The End of the Beginning (Democratic Horse Race, Take 14)

Does the name James Rassman mean anything to you?  Probably not.

On March 13, 1969 James Rassman was embarked on a swift boat in the Mekong River delta. During a firefight, he went over the side, falling into the Bay Hap River.  John Kerry ordered the boat to turn around, back into enemy fire.  When Rassman was unable to pull himself onto the boat, Kerry went down and reached for him, pulling him to safety.

Rassman lived a mostly quiet life after getting home from the service. But one day in 2004 he got on  a plane to Iowa and showed up at a John Kerry event to tell that story. Kerry was already rising in the polls, but this pushed him over the top. He won Iowa and New Hampshire on his way to a relatively easy nomination that summer.

Most politicians do not have a story like that. There are only so many war heroes to go around. Joe Biden has a hell of personal story.  When Joe Bide was 30 years old and a senator-elect, his wife and infant daughter were killed in a car accident. Last week during a CNN Town Hall Reverend Anthony Thompson asked Biden a question about his faith. Rev. Thompson's wife was murdered by a white supremacist during the mass shooting of a black church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. Vice-President Biden responded to the question in direct and personal terms, as seen above.

And yesterday, Biden swamped the South Carolina primary with nearly 50% of the vote. He won 39 of 54 delegates and the race now feels like a two-man contest. If Biden holds his own on Super Tuesday, and winds up winning the nomination in Milwaukee, the moment with Reverend Thompson might be seen as the turning point of what recently looked like a doomed campaign.

So where does this leave us?

I. Early State Analysis.
After four contests, the race stands as follows:

1. Joe Biden, 30% of the vote, 1 win, 54 delegates.
2. Bernie Sanders, 24% of the vote, 2 wins, 2 second places finishes, 60 delegates.
3. Pete Buttigieg, 15% of the vote, 1 win, 1 second, 1 third, and 1 fourth. 26 delegates
4. Elizabeth Warren 10 % of the vote, 8 delegates
5. Amy Klobuchar 10% of the vote, 7 delegates.

II. The Horse Race: No More Tiers.

1. The Front Runner-Bernie Sanders.

Bernie leads in delegates and after Tuesday will probably have the popular vote lead too. He is the front-runner. He has done well with Latino voters and he remains the overwhelming favorite of young voters.  But he has only exceeded expectations once (Nevada) and a winnowing field probably helps Biden going forward.

I like Bernie's chances of winning a plurality of delegates. But to win a majority, he's going to need to course-correct a little. As moderates drop out, he should hire some of their staff because he needs to get better at messaging for the center of the country.

At the last debate he responded to every criticism of him with an angry harrumph. When called out on his support of Fidel Castro, he doubled down. This will not win him any votes going forward. He needs to think about the center more, not just to win the nomination but to be competitive in the general election.

2.  The Alternative- Joe Biden.

Biden just had the best night of his life. But nothing is guaranteed on Super Tuesday.  He needs to win the southern states and to make the delegate threshold in California. He's also an underdog in Texas, but he can probably control the delegate bleeding there.

But one good night does not erase his weaknesses. He is prone to gaffes and his fundraising has been poor. He can probably win a convention floor fight over Bernie, but only if the numbers are close to even.

3. The Persister-Elizabeth Warren.

Third in Iowa.  Fourth in neighboring New Hampshire. Fourth again Nevada, Fifth in South Carolina. She has under-performed and her trend is downward. But she retains a committed core of voters who like her debate style and her thoroughness. They have donated enough money to her campaign that she can keep competing through March.

Last night she was frank in saying that her plan going forward was to win as many delegates as possible. She knows the math does not exist to propel her to a delegate majority. But she also knows that every delegate she earns gives her leverage in Milwaukee. She is from the left wing of the Democratic party but she's also a believer in institutions. At the time of her choosing, she could endorse either Bernie or Biden and sell it with a straight face.

If she wins Massachusetts on Tuesday, she has a justification to stay on beyond that point. She will not be the presidential nominee. But she could be the most powerful broker at the first brokered convention of my lifetime.

4.  The Imperfect Pragmatist-Amy Klobuchar.

I have been with Amy for months. I still think she has the best resume to get elected and the best temperament to govern. But it's not going to happen this year.

She caught a break in Iowa. The confusion about the outcome and the poor showing of Vice-President Biden became the biggest stories coming out of the first caucus. By performing slightly better than polls suggested, she looked like a credible option. And then she had a great debate night in New Hampshire. This led to a respectable third place finish. Six delegates and 20% of the vote gave her momentum and boosted her fund raising.

But at the next debate, she got into a petty exchange with Buttigieg that took some of the glow off her earlier performance. She also completely failed to develop a narrative for why black and brown people should vote for her. So she bombed down to 5th in Nevada and all the way to 6th in South Carolina.

5-3-5-6 is not going to do it. But she is the betting favorite to win Minnesota on Tuesday, and I know that means a lot to her. Like Warren, she knows that every delegate is valuable.

Fun fact-the very first presidential candidate that I ever supported was Senator Paul Simon (D-IL). When I was 14 years old, I went to a Barnes and Noble and special-ordered his book about putting America to work through an infrastructure jobs program. I was too young to vote for him, but I followed him closely, including his surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live with the other Paul Simon. (No relation and no endorsement either.)

