Dear Mayor Bloomberg,
I write you as a concerned Democrat and American. Like you, I recognize the urgency of defeating Donald Trump this coming November. Our nation faces an existential crisis. If Trump is re-elected, he will complete the job of undermining the rule of law and subverting our governing institutions that he has worked at so assiduously for more than three years. A second Trump term will spell the end of the American experiment in democracy. In that light, like you I would like to see the Democratic Party nominate a candidate that has as strong a chance of defeating Donald Trump as possible.
I know that you have put yourself forward for the Democratic nomination in the belief that you are well equipped to win in the fall, and I would not contradict you. But you are not alone in that regard. Any of the current Democratic candidates could do so with an energetic and strategic campaign. The only question facing us as voters now is to assess who would possess the greatest advantages and who labor under the most severe liabilities in the general election.
On this question I likewise agree with you on one point: of all the candidates now running, Senator Bernie Sanders would be most vulnerable in a campaign against Donald Trump. I do not feel this way because I share your assessment of Senator Sanders's politics or the appeal of his policy proposals.
Rather, I worry that his past will provide too much fodder for Republican spin doctors during a general election campaign. Too much video and audio exists of Bernie Sanders saying and doing things that were tolerably provocative for a local Vermont politician back in the 1980's, but would be shocking in a national campaign today. The foundation of Bernie's appeal to voters is that he has been so consistent in his values and message for the past decade, in which he has been much more careful about the tone of his rhetoric on the national stage. When the images of his firebrand past hit the airwaves, voters may feel they have been deceived in his true character, and turn on him out of a sense of betrayal.
Taking that into consideration, the question that faces us now is not "who can beat Donald Trump," but "who can win the Democratic nomination other than Bernie Sanders"? The answer to that question, I would propose, is not you or any of the other "moderate" candidates in the Democratic field. Coming into this election the momentum was always with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. The party fielded a moderate candidate in 2016 and lost. Meanwhile, the Republicans fielded a morbidly unfit, malignantly sexist and racist extremist, and met with electoral success. It is no wonder a critical mass of Democrats take from this debacle the lesson that "playing to the center" is a fool's game, and that the party would be well advised to focus on motivating its base voters over any attempt to "win over" the opposition.
If the progressive wing of the party has the advantage in choosing the nominee (and for the reasons I outlined above, it does), then the candidate furthest to the right who has any chance of winning the nomination has always been Elizabeth Warren. In both her rhetoric (past and present) and policy proposals Senator Warren appeals to progressive Democrats but is slightly more moderate than Bernie Sanders. Even if they find her too liberal, Warren is the best compromise candidate for whom moderate Democrats may hope.
I have been a strong supporter of Senator Warren's from the very beginning of this campaign. I am convinced that she will be an optimally powerful opponent against Donald Trump and an excellent president when elected. Your assessment of her may differ, but I think you must agree that she is less vulnerable than Bernie Sanders in the general election. If you are persuaded that she is the most moderate candidate who stands any chance of winning the nomination, I hope that you will consider giving her your endorsement.
Given the trend in the voting and the polls, Senator Sanders seems well poised to lock up the nomination within the next month at the latest. Unless something is done to change the trajectory of the race, he will be the one on whom all of our hopes to save the nation from Donald Trump will be riding. If you would prevent that contingency, your best option would be to drop out of the race now and throw your support behind Senator Warren. Such a move would bring the moderate and progressive wings of the party together, and forge a broad coalition in preparation for the contest in the fall.
I realize that this would be far from what you originally planned when you set out to run for the presidency, but I appeal to your obvious sense of civic duty. Giving your endorsement to Senator Warren would be an inspiring act of selfless patriotism, especially given the constant displays of narcissism, duplicity, and partisan chauvinism by the current President and his Republican enablers. I hope that you will give it some consideration.
Sincerely,
Andrew Meyer
2 comments:
I am trying here to be mostly on topic, with your post in mind. But, bear in mind that, at this point, Bloomberg is no longer even a candidate, so my comment is more of a comment built off of your theme than a direct response to it. (I hope you will not hide it.)
Notwithstanding what seemed likely a mere week ago, Bloomberg almost surely advanced Biden's candidacy by helping to torpedo the candidacies of Mayor Pete, Senator Klobuchar and Tom Steyer. From the moment Bloomberg entered the race, the talk was that it would be Bloomberg vs. Sanders. It was not appreciated that one can undermine the campaign of someone else without helping oneself.
As a latecomer in the race, Bloomberg was not yet ready for prime time during the debates. And, other candidates, most especially Warren, thought it would help her to attack and destroy Bloomberg. He had no effective response. But, the fact that he had a huge campaign wallet meant that other, at least on paper, less likely candidates like Mayor Pete and Ms. Klobuchar were thereafter seen as long shots, thus leaving Biden. And, if you are going to have a billionaire, you might as well have the one that makes the other billionaire look poor, so that meant doom for Steyer - not that he was doing well.
Anyway, Senator Warren destroyed Bloomberg's candidacy. And, Sanders made himself anathema to the party he wanted to lead but without having a large enough base for that strategy to work. And, of course, Congressman Clyburn helped Biden enormously. And, then all of those hurt by Bloomberg rallied to Biden.
It all goes to show that the predicting election outcomes is a difficult thing to do. I might also note, notwithstanding spending hundreds of millions of dollars, the assumption that Bloomberg was really running to win, as opposed to stopping Sanders and Warren, is merely an assumption. He won't notice the lost money or the hundreds of millions or, perhaps even billions, he plans to use going forward to help unseat Trump. In other words, from his point of view, he spent, proportionate to his wealth, more or less the $2,800 campaign donation limit.
Personally, I think that the political movement advocated by Sanders is troubling. That's off topic. Warren is a "lite" version of Sanders. So, I don't like her as well. Moreover, notwithstanding how people label that wing of the party, it is not really progressive. (That's not original from me but comes from Paul Berman, in Tablet Magazine.). They talk a good game but, in the world of actually helping people, the so-called moderate wing is progressive. https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/300241/moderates-progressives-democratic-party
Hi, Niles. There is not much in your comments that I am strongly motivated to contend with, and I'm not sure I understand to what part of my opinions you object. I don't pretend to know whether Bloomberg's run at the presidency was in earnest. I suspect it was- but even he may not fully comprehend his own motivations, so who am I to claim to know?
An "open letter" like this is meant to be polemical and to influence as much as to critique. Obviously, my crystal ball was a bit wonky. I was a strong supporter of Elizabeth Warren, I know she would have been the strongest candidate and would have made an excellent president. This is a point I am not inclined to argue- we can agree to disagree on that score, since very little is at stake at this juncture.
That said, I have always viewed Bernie Sanders as the WEAKEST candidate, and have never had confidence that he would have a successful administration. IMHO his plans are too ambitious, much too vague, and he has a poor record of achieving the kinds of compromises that are needed to get anything done. I also share your reservations about the tone of the political movement that surrounds his campaign. Though I think Sanders would make a better president than Troll (a VERY low bar), and that he could win with a concerted grassroots effort that brought together moderates and progressives, we would all be better served if Sanders was not the nominee.
The only person left to oppose Bernie, Joe Biden, is in my estimation the second-weakest candidate in this field, though I think he would make a much better president than Sanders. I was surprised but encouraged by the results of South Carolina and Super Tuesday, I am hopeful that Biden will be the nominee and that he will build a coalition that can successfully capture the White House. I suspect that we will hit many a bump in the road on the way to the Democratic nomination- the fight is far from done. But if this letter proves anything, it is that I should be very circumspect about predicting electoral outcomes.
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