Tag: national candidates

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National politics

Pre-Super Tuesday Revisions

Who knew that after posting on Friday I would need to update all three of my recent posts before we arrived at Super Tuesday.

On my candidate ranking my top two candidates have dropped out. Additionally, while I had Michael Bloomberg ahead of Joe Biden I am considering that I might prefer Biden over Bloomberg because while I might come a little closer to Bloomberg’s political leanings, I worry about him having unexpected liabilities since he hasn’t been through the degree of vetting that the other candidates have already.

On my thoughts on who can win: the paths to victory for Buttigieg and Klobuchar are obviously closed. Warren doesn’t have a path after the results of South Carolina. Biden got exactly the kind of South Carolina win that he needed and the only way his path narrows is if he gets trounced tomorrow.

And thanks to the last 24 hours, our youngest presidential candidate is now 70 years old. I’m not thrilled about that.

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National politics thoughts

An Age Problem

I’ve mentioned that I have a problem with the ages of most of the presidential candidates. Today a thought struck me that I think would put that problem in perspective. I realized that Elizabeth Warren – the third youngest legitimate candidate still in the race is only three years younger than Bill Clinton – who was our president 28 years ago. If I were to rank the candidates in age order relative to Bill Clinton it would look roughly like this:

  • Bernie Sanders (5 years older than Clinton)
  • Michael Bloomberg
  • Joe Biden
  • Donald Trump (3 years older than Clinton)
  • Bill Clinton (for reference)
  • Elizabeth Warren (3 years younger than Clinton)
  • Amy Klobuchar (14 years younger than Clinton)
  • Pete Buttigieg (35 years younger than Clinton)

Why is it that we are stuck choosing mainly between candidates who are older than a president we had almost 3 decades ago?

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National politics

Who can win?

For the second time today I need to get something published before an approaching deadline. This time it is my take on the chances that the various Democratic candidates have of getting the nomination. I want to make sure that I publish this before we get more data from voters voting.

If I had written this earlier there would have been a couple more candidates considered – even with my restriction that I am only covering candidates who have any potential path to the nomination. Many but not all of those who have already dropped out never had any path. Even today there is Tom Steyer who has not dropped out but who, despite his wealth, has no path to the nomination.

For the sake of fairness I will cover the candidates in alphabetical order by last name. I will offer my take on what they would need to win the nomination and my opinion on what they should do based on what happens on Super Tuesday.

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National politics

2020 Candidates Ranked

I’ve been meaning to share my take on the 2020 candidates for some time now. It would be a waste not to do so before Super Tuesday so I’ve put it off as long as possible already.

At this point in the cycle there are only 6 Democrats and one Republican with even a remote possibility of getting their party’s nomination – those 7 are the only candidates being ranked here. My rankings are not a reflection of who has the best chances of winning the presidency (or even their party nomination) but rather, who I think would prove most beneficial to our nation long term if they were elected.

By way of context, I have been a lifelong Republican but I have always considered that party affiliation is much less important than genuine ability or basic decency so I was dismayed in 2016 when Donald Trump got the nomination for the GOP. Long before either field had narrowed I argued that he was the worst candidate running out of either party. I have to admit that since that time he has grown on me and I have concluded that he wasn’t the worst candidate running that cycle. With that background, on to my candidate ranking.

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National politics

Carly Fiorina

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Photo by Gage Skidmore

Even as I begin writing this I haven’t decided where I stand on Carly Fiorina. She sounds like a strong candidate when she speaks – I can understand Holly’s enthusiasm based on what Carly says – but I’m not yet convinced of how much substance is behind the rhetoric. I’ve had concerns about her performance at HP because that’s the only real sample we have of her capacity to lead. Carly declares on her campaign website that “her record as CEO speaks for itself” and some of her critics would undoubtedly agree (while arriving at the opposite conclusion that her supporters do). After consideration I have concluded that her record as CEO doesn’t speak for itself any more than the data in a scientific study speaks for itself. Data is data but without context (or with incomplete context) the same data can lead to vastly disparate conclusions.

If the question before me were “should Carly Fiorina be our next President?” the answer would have to be I really don’t know yet. Thankfully the question right now is simply, “does Carly Fiorina deserve serious attention as a candidate?” The answer to that one is yes she does. I endorse Carly Fiorina for president – she brings an important voice and perspective to the debate and may yet prove to be our best option.