Simon won his home state Illinois primary that March.  I want Amy Klobuchar to do the same this week. And then, she needs to drop out.


5.  The Republican- Mike Bloomberg.
He has spent half a billion dollars on this campaign before his name ever appeared on a regular ballot. I don't blame him for staying around long enough to find out just how bad that investment is. There might even be a practical justification for competing on Tuesday. A lot of mail-in ballots were cast before his campaign was revealed to be the cynical joke that it is. So he might just get 15 percent of the vote in California. He certainly will get it in plenty of congressional districts.  That could cost Sanders some delegates, and if that prevents a Bernie nomination, well there are worse ways for a 78 year old man to spend eight tenths of one percent of his wealth.

6. Yeah, she's still running-Tulsi Gabbard.
One percent in South Carolina. One.  But she's still the preferred candidate of Fox News.


And pour a little out for Tom Steyer. He spent $250 million dollars so people could hear his opinions about various things. That's not as ridiculous as spending the percentage of free time that I spend doing the same thing.


Bonus Segment: I was drafting this posting when the news broke that Pete Buttigieg was dropping out of the 2020 race.  I'll leave this here, unedited for posterity's sake.  I am glad he accepted the reality of the math.  He has a bright future.

The Rookie of the Year-Pete Buttigieg.
Someday he might be the answer to the trivia question: Who won the last Iowa caucus?

Winning Iowa is nothing to sneeze at it. He had to overcome a lot of questions about his age and resume. He also had to convince a lot of people that the country was ready to elect a gay president. He followed this up with a very close 2nd place finish in New Hampshire.

But then the race turned to more diverse states, and he faltered. A respectable third in Nevada but a distant 4th  in South Carolina. At one point last night it looked like he might announce that he was dropping out today. But for now, his campaign goes on.

Maybe he has polling that shows him sucking up sizeable delegate numbers in places like Oklahoma and Colorado. But he is the one candidate who I think could enhance his career by dropping out early. You won Iowa, kid. If Biden becomes president, you'll probably have a plumb job this time next year.
Putting up a bunch of six to ten percent performances on Tuesday doesn't get you much.

III. The  Power Rankings, Take 13.

These are just my personal preferences among the remaining candidates:

1. Amy Klobuchar  (For old time's sake.)
2. Joe Biden 
3. Elizabeth Warren (Up from 4)
4. Bernie Sanders (Up from 6.)
5. Michael Bloomberg  (Same position numerically because Pete dropped out, but for the record I have moved him below Bernie Sanders.)
6. Tulsi Gabbard (Up from 8, but DFL is still DFL.)

On to Cincinnati, I mean New Hampshire. And Then to Milwaukee.

The Iowa Caucus was both very, very close and riddled with administrative incompetence.  That is not a good way to start the election. I will begin my analysis by quoting Bernie Sanders:

"[W]hat happened Monday night at the Democratic caucuses was a debacle, period. The results were too close not to do a complete audit. This is not a — this is not, like, a winner-take-all thing. I think where we now stand... you have 22 delegates, I have 20 delegates. We need 2,500 delegates to win the nomination. You know, so this is not this is not the biggest deal in the world."

To clarify, that quote from Bernie Sanders was on February 4, 2016 during the Post-Iowa, Pre-New Hampshire debate. The 2016 Iowa caucus was basically a tie and so was the 2020 Iowa caucus. The screw up with the app and the delay in announcing results was bad in the moment but it will be forgotten soon enough. (Although I hope the Democratic party remember it when slating the next primary calendar. Iowa needs to go to the back of the line.)

I. Iowa Results.

The results are pretty muddled.  I will discuss each candidate with some reference to my predictions in the last post. 

1. Pete Buttigieg (26.2%, 13 or 14 delegates).

Buttigieg had a good night, finishing in a de-facto tie with Bernie Sanders. That's good for him, because a poor result in Iowa would have been fatal to his candidacy. He "won" to fight another day at least, and there is some evidence of an uptick in his New Hampshire numbers.  But I don't think he's going to have a long and deep run. His victory speech in Iowa rubbed people the wrong way, but he needed to do it because his fund raising has been sluggish.

I predicted he'd come 3rd with 17%, so a win/tie at 26 is a very good result.

2. Bernie Sanders (26.1% 12 or 13 delegates).

He did fine. He can make an honest claim of winning the raw vote, and in a virtual tie for delegates. His campaign did well at the satellite locations and turned out enough people to (almost) win. But turnout was lower than expected and the base theory of his campaign is that he is capable of turning out young and infrequent voters. Four years ago about 85,000 people turned up to caucus for him. This week, only about 26,000 chose him among a much larger field. Perhaps more troubling is that he didn't seem to gain a lot of voters between the 1st and 2nd rounds of voting, where Biden/Klobuchar and Warren voters gravitated towards Buttigieg, giving him the delegate lead.

I predicted he would win with 28%, so a very close 2nd with 26% is mildly disappointing. But he should win New Hampshire and the poor showing by Biden has pushed him into the lead of the betting markets.

