on average for every email address of a prospective small-dollar donor, an unsustainable ratio that has forced cutbacks on hiring, candidate travel and organizing support on the ground in key states.
The dynamic has some larger donors worried that their money is being used to build out the small-donor network instead of a traditional campaign operation.
The story adds that these debate-qualification requirements are incentivizing candidates to focus on building networks of large numbers of small donors in their home states or congressional districts, where they already are well-known and thus can meet the 130,000-donor qualification threshold with the lowest promotional spend. But this activity and expenditure is taking focus away from doing actual campaigning in key primary states, where actual electoral success will be determined by votes cast rather than polling numbers or donations.
I'm not certain that either party has found the right formula yet for Presidential candidate selection. There is a part of me that believes the process is too populist: on the GOP side, any process that results in the nomination of Donald Trump is a broken process. Is the Democrats' process better? We'll have to see how it plays out.
Personally, I believe that 15 or 20 candidates are too many; party leaders need to exert more control over who qualifies to run. Donald Trump illustrated that the most important factor in a crowded primary field is to have an established brand. If that rule holds for 2020, then it seems the Democratic race will come down to Biden vs. Sanders. Is that the best that Democrats can offer? I'll defer to Democrats here at NewGathering on that question.
Update 7/2/2019 10:48 am CDT: A new CNN poll shows post-debate surges by Harris and Warren, apparently at Biden's expense. The top four candidates in this poll: Biden, 22%; Harris, 17%; Warren, 15%; Sanders, 14%. Nobody is going to out-debate Harris, the former prosecutor. Warren also is articulate, smart and tough. Debates don't suit Biden - although he is now positioned for a Comeback Kid storyline if he steps up his debate performance in the next round.
It's worth noting that these poll movements are all within and among the top five or six candidates; nobody else apparently has achieved a major breakthrough after Round 1.
That strikes me as a fair prediction. The question Democrats ought to be asking themselves is -- "Whoinhell is Tom Perez to decide 18 or so people 'won't do' a full year before the election?"
ReplyDeleteHe has never won in an electorate bigger than Montgomery, Md.
The part of you that believes the process(es) is too populist is right, although late populism isn't very populist. It only looks that way during the meteor showers that light up Herman Cains and Beto O'Rourkes. When the parties froze out the politicians, they ended up allowing themselves to be run by technicians (like Perez) and big givers who tell the technicians what to do. That freezes out the pols who have to be on the ballot with the presidential nominee and have a stake in the party. And that is what they think of as populism.
I agree about the final five. I'm not so sure about the final two. It definitely helps to have an established brand, but Obama didn't, and he got his party's nomination. I think it's too soon to call at this point.
ReplyDeleteA change that I wish would happen is the timing of the primaries. They are too strung out. The ones at the tail end, like my state, basically don't have a say. I realize that is under the states' control, and suspect that the PTB in my state are choosing for their own reasons to leave things as they are. For that matter the Democrats here have a caucus rather than a primary. Anyway I would prefer to see the selection process truncated into perhaps, a month. The present schedule gives the early states way too much say.
Katherine, this is just my personal view: if the primary season is condensed, even to a single Primary Election Day, then candidates will need to do much more national marketing and advertising to reach voters, and only those with big bankrolls will be able to play.
DeleteIt seems pretty clear that the Democratic primary season is set up this time around to avoid reliance on big donors, or at least to project the appearance that candidates don't rely on big donors.
One limitation of restricting the influence of big donors is that it gives a big advantage to candidates with personal wealth. On the other hand, Republicans, for whom accepting money from wealthy donors is at worst a venial sin, have nominated only wealthy candidates; if I'm not mistaken, Bob Dole would have been the last nominee who wasn't a one-percenter (and GHW Bush was the nominee twice before Dole).
Regarding President Obama: again, this is just my personal view: I think Candidate Obama was exceptional in many ways. And I use that adjective in the literal sense: I think his candidacy was an exception, that broke many political rules of thumb and conventions. He was a once-in-a-lifetime candidate with his ability to inspire, unite and break new ground. Since 2012, Democrats have been trying to figure out how to bottle that lightning. I don't think it's possible. Certainly, Hillary, the first female candidate, didn't have that magical dust.
DeleteTo give myself a cushion against disappointment, I never had great expectations for Obama. And I was right to do so. His chumminess with Wall Street reflected in his economic appointments came as no great surprise. It was going to be business as usual. Sometimes I think that Republican hostility was a good excuse for Obama adhering to the status quo, which he really wanted all along. I was already cured of the delusion that the Democratic Party was progressive. I don't associate progressivism of the type we need with black people or gays. I see Harris as another Obama who will put a more pleasant face on the established power system. Only Sanders and Warren will try to change things. Of course, I'd rather see Harris' face above the Presidential Seal than nasty old Poochface. But we need a lot more.
DeletePrediction: Trump will win.
ReplyDeleteI can't see moderate GOPs or conservative independents crossing over to vote for any of these people. They are promising too much free stuff without explaining how they will pay for it (though I think some of it is doable, they're just not making a case for it).
