SAN FRANCISCO — In California, with a March 3 primary and nearly 500 delegates that make it a critical “early voting” state, Democrats have a message for former Vice President Joe Biden: You need to speak with us.
With a large portion of the 2020 Democratic field touring California last weekend, appearing at the party’s state convention and several other activist events, the current front-runner was conspicuously absent.
While none of Biden’s opponents directly mentioned his name in any of their remarks, audience members at the various events throughout the Sunshine State questioned exactly what his priorities are.
Outside a raucous meeting of the state party’s Progressive Caucus Friday night, Christopher Manabe, donning a “Bernie” shirt and a blue-dyed beard, told the Washington Examiner, “A lot of people were pissed off that [Biden] didn’t show up.”
“You need to represent if you‘re a candidate and if you’re president,” said Manabe, a 45-year-old visual effects technician from the greater Los Angeles area. “The decision not to show up says a lot, and I question what he’s trying to do.”
[Also read: Warren swipes at Biden: ‘The time for small ideas is over’]
Though he’d still vote for Biden if he becomes the national party’s nominee, he dislikes how the former vice president accepts donations from corporations and super PACs.
“I think it’s going to come down to a showdown within the party about how to move forward into the next phase,” said Rebecca Auerbach, a 40-year-old land surveyor and activist. “Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has generated so much energy, and Biden doesn’t speak to that. Young people won’t canvas for him, and Trump will win a second term.”
Other attendees expressed concern that if voters aren’t getting to know Biden on the campaign trail, they might not feel motivated to go to the ballot box for him in 2020.
Manabe, a lifelong Sanders fan and member of San Fernando Valley’s subcommittee of Los Angeles’ Feel the Bern Democratic Club, also dismissed media speculation the Vermont senator’s campaign was stalling, pointing to the number of grassroots volunteers who have coalesced around his second drive for the White House. He expressed hope the upcoming Democratic National Committee’s debates would boost Sanders’ efforts.
“It’s the new generation who is open to socialism, while the older generation still fears it,” he said.
“As far as I can tell, they’re playing to a limited Rose Garden strategy, meaning carefully limited events. Right now, it’s fine, but in the long term, it’s not sustainable,” Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist who has known Biden for years, told the Washington Examiner. “Biden’s folks are taking time to get their operation up and running. I think they’re a little concerned about how he’s doing on the campaign trail.”
“We’re long past the idea of an anointed front-runner,” Manley added.
One activist group, Action for a Progressive Future, handed out fliers on the floor that read “A question that should be heard at this convention: Where is Joe Biden?”
While Biden did attend an event for the Human Rights Campaign in Columbus, Ohio, last weekend, his campaign has generally opted to avoid venues where he could face scrutiny from activists or the press. Instead, Biden’s campaign prefers intimate, closed-door fundraisers where he gives a brief 20-minute stump speech and perhaps answers a few questions from donors.
That strategy, however, has opened him up to attacks from other 2020 candidates.
“There is a debate among presidential candidates who have spoken to you in this room — and those who have chosen for whatever reason not to be in this room — about the best way forward,” Sanders said Sunday in San Francisco.
South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg shared similar sentiments during his remarks at the convention.
“The riskiest thing we could do is try too hard to play it safe,” said Buttigieg. “There is no back to normal.”
[Opinion: Byron York: Joe Biden and restoring the old (pre-Trump) order]
