And the Candidate Is?: Part IV

Ok, let’s take stock and attempt to keep track of who’s running for the Democratic nomination for president or yet might run now that it’s late January 2019 – a situation that changes almost daily and will for a while more.

Below find a list of those mentioned here in Part I of this continuing series — declared already or mentioned as being interested in running  back in October 2018 or at least being mentioned by others as potential candidates. It is modified here to remove three who have announced they will not run and to add a few who lately mentioned themselves.

But first, what are highlights of what’s happened since October as far as finding the next Democratic nominee for president?

Well the field of announced or virtually announced candidates is up to seven, notably including Senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand. The list includes the previously announced Rep. John Delaney of Maryland, and high-tech investor Andrew Yang (no one has heard of him or from him actually since he said he would run more than a year ago, but he did announce and he has not withdrawn so…).

Also announced is former HUD Secretary Julian Castro of Texas, who is perhaps more likely to make it onto the Democratic national ticket in the second spot. And there is Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. Gabbard is the first American Samoan and  first Hindu American to seek the presidency. Neither distinction is or should be discredited merely for the fact of being attached to a person who may be the most toxic of all potential Democratic candidates.

(Bulletin: Yes, Tulsi Gabbard is running for president. She said so during the second week of 2019, promising a formal announcement within the month of January. If her name is unfamiliar, Hawaii’s congresswoman made a name for herself in 2016 as a leading backer of Bernie Sanders. Once you learn about her there is reason for concern. She is a political viper, on reflection the most dangerous Democrat among the many who will run. Her career is a confused concoction of self-interest, duplicity, right-wing foreign policy kookdom, flirtation with the likes of Steve Bannon and Syria’s Bashir Assad and an ideological flexibility and agility that has enabled her to go from being a vicious homophobe to a now-defender of gay marriage — the former no longer popular view being one she took from her father, a radical far-right voice. Whoever else you might want to be president, rest assured you don’t want Tulsi Gabbard because not only can you not know who she really is, chances are she does not even know who she is except that she is relentlessly and ruthlessly ambitious in the steaming stew of contradictory calumny that constitutes her public career.)

Well then so much for Rep. Gabbard, now back to the rest.

What else seems then to be happening? Joe Biden is still making up his mind but has declared himself the only one (emphasis added) who can defeat Donald Trump. By that logic it would seem likely the former vice president will soon declare his candidacy and the betting is more that he will than he won’t.

Bernie Sanders has run into very strong #MeToo headwinds having to do with alleged misconduct in his 2016 campaign. Sanders does not handle criticism well and seems totally flummoxed and resentful to be on the receiving end, which we have learned lately is not estimable in a president. Then too observers are saying his gas-bag is deflated now that Warren has blown into official candidacy and, obviously, if he could not run a campaign can he run a nation? Lurking too are questions about the dubious ethics of his wife in business and public life. As to Warren, well there is the matter of he DNA misadventure, which says more about political ham handedness than it does about the subject at hand.

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, has run into very, very serious blowback from Democrats unhappy with her aggressive role in driving Al Franken out of the Senate when she confused slapstick comedy with #MeTooism. A January article in the New York Times about her produced over 1,400 posted comments. It seemed as if each declared more emphatically than the last that those posting them would never vote for her because of her Frankenstein Franken moment. It has been noted as well that Gillibrand has been and remains a political changeling, her feathers moulting throughout her  career to suit the fashion of her political domain.

California Sen. Kamala Harris announced on Martin Luther King Day, a not subtle reminder that she is African-American. Many think she will be one of, if not the strongest of candidates emerging from the Senate  – though she has less experience there than any of the senators who have announced or are yet likely to announce for president, having been in the Senate only since 2017. The Democratic Party does not need the California senator as its presidential candidate to win her bluest of blue home state, any Democratic candidate will do that; but she will absolutely need to score a win in her state’s March 3, 2020 Super Tuesday primary (however the media defines winning for her).

Then there is Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke named in remembrance of Robert Francis Kennedy. He does a great shirt-sleeved reprise of RFK on the hustings. How do we know he is as likely as not to run? Well he instagrammed his visit to a periodontist for a teeth cleaning and did one of his iconoclastic and by now iconic tours, this one of the southern border while everyone was guessing about his plans. All of that just in January. Clearly there is charm in Beto’s potential as a candidate but this time, should he run, he might just feel the bite of scrutiny that could reveal he is woefully unprepared for the presidency. He talks a good game but has never accomplished anything much in his short two term tenure in the House. He has a very, very wealthy father-in-law, so he can easily indulge his ambition while charming everyone with political insouciance. Lately it is noted O’Rourke is vague on issues and vaguer on solutions.

