US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1589

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On the DNC Primary Rules
Tim Alberta: The Democratic National Committee is fighting a war that many felt was lost by the RNC back in 2016, about how to manage a primary field with a historic number of candidates. You four were running campaigns in a field of 17; the Democrats have even more this time around. Are these new DNC rules governing the debates and superdelegates going to be effective? Or do you expect unintended consequences?

Danny Diaz: I do think the qualifications are the big difference between ’16 and ’20, and I think ultimately it’s pretty clear that after the two summer debates, once they get to the fall, they’re going to narrow the [number] of the folks on the stage—and narrow it substantially. So, based on the qualifications that they’ve delineated, what’s going to be interesting here in Miami is going to be how aggressively people seize their moment.

Tim Alberta: The DNC chairman, Tom Perez, is being much more aggressive than RNC Chairman Reince Priebus was four years ago in trying to winnow this field in a hurry. Basically, post-Labor Day, because of the debate requirements, there might only be five, six, seven candidates left who qualify for the stage.

Terry Sullivan: Being so aggressive at limiting [the number of candidates] is only going to end up hurting the more establishment candidates. Joe Biden benefits from a 20-person field. An eight-person field hurts Joe Biden, and in the same way that the law of unintended consequences brought about Donald Trump on the Republican side.

Beth Hansen: When you have arbitrary criteria that you’re [using], it might seem like a good idea now, but then after June and after July you’re stuck with the five or six candidates that you have, and you might want to rethink that. But by then, it’s too late. Part of running any campaign is this: It’s an arduous ordeal. It’s town halls and it’s donor meetings, and it tests those people who are going to be good at this. And I’m just not sure if cutting the field by that much that early on is actually going to be the best thing for them.

Jeff Roe: It’s remarkable. I haven’t heard a lot of people talk about how intrusive the consequences of these [DNC] decisions on what their measurements are needed to get into the debates. When you’re telling somebody how much prospecting email they have to [send], when your entire campaign is based on money management, that’s a really intrusive trigger. It also ratchets up what I think they’re trying to avoid, which is their lurch left. You’ve got candidates who otherwise would be talking about, ‘Well, I’m a capitalist, but I understand that we need to protect the underprivileged,’ and now, they’ll just have to go full-blown [left], or they will be punished immediately on email and Facebook and the other ways that they traditionally raise money. And so, if they’re trying to incentivize a mainstream nominee, which it seems to me that they’re trying to do, I think they’re going about it the wrong way.

Tim Alberta: To Beth’s point about this being a marathon and not a sprint, you think back on the Republican side, the winner of the Iowa caucuses in ’08 and ’12—Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, respectively—these guys were in single digits almost all the way until the final six to eight weeks, when they started to take off. You’re not going to be able to see anybody fly way below the radar like that for the next eight months and then pop in December, because they’re not going to be able to stay on the debate stage.

Jeff Roe: I think what [the DNC] has done with the proportional delegates is interesting. And with the removal on the first ballot of superdelegates, they’ve incentivized effectively a 45-day campaign. But you can’t—with these requirements, a candidate can’t lay and build a framework to exercise a campaign to then have momentum at the right time. They’ll be washed out because of the process, because of what the requirements are from funding. If you have 120,000 donors and you’ve been cranking on it for six months and you’re 10,000 unique donors away from making the next debate stage, as we know, that takes 80 or 90 grand that you might not have. So now, you’re sacrificing [hiring] staff for online fundraising.

Terry Sullivan: It’s not just that they’re making these campaigns contort themselves financially; it’s that they’re making them contort themselves on issues. It means the more of a bomb thrower you can be, the more likely you are to get hits online and the more dollars you’re going to raise.

Tim Alberta: You need those viral moments.

Terry Sullivan: You need those viral moments, so you’re going to become more and more extreme in what you’re saying in order to try to capture that.

Beth Hansen: It’s almost counterintuitive: You’re chasing the very things that are going to make it difficult for you to be a good general election candidate, because you’re incentivized to chase those things to be able to continue to participate in the primary.

Jeff Roe: So, the biggest differences are, because of the criteria being so stringent, it’s going to diminish substantially the number of people they can get on the stage. That’s No. 1. And I think No. 2 is the law of unintended consequences, i.e. superdelegates. The role that they play in the convention now, if the threshold, whatever it is—just under 1,900—is not met, then they basically come in and can anoint the nominee of the party.

Tim Alberta: Yes. For all the talk of superdelegates being sidelined on the first ballot, they could play a more decisive role than ever. They can swing the entire second ballot.

Jeff Roe: Yeah. On live TV.


On Defeating Donald Trump

Tim Alberta: I’m sure that you’ve all wondered what could have been done differently to defeat Donald Trump. And I’m wondering, is there a weakness of his that was not exploited four years ago that has become more apparent since? One that you believe the right Democrat with the right message and the right tactical approach could exploit in this general election campaign?

Jeff Roe: I’ll take a shot at this. You look at the state polling. National polling is great, but look at the state polling, which is kind of the better barometer here—the Rust Belt. It’s kind of like Johnny Obvious, but Pennsylvania, Michigan and, I think, kind of that blue-collar voter, to Terry’s point, that didn’t show up for Hillary. You can malign these people all you want. But they’re Obama-Trump voters, and that’s what’s in play there. And the question is—look, there’s a valid argument that a Bernie Sanders inspires them to some degree. There’s a valid argument that a Joe Biden, because of what he represents, can appeal to those folks. There are a lot of people in the Democratic Party right now that are asking, like, “Where do I fit? How do I fit into this scheme at the moment?” And I think the Trump team understands that; they are laser-focused on that. To me, that’s the play.

