| Jaicee said: The Democrats will nominate Joe Biden. That is not in serious question in my mind. It's already obvious that the party leaders favor him and recent Democratic primaries for lower-level public offices suggest that the more progressive wing of the party remains generally incapable of winning internal elections for statewide offices like Governor or Senator; just for House seats, which represent fewer people each. Those aren't promising signs for a progressive victory in the next nominating contest. I will re-evaluate this assertion only if Andrew Cuomo is successfully primaried by Cynthia Nixon in next month's Democratic nominating contest for the governorship of New York. |
Don't count on it. He definitely has the biggest chance, but only because the progressive vote will be split at the minimum three ways between Bernie, Warren, and Harris, possibly further by Gillibrand, if she can shake her corporatist brand, and Booker, at least until they drop out, by which time Biden will have a huge lead. A progressive's inability to win the 2020 nomination has nothing to do with the party picking Biden and everything to do with the centrist/moderate establishment having the connections to clear the field of major moderate candidates while progressives are a nebulous group without that ability. About half of the primary voters will go to moderates and half to progressives. Biden gets all the moderates, the progressives get split into smithereens by the flood of progressive candidates. If any more than two progressive candidates are running by the time the first primaries roll around, Biden wins. If the progressive wing can narrow down their choices to two or one by that time, Bernie, Warren, or Harris have a chance, if they're still around and not all three of them are there. If Harris is there, her winning depends on how early California is and how much she crushes the competition there. Warren depends probably most likely on Super Tuesday in New England, and Bernie on how much his previous movement carries over. But regardless Biden isn't set in stone. Hell, if his health is poor enough he may not run.
As for progressives being unable to win statewide nominations, what do you think Stacey Abrams is? As for senators, we have several elected progressive senators already. Something tells me you're feeling sore about El-Sayed, and I guess depressed about de Leon's and Nixon's chances? Those are a couple of contests, not the whole party, and weird things are going on in each case. First, these are all incumbents or well known people vs. unknown challengers. Incumbents are hard to beat, becoming known is hard to do, combine the two factors and it becomes very hard. El-Sayed got progressive endorsements too late, and not much campaigning from big names, while Whitmer is hardly all that moderate and had major endorsements from unions, Emily's list, and a few progressive groups. It was amazing that he got as far as he did. Kevin de Leon is losing because of the jungle primary system that is boosting Feinstein with Republican votes, he actually has the support of state Democratic party, so even if he loses, the party knows what the future is. Nixon v Cuomo is a special case too. Nixon is a celebrity, but not a particularly well known one, running against someone with great name recognition and tons of proven experience. People in NY don't want to trust a celebrity after seeing Trump, so if the first thing they hear of her is that she was on Sex in the City, it doesn't leave a good impression, and they tune out. So she has a hard time increasing her profile against Cuomo, who is well known and, to be frank, has one of the most corrupt and powerful political machines in the country backing him. So don't get discouraged by those three races. The future of the Democratic party is progressive. Neoliberalism is almost as dead as conservatism (the pre-Trump, Reaganesque kind, not the post-Trump reactionism). Give it a decade or so, but the Democratic platform is only going to get more progressive and so will its politicians and the policies they produce.