3. Elizabeth Warren (18%, 8 delegates).

The good news is that she did better than her polling predicted. But she was pretty far off the lead and Bernie Sanders seems to be the clear choice of the progressive wing of the party. This is an adequate result for her and she will probably stick around past the early primaries.

I predicted she would be 4th with 14%, so she exceeded that.

4. Joe Biden (15.8%, 6 delegates).

He shit the bed. Iowa was not great for him demographically but he also failed to execute a good ground game, and that led to him underperforming. At the moment, he looks weak. And there's not much reason to think that New Hampshire will be much better for him.  He is going to stick around and make his stand in South Carolina. But he needs a stronger result in New Hampshire than this. 

I predicted he would be 2nd with 23%, so this is a very bad result.

5. Amy Klobuchar (12.3%, 1 delegate).

This was an adequate result. She was the first to take the podium on caucus night, taking advantage of the lack of results to claim that she had finished strong and was ready to move on to New Hampshire with momentum. She also won a delegate, which is significant because it gives her a guaranteed spot in the Nevada debate.

She also should be heartened by the Biden number. If Biden slips, Klobuchar could stand to gain a lot of his voters. Last night's debate in New Hampshire went very well for her and she was the overwhelming favorite of the "undecided" voters in the various TV audiences. Her campaign raised over a million dollars in just a few hours after the debate. If she can move up at all in NH, then she is probably going to stay in until at least Super Tuesday.

I predicted that she would be 5th with 12%, so I pretty much nailed that.

And for the non-delegate candidates:

These two chumps tried to compete in Iowa and came away with nothing for their efforts.

6. Andrew Yang 1%, Hardly surprising but still gratifying to see.

7. Tom Steyer 0.3%  Embarrassing.

The Non-Iowa candidates.

Four of the remaining 11 candidates decided to mostly skip Iowa in order to concentrate on New Hampshire, or in Bloomberg's case, the Super Tuesday States. 

8. Tulsi Gabbard   A grand total of 334 people turned up to caucus for her. That is 0.2%, which is 0.2% more than she deserved.

9. Michael Bloomberg 

10. Michael Bennet 

11, Deval Patrick

II. New Hampsire Predictions.

Bernie winning seems to be the only sure thing here.  The post-Iowa polls suggest that Bernie will win and Pete will come second. That would be the traditional revers of the Iowa result, but I think the margin should be significant.  In fact I think Pete is more likely to finish 3rd than to win.

The hardest candidate to hadicap is Biden. New Hampshire loves to reject the Iowa winner, so maybe he will bounce up to 2nd. But he also looks weak and feels vulnerable. Another 4th place finish would be a disaster. If he does fnish 4th (or 5th) it will be interesting to see where his voters go-to Buttigieg, Klobuchar or Warren. 

Without further ado, here is the official prediction for New Hampshire.

1. Bernie Sanders 28%.

2. Joe Biden 20%

3. Pete Buttigieg 16%

4. Elizabeth Warren 14%

5. Amy Klobuchar 11%

6. Yang 4%

7. Steyer 3%

8. Gabbard 2%

8. Patrick 1%

10. Bennet 0.3%

How to judge the results of each serious candidate:

• CANDIDATE                                    GOOD     ADEQUATE  BAD
• SANDERS                                          WIN            2ND             3RD
• BIDEN                                              2ND            3RD             4TH
• BUTTIGIEG                                      2ND            3RD             4TH
• WARREN                                          3RD            4TH              5TH
• KLOBUCHAR                                    3RD            4TH              5TH

*If anyone else finishes in the top 5, then the candidates they beat will probably have to drop out.

III.  Someone Has to Win This Thing.

Before Iowa, Joe Biden was the consensus front-runner. That is no longer the case. So far the race has been more like two separate races for the wings of the party. On the left, Bernie Sanders has solidified his base and has a clear lead over Elizabeth Warren.  In the center, Biden has faltered, with Buttigieg and Klobuchare both exceeding early expectations. And Michael Bloomberg is waiting in the wings to further confuse that end of the pool.

I think there are four likely outcomes to this race:  

1. Bernie Sanders wins a narrow majority after a potracted primary race. (40% chance)

2. The primaries end with no candidate having obtained a majority. (30% chance)

3.  Joe Biden consolidates the center and wins a majority of delegates. (25% chance)

4.  Pete Buttigieg and Michael Bloomberg win a combined majority of delegates and run on the same ticket (5%)

I hate that this gives short shrift to Elizabeth Warren. Maybe she can surprisse in New Hampshire and knock some of the smaller candidates out of the race early. If it becomes a head to head race between Sanders and Warren, some moderates will rally to her. But I don't think it's going to happen. But I have a hard time seeing her cobble together a delegate majority. Bernie owns all the real estate to her left and there are several viable options to her right.  I don't think this is her year.

Scenario number two is most interesting.  The current projections on 538.com have Bernie winning almost 42% of the delegates and Joe Biden winning 25%.  Buttigies and Warren each winning about 11% and Bloomberg winning about 9%. (These numbers will change wildly if any of the top candidates drop out before Super Tuesday.)