This is also Latino Year, not Black Year, in the party's Minority Pandering Lotto, so my guess is that African-Americans will stay home to a large extent.
And nobody is wooing blue-collar joes. Raber tells me that when November comes, the guys in the shop are more concerned with getting a couple deer in the freezer than voting. Three guys have been laid off this summer. They all got picked up to work on a tree trimming crew, so they don't have to draw unemployment and that makes the economy look great. But they will be making less before they are hired back in the fall. So the non-union workforce is still getting jacked around, and that's their new normal. These guys are totally disconnected from politics.
Plus, we're still sitting ducks for whatever Putin and Friends are planning that will help Trump.
And, finally, Trump has successfully eroded confidence in mainstream media (which has released volleys of editorial snark at Trump this "proving" his claims of bias) among a good third of the population.
Jean, I really hope you're wrong, that's a pretty depressing thought. But I agree that the danger is there. Some things that might be in favor of Trump losing: the baby jails on the border. That is a horrible look for the Rs. This is a pretty red state, but a lot of mothers and grandmas are upset about that. Word is that our senators and representatives got buried with irate e-mails and phone calls. It's also starting to wake up some church people. It might be the Latinos' year, but aside from some subsets such as Cuban emigres in Florida, they don't like Trump either. As far as African Americans go, they're upset by wink/nod attitudes about police violence toward them. Not to mention the shredding of the social safety net.
DeleteAs for Putin and his bots, our cyber security people are woke by now; I really don't believe the Russians are that much smarter. Could be I'm whistling in the wind, but it ain't over till it's over.
Katherine's comment last week about her Facebook message: "100% of the Democratic candidates think it's okay to kill babies" keeps running through my brain. True, only a small percentage of anyones vote on abortion, but the performance at the first debate and that slogan make all of the Dem candidates (no matter what they really think) sound like maniacs.
DeleteTrump will use it along with other sorts of generalizations no matter who the Dem candidate turns out to be: "Open Borders, everybody come." "Stop paying on student loans." "College free, everybody come." "Private insurance cancelled: January 21, 2021." I fear Jean is right; I hope she's wrong.
Maybe democracies have had it with rational elections; look at the UK and the system that will make Boris Johnson prime minister.
Voters who dislike Trump but feel ignored by Dems are going to stay home: Pro-lifers, blue-collar workers, African-Americans, fiscal conservatives, those with legit concerns about our ability to absorb all the immigrants who want to come here, Millennials who believe the party stole the nomination from Bernie in '16, and others.
DeleteAnd, as Margaret noted, Democratic positions will be reduced to scare slogans to galvanize the dumbasses.
All that plus a lot of corporate money will keep Trump in power. And possibly Ivanka after him.
The thing I think the Democrats need to do is to start getting specific about how they plan to carry out the things they want. Articulate what they think is a sane immigration policy, so when Trump accuses them of favoring open borders, they can counter with what they do favor. Same with college debt, maybe programs for debt forgiveness in return for service in a needed sector. Talk about making a public healthcare option available and fixing Obamacare rather than immediately going single payer (which they can't magic into place anyway without a heavy amount of planning).
DeleteAnd instead of constantly banging the right-to-abortion drum, they should talk about how policies they favor could actually reduce the number of abortions.
Anybody can talk pie in the sky, but if they want to win they have to get into more specifics.
Just an aside on the student debt problem. I hear a lot about some colleges offering free tuition for seniors. Speaking for myself, I don't need free college anymore. We would be glad to give our free college privileges to our granddaughters.
Delete"The thing I think the Democrats need to do is to start getting specific about how they plan to carry out the things they want."
DeleteDebates aren't very conducive to this. The one thing America knows about Kamala Harris today is that she carved up Uncle Joe on national television. I happen to think the has some substantive things to offer, but I don't think the debates are going to help the electorate see that.
Carving up Joe Biden: Harris was clearly insisting that he was insensitive to black sensibilities and passe. She needed to place herself in the milieu of of the American (not Indian or Jamaican) experience. She has to loosen his appeal with black voters.
DeleteSo she led with the race card and the poor little girl card.
So good political tactics, I guess, if you can suspend your disbelief that Kamala Harris ever let anybody cut her off at the stilettos.
But that's all the debates reveal is political tactics.
I thought the high point of her performance was the food fight comment. Hushing up 10 bloviating Democrats was more impressive than her black.woman creds display.
Here's my beef with Harris carving Biden up over racial insensitivity. She played the poor little girl card, but both her parents had PhDs. She lived with her mom and sisters in a decent duplex in Berkeley. It is quite likely that absent busing she would have attended a neighborhood school alongside of both white and black kids. And anyway why are they dragging up busing after 40 years? It's a nonstarter, a dead deal because everyone hated it. If the Democrats are really intent on suiciding, they will bring up restarting busing as a serious policy proposal.
DeleteI realize that you all may not like Jeff Jacoby, but I think he is right that Joe Biden shouldn't have to apologize for his stance on busing.