Terry Sullivan: I completely agree. And it’s actually two interesting groups. It’s the blue-collar Rust Belt folks, but it’s also the suburbanite Rust Belt folks who think, “You know what, I couldn’t ever vote for Hillary Clinton. I don’t want to vote for Donald Trump. I did just because it’s anti-Hillary, but you know what? If it’s maybe a Mayor Pete or a Joe Biden or someone that you can just hold your nose as a suburban probably soft Republican and vote for.” Those are the two things that he’s really got to worry about.

Tim Alberta: Because they all just did last November.

Jeff Roe: You had presidential-level turnout across the board, and Michigan elected a Democrat governor and Wisconsin elected a Democrat governor.

Terry Sullivan: And I expect you’re going to have record turnout this time. I think it’s going to be higher than [2016]—it’s trended up.

Beth Hansen: Your question was whether or not there was a weakness that had not been exposed in Trump. And I would answer that question that there is not, because I don’t think we have learned anything new about him—he is exactly the person that he said he was going to be. There’s nothing new. The question is whether or not in 2020 the voters want that.

Terry Sullivan: With those Rust Belt voters, it’s not going to be how it’s played out on TV. It’s their pocketbook. And that’s why it’s interesting on this trade stuff. We can talk about all of these other candidates, but the greatest impact on Trump’s reelection has nothing to do with who the Democrat nominee is and everything to do what the economy is. Because they’re willing to put up with his crazy Twitter shit and all the stupidity as long as the economy is good. The second their job is on the line or the prices are higher for them, it all goes out the window.

Tim Alberta: So, Jeff, I want your answer on the kryptonite to Trump, but before I do, just quickly on the Rust Belt because these are my people, and I feel the need to speak up for them. It’s interesting because all of mythologizing of Trump in the Rust Belt and connecting with these forgotten voters, Donald Trump wins the presidency off of three states, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania—

Jeff Roe: 100,000 votes combined—

Tim Alberta: 77,000. It was 77,744 votes combined in those three states. And Hillary underperforms Obama 2012 in those states by 600,000 votes. So, it’s not just the question of the Obama-Trump voters; it’s the question of the Obama voters who stayed home, right? And the folks who felt so disillusioned by the general election campaign in 2016 that they just didn’t come out and cast a ballot and a lot of Democratic voters or lean-Democratic voters who just could not bring themselves to go out and vote for Hillary Clinton as much as they may have disliked Donald Trump. I wonder if Democrats are at risk of not nominating someone who can bring those people out.

Jeff Roe: They’re positioned to have an identity politics nominee. They also are going got take the bait. Terry, I respectfully disagree this time. If I have one more of these [points to cocktail] I’ll disrespectfully disagree.

Tim Alberta: Get this man another drink.


Jeff Roe: Tariffs are like a red herring. That’s a negotiating tool. If you want to take a position of who is going to hold China and Mexico hostage over tariffs to get a better deal—whether it’s a better deal, whether the deal was already done, it doesn’t matter. That’s for New York Times A18 readers. That is winning politics in those states.

Danny Diaz: It’s got to be weighed against the Sunbelt right now. And I’m thinking like Georgia, particularly if [Stacey] Abrams gets in the Senate race. I’m thinking Arizona.

Tim Alberta: Let’s throw Texas in there.

Jeff Roe: If I was going to run a [Democratic] campaign and I was thinking tactically, I would be up early, very early, attack early, because you can get him from talking about the issues he cares about. Give him Florida. You can fight like a dog the whole time, but you’re not going to win. Do not fight for Florida. I know you’re supposed to, but just let it go.

Tim Alberta: You could even give him North Carolina.

Jeff Roe: You could even give him North Carolina. I probably wouldn’t.

Terry Sullivan: Florida is crazy like Trump; North Carolina is different.

Tim Alberta: But you come back and win the Rust Belt, and you don’t need Florida or North Carolina. It doesn’t matter.

Terry Sullivan: If you’re going to expand the map, go do it out West. Not Texas, but real out West. I think there’s some ways to do it.

Jeff Roe: Do things that [any other] Republican would get assaulted for doing. He could do a deal for Dreamers and a wall, and every Republican would take it.

Tim Alberta: Right, which a President Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio would never be able to get away with.

Jeff Roe: And because of his latitude that he has with Republicans, he could actually do this tariff fight and I don’t think voters care. They do not care about trade. They care that he’s fighting for them.

Terry Sullivan: Absolutely.

Jeff Roe: And he’s fighting the Mexicans, and he’s fighting the Chinese.

Tim Alberta: Beth, as a fellow Midwesterner, why don’t you have the last word here. Can Donald Trump be defeated in those Rust Belt states by the right Democratic candidate, even if, as Jeff was saying, many of those voters feel as though he’s fighting for them?

Beth Hansen: The economy is going to be important, to Terry’s point. The economy is going to be important, but what’s also important is the number of people who were voting for Donald Trump because they were voting against Hillary Clinton. And I think that that was particularly pervasive—I’m a Michigan native, I live now in Ohio, and I think that was particularly pervasive there. So, I really think it’s up to Democrats to nominate somebody who can actually be competitive in those states.

Jeff Roe: And who besides Biden?

Beth Hansen: Well, I think it’s Biden.

Jeff Roe: That’s it.

Beth Hansen: I wouldn’t say that’s it, but he’s the obvious one.

Terry Sullivan: If he’s the nominee, he would be the front-runner.

Jeff Roe: Who could they nominate that would be a coin-toss favorite the day after the Democratic convention—besides Biden?

Danny Diaz: I think Harris is a sleeper in that category.

Terry Sullivan: I think Mayor Pete only because he seems authentic. Who knows—

Beth Hansen: I just don’t think he’s—

Terry Sullivan: He has the ability to blow up, but he seems authentic.

Danny Diaz: Let’s remember, a great July does not equal a great October.