Post-New Hampshire Thoughts

New Hampshire is in the bag, and it's a win for Bernie Sanders. That makes him one for two, or two for two, depending on how you count. Let's go with 1.5 for two. And second place goes to none other than South Mayor Pete Buttigieg -- the Iowa Caucus winner (or "winner" -- again, I'm just not going to go into it). Third place, in a huge late surge, was Amy Klobuchar, who rounds out the pledged delegates winners. Fourth and fifth were Warren and Biden, respecitvely.

So where is the race now? My assorted thoughts:

• The biggest story is, of course, the Klobucharge. Namely, that people have finally settled on "Klobucharge" being the correct term. Indeed, as Eric Muller observes, this is just the tip of the iceberg: there's laying on the Klobucharm, flying off the Klobucharts, watching opponents get Klobucharred....

• We're so starved for hot takes that "the winner of the evening was the guy who won the evening" never satisfies. After all, Bernie beat Pete Buttigieg by less than two points in a state where he obliterated Hillary Clinton four years ago, and they actually earned the same number of delegates. Is that really good news? Answer: yes, because the moderates are still fractured and it's really hard to see Buttigieg consolidating the vote while there's time for it to make an impact. Sanders is now the definite -- though not overwhelming -- favorite.

• That said, the other big winner definitely is Klobuchar, who I think probably has positioned herself as the moderate candidate to beat. But does she have the resources and time to really launch in other states? Does she have any significant basis of appeal in communities of color? I'm doubtful -- which is another reason why this was a good night for Bernie.

• On the one hand: It's strange how we make all this noise about how unfair it is that the Democratic primary begins with two states that have virtually no POC voters, then write campaign obituaries after just two states with virtually no POC voters hit the polls. On the other hand: Joe Biden looks like toast, and his last stab at relevancy may be to play kingmaker among the remaining moderates. My guess is if he passes the torch to anyone, it will be Klobuchar.

• Tough night for my candidate, Elizabeth Warren. Getting the Castro endorsement may well have been prescient in the worst way: just like with Castro, my entire Twitter feed loves her, and just like with Castro, that love sadly is not translating to significant real world impact. She's not yet DOA, but she's in a tough spot. Sad.

• Two drop-outs: Yang and Bennet. I think a lot of Yang's supporters go to Sanders. As for Bennet's voters, well, you'd have to ask Michael Bennet because I'm pretty sure he's the only one.

• There were also reports -- quickly retracted -- that Tom Steyer was dropping out as well. This was the only time anyone has thought about Tom Steyer in the past month.

• While everyone else has been distracted, Michael Bloomberg is quietly rising in the polls based on the irresistible grassroots force of having literally infinity money to spend on advertising. But what happens when that force hits the immovable object of "Bloomberg is a sexual harasser whose signature political program was police harassment of Black people"? I imagine Bernie will start lighting him up on this sooner rather than later -- but until we actually see it, it's hard to know what will happen.

• Every year, political commentators breathlessly ask "could we have a brokered convention?" And every year, actual knowledgeable observers roll our eyes and say "there will never be a brokered convention." And yet ... could we have a brokered convention? Most of the "Sanders is the front-runner" case right now is based on the moderates dividing up the vote and allowing  Sanders to continue skating to narrow plurality wins based on his high floor/low ceiling. But Democrats don't have any winner-takes-all states, so even if Sanders keeps "winning" pluralities he's not amassing a delegate majority or anything close to it (the New Hampshire delegate tallies right now are Sanders 9/Buttigieg 9/Klobuchar 6).

• A brokered convention would be a disaster. Dis-as-ter. It's almost impossible to imagine Sanders winning it -- with the possible exception of Warren, none of the remaining heavies seem likely to have delegates itching to back him. But can you imagine how Sanders Sibs will react if they have a plurality of delegates going in, won the most states, and still lose the nomination? Hell, they barely accept it as legitimate when they lose the normal way. It will be Dems in disarray on steroids, except this time it will actually be true. A brokered convention might well rip the party apart.

