Tipsheet

Oof: Even With Bernie Sanders Out, Are Democrats Admitting That Joe Biden 2020 Is a 'Lost Cause'

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  April 08, 2020 5:05 PM

Dasvidaniya, Bernie Sanders! He’s gone, folks. The self-avowed leftist suspended his campaign after it became clear that he wasn’t going to win the nomination, which was also clear the day…after Super Tuesday. The delegate math didn’t work. And after he was wiped out in the contests north of the Mason-Dixon line—aka Super Tuesday II—it was truly over. Again, black Democrats derailed the Sanders train—and he never recovered. With virtually the entire nation on lockdown due to the Wuhan coronavirus epidemic 

Now, Joe Biden is bound to be the Democrats’ 2020 nominee, which has deflated liberal enthusiasm.  Not only that but Joe Biden, who is no great communicator, has to deal with the Never Biden wing of the progressive movement. Also, it appears Democratic governors think his 2020 candidacy is a lost cause. The Republican National Committee was quick to pick up on this, as Politico reported on how the current slate of Democratic governor could be shaping the…2024 race. Are they already thinking ahead? The piece mostly focused on how governors are managing the current Wuhan coronavirus outbreak (via Politico):

Andrew Cuomo’s poll ratings are soaring. Jay Inslee is drawing more attention than his failed presidential campaign ever did. Gretchen Whitmer is burnishing her credentials as a possible running mate for Joe Biden.

The daily split screen between President Donald Trump and the nation’s governors over the coronavirus pandemic is advancing the political fortunes of a handful of Democratic state leaders by contrasting their management of a crisis with the president’s disjointed response to it.

But the Democratic governors aren’t just having a moment. There are signs they may be reshaping the party’s pipeline of prospective presidential candidates for years to come.

In their responses to the virus’ spread, governors across the country are issuing stay-at-home orders, closing businesses and marshaling mammoth health care efforts in their states. People who do not follow politics are tuning into livestreams of their governors for the first time — and learning the names of governors of other states.

The novel coronavirus "is really right in the wheelhouse of governors. … This is one where they really are center stage, and it’s not a surprise that you’re seeing good reviews for governors because this is what they do every day,” said Jim Hodges, a former Democratic governor of South Carolina. “Things like this give them a chance to shine and for people to become household names. … I do think it is a moment in which a number have stepped forward in a way to burnish their credentials as national leaders.”

I mean, I think most with common sense would know that they needed to issue stay-at-home orders, close the schools, limit public gatherings, and work as hard as you can to get testing sites established and medical supplies flowing, but okay. Leaving the politics aside, New York and California have repeatedly earned high marks in how they’ve handled the crisis. New York has been especially hit, where nearly half of all the U.S. cases coming from the tri-state area. 

But why does this read as a rebuilding moment about an NFL team? I think there are more discussions among Democrats that this is the best guy to beat Trump, but there’s nothing beyond that. Biden is not exciting, he can’t remember how many grandkids he has, and he now needs Jill to be by his side to keep the gaffes at a minimum during these painful little videos his campaign doles out. He’s not a social media candidate. And his agenda won’t be his, it’ll be the far left’s goodie bag of horrors (via the Hill):

Eight progressive groups said in a joint letter released Wednesday that they feared Biden’s centrist policies would alienate younger voters, who trend more liberal, and hinder Democrats’ efforts to unseat President Trump in November. The groups noted that while Biden racked up delegates with a March winning spree, he consistently ceded voters under 45 years old to Sanders in the primaries.

[…]

…the letter from the progressive cohort indicated some of the groups’ followers have little appetite for a return to traditional politics that they say caused “endless war, skyrocketing inequality, crushing student loan debt, mass deportations, police murders of black Americans and mass incarceration, schools which have become killing fields” and more.

“Messaging around a ‘return to normalcy’ does not and has not earned the support and trust of voters from our generation. For so many young people, going back to the way things were ‘before Trump’ isn’t a motivating enough reason to cast a ballot in November,” they wrote. “Why would we want a return to normalcy? We need a vision for the future, not a return to the past.” 

The groups pressed Biden to adopt a litany of policies, including committing to transitioning to 100 percent clean energy by 2030 for electricity, buildings and transportation, reducing gun deaths by 50 percent in a decade, protecting immigrants without legal status from deportation, backing Medicare for All and supporting an annual tax on the “extreme wealth” of the richest 180,000 households in America. 

They also demanded the former vice president appoint prominent elected officials who backed either Sanders or Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as co-chairs for a possible transition committee.

Yeah, this is not going to happen. 

Recommended

The Republican Party Has Two New High Profile Members Katie Pavlich
Mulvaney Explains What's Really Going on With Trump's Panama Threat Leah Barkoukis

“100 percent clean energy within a decade…” is this a joke. It’s laughable. Oh, and it will almost guarantee a Trump win in 2020; the Rust Belt isn’t going for this, once again showing that young leftists still don’t get the Constitution, the Electoral College, or the math involved. America isn’t the northeast and California. It’s not. We live in a system where a candidate that has geographic diversity wins, not the rigid, regional, and coastal snobs who think their way is best because they got some bullcrap English studies degree for the cost of a rather large mortgage and then expect to be paid Bill Gates money to lecture the rest of us about how problematic things are through the paradigm of political correctness. That’s not how the world works. 

In 2012, Republicans faced the same problem. The final four of the GOP field was Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul. Romney was the best bet to beat Obama, but it wasn’t enough. Yet, unlike Biden, Romney could also deliver a speech without sounding like he had multiple brain farts.  

Now, Democrats face that dilemma. Biden may be the best candidate to beat Trump out of the 2020 field. That’s why he shot up like a rocket ship when Super Tuesday came around. Scores of Democrats like Bernie, but Biden was the best shot. Also, Bernie’s hesitancy to condemn left-wing authoritarian governments, like Cuba and China, was also a bad misstep. And no, you can’t say ‘what Cuba did regarding civil rights was bad, but hey, at least everyone can read now.’ That’s not a condemnation. It’s historical illiteracy for starters; everyone can read because they were all brainwashed. Biden benefitted from his name recognition and the fact that Democrats didn’t want this primary to carry into the eve of the convention. That’s about it. He’s old, slow, and doesn’t know where he is half the time. And there is no way he will be able to convince the most ardent left-wing die-hards of the party that he’s some Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez disciple. Second, he will have to adopt some of these loony ideas to try and get Democrats excited, but that means alienated voters in states he needs to win, like in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan. There is no way these folks are down for the Green New Deal. So, yeah, if I were a Democrat, I guess I would be looking to 2024 as well because given what we’ve seen from Biden thus far, it’s over.