DeleteBusing was never popular with anybody. As far as I can tell Biden supported voluntary busing, which is what Berkeley was offering. And even in leftish Berkeley white families left, as they did in many other places. Not to their credit. In the end busing was never popular and it worked only for a small number of kids, e.g., Kamala Harris. Even then a description by one of her classmates points to some of the issues even in a willing school district: the other kids.
Delete"“Racism didn’t go away because we were bused,” said Doris Alkebulan, 58, who was part of the initial group of black students in Berkeley to be bused to a majority white school. “What about play dates? Were you going to be invited to the birthday party? Would you be chosen for the team?”
She remembered that kids would say, “Oh we can’t play with you” and explain the reason with a racial slur.
“I didn’t even know I was black until then,” Ms. Alkebulan said."
Times's informative story: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/30/us/politics/kamala-harris-berkeley-busing.html?searchResultPosition=1
The local public school district in the town where I lived during my high school years permits students to attend any school in the district they wish to attend - I think the only constraint is overall school capacity. This isn't called "busing", but in point of fact many students are bused around the district. This isn't the 1970s anymore, so we all may hope that racial tensions have subsided somewhat since then.
DeleteIstm that charter schools and vouchers are other variations on this same theme: giving students and their families education options beyond the neighborhood public school.
"The local public school...permits students to attend any school in the district they wish to attend." It is like that here, too. In fact I believe that is the practice statewide. Sometimes we think we haven't made any progress in racial harmony, but looking at where we were vs where we are gives a different perspective. The NYT article Margaret cited discusses children being excluded from playdates and birthdays. That isn't the norm now, at least here. We are still predominantly white, but have many racially blended families. I don't know anyone who wouldn't let their kids play with kids of another race.
DeleteOmaha is more urban. North Omaha still has problems with drugs and gangs, and uneasy relationships with police. But in the sections where my kids and families live, they have neighbors of all races, and everyone seems to get along.
Did the TV debates begin this early the last time around? I never watch them because I don't think they are very helpful in getting to know candidates.
ReplyDeleteI do like the criterion of number of donors. That is the only way candidates have a chance of getting out from under big money.
I don't like the criterion of polling percentage because that makes things too dependent on national media. In Fall 2015 Bernie got only a few minutes of national media attention even though he was attracting large crowds and local media attention, and a social media following. All that enabled Sanders to start his donor list which enabled him to challenge Clinton.
Maybe we should have a longer primary season. Why not begin them in the Fall? I think it is good for candidates to have to do personal campaigning in small states. Perhaps we could have a bunch of small states spread across the Fall, then the swing states (e.g. Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan) in Winter.
I don't think it is down to Biden and Sanders. I think Warren has a good chance; she has a lot of interesting proposals. I would like to see a Sanders/Warren or a Warren/Sanders ticket.
Personal campaigning in Michigan in winter? Are you high? Even if they show up, no one is going to turn out.
DeleteMichigan is a big fricking problem for Democrats, and Democrats make it worse by only showing up in Detroit.
But Wayne.County no longer carries the state, so they better show up further north. And I don't mean Grand Rapids, which is DeVos country.
Obama got huge props for going to Marquette.
Booker would play well in Muskegon, Kalamazoo/Battle Creek, and Midland/Bay City/Saginaw. There are diverse blue-collar populations there. He gets those places. They get him.
If Buttagieg is one of the last five or six standing, then certainly it can be pointed out that the process has worked for him. He started without a national reputation or brand, and has figured out how to leverage the process to carve out a distinctive and appealing candidacy. He has achieved some level of traction.
ReplyDeletePerhaps something similar could be said for Kamala Harris, although her background as a statewide-elected politician from California gives her advantages in the Democratic process - she probably can meet the more stringent debate requirements with support from her own enormous number of constituents.
But Jim, I can't stop remembering Herman Cain, he of the 9-9-9 campaign, who performed like a combination of Cicero and William Jennings Bryan in a cattle call debate in September of 2011 and won the Florida straw poll later that month, trouncing the pundit's 5-2 horse, Rick Perry. He trounced the likes of Perry and Mitch Romney in other straw polls all through September, October and November. In December, after his fame had spread, he wrapped up his campaign. And wasn't heard from again until the Donfather toyed with naming him to the Federal Reserve.
DeleteButigieg hasn't even had his first month yet. And whatever happened to Rick Perry? He got a Cabinet appointment from Trump and still hasn't quit or been fired. Or been heard from.
Tom - ok; Cain leveraged the process, too, for a while. Then his character defects caught up with him and he flamed out. The same could happen to Buttagieg, although I haven't seen any red flags so far.
DeleteJim - OK, but it took three months for any red flags to appear on Cain. Meanwhile, he had, as a business genius, helped to scuttle Clinton's plan for health care for (almost) all and had been both a pizza guru and a banker.
DeleteFrom today's San Francisco Chronicle, written by one of THE shrewdest politicians that this state has ever seen (he also is a former mayor of San Francisco): https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/williesworld/article/Democrats-dream-ticket-is-Kamala-Harris-and-14074670.php
DeleteIf you can't open the link, let me know and I will post the rather short article.
DeleteBrown doesn't say they can win. He says the press will be all over them. About that, he's probably right.
Delete