One dimension to my life’s work over the past 50 years has been to envision how good scenarios might come to pass, and to do what I could see to do to help those scenarios become reality. (I feel compelled to admit that the overall direction of the world has lately not been much toward the realization of the better of the apparent possibilities.)
For me at the moment, as for a lot of people here I assume, one of the arenas in which I’m hoping for a “good scenario” is for the Democrats to nominate for President someone who will be effective in defeating Trump and then be effective in wielding the powers and bully pulpit of the Presidency to repair the serious damage that has been done to the nation by Trump and the Trump Party, and to move the nation in constructive directions.
While I am far from certain about this, I continue to believe that the best scenario for the Democratic race for the nomination is for Elizabeth Warren to emerge the winner. Some of my reasons for that judgment will become clear below, as I project how I think this race might unfold.
Perhaps I should say right out front: 1) Like most Democrats, my top priority in this race is that the nominee be able to defeat Donald Trump in November; and 2) Whoever gets the nomination will have my full and energetic support.
That being said, here’s how it looks to me now:
An article in the Washington Post says about the returns from Iowa, “It’s all about Sanders and Buttigieg.” I’m guessing that as the campaign rolls along, those two will continue -- for a while -- to be front-runners, with Elizabeth Warren as the other main viable alternative.
(I’m expecting that Klobuchar will not continue for long. I’d be surprised — but not astonished — if Bloomberg becomes a major factor. And as for Biden, I believe that his “electability” argument will be crumbling even if he does well in South Carolina— and that argument has been the main foundation of his front-running status.)
Even if Biden remains a major force, the following argument still should hold sway:
Most Democrats — when they declare how essential it is that Donald Trump be defeated — are beset by considerable anxiety about what it would mean if this corrupt and criminal President — with his dictatorial inclinations — gets re-elected to a second term. (I know I am.)
That anxiety will make Democrats risk adverse.
Which means that if we get part way through the process, and Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg are looking like the main choices, we anxious Democrats will begin to focus on what might go wrong. Democrats will focus, in other words, on the particular obvious vulnerabilities of each of those men. It will seem risky to bet against the ability of the Republicans to exploit those vulnerabilities so that a lot of average citizens — with their susceptibilities to propaganda, with their bigotries — who might have voted for the Democrat will instead vote for a continuation of the Trump presidency.
(Similarly with Biden. Biden’s vulnerabilities are of a different nature from either Sanders’ or Buttigieg’s. But they are real.)
Which leads me to believe that the more these men become the front-runners, the more the Democratic electorate will start asking itself: “Who is the candidate with the least vulnerable Achilles heels? Who would be hardest for the Republicans to smear, demonize, distort, and belittle?)
And I think the answer they’ll come up with is: Elizabeth Warren. Her main potential vulnerability is that she is a woman, and it is unknown how many Americans will be swayed against supporting a woman for President.
(I believe that Hillary’s problem with the electorate was less about her being a woman than about other things, especially how she’d been demonized by the right-wing propagandists for a quarter century.)
Warren’s positions on issues create some minor vulnerabilities, but I think those can be handled pretty completely with the political and rhetorical skills she has. (She’s positioned herself now with respect to “Medicare-for-All” to seal off the vulnerability that she had previously created.)
In other words, I believe that anxious Democrats, when they look at the question of who is more electable:
An old man who has used the word “Socialist” to describe himself A gay man who would be the youngest President ever by several years Another old man who already shows some signs of declining capacity Or a woman with considerable strengths and no conspicuous characteristics that might alienate Middle Americans, other than that she’d be the nation’s first female Presidentthey will decide that Elizabeth Warren is the safest bet at a time when safety is of paramount concern.
Warren’s rise — in this (from my perspective, best-case) scenario — would begin once the front-running men become the strong focus of the horse-race.