11-05-2020, 12:13 AM
Yes, the election is still undecided, but do we know enough to reflect on whether the Democrats pulled the right rein in selecting Biden?
He has largely delivered what he promised: he won back Michigan and Wisconsin to rebuild the blue wall in the Rust belt and presumably statistical analysis after the election will confirm he was strong with older black voters.
But would another candidate have performed more strongly? After all, it’s pretty shocking that Trump wasn’t blown out of the water given how consistently dangerous and incompetent he has been. Would there have been a blue wave if Bernie had been the challenger?
In Florida, there’s a suggestion that Trump’s attacks on Biden for being a socialist worked. Cuban Americans and Latinos who fled socialist countries such as Venezuela almost have a Pavlovian response to the word “socialist”. If the attack worked against Biden, it’s safe to say it would have worked against Bernie! But maybe Bernie would have appealed to the blue collar workers as much as if not more than Biden. The problem is that the whole campaign would have been Trump smearing Bernie as a communist and it appears from the results so far in this election that the USA is a lot more conservative than we might have thought. Unless progressives failed to turn out for Biden, maybe Bernie wouldn’t have been able to improve on Biden’s vote.
I had a soft spot for Elizabeth Warren as she quite literally had a plan for everything. But I suspect Trump would have chewed her up and spat her out. She fell right into the “Pocahontas” attack. All she had to say is that she had simply passed on family legend that she had a Native American ancestor. Instead, she released an inconclusive DNA test to try to show the claim was true. Who does that?
The interesting “what if” is Pete Buttigeig. Fox News has had him on as a recurring guest to fill the role as “live kill” for rightwing hosts and guests. But he unexpectedly held his own. He is undeniably eloquent. You’d expect as a gay man that he’d have provoked a harsh response from the religious right but he seems to be able to neutralise that reaction. It’s not as though he didn’t have experience doing so as he’s from Indiana. He was mayor of South Bend while Mike Pence was governor. Maybe he’ll be 1 to watch in the future and he may well be a key Cabinet member under Biden if he wins.
Perhaps in the wash up we’ll find that Covid hampered the Democrat ground game. The lack of personal contact with the public may have been critical and may have been just as problematic if another candidate had been put forward.
He has largely delivered what he promised: he won back Michigan and Wisconsin to rebuild the blue wall in the Rust belt and presumably statistical analysis after the election will confirm he was strong with older black voters.
But would another candidate have performed more strongly? After all, it’s pretty shocking that Trump wasn’t blown out of the water given how consistently dangerous and incompetent he has been. Would there have been a blue wave if Bernie had been the challenger?
In Florida, there’s a suggestion that Trump’s attacks on Biden for being a socialist worked. Cuban Americans and Latinos who fled socialist countries such as Venezuela almost have a Pavlovian response to the word “socialist”. If the attack worked against Biden, it’s safe to say it would have worked against Bernie! But maybe Bernie would have appealed to the blue collar workers as much as if not more than Biden. The problem is that the whole campaign would have been Trump smearing Bernie as a communist and it appears from the results so far in this election that the USA is a lot more conservative than we might have thought. Unless progressives failed to turn out for Biden, maybe Bernie wouldn’t have been able to improve on Biden’s vote.
I had a soft spot for Elizabeth Warren as she quite literally had a plan for everything. But I suspect Trump would have chewed her up and spat her out. She fell right into the “Pocahontas” attack. All she had to say is that she had simply passed on family legend that she had a Native American ancestor. Instead, she released an inconclusive DNA test to try to show the claim was true. Who does that?
The interesting “what if” is Pete Buttigeig. Fox News has had him on as a recurring guest to fill the role as “live kill” for rightwing hosts and guests. But he unexpectedly held his own. He is undeniably eloquent. You’d expect as a gay man that he’d have provoked a harsh response from the religious right but he seems to be able to neutralise that reaction. It’s not as though he didn’t have experience doing so as he’s from Indiana. He was mayor of South Bend while Mike Pence was governor. Maybe he’ll be 1 to watch in the future and he may well be a key Cabinet member under Biden if he wins.
Perhaps in the wash up we’ll find that Covid hampered the Democrat ground game. The lack of personal contact with the public may have been critical and may have been just as problematic if another candidate had been put forward.