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National politics

John Kasich

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Photo by Marc Nozell

John Kasich was among the long list of GOP candidates that I had no particular opinion of going into this process. As a multi-term governor of Ohio I anticipated a decent amount of political experience but was surprised to find a cross between Rick Santorum (more political experience than expected) and Ted Cruz (“judge me based on what I’ve done”).

The more I learned about him the more convinced I became that for this election cycle in the GOP there is an inverse correlation between real political experience and polling numbers. If the primary voters in the GOP decide that maybe they should do something other than a wholesale rejection of those with political experience then they should seriously give John Kasich strong consideration. I very much endorse John Kasich for president because even when we need a change of course experience is a valuable commodity.

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National politics

Lawrence Lessig

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Photo by Innotech Summit

I was surprised to hear that Larry Lessig had declared that he would run for the Democratic nomination. Having followed his work on intellectual property law for years I have always liked Larry because he has proven to be someone who has a solid understanding of the information age – which is uncommon among elected officials. With that background I was really hopeful that he would be a good candidate.

Unfortunately this promise killed any chance of being endorsed:

If elected, he says he will be the first “referendum president,” promising to serve only as long as it takes to pass his Citizens Equality Act of 2017 — a bill aimed at reforming campaign finance, voting rights, and Congressional representation. Once the bill is passed, Lessig said he would then step down, handing over the reins to his vice president.

Sadly, Larry isn’t running to be president, he is running to enact a particular piece of legislation. I can’t endorse Larry Lessig for president. Even if the legislation were correct and very important (which is a matter for debate) I would consider it irresponsible to endorse someone in hopes that he chose a good vice president to succeed him.

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National politics

Ted Cruz

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Photo by Gage Skidmore

Ted Cruz isn’t running for office, he’s applying for a new job. At least, that’s the sense I get from his campaign. Rather than spending his time talking about what he will do his message is “here are my values – the things that drive my decision making process – and here are the actions I have taken based on those values.” The message to voters is, “if you like the values I believe in and the way I’ve defended them please give me the opportunity to do so as President.”

I like that approach to campaigning – rather than the “let me discern what you want and then promise to be the candidate of your dreams” approach.

Ted’s values centered approach and his open “judge me based on my past actions” attitude make him a candidate deserving of consideration. I endorse Ted Cruz for president.

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National politics

George Pataki

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Photo by Gage Skidmore

George Pataki seems to be running for president simply because there was no clear front runner for the GOP nomination. His campaign website doesn’t even talk about issues so I’m left to conclude that his platform is “as a former governor of New York my name has been in the media much more than the governor of Idaho so I may as well give this campaign a shot since my name has been floated as a potential presidential or vice presidential candidate in previous election cycles.”

If voters want to know where Pataki stands on anything they either have to follow campaign news very closely (because he gets hardly any coverage in the crowded field) or else they have to go to his Wikipedia page – where they will find a significant number of positions that really don’t agree with much of the national GOP voting base. (That’s only a strike against him because he’s seeking the GOP nomination – otherwise it wouldn’t play into my evaluation for this series.)

I went into this with no opinion of George Pataki but I conclude that as a candidate he is simply a placeholder in case the voters reject all the candidates who are really trying to win the nomination. I can’t endorse George Pataki for president since he gives me absolutely no reason to think of him as anything more than a fallback option.

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National politics

Bernie Sanders

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Photo by Gage Skidmore

Bernie Sanders has been a tough candidate for me to decide on. He has the personal and political experience to be taken seriously. He has a vision that he believes in to sell to potential voters (as opposed to candidates who just have a pet issue). From all appearances he is a man of integrity who can be entrusted with whatever office voters choose to elect him to.

The hard part about deciding if he deserves an endorsement is that his vision for the nation seems to be unrealistic. If I were a voter who agreed with the vision that he is peddling for America I’m afraid that if he were elected I would find myself disappointed by a President Sanders who was unable to deliver much of anything on his vision for the nation. What he wants for the nation is so different in some fundamental ways from what we have built here that I think the best historical outcome he could hope for would be to have historians look back on him and declare that he was way ahead of his time.

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