• The only way Sanders wins the nomination in a brokered scenario is if his delegates credibly threaten to shoot the hostage (in this metaphor, the hostage is America, and shooting it means sitting back and letting Trump win), and they just might do it, which means threatening to do it just might work. Either way, it's a nightmare.

David's 2020 Endorsement: Elizabeth Warren! (Plus: Likes and Dislikes!)

I've been keeping quiet about who I'm backing in the 2020 Democratic primary. I mean, I guess I came out for Booker earlier on, but that was with the self-conscious knowledge that I was just delaying my actual decision until he inevitably dropped out. It actually worked pretty well, since one of my key motivators is "not getting so invested in one person that I get mad if they don't win", and being on team Booker meant avoiding a lot of drama for the first infinity months of this never-ending primary season.

However, the time has come to plant my flag. And so the coveted David Schraub endorsement goes to: Elizabeth Warren!

In a field with many great candidates, I think she aligns closest to both my ideological values and my practical considerations for what a good President needs. To wit: she's a smart, New Deal liberal technocrat with good ideas and good instincts for finding and managing talent. I think she has the smarts to inspire good policy innovations and the savvy to actually move the ball forward in implementing them.

But when it comes right down to it, there are things I like and dislike (or at least am concerned about) for all the candidates. So if you want to follow my logic in making your decision, here's my current appraisal of the major remaining players in the Democratic field (with the important caveat that my main commitment is to vote for the Democratic candidate, no matter who it is, and be happy about it).

Elizabeth Warren
Likes: I already mentioned it above: smart, wonkish New Deal-style liberal with technocratic instincts. That's my jam. She has experience both as a thought leader coming up with ideas and a practical leader implementing policies on the ground -- a good President has to have a good handle on both. I also think that, of all the candidates, she's best positioned to unite the "progressive" and "establishment" wing of the party after the primary is over.

Dislikes: Many of the things I liked about Warren are the same things that attracted me to Hillary Clinton. And I'm obviously feeling a bit burned about how that turned out. She's going to face a boatload of misogyny (e.g., the assumption -- ludicrous if you listen to her -- that she's "shrill"), and that's on top of the easy "Massachusetts liberal" attack line.

Bernie Sanders
Likes: I actually do think a lot of his policy proposals are realistic -- at least in concept (getting them through the Senate, on the other hand....). He wrote a pretty darn good essay on Jewish issues in Jewish Currents. And I think he has more general election viability than a lot of other pundits believe -- his brand of anti-establishment fire is definitely on trend right now, and it is a myth that "independent" and "centrist" are coterminous categories.

Dislikes: All candidates have bad actors among their supporters, but Sanders definitely stands out here and not in a good way. A Sanders victory will embolden a cadre of actors who've embraced a leftist iteration of the paranoid style in American politics, a development I think would be outright dangerous for the future of American progressivism. And while Sanders can't be held fully responsible for the actions of his supporters, he's also shown shaky judgment on the people who he, personally, has decided to surround himself with. That's actually a big voting issue for me, since a large part of what a President does is picking other people to elevate to positions of power.

Amy Klobuchar
Likes: There's something to be said for a purpling-state Democrat who has utterly annihilated her Republican opposition every election she's faced. My lean-Republican midwestern in-laws love her, for what that's worth. I think she's smart and competent -- and if those sound like backhanded compliments, I don't mean them to be.

Dislikes: I may chuckle at some of the abusive boss stories, but it really is inappropriate and raises questions about how she'll attract good talent as President. The fact that she's been bragging on the campaign trail about a conviction of a kid who may well be innocent is not the best look. Plus, I think we can push in a more progressive direction than what she's offering.

Joe Biden
Likes: The ultimate "return to normalcy" candidate. 95% of his campaign pitch is "don't you miss the Obama years?", and I won't lie -- that sings to me a bit. He's also another person who I think will do well on the "staff positions with good people" metric.