The easiest mathematical solution is a Sanders-Warren ticket. But there is a huge problem with that ticket. Both Vermont and Massachussets have Republican governors. If that ticket wins, it will immediately cost the Democratic party two senate seats.  In Massachussets, the interim senator will sit for about 100 days. In Vermont for up to six months.  Even if the Democrats win both special elections, the Warren-Sanders administration will be handicapped for the "First 100 days" of its term.  The party will not want to sign on to that.

So if that ticket doesn't happen, what does the party do?  If Bernie is very close to 50% of the delegates, he can probably pull it off. But if he is 300 or 400 delegates short, the party will be torn between rallying to him and pissing off his base. The only thing we know for sure, is that Bernie will fight to the last possible moment, just as he did in 2016. 

The Party regulars will not want to give it to Bernie for a variety of reasons. The simplest being that he is not a Democrat and he cares nothing about the party as an institution. That is alienating, and for good reason. (Imagine running for president of the local Ozzy Osbourne fan club with a platform of, "I don't care for Black Sabbath.")

If Biden has a plurality of the delegates, he will probably be the nominee. He can offer Veep to Klobuchar, who might control 50 or 100 delegates and who is well-liked by the establishment. And Buttigieg might realize that his future is long and bright so long as he doens't rock the boat. Bloomberg would also be fine with a Biden-Klobuchar ticket. So I think that's an easy sell.

But if the number really look like Nate Silver's forecast, the party might need to turn to a compromise candidate. It would be a huge risk to run an unvetted candidate, but let's consider some of the options.

Some of the best choices have probably taken themselves out of the running by having run in this race on their own.  Imagine a world in which the Democratic party needed to win with an unknown face who could do well in the Midwest, had no obvious diaqualifying qualities and appealed to most of the Democratic base?  Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris and Deval Partick all fit that description on paper. But ti would be hard for the party to foist a candidate on the general public who had been rejected by the voters.

Other possiblities:

1. Sherrod Brown.  This would cost the party a senate seate for 2 full years but he has a foot in both worlds of the party and he might make Ohio competitive. He's probably the best option in this scenario, if only because the decison to not run in this verkhata primary makes him look 10 IQ points smarter.

2. Stacey Abrams.  The party faithful will embrace her. But running a black woman whose highest electoral win is a state legislture race is very, very risky. Definitely on the VP short list though.

3. Tom Wolf.  Let me save you a Google.  He is the governor of Pennsyvlania. He's sane, sober and popular in one of the most important swing states.  He's also both bald and bland, so he won't excite anyone.  But he has to be considered.

4. Chris Murphy.  He doesn't put any swing states in play but he's young and handsome and moderate. His very public advocacy of gun control would help him with surubabn women but would also hurt him in some of the swing states that the Dems need to win back. He is viable.

5. Tammy Baldwin.  On the one hand, she is a popular senator twice elected in the 2016 tipping poin state of Wisconsin. On the other, she is lesbian and some people will think that's risky. She is also unmarried and childless, which I do believe are impediments to national candidates.

IV. The Old Metrics.

This is the 12th post I've done on the Democratic field, so I might as well update my usual standings.  There have been changes, after all.

A. The Horse Race, Take 12

The Top Tier (Front-Runners)

1. Bernie Sanders (up from 2)

2. Joe Biden (Down from 1)

3. Pete Buttigieg (Up from 5)

4. Mike Bloomberg

Tier Two (The Alternatives)

5. Elizabeh Warren (Down from 4)  This just does not seem to be her year. But if she does well in NH, I will happily put her back in the top tier.

6. Amy Klobuchar.

She has qualified for every debate stage (sometimes just barely) and she won an delegate in Iowa (just barely.) But she needs to actually lap some people in NH.

Tier Three; The Novelty Candidates.

7.  Tom Steyer.  (Up from 10)  He's the rich weirdo.

8. Andrew Yang (Up from 9) He's the amiable weirdo.

9. Tulsi Gabbard (Up from 11)  She's the malevlolent weirdo.

Tier Four: The Long Shots.

10. Deval Patrick (Down from 8)

11. Michael Bennet (Down from 7)

Note: I moved the Novelty Candidates ahead of the Long Shots. Now that we have some votes on the board, it's pretty obvious that Patrick and Bennet are not going to catch fire with the electorate. Steyer migth be committed to setting 20% of his fortune on fire, so he could hang around for awhiel.  Tulsi and Yang have never been serious about running for president, but it might serve their actual agenda to pretend to keep running for awhile.

B.  The Power Rankings, Take 11.

These are just my personal preferences among the remaining candidates.

1. Amy Klobuchar

2. Michael Bennet

3. Deval Patrick (Up from 7)

4. Joe Biden (Down from 3)

5. Pete Buttigieg (Down from 4)

6. Elizabeth Warren (Down from 5)

7. Michael Bloomberg (Up from 9)

8. Bernie Sanders (Down from 6)

9. Tome Steyer (Down from 8)

10. Andrew Yang

11. Tulsi Gabbard

The World and the Election Turn it Up a Notch (Eighth Look at the 2020 Democratic Field)

I last updated my rankings of the Democratic field on September 1st. A lot has happened since then, both in the race and in the world at large. Before I get to the rankings I want to take a moment to comment on what I think will determine the outcome of the election.