Lest we forget, there is New Jersey’s Sen. Corey Booker, as of MLK Day not announced. He was seen during January in New York City  in the company of an actress, perhaps to suggest he is dating her. Is he? Let’s not add to the snark. Because he is a 50-year-old bachelor, the question that follows Booker in political circles is, is he gay? Chances are you don’t care and you shouldn’t. There is wide consensus that if a candidate is gay so what, who cares? Certainly we can have a gay presidential candidate, a gay president in this day and age. But if a politician avoids revealing himself that becomes a matter of candor. Fair or not, the question is there.

Also among recent occurrences concerning the contest are some very silly surveys. All polls of the developing Democratic contest are beyond silly right now — they’re stupid — except for one thing – the media loves them. Polls, even stupid polls, are measurements and the media loves to measure candidacies even if all their candidacies now can be likened to tadpoles swimming in the muck of the same murky pond.

A December 2018 survey showed Biden first at 31%, followed by Sanders at 19%, O’Rourke 11% and Warren at 8% with four more scoring in a range of 3% to 5%, including Michael Bloomberg and Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota’s senior senator, with everyone else bringing up the rear between 1% and no percent.

It meant nothing  in December and nothing since except that Biden and Sanders perforce have the highest name recognition,  there is residual goodwill for Biden, a loyal base behind Sanders but now shared with Warren, and that O’Rourke gained a national populist identity with his lauded Texas Senate candidacy last year.

The second survey is just that a survey not a poll of followers of the very liberal DailyKos polemical site. It showed Warren with a boost following her announcement. She came in at 22% followed by O’Rourke, Biden and Sanders. It is meaningless — not a poll, but a survey of self-selected respondents with no political scientific method or direction.

It will be months before the field is set and such surveys can even begin to sort out a real top tier of candidates in the developing contest. But every time a poll or survey is issued you can count on the media, especially the talking heads on MSNBC and CNN, to jump all over it to start proclaiming a clear direction. That will be bullshit for a good long while into at least late 2019 but they will do it anyway because it will be all they have and it’s what they do.

All that being said, who’s on the list and how likely are they to enter the fray? Let’s go back to the October list, removing the names of three who said they are not running. They are former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, lawyer Michael Avenati and billionaire impeachment king Tom Steyer.

Similarly, there are two names to add, who said post-election they want to run. They are Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Richard Ojeda a West Virginia veteran, man-of-the- people who garnered a fair amount of national attention for a tell-it-like-it-is congressional campaign. He came closer than anyone expected, within 5%. If elected to the White House Ojeda could be the first president with tattoos.

Notably if all the senators on the list run, there will be nine of them from among the 47 who belong to the Senate Democratic Caucus.

As you read through the list if there is a double asterisk next to the name that  signals that, as of this writing, the person is officially in the race. A single asterisk  means the person is  still prominently mentioned because they are doing the things that strongly suggest they will be running: Things like talking about running,  hiring new political staff, visiting Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, going on late night TV,  or publishing new likely ghost-written books about themselves.

Again, a double asterisk indicates the individual is an announced candidate, a single asterisk mens the person is yet likely to become one, while those without an asterisk are perhaps less likely to run when all is said and done but have not ruled themselves out.

Those with an * or a ** still total 24 and no one is to say just yet how many will be in the final announced field except it still looks like it will be a big number. The number after each name is the age the person will be on Jan. 20, 2020, the next presidential inauguration day. The list is organized from the oldest to youngest in descending order.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, 79*

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, 79*

Former Vice President Joe Biden, 78*

Former Secretary of State John Kerry, 76

Former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, 73

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren,71**

Former Attorney General Eric Holder, 70

Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee, 70*

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, 69*

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, 68*

Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz, 67*

Celebrity Everything Oprah Winfrey, 67

Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, 64*

Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, 64*

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, 63*

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, 62

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, 60*

Former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, 60*

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, 59

Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey*

Maryland Rep. John Delaney, 57**

California Sen. Kamala Harris, 56**

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, 54**

Former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, 54*

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, 51*

Face Book COO Sheryl Sandberg, 51

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, 50

Defeated West Virginia Congressional Candidate Richard Ojeda, 50*

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, 47

Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan (Ohio), 47*

Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Julian Castro, 46 of Texas**

California Hi-Tech Billionaire Andrew Yang, 46**

Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton,  42*

Former Missouri Attorney General Jason Kander, 39

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, 39**

South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg, 39*