Dislikes: He's just a bad campaigner. I'm sorry, but it's true. Any time he's run a national race he's imploded, and I think he'll do it again. His Iowa strategy of "repeatedly tell people they should vote for someone else" was a predictable disaster. Biden just feels like someone whose time has passed.

Pete Buttigieg
Likes: Another entry in the "basically smart guy" camp. Twitter notwithstanding, a lot of people seem to find him quite likable, and a fresh face. Fresh faces can be good.

Dislikes: Call me crazy, but I think politics is a job and I don't think one should jump from "Mayor of South Bend" to "President of the United States." Also, as a coastal-born American, I cannot stand this whole "real American heartland guy" shtick. Utter lack of support in non-White communities also is a turn-off -- though it'll be interesting to see if that changes after Iowa.

Mike Bloomberg
Likes: He seems to scare Trump, and genuinely get under his skin. I don't know if infinite money = unstoppable election campaign, but Bloomberg certainly could test the hypothesis. He's shown leadership on a couple of issues that matter to me -- guns and the environment, mostly. And again, I think he's someone who would pick competent people to surround him.

Dislikes: Not really interested in backing a random billionaire. And -- as one would expect from a recent Republican -- he's got a lot of problems on the issues. Stop and frisk is the obvious one, but he hasn't been good on trans rights either. Oh, and he has a history of harassing women, which the country may not care about but I do.

Tom Steyer
Likes: Of the billionaires, he seems to be better on the issues. So as against Bloomberg, he's a more progressive way of having "infinite money" to spend on the race.

Dislikes: More so than any other candidate running -- even Bloomberg -- Steyer is clearly just buying his way into political viability, and that makes me feel he's a bit of dilettante. For example, unlike Bloomberg, he has no actual political experience. Again, politics is a job, and I want a candidate who has experience holding office.

Who Wants This?

Reports are that Tom Steyer, a billionaire famous for pushing the impeach Trump movement (and for being part of the triumvirate of Jewish-descended financiers -- alongside George Soros and Michael Bloomberg -- that Republicans love to portray as the mysterious cabal of greedy rich-os bringing down America and all we hold dear), is going to announce a run at the Democratic nomination for President.

Why? Why?

Every time I see a new announcement of a Presidential campaign, that's all I can ask. Why? But in particular:

(1) Why does Steyer think that there is a lane for him? What niche is he filling that isn't present in the 25(!) other candidates already running?

(2) Why does Steyer think there will be any enthusiasm for him? What makes him think that there is any non-trivial number of Democratic voters thirsting for an as-yet-not-present option in this race?

That second question is what really baffles me. It'd be one thing if there was some sense in the primary electorate that all the choices are mediocre and a desire for a titanic savior figure. But from what I've seen, if anything the mood runs in the opposite direction -- most Democratic primary voters like too many candidates. They're for Biden right now, but they're also warm on Booker and Harris. Or they like Warren, but also Sanders and Castro. Or they're torn between Buttigieg, Harris, and Inslee. Even the Sanders voters -- perhaps thought to be the most personally wedded to him specifically -- seem to be warming up to Warren (and, in more bizarre cases, Gabbard and/or Gravel of all people).

And at the same time as they're "suffering" from a glut of choices, the prevailing sentiment I've seen is eye-rolling at the ridiculous number of people in the race. Even if Steyer had some unique characteristic that could otherwise make him standout, it's going to be virtually impossible for his announcement to be greeting with anything other than "oh God, another one?" At this point I almost want to give props to Mark Zuckerberg of all people, who at least had the good grace to listen when it became apparent nobody was interested in him running for President. So far, anyway.

This all seems so obvious to me that I don't understand how it isn't obvious to Steyer, or Bullock, or Moulton, or Bennet, or Hickenlooper, or Ryan, or any of the obviously-not-going-to-come-close-to-winning candidates who are or are considering running for the nomination. Who do they think wants them? Who do they think wants more candidates?