The election is in 54 weeks. I estimate that the Democratic party is a slight favorite to win. If I were to put it in probabilities, I would say the Democrats have about a 55% chance of winning and the Republicans about 45%.  But we're not sure who will be the nominee of well, either party.  I think a moderate Democrat (Biden, Klobuchar, Buttigieg) would have about a 60% chance and a more liberal candidate (Warren, Sanders, O'Rourke) would be in a very close election that would be decided by just one or two states. (If I had to guess, Wisconsin.)

Note: I think Harris is somewhere in between these two blocs idealogically and would be a very modest favorite to win.

I.  The Policies that Will Drive the Election Next  Year.

Before getting more specific on the horse race, I want to write briefly about the substance of the election. I now believe there are five issues that will shape the course of the race over these next 54 weeks, and I want to write about each of them in order of importance.

1. The Kurds, Syria and Iraq.  I thought that Trump's re-election campaign had one really solid policy arrow in its quiver-the claim that he defeated ISIS.  Now this isn't really true. The destruction of the ISIS caliphate was largely a result of carrying out the plans made and initiated during the Obama administration. But Trump did manage to not fuck that up. In fact he accelerated it a bit by arming a lot of Kurds in Syria to fight our common enemy.  Eleven thousand of those Kurds died in that fight.  Two weeks ago, for reasons still known only to him, he gave the government of Turkey the green light to slaughter them. The carnage and loss of life will be terrible.

The beneficiaries of this plan are Russia, the Assad regime in Syria and the Erogan government in Turkey. It is likely that ISIS will make gains too, although it's hard to say what form they will take. Today our soldiers left Syria for western Iraq. They were pelted with fruit on the way out of the country. The consequences of this betrayal will be extremely negative in the long run.

It is my hope that some principled Republicans repudiate President Trump over this betrayal. But only two Republican house members have done that so far. John Shimkus (R-IL) and Francis Rooney (R-FL).  Neither man is running for re-election next year.  For now, Trump is keeping the Republican party despite this pathetic fecklessness. That might hold. But it won't if things go really bad in Syria and Iraq.

2.  Impeachment.  Last week Mick Mulvaney took to the podium in the White House and admitted that the president withheld foreign aid from Ukraine unless they conducted an investigation of the president's mostl likely electoral opponent in 2020.  In normal times, this would cause a president to resign in shame. But Donald Trump is incapable of shame and he is pretending that there was nothing wrong in this decision.  The prediction markets have been pretty firm for over a week-there is about a 70% chance that Donald Trump will be impeached by the House but only about a 20% chance that he will be removed by the senate.

Today Bill Taylor gave his deposition and apparently drew a direct line from Donald Trump to a quid pro quo that conditioned Ukraine receiving aid to defend themselves from Russia on opening an investigation into Joe Biden.  This is rank corruption. If the Republican party were not so heavily in the bag for Trump, his removal from office would be a virtual certainty.

I think the odds of Trump being impeached are more like 80%. The house is gathering a lot of evidence and at least some of the people close to the president have been cooperating. But there are only two Republican senators that have even hinted that they might consider this impeachable conduct. To remove him from office, the Democrats will need at least 20 Republican votes. (Two Democrats, might waver due to political pressure in the states they represent, Alabama and West Virginia.)

If he is impeached but not removed, he will claim complete vindication.  But it's likely that the evidence presented at trial will damage his popularity among independent voters.

If he is removed, then the evidence was so strong that nearly half of the Republican caucus could not ignore the criminality. Under those circumstances, the Republicans probably nominate Mike Pence and lose big next year. If this all comes together soon, then there could be a competitive primary between Pence and Tom Cotton and or Nikki Haley. Ted Cruz will try to run because that's his only purpose in life now. If it happens as late as next spring, the party bosses might get to pick their nominee. They will be tempted to nominate Nikki Haley, although I still believe that the Republican base is incapable of embracing the daughter of Indian immigrants as their presidential candidate.

So the Democrats probably win if Trump is removed from office. If he is merely impeached, then the effect of the process will turn on the strength of the evidence presented to the public.


3.  Health care. I have watched most of the debates while scanning Twitter. During every debate so far, liberals on Twitter have complained loudly that the moderators spend too much time talking about health care. But the reason for this disproportionate time is simple-health care is the one issue that even casual primary voters care about. It affects their bottom line, so people pay attention during those discussion.

Most of the Democratic field have similar views on Donald Trump, immigration, and the need to increase taxes on wealthy Americans. There is even a lot of agreement on most matters of foreign policy, and the field even seems to agree that foreign policy is not worth talking about much. And they all want to move towards great health insurance coverage. But the most identifiable difference is between those who want to move to universal coverage through Medicare and those who support a more incremental proposal. That is the right versus left rift in the field.

Health care is a frustrating issue for a centrist. All of the data from every advance country tells us that our system sucks. And it would be greatly improved if the federal government got more involved in controlling price and making coverage available to more people. But the problem is that a majority of voters have good-enough coverage that they are wary of making big changes to the bloated, irrational system that we have built since World War Two.

