UPDATED: Impeachment And 2020
Don Surber has an excellent blog today in which he reviews a WaPo article that reports on the rising anxiety among Dems over their lack of any viable candidates to run against Trump. Surber assesses the Dem field of candidates for president. His conclusion? He quotes a big Dem moneyman:
"John Coale, a major donor to both Bill and Hillary Clinton, was more blunt. 'They don’t have anybody who can win the general,' he said."
Surber then cites the "unease" of Dem party leaders and comments in terms that reflect the themes of recent posts here and comes up with his own unique take for why impeachment isn't a serious strategy:
The Post reported, "In conversations with 17 state and national party leaders, nearly all expressed some level of unease with where the field stands and a deepening concern that, even as Trump suffers through one of the darkest phases of his presidency, the leading presidential contenders would struggle mightily in a one-on-one contest with him. For all of his challenges, Trump commands a gigantic operation that has vacuumed up unprecedented sums of money, an unparalleled megaphone to lure in voters and a lock on most of the Republican Party. Democrats face the possibility of a long primary fight that could cleave the party along ideological and generational lines and leave the nominee campaigning against an incumbent whom Democrats see as simultaneously weak and hard to beat."
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The money men have looked through the party's governors and senators, and even its mayors, and this is the best they came up with. ...
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Democrats did this to themselves by going coastal. They produce senators who know Washington like the back of their hand but know little about the country they would lead.
The party has been unable to convert a governor of California or New York into a president. The last big state governor Democrats elected president was FDR -- 87 years ago.
The poor quality of presidential candidates shows a party out of touch with America. The problem may extend beyond 2020 if Democrats are not careful.
But the plan is to nominate a lightweight and bring down President Donald John Trump with impeachment. This has never happened before, and I believe it is for good reason. The flaw is that this strips the election of any policy debates, reducing the race to a celebrity death match.
President Trump will win that handily.
I actually disagree with Surber on this. I do not believe this strategy would strip the election of any policy debates. The fact is that most of Trump's policies are broadly popular. If impeached, Trump would wear that as a badge of honor. He would turn it back on the Dems, but in a policy oriented way. The Dems, he would tell the electorate--utilizing his "gigantic operation that has vacuumed up unprecedented sums of money, an unparalleled megaphone to lure in voters"--have impeached you the voters! I did nothing wrong except to try to enact the policies that you the voters want. They have nothing constructive on offer--for two years all they've done is badmouth you and me and reject us. It's time to push back!
In 2016 Trump ran a remarkably issue oriented campaign. He can do it again and run against a do-nothing Congress that has tried to impeach the Nation. The GOPe flirts with trying to use impeachment as leverage against Trump on policy issues at grave risk to itself.
UPDATE: Thomas Lifson draws attention to a Bloomberg article that is similar in its concerns to the WaPo one cited above, but which focuses on Wisconsin--Insider Democrat 2020 fears chronicled by a sympathizer . The Bloomberg article focuses on the people Progressives identify as "deplorable," i.e., white males. Thus the question they find themselves faced with is framed in those terms:
"what if Trump represents not a last gasp of cultural and racial revanchism but a new wave?"
"In Wisconsin, which is 81% non-Hispanic white, 459,000 non-college-educated white men didn’t vote in 2016. Trump won non-college-educated white men nationwide by an astounding 50 points. A modest rise in their turnout in key states in 2020 could swamp the Democratic nominee."