Playing With Fire

[luzribeiro]

To truly understand the 2020 primary race you should read this book about 1968. As you'll learn from the backroom politicking of Nixon, Rockefeller, Reagan, Humphrey, RFK, Gene McCarthy, McGovern and others jockeying for their parties' nominations that year, what we see on TV is only a tiny fraction of what really goes into winning a nomination. Much as I like fresh-faces like Pete, Beto, and Kamala, I have to wonder if they have the deep party connections and raw political chops to navigate these shark-infested waters. It's a whole lot more than holding town halls, giving speeches, and winning primaries. Just read the chapter on the '68 GOP convention to see what I mean. Nixon had the delegates but still had to outplay Rocky, Reagan, Strom Thurman, Lester Maddox, George Wallace, and many others to win on the first ballot.

Some will say, well Trump did it, so how hard can it be? But he had people like Manafort, Stone, Bannon, Conway, Christie, Sessions, Giuliani, Rupert Murdock, Roger Ailes, and the Mercers pulling the strings. Obama had Kennedy, Plouff, Axelrod, Kerry, Dick Durbin, and Harry Reid in his corner. Those are the types of heavyweight party connections you build over years of Washington relationships. I don't see even a brilliant guy like Pete having the political chops and party ties to pull that off.

Comments

[dancesofthelight]

I'm not so sure 1968 is the best guide here. The domestic turmoil of that year had dozens of cities simultaneously burning, a full-strength combat division to gun down protesters in the US capital, and more to the point the Vietnam War was on a scale that dwarfs any current US war due to having conscripts, not volunteers to wage it.

I'm looking to somewhere between 1912 and 1993 for models here.

[oportet]

Obama and Trump separated themselves from the field - a much tougher task now that the field is 95% identical policy-wise.

Deep party connections shouldn't matter IF the democrats fixed the superdelegate system.

Maybe they did - but the fact that Joe Biden is running and has mumbled his way to a semi-comfortable lead makes me think at least part of the old system is still in place.