In the old days there was, and probably still is even in this age of “breaking news”, a hierarchy of news alerts from the Associated Press, when the AP and its competitor news services (called wire services back in the day) were the breakers of breaking news.
The levels of urgency in the alerts were associated with the number of times bells on the wire teletypes would ring to signal them.
The first level was slugged (newspaper term) Urgent. An Urgent signaled this is important you want to take notice of it, it’s an important story, not earth-shattering, but important.
Next higher in the hierarchy is “Bulletin”, which meant/means this is very, very important news — this is going to be a very important story.
The highest in the hierarchy of breaking news is a Flash, like Flash: Germany Surrenders or the famous one I saw in July 1969, “FLASH: MEN LAND ON MOON” (yes, I ripped it from the wire, took it home for posterity but now can’t find it).
What’s all that got to do with the Democratic nomination for president in 2020? Well in the brief time since this blog posted Part IV in our ongoing saga of the campaign, we have had a Bulletin.
First the Bulletin: Mayor Pete Buttigieg (pronounced like Budha-gidge) has declared his candidacy. If you read Part I and Part II back in October this may not surprise you, he is discussed there. If you haven’t you are probably asking, who is this guy Buttigieg?
Well, again, he is the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Ind. who, by entering the race, becomes the youngest candidate on record to run for the White House and youngest in this race — he is eight months younger than previously announce Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. The mayor just celebrated his 37th birthday Jan. 19, no doubt with his husband as he also becomes the first gay man and first married gay man to seek the presidency. Whatever happens, a Buttigieg-Gabbard ticket or a Gabbard-Buttigieg ticket is the ticket most probably not in the cards or the stars.
Now, the Urgent to follow our Bulletin with three more developments.
Rep. James Clyburn, third ranking Democrat in the House, most powerful Afrian American in the House and most powerful Democrat in very red South Carolina, let it be known he would not endorse a candidate in the South Carolina Democratic primary. That primary is over a year from now in February 2020 so he could change his mind, but not likely he would.
Before South Carolina come votes in Iowa and New Hampshire, both 95 percent white, and Nevada, where the main minority community is Latino, not black. South Carolina, with a huge African-American percentage of voters in its Democratic primary, is seen as the first test and harbinger of who African Americas will like for the nomination. That’s why candidates and prospective ones were tripping over themselves and one another to be in the state on MLK weekend.
The African-American vote is something particularly unique these days to the Democratic Party, which gets 91 percent to 93 percent of it everywhere in every election for every office. In a presidential election its support constitutes a huge chunk of the entire Democratic candidate’s vote.
There is one announced black candidate as of this writing, Sen. Kamala Harris. But Clyburn, the most powerful black member of the House, is not endorsing. And there will be at least one more African American candidate, Sen. Corey Booker.
This is a major development because it is an early indicator as regards the more than 700 super delegates, who cannot vote at the 2020 Democratic National Convention until the second ballot under new convention rules.
In his decision to wait and watch, Clyburn is probably going to be representative of very much most super delegates. It means like you and I, like everyone else, neither he nor any super delegate can even begin to pick a field of finalists much less calculate the final two candidates or a winner in a growing field. If you are one of them, you cannot get caught making an endorsement mistake now as it will take a lot of primary and caucus voting to begin to sort out a final field.
All of that suggests super delegates are not going to come down from the mountain for a long time and might — depending on what happens the next 16 months — just might wait until or just before the convention convenes in July 2020 to start throwing their considerable weight to one candidate or another.
Then what’s the second news note in this Urgent add to the Buttigieg bulletin? It’s that the Los Angeles teachers union agreed to terms.
What’s that got to do with the Democratic presidential contest? Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garricetti has been mentioned as a possible candidate. While he has no legal authority in running his city’s schools he got a very good press for being instrumental in helping the Los Angeles Board of Education and the teachers reach agreement even while publicly supporting the teachers and deftly navigating the matter of charter schools — a key issue with Democrats everywhere, who believe charters are starving the rest of public schools.
So Garricetti has a higher profile now, prominence on a key issue in public education/teachers/charters and a boost into the race if he decides to go,which becomes more likely in the glow of settlement publicity . A major glitch for him of course is Harris. She’s from San Francisco, he’s from Los Angeles, both are from California. Both being in the race would hurt each, which in turn would help everyone in the contest not from California when they get to its all-important primary March 3, 2020.
Lastly there comes a “this just in” New York Times report that makes you recall what the kid said to Shoeless Joe Jackson, “Say it ain’t so Joe.”
The facts related here owe to the Times report. The viewpoint that it reminds everyone Joe Biden is still more than capable of malaprop and gaffes, whether of speech or judgement – that viewpoint is mine with the likelihood it will be the take by the nation’s pundits. You can take the story to mean that or you could find in it a man who stands by his friends.
The Times reported that last October. Biden went to Benton Harbor in southwestern Michigan to give a speech for which he was paid $200,000 (nice work if you can get it and you can get it if you are the former Veep).
The report said the contract itself actually identified the group, the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan as a Republican leaning audience. The club is a creature of the Upton family and its money. The family founded and built the Whirlpool corporation.
In the audience was Republican Rep. Fred Upton, whose grandfather founded Whirlpool. Rep. Upton was then running for reelection in a contested race against Democrat Matt Longjohn. Biden lauded Upton, an outspoken opponent of Obamacare, for his work to help pass cancer research funding legislation, a Biden project after the death of Beau Biden. He called Upton “one of the finest guys I’ve ever worked with.”
This upset the Michigan Democratic Party and candidate Longjohn. The Upton campaign and the Michigan Republican Party put Biden’s praise of the congressman front and center. The Democrat lost by four points, some 13,000 votes.
In this are two very big problems for Biden. First he is likely to be called on again and again to respond to questions about why he did it, why he took a fee from a conservative business organization and gave a Republican a strong personal endorsement in the middle of the campaign so close to the election, when his party was surging and had a strong candidate facing Upton.
Second is the bigger question that has followed Biden for 30 years, his judgement. Was it lack of judgment or bad judgement to get into that avoidable situation? Could it have been handled otherwise?
Could he have noted his disagreements with Upton — Obamacare – and his agreement on something that mattered greatly to him, cancer research funding leaving out the praise while at least noting that he comes from another political party offering a fine young candidate named…? Could he have negotiated giving the speech after the election or, in fact, was its timing the only timing he could negotiate for the fee because there was an election?
Yes hindsight is perfect vision, but in hindsight the situation could have been managed with more discretion and judgement, that bad old word that follows Biden everywhere he goes.
Were this an incident involving a lesser name it might not have been Page 1 in the Times. But Joe Biden is Mr. Democrat, the man all Democrats profess to love or like, the man deemed the front-runner in this race by dint of his service, his association with President Obama and his universal name recognition.
So in raising the specter of old Biden problems like plagiarism, not to mention the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas contretemps over which he president as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the resulting confirmation of Thomas to the Supreme Court, Biden has put himself in the soup once again and changed the quality of his front-running.
And that’s the most of the latest in the continuing sage of the campaign for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president.
Til next time then.
Peeling the Onion 