Ben Mathis-Lilley’s piece “Scared of Bernie? Not Feeling Pete? The Unity Candidate Has Been Right Here the Whole Time” in Slate yesterday identifies how the two front runners out of the Iowa caucuses each have potential problems with unifying the party. Although there are valid arguments to challenge whether people should be “scared of Bernie” or “not feel Pete,” when choosing our pick, it makes sense to consider each candidate’s potential liabilities. Here are some excerpts from the piece.
As the Democratic presidential contenders head into Friday’s New Hampshire debate, Iowa’s Democratic Party is still sorting its caucus delegate apportionment out, and may continue to sort for some time. In broad strokes, though, we know what happened: The “democratic socialist” (Bernie Sanders) and the small-city mayor with virtually zero nonwhite support (Pete Buttigieg) did well, while the experienced early favorite with far more party endorsements than any other candidate (Joe Biden) did not.
If these trends continue through New Hampshire and beyond, Dems will have one front-runner whose economic platform could turn off the well-to-do suburban voters they need to turn out to win swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin … and another whose unfamiliarity and history of tense relations with activists might turn off the black voters they need to turn out to win swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin. This is an ironic state of affairs for a party whose voters have said in every single one of the 400,000 polls taken in the past year that their top priority in the primary is finding a candidate who can beat Donald Trump in November.
Given that suppressed African American turnout in cities like Philadelphia and Detroit contributed to the electoral college loss in 2016, and the fact that increased turnout from Latinos and support from suburban women contributed to Democratic wins in 2018, it would be foolhardy for us to ignore the preferences of these subgroups of voters. While none of these subgroups are monolithic in thought, there are legitimate questions about the capacity of the two front runners to unite the party moving forward.
Before reaching out to bring in Republicans and independents, we need a unified party and should consider who might be best suited to bring Democrats together. This piece argues that the one best suited to do this is Elizabeth Warren.
But perhaps there is a middle ground? A candidate who matches Sanders’ level of ambition and outraged concern for inequality with the interest in “practical solutions” and ability to “unify” that the party’s more status quo–friendly voters say they are drawn to?
And perhaps that candidate is Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who finished third in Iowa and was mostly ignored in the inflamed post–Iowa news cycles and whose formerly top-tier campaign is maintaining a tenuous relevance that may vanish altogether if she doesn’t start finishing higher soon?
Mathis-Lilley goes on to argue that the reason that Warren isn’t seen as a middle-ground pragmatist has more to do with style than substance. Specifically, he calls out Clintonian “pragmatists” for offering very little substance but signalling pragmatism by using vocabulary to distance themselves from the left. However, he also explains how Warren demonstrates actual pragmatism while others “claim the mantle.”
No? If a Warren unity candidacy sounds ridiculous, it might be because Warren, despite not being a “democratic socialist,” doesn’t participate in the typical mainstream Democratic-politician practice of using the words practical, solutions, and unity as a means of signaling her distance from the left. Many Democratic voters still believe in Clintonian compromise politics, are afraid of getting McGoverned by nominating a radical, and worry earnestly that too much liberalism will be too expensive and difficult to implement. These feelings can be manipulated, and you can get pretty far as a so-called pragmatism candidate in this environment without proving you have any ideas at all, much less ideas that would be practical to pass and implement. Warren’s decision not to sabotage her party’s long-term interests by disparaging the idealistic vision that is exciting to many of its young voters is admirable, but it has obscured the fact that she, unlike others who have claimed the mantle, actually is a practical-minded center-left candidate with a plausible case that she will get useful things done.
He continues:
To wit, when Hillary Clinton asserted at a debate in February 2016 that she had a more practical plan to achieve universal health coverage than Sanders did, the Clinton campaign had not actually released a universal care plan at all. Biden likes to talk about making tangible progress toward universal coverage rather than making the expensive and risky switch to single payer, but undermines his case to be put in charge of achieving that progress when he demonstrates unfamiliarity with basic terms like deductible. Buttigieg’s health care plan as written features provider payment cuts, a market-upending public insurance option, and substantial auto-enrollment bills, all of which could be as disruptive as anything Sanders proposes. On the other hand, Buttigieg has packed his staff and donor lists with employees of major corporations and lobbying firms—and despite having made “real solutions” one of his catchphrases, he typically provides “few specifics” during campaign appearances, as the New York Times recently noted in a comparison of candidate stump speeches, about what those solutions would actually be. To vote for him with the expectation that he would create and pass a plan that actually benefits tens of millions of currently uninsured or underinsured Americans is to take a risk.
Warren’s pitches are more substantive than Clinton or Biden’s were . . .
her proposals are more reminiscent of FDR-LBJ Democrat ClassicTM legislation than Euro-style socialism.
Ultimately, her pragmatism and potential appeal to both ends of the party, and her early rise in the polls made her a target of both the left and the moderates.
In a way it was bad luck for Warren that her early 2019 surge coincided with a flat period for Sanders’ polling. It gave her party’s moderates and conservatives the impression that she was the leftmost viable candidate . . . She was attacked for supporting single payer, being too antagonistic to business, and being too angry to win over voters who just want to get Trump out so things can go back to normal . . .
Then, as Bernie rose on the pure socialist energy of an AOC endorsement and heart attack recovery, she dropped back to the pack. The rejuvenated Sanders campaign overtook her on the left, without Warren being able to shake the centrists’ perception that she is a “my way or the highway” ideologue—even though her hedge on private insurance is the only example of anyone in the Democratic field during the 2020 cycle actually acknowledging the importance of “listening to voters” and making a compromise to political circumstances.
I don’t agree that Bernie rose just because of the AOC endorsement, and am troubled by the reference to his heart attack recovery. I saw his campaign engage in a number of fresh and successful strategies (the Cardi B interviews were great) and he had some strong debate performances as well. However, the author’s point that she was attacked as the left’s most viable candidate when she surged is well taken.
Catch the rest of the article here: slate.com/...
The author goes on to critique Warren for not persuasively making the argument that she is a unifying candidate, and because her stance against Wall Street draws hostility from centrists. This criticism is curious, however, since Warren’s rhetoric about corporations and Wall Street has been consistent for years. Her consistency is a draw to her and her candidacy because it demonstrates her authenticity. However, the author rightly questions whether she can modify her pitch to communicate her potential as a unifying candidate to voters.
For the sake of the party, I hope she can.