We have five women running for President on the Democratic side, along with two African Americans, a gay Mayor, a few Congressmen, and some Governors, a vast mine of talent.
But at the end, it could be that two older men, who have an appeal to working class whites, and the Midwest portion of the nation, might very well be the best combination to win the Presidency and Vice Presidency for the Democrats in 2020.
This author and blogger is not saying others cannot, potentially, win the White House, but there is an argument that picking mainstream progressives, rather than those farther left, are more likely to win over independents, moderates, and some Republicans to the Democratic campaign.
So former Vice President Joe Biden of Delaware and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio might just be the winning ticket.
Both have a record of winning white working class voters, and both have had exceptional political careers, with Joe Biden having 44 years in government, and Brown having 42 years in both state and national office.
Both Biden, who would be 78, and Brown, who would be 68 at the time of the next Presidential inauguration, have winning personalities, and wives who would add their own accomplishments to those of their husbands, as indicated a few days ago in my article on Dr. Jill Biden and Connie Schultz.
“[Can] a Team of Joe Biden and Sherrod Brown Bring a Democratic Presidential Victory in 2020?â€
Yes.
That is because the word “can†was used.
[“Willâ€] a ticket of Joe Biden (D–Delaware) and Sherrod Brown (D–Ohio) bring a Democratic presidential [pickup] victory in 2020?
No.
Joe Biden is…over. He has been for some time. Biden expressing contempt (“I have no empathyâ€) for millennials was another way of saying he is not a serious candidate. (Video, below.) 18–29 voters are the first voting-age group carried by Democrats. Since 1992, only once has the party not won the U.S. Popular Vote. That was in 2004 with John Kerry. He lost, to re-elected Republican incumbent George W. Bush, by –2.46 percentage points. (It was Bush 50.73% to Kerry 48.27%.) Bush won the three other age groups—30–44; 45–64; and 65+—and Kerry carried 18–29 voters by +9. So, he won them 11 points above his national support. Kerry would have lost even worse—had a worse electoral-map outcome—had he not won this age group (and won them by +9). And for Biden, the 47th U.S. vice president, to go around and tell millennials some nonsense about them not having a difficult economic life, because Biden remembers the 1960s, says all one needs to know about his worthiness of being considered for the top office. The 18–29 voters are the voting-age base for the Democrats. In 2012, Barack Obama won re-election by a margin of +3.86 (it was Obama 51.01% to Mitt Romney 47.15%) and won 18–29 voters nationally by +23. In fact, look to Wisconsin. Obama saw the same exact numbers there (and even the percentages) match his national performance. Four years later, while Hillary Clinton underperformed 18–29 voters with a national margin of +19, she won 18–29 voters in Wisconsin by winning them only by +3. (In fact, CNN had a breakdown of the 18–29 voters by also presenting a polling from them of 18–24 and 25–29. Hillary actually lost Wisconsin’s 18–24 voters by –2.) That was a key reason why she lost the state, in a Republican pickup, to Donald Trump.
Sherrod Brown is opposed to Medicare for All. (Link: http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/428060-brown-medicare-for-all-not-practical.) I mentioned, in a previous topic also mentioning Brown (https://www.theprogressiveprofessor.com/?p=33635), the Democrats will not win back the presidency without a nominee who is convincingly, sincerely on board for Medicare for All. Brown has reached a point in which he came up with health insurance idea that deliberately goes around Medicare for All, and this is in spite of a national 70-percent approval—including 52 percent Republicans and 85 percent Democrats—of the citizens on board for Medicare for All. Brown, for all the praise he has received as a progressive, is not all that impressively progressive. And to unseat an incumbent U.S. president, you cannot achieve it if you aren’t going to campaign on what people need and want—and especially when they recognize it is what they need and want. In addition: Brown, who had been highly praised since for over 10 years, won his third-term U.S. Senate election last November with unimpressive results. He won it by the same-level margin he experienced in 2012, when re-elected 44th U.S. president Barack Obama carried Ohio by +2.98 and Brown won with a margin of +6.00. (A same-party coattails outcome within five points in margins spread is typical. It happened as well in 2012 Texas with Romney and Ted Cruz.) In 2018, with the Democrats having flipped the U.S. House—and getting an approximate 9.5-point margin shift (from 2016)—Ohio delivered no Democratic U.S. House pickups and Brown’s re-election margin was +6.84. The polls had it that Brown would win by closer to +16. This was a significant drop-off from the +12.34 margin by which Brown won, while unseating Mike DeWine, in the midterm elections of 2006 (when Democrats flipped all three of the U.S. House, U.S. Senate, and a majority of U.S. Governors). So, I conclude that Brown, and part of this is his own doing, isn’t anywhere near as electable as people thought just a few short years ago. (Neither is Biden.)
The ship has sailed when it comes to Joe Biden and Sherrod Brown. It was never really there for Biden. It took Obama asking Biden to be his v.p. for him to get close to the presidency. In the case of Brown, unless the next Democratic presidential pickup winner asks him to be his or her v.p., the U.S. Senate will be his national office limit.
Since my previous comment includes a video on Joe Biden, here is one regarding Sherrod Brown:
Bernie has jumped in. I think he is going to have a harder time this time because he is facing a dozen or so candidates with a wide and often overlapping appeal.
Being a pragmatist, I am looking more closely at, say, Amy Klobuchar, or Sherrod Brown, or, Joe Biden. I feel that several of the others are running the risk of over promising things.
Pragmatic Progressive, I am in total agreement with what you have said, and your reasoning!
If Beto jumps in, I fully expect him to bury Bernie in the 18-29 demo.