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders both want to go big here. They want to put all Americans on Medicare, effectively ending the private insurance industry and putting Uncle Sam in charge of it all. They have plenty of data to support the idea that in the long-term this will be more efficient and cheaper than the status quo.  But like any big idea, it creates problems.  These are the main three:

1. It probably can't pass. Even if the Dems take the senate with 50 or 51 seats, there will be moderates who don't want to vote for this in the caucus.
2. The courts as presently constituted will probably strike this down. Obamacare survived by the skin of its teeth. And the courts have move rightward since that decision. Neither Sanders nor Warren will acknowledge this fact, because they are running more on ideals than a pragmatic plan for how to govern the country.
3. If it were passed and somehow upheld by the courts, it would be extremely vulnerable to being gutted. The Republican party has not flinched in its mission to gut Obamacare, even popular elements of it, like expanind Medicaid coverage, have been resisted by the Republican party all across the country.  If a Medicare For All plan became law, it would still need to be funded every year. And the GOP would be dead set on choking it to death in its crib.

If the Democratic nominee runs on Medicare for all, it will be easy for the Republican candidate to scare voters into thinking that the Democrats are coming for their health care. And that's the fucked up thing about this Trojan Horse we call a health care system-people only really care about what will happen to their family. So the best we can realistically hope for are incremental changes.

Medicare for all is a political loser. That is why I think a Warren nomination will make the election too close to call.

4. The Economy.   Donald Trump raided the treasury to pay for a huge tax cut that endeared him to rich people. A lot of squishy Republicans who know he is a jerk might hold their nose and vote for him because they believe in the power of tax cuts as much as any junkie every believed in the drug that was killing them. This sounds pathological (and it is) but it describes a lot of Romney/Gary Johnson voters-the exact demographic that the Democratic nominee needs to win over.

Trump's economic record is mixed. The job market has remained strong. The tax cuts spurred some growth, but that has cooled down to 2.0 percent last quarter. Over the next year, I don't think it will get appreciably better than that. But we probably won't have a recession.

Trump's other economic stratagem has been a foolish trade war with China. The tariffs he placed on Chinese good caused retaliatory tariffs on our exports. Farmers in particular have been hurt by this. I expect Trump to find a way to end his trade war with China, call it a victory and lift all or most of the tariffs he put in place on them. China would be wise to reciprocate, and the farmers in Iowa and Ohio who have been suffering, just might be feeling better about their lot in life a year from now. This is an easy win for Trump, but he is not beyond blowing the opportunity.

5. Trump Fatigue.  Trump might escape being removed from office. The Republican party is in hock to him, and that could keep him in office. If he's still in office, he will waltz to the nomination. He is popular with a large enough swath of the public that he can make a race close, especially if the Democratic nominee runs poorly. But the plain fact is that the country and the world know that Donald Trump is an asshole.  And that counts. A lot.

Donald Trump thinks that life is a zero sum game, which is why he is obsessed with bilateral trade deficits.  This transactional  approach to life has caused him to align the United States with dictators and autocrats.  The world is seeing the price for this realignment, most acutely in Ukraine and Syria.

Ukraine is fighting off an invasion by Russia. Syria is fighting a civil war, where Russia and Turkey have enormous interest in who wins. Most Americans don't care about Ukranians or Kurds but we do care about being the good guys. At least we used to. And we ought to be rooting for the side of democratic freedom, especially where those freedoms meet the autocracies of the poorer world.  That is what Ukraine and Syria have in common. The best Democratic candidate might just be the person who can convince the people of Wisconsin, North Carolina and Arizona that they should want to be the good guys again. Convincing them that Donald Trump is a bad guy should be an easy first step.

II.  The Horse Race, Take Eight.

The candidates, in order of likelihood to be the nominee. Incredibly, only one candidate has dropped out in the past 53 days. (Bye-bye Bill de Blasio.)

A. The Top Tier (The Front-Runners)

1. Elizabeth Warren  (Up from 2)

She had a great month or so of polling and briefly overtook Joe Biden in the RCP polling average. That wave seems to have crested, perhaps in part due to her performance in the 4th debate. But the betting markets now favor her heavily, so I move her to the top spot.  But she has a lot of vulnerabilities and shouldn't get too comfortable here.


2. Joe Biden (Down from 1)

He's old. And it's showing.That's why he slipped.  He might rebound, especially if foreign affairs come to the fore, but he is not putting this race away. Not by a long shot.

3. Bernie Sanders

He's old. And he had a heart attack. But he looked lively in the debate and he got some good press out of an endorsement by Representative Ocasio-Cortez.  He has a loyal following and will probably vacuum up a lot of delegates. But his health is a concern and his shtick wears thin.

B. Tier Two (The Other Contenders)

4. Pete Buttigieg (Up from 5)

He could benefit if Bernie slips. He's done well on the stump and educated voters like him a lot. I first ranked the candidates on December 30, 2018. I ranked Mayor Pete 23rd, which was dead fucking last.  This is what I wrote at the time:  Mayor of the 4th largest city in Indiana. Like everyone who spends time in South Bend, he has an inflated sense of his own self-worth.

I was wrong. Pete is a serious and skilled politician. He deserves to be given serious consideration, even if his resume is imperfect.

5. Kamala Harris (Down from 4)

She's not just down one spot, she is down a tier. Her polling has been really rough for the past month. I still think she would be a good president but I'm not sure she can close this deal.


