Despite saying that she planned to stay in the race even after firing her entire campaign staff last week, Marianne Williamson has dropped out of the Democratic Party primary competition. As Liberty Nation’s Mark Angelides put it, Williamson’s withdrawal came as a surprise only to her 18 cats. Equally unsurprising is the apparently inevitable outcome of this race – though, like Ms. Williamson, many progressives simply refuse to see it.
The Democrats are circling the drain, and if they don’t come up with some real ideas really quick, they’ll soon find themselves stuck with Joe Biden as their only option. And there isn’t a candidate President Trump would rather face than the gaffe master himself.
The Williamson Withdrawal
Marianne Williamson announced shortly after Julian Castro called it quits that she was letting her entire campaign staff go. She wasn’t leaving the race, mind you, just switching to a volunteer only campaign. To say that her dropping out was clearly foreshadowed might be the understatement of the new year. In her announcement, Williamson explained that she wanted to get out of the way so that a progressive candidate (other than her) would have a shot at winning.
But the progressive candidates don’t have much chance at winning, with or without her. For the most part, it’s the progressive candidates who have been dropping like flies.
A Political Identity Crisis
Donald Trump hates women, the LGBTQ community, and anyone who isn’t white, and we must resist him. That’s the shared platform of just about every Democrat to toss his, her, or its hat in the ring this election cycle. Oh, sure, there are other issues. We need Medicare for all, a Green New Deal, free education from daycare to college, the unrestricted right to on-demand abortion, and more SNAP benefits. Let’s boycott Israel while we’re at it. But none of the candidates really own those issues. In writing about Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), LN’s Joe Schaeffer explained why neither she nor any of the others actually own these issues:
“Like the rest of her Dem cohorts, Harris is always in react mode to a grassroots progressivism that is calling the shots. She will slam Immigration and Customs Enforcement if asked to do so. She will call for climate change legislation. She will attack whatever latest thing President Trump says. But when it comes to offering a unique and thought-provoking platform for the American people, or even the blue faction, to rally around … there is nothing of substance.”
So what distinguishes one from another when the entire group follows a cookie cutter platform that few, if any, of them actually believe in? Identity politics, of course.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) was a woman running for president and a vocal supporter of the #metoo movement – until a campaign worker complained of sexual harassment. Sen. Harris was a black woman gunning for the Oval Office. But her campaign floundered and failed as well. Julian Castro isn’t a woman – though he does seem to believe that men should have abortion rights too – but his grandmother was from Mexico – a point he made often throughout his campaign to no avail. Alas, he realized it just wasn’t his time. Minority status, it seems, simply isn’t enough to allow one to stand out in the flock of Trump hating progressives.
And Then There Was Biden
Joe Biden (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Despite some temporary spikes in popularity after fortunate debate performances, none of the field of candidates really had a shot at the party’s nomination outside of former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). Only these three are polling in the double digits, and only Biden has managed to meet or beat 30% in most polls – and a solid 27% or 28% in the others.
The slow but constant drip of presidential hopefuls dropping out should make one thing clear: Joe Biden will be the DNC chosen one for 2020 – not Bernie Sanders, not Elizabeth Warren, and not any one of the two dozen or so lesser contenders who thought they could compete.
A Too Predictable Outcome
President Trump has said before that the best possible outcome of the Democratic Party primary is that he faces off against Biden. And it looks like he’s going to get his wish. But Biden has an abundance of his own electability issues. He has tried – and failed – twice before. He has a bad history with plagiarism. And while he has earned many nicknames over the years, none seems more accurate than Liberty Nation Socio-political Correspondent Jeff Charles’ choice: the Godfather of Gaffe. Then there are the aneurisms.
The problem the Democrats face is that the only candidates they have who actually believe in anything other than beating Trump are so far left that the majority of voters won’t touch them. They really hate Trump, but they’ve yet to offer up a viable alternative. The field is down to 13, and it will only shrink more as we approach the primaries. And if they can’t do better than Biden, they might as well just congratulate the president on his re-election now.
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