Polling we see right now has to do with name recognition. That could change after the debates, as we get to know candidates better, etc.
Southern Liberal writes,
“If Beto jumps in, I fully expect him to bury Bernie in the 18-29 demo.â€
Bernie Sanders won at least 70 percent of their vote nationwide in 2016. But, really, the way to look at it is that came down to a two-person contest and he carried 17–29 voters by around +42. (That is, 28 percent to Hillary Clinton.) This is why Hillary Clinton, during the general-election period, begged 18–29 voters for their votes.
So, do you think, with Medicare for All a key issue, 2018 Texas U.S. Senate nominee Beto O’Rourke, who has not yet declared a 2020 presidential candidacy, and who lost to Ted Cruz, would “bury Bernie in the 18–29 [voters’] demo†with this position as expressed on his website?
https://betofortexas.com/issue/healthcare/
HEALTHCARE
Healthcare Texans Can Trust
Healthcare is a moral question that transcends politics – it is a basic human right, not a privilege. 4.3 million Texans – including over 600,000 children – can’t see a doctor, or when they do, they’re so sick they have no choice but to go to the Emergency Room where the cost will be many times more expensive and the outcome will be worse.
When a mother forgoes a routine mammogram because she is uninsured, or a father ignores chronic pain because he didn’t qualify for a subsidy to buy insurance, everyone’s healthcare costs are likely to be greater in the long-term. We want our parents and our children to be healthy and live to their full potential. This is much more likely when they have access to the healthcare they need.
Steps that we should take together to transform healthcare include:
Improving the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by stabilizing our insurance markets. Guaranteeing continued payments for ACA subsidies that reduce enrollees’ cost-sharing and reimbursing insurers for high-cost individuals.
Incentivizing insurers to participate in the exchanges, especially in underserved counties.
Expanding Medicaid to cover more Texans and protecting the Medicaid guarantee for vulnerable children, the disabled, and the elderly.
Lowering premiums and prescription drug costs by using the government’s purchasing power to make healthcare more affordable for everyone.
Creating a public option on the exchanges so that Americans are guaranteed affordable coverage.
Achieving universal healthcare coverage— whether it be through a single payer system, a dual system, or otherwise – so that we can ensure everyone is able to see a provider when it will do the most good and will deliver healthcare in the most affordable, effective way possible.
______________________________________________________
How about this expressed position from Beto O’Rourke:
https://betofortexas.com/issue/higher-education-affordability/
HIGHER EDUCATION
• Increase funding for Pell Grant scholarships and the Federal Perkins Loan program to ensure education is affordable for all Texans.
• Broaden educational opportunities for Texans beyond a traditional 4 year college by improving access to community colleges, trade schools, and nanodegrees.
• Allow Texans who commit to working in in-demand fields and in underserved communities the chance to graduate debt free.
• Control the pace of inflation within institutions of higher learning by using the federal government’s leverage through its grants, loans and research spending to demand affordability from universities.
2020 Democratic presidential candidate and Minnesota U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar was recently in a town hall appearance on CNN.
She is not on board for Medicare for All. She is also not on board for free public college tuition.
The following video covers it. But, needless to say, any Democratic presidential candidate who is saying no to even one of these two, much less both, is to be written off.
Ronald had a topic on both Sherrod Brown and Amy Klobuchar. I provided that link in my first comment but I will do so again: “Two Potential Democratic Presidential Contenders for 2020 from the Midwest: Sherrod Brown and Amy Klobuchar†(November 18, 2018 https://www.theprogressiveprofessor.com/?p=33635).
Here is a video covering that town hall with Sen. Klobuchar:
D, I beg to disagree on Amy Klobuchar.
Of course, I would like Medicare for All and free Public College and University Tuition, but I also understand Klobuchar’s belief that she cannot promise everything to everybody in one term in the Presidency.
To accomplish these goals, it would require a massive majority in the US Senate to overcome a filibuster, and such vast majorities have only occurred in the New Deal and Great Society years of FDR and LBJ.
So measured improvement TOWARD both goals, such as Medicare for 50 and over, then Medicare for 40 and over, etc, and two years of public college and university tuition to start off with in the next few years, seems perfectly reasonable, and having someone who can relate to the white working class of the Midwest–such as Klobuchar, or Sherrod Brown, or Joe Biden–seems more electable than someone who will be labeled a “Communist”, a “radical”, etc. Of course, I know these labels are false, but the element of fear and the ability of trollers to affect the internet is still a reality!
So while I agree with you, D, on the long range goals, short range goals are not to be dismissed as inadequate in the age of Trump!
I don’t believe in the notion that Medicare For All is our only option for fixing healthcare.
Also, what is so un-progressive about expanding Medicaid?
Recent polling about Medicare For All by Kaiser shows support drops when you talk about getting rid of private insurance. Kaiser polling also show people support incremental ways, as the Professor said.
Here’s the Kaiser polling information. https://www.kff.org/health-reform/poll-finding/kff-health-tracking-poll-january-2019/
Obviously the negative side effects that people are worried about are probably misconceptions being pushed by Republicans on TV, radio, the Internet.
The Democrats need to be ready to answer the cries of “this is going to cost 31 trillion dollars!” in regards Medicare For All, free public college, etc., that will be coming from the skeptics.
Monmouth University polling shows that Democratic voters are favoring “electability” over ideology in 2020.
I heard about that as well. They don’t care who it is, as long as he or she beats Trump. Same way I feel.
I’m glad Amy Klubochar is willing to be honest with these young people about how things are.
I agree with you, Rustbelt Democrat!