C. Tier Three (Those Guys)

6. Cory Booker (Up from 7)

Still not my favorite, but he has a good presence and might hang around long enough to capitalize on any chaos further up the chain.

7. Amy Klobuchar (Up from 9)

She has gotten a lot of chatter as the best moderate alternative to Biden. But this has not shown up in the polls yet and she might miss the next debate. I hope her buzz translates into improved polling numbers soon, because she's going to need a strong performance in Iowa to stay in the race.

8. Beto O'Rourke (Down from 6) and
9. Julian Castro (Down from 8)

The Texan boys have some talent but they don't seem to be of presidential timber. They both might already be thinking about a personal exit strategy but I'm not sure what either of them will do with their time after this race.

D. Tier Four (Long Shots)

10. Michael Bennet.
11. Steven Bullock

They probably would have been good VP candidates. Bullock might still be, but dropping out before Iowa might help him stay viable for that.

12. John Delaney

He should drop out and endorse Klobuchar. But he probably still has consultants willing to take his money and he must not be ready to give it up. I think he'll drop out after Iowa.

E. Tier Five (Novelty Candidates)

13. Andrew Yang

He will get votes. He will get delegates. He will birth a really annoying fringe political movement that gets out sized attention because it is mostly white and prosperous. But he will not be the nominee.

14. Tulsi Gabbard

She managed to generate some publicity this week by hopping on a report in the New York Times that inaccurately suggested that Hillary Clinton thought she was being groomed by the Russians. I can't imagine her dropping out and she might get some crossover fuck-you votes from Republicans. But she's an asshole and needs to go away.

15. Tom Steyer (Up from 17)
16. Tim Ryan (Down from 15)
17. Marianne Williamson (Up from 20)
18. Joe Sestak  (Down from 16)
19. Wayne Messam

The funnest fact of 2020 so far: Wayne Messam raised exactly $5 during the 3rd quarter of this year. That is one-half of a roll of quarters.


III.  The Power Rankings, Take Eight.
Here is how I rank the candidates just by my personal preferences.

1.  Klobuchar
2.  Harris
3.  Buttigieg (Up from nine)
4.  Michael Bennet (Up from 6)
5.  Steve Bullock (Up from 7)
6.  Elizabeth Warren (Down from 3)
7.  Beto O'Rourke (Down from 4)
8.  Julian Castro (Down from 5)
9.  Joe Biden
10. Cory Booker (Up from 11)
11. John Delaney (Down from 10)
12. Joe Sestak (Up from 13)
13. Tim Ryan (Down from 12)
14. Bernie Sanders
15. Wayne Messam
16.  Andrew Yang
17.  Tom Steyer
18.   Marianne Williamson
19.   Tulsi Gabbard

Second Round of Democratic Debates

This should be the last debate with 20 candidates.  It is an unwieldy way to run an election and it is wasteful of air time.

It's hard to grade performances across two nights, especially when half of the candidates are not serious. So I'm going to rank the 20 candidates from most to least likely to be elected president next year.  I will give each of them two grades-one for how they performed tactically-that is whether or not they advanced their cause in the short term.  And then a separate grade for how they performed strategically-that is did they enhance their actual chances of becoming president (or enhancing their long term political prospects.) At some point, I will stop giving strategic great because half of these people are running to boost their speaker fees and maybe land a TV gig.

1.  Biden Tactical A-, Strategic, B+

Biden drew a lot of heat, just as he did last time. But this time he was prepared. He wasn't in full command of the facts, but he withstood a lot of heat. He is past his prime. But he's probably got enough left in the tank to win this race.

2.  Harris  Tactical: B-, Strategic: B.

Harris obviously listened to all the good press she got after attacking Biden in the first debate. Tonight she seemed unprepared to receive the same kind of fire from everyone else on the stage. She was the star of the fist debate, she was middling tonight.

That said, I'm bullish on her candidacy. I think she made a big mistake by committing to a huge tax cut as the centerpiece of her campaign, but her health plan is pretty solid and she doesn't alienate independents with her talking points.

3. Warren  Tactical B+, Strategic: C.

She landed a lot of good blows on Delaney and some other irrelevancies.  That won her the night, but she also expressed some really dumb ideas. That will catch up to her if she's the nominee.

4. Sanders  Tactical: B, Strategic: C
His talking points are so vapid that I can't believe people still want him to be president. That's my analysis.

5. Buttigieg  Tactical: A, Strategic: A-.
He is good in this format. He's calm and clever and very reassuring.  I still think he's a long shot but I think he has elevated his long term prospects more than anyone in the field.  If a Democrat wins, he will get an important job.

6. Inselee  Tactical: A-, Strategic: A.
He's got an issue that resonates with the base and a demeanor that scores well with moderates. He's a long shot, I won't count him out now.

7. Klobuchar  Tactical: B, Strategic: B+
She remains my preferred candidate but there is no getting around the fact that she is boring in this format.  Her message should be resonating more-she really is the strongest candidate to beat Trump but it seems unlikely that she will get that chance.  I really hope she gets the remaining donors needed to participate in the 3rd debates in Houston, because I think she might do better on a smaller stage.

8. Booker  Tactical B+, Strategic: B+
He had a few good moments.  He has a lane, but he's not doing much to seize it.

9. Castro  Tactical; A-, Strategic: B
He is a good debater and would make a good President some day. But it's hard to think of what demographic he connected with tonight.

