A meme of Batman slapping Robin was used in 2016 both for and against Bernie Sanders. One version is straightforward; Robin says Sanders would be a great president, and Batman swats him, shouting, “Moron!” In the other, however, Robin claims Sanders can’t win, and the caped crusader smacks him in exasperation, bellowing that Bernie would win if people stopped being defeatist and voted for him.
This electability dilemma looms over Democrats struggling to prevent President Trump from winning a second term in November’s big clash.
Joe Biden is bumbling his way to an early exit from the presidential primaries, having lost the aura of electability, his only advantage at the outset. With great name recognition, and riding President Barack Obama’s coattails threadbare, he was the instant front-runner. Now, he’s dwindling to his natural position as a rounding error in the electoral data. Having collapsed in Iowa and scuttled away early from New Hampshire before another crushing defeat, he’s holed up in South Carolina, probably his last redoubt.
Elizabeth Warren blew her chances with a deadly embrace of every ruinously extreme left-wing policy — confiscating private health insurance from 160 million people, for example — and hectoring anyone with the temerity to disagree with her. Voters don’t love that.
This let former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, camouflaged as a centrist, elbow past Biden in the “moderate” lane and allowed Sanders to emerge as the stronger and, amazingly, more likable lefty in the extremist lane. Sanders tied or won Iowa — the Democratic Party occludes that salient information — and has now pocketed New Hampshire. He’s stronger than he was at this point against Hillary Clinton and could win the nomination.
This terrifies the Democratic establishment, whose members have therefore trashed him ever since the whites of their eyes became visible three months ago. Their worry is about failing to pick an electable nominee. Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, for example, tweeted on Jan. 29: “If you’re assessing electability, important to look at head to heads in the states needed to win the electoral college. Not everyone is equal in how they do there.”
If you’re assessing electability, important to look at head to heads in the states needed to win the electoral college. Not everyone is equal in how they do there.
— Neera Tanden (@neeratanden) January 29, 2020
The fuss four years ago about Democrats rigging the nomination against Sanders was not wholly convincing, but it worked well enough to stop them from manipulating the system so blatantly again. The party knows 10% of Bernie voters switched to Trump in 2016 after Hillary beat their hero, and alienating them again would spell Dem doom.
The party brass wants Bernie to lose the primary race because, like Robin, it thinks he can’t win the general election. Bernie’s corps, like Batman, insist he can go all the way if Dems stick with him. They’re in no mood to be cheated. And even if they don’t switch to Trump again, they might not vote for a lesser mortal heading the ticket, depressing Democratic turnout.
Sanders is as extreme and expensive as Warren, but also seems a more authentic contender than Mayor Pete, who, despite strong polling, seems, in my opinion, ready to Buttijump the shark. His twaddle in the Manchester, New Hampshire, debate about “turning the page” was unpersuasive, as were all his other vacuities intended to make lack of experience and achievements seem like a virtue.
So, where does that leave the Democrats? It leaves them with a front-runner who they fear is unelectable. But oddly, it also leaves them with a much better candidate than any hitherto regarded as a possible nominee. That candidate is Amy Klobuchar.
She’s seriously uncharismatic, and she started the race badly. It was painful to watch her trembling like a leaf in early debates. But she’s still in it, was far more self-assured and effective in Manchester, came in a strong third in New Hampshire, and seems poised to break out in national polls. It may be too little too late, and she needs to score big very soon, or she’ll run out of money and have to quit the race.
But if Democrats are really intent on winning, if they could persuade themselves to prefer hard facts to cheap passion, and if they decided that the art of the possible meant calculation would be more effective than the temptingly cool options of the socialist or the gay guy, they’d pick Klobuchar. She has a solid if unexciting record. She is a Midwesterner and would compete with Trump in a swath of states that gave him victory last time. She would probably also vaporize Democrats’ legitimate worry that Minnesota, her home state, could slip into the red column. And she’s also a woman, which was something the Left used to say was important.