10. Bullock Tactical: A-, Strategic: B+
He was good on substance but middling on style.  He probably won't make the next debate stage, but if he does, I hope he rehearses getting his talking points out.

11. Beto O'Rourke: Tactical: C+, Strategic: B.
It's easy to forget that he's running in this race.  But he made some good points about why he would be a good general election candidate. He already qualified for the next debate, which will be in Texas.

12. John Delaney:  Tactical: A

Delaney was annoying and, at times, petulant.  But he had one job-to get camera time and to beat the drum for centrism.  He gamed the system well-the rules reward making attacks against specific candidates, which invites cross fire.  He looked dumb in one or two moments and he's probably doomed to be a punchline down the line.  But last night everyone on social media was amazed at how much face time he got.  It seemed odd, but it was deliberate.

That said, he's never going to be president. And he doesn't have a long term future in politics. This is an ego campaign by a very rich man. That ego got stroked last night, and he might have made some points that get picked up by Biden or even Harris down the line.

13. Michael Bennett: Tactical: B+
He did fine. And nobody cares. He's not going to become president and he is probably hurting his long term national prospects.

14. Tim Ryan:  Tactical: C.
He's a meat head. That's my analysis.

15. Andrew Yang Tactical: B.
He was terrible in the first debate, merely unremarkable this time. He's probably going to wind up with a niche platform going forward. If he's serious about his ideas, he will run for a house seat sometime. But I think he's better suited to being an Internet intellectual.

16. John Hickenlooper. Tactical: C
I think his name is John. Maybe it's Jon. Please don't tell me. It's better not to know.


17. Kristen Gillibrand: Tactical: C.
She is a scrapper. She just sucks at it. Before tonight I thought for sure she would be dropping out soon, but he came loaded for bear tonight and unloaded some heavy smack on Biden. I do not think she has accepted that this race is futile yet.  Hopefully not making the cut for debate #3 will provide her that clarity.

18. Bill de Blasio Tactical: D
It's amazing for a politician to be this unlikeable and transparently phony. But we must remember that he's only in Gracie Mansion and on this stage because of Anthony Weiner's dick pics.  Fuck him.

19. Gabbard: Tactical: B
She's hard to grade, because I don't know what her agenda is. If she's trying to promote the cause of peace, well then I guess she said some of the right things. But it seems that her real agenda, for reasons known only to her, was to take out Kamala Harris. She unloaded the oppo research on her but to what effect?

You're going to hear more and more speculation about her real motivations as time goes by. I'm reserving judgment for now. But I sleep well knowing that's not going to be the nominee and that she apparently doesn't intend to run for another term in the House.

20.  Marianne Williamson Tactical: A-.
She got a few good lines in. The audience applauded her, especially her answer on reparations. She is going to have a very soft landing out of this-she'll grow her base of fans and she'll write more books and what-not in the future. Maybe she will get a talk show or some other platform that no one with her dangerous vies on vaccines and mental health should ever have.

She got some good buzz last night but she will never get above 2 percent in any national poll.  And that is the difference between the political parties-Democrats like and admire their hippy aunts, but Republicans vote for their racist uncles.

After the First Debate: 2020 Democratic Field, Take 5

The first Democratic debates were held this week and the field has officially been shaken up.  Kamala Harris laid a big heavy glove on the front-runner and now the betting markets have the race as essentially even between three candidates-Biden, Harris and Warren.  I will discuss how each candidate did and then list my new power rankings.

I. Five Candidates Who Helped Themselves, At Least a Little.

1. Kamala Harris. She came hunting for Joe Biden and stalked him at the perfect moment. Joe should have been prepared for this, but he wasn't.  You do not want to run the Democratic primary for president on a position of "Civil Rights is a state and local issue."  But that's where Kamala put him. She had been pretty stagnant in the polls. It will be interesting to see if that changes now, because she will have a bullseye on her back at the next debate. I expect she will come prepared to defend the inevitible attack on her record as Attorney General of California.  The one good thing about our absurdly long primary process is that everyone gets a turn in the barrell.

2. Elizabeth Warren.  She caught a bit of a break in the candidate lottery and was the only top tier candidate on the stage Wednesday. She did not squander the spotlight, although her glowing reviews only lasted for 24 hours.

3. Pete Buttigieg.  I have been dismissive of his candidacy. I still do not think that being mayor of South Bend makes you qualified to be President of the Untied States.  But he was prepared for this glaring weakness-the state of South Bend's police department. He took the questions seriously and owned up to his failures. He also resisted the temptation to tell Swalwell to STFU when he started spouting off at him from the cheap seats.  He may not be ready for the Oval Office yet, but I would like to see him in one of those jobs that will prepare him for it one day-maybe ambassador to the UN.

4. Julian Castro.  Castro knew he had to move up the pile, at least by one rung and he decided that Beto O'Rourke would be that run to climb over. He did well and I think he might get a modest boost in the polls. But he remains a long shot.

5. Amy Klobuchar.  She has been my preferred candidate from the start, so maybe she bleongs in the tier below this one. But she was serious and thoughtful and might benefit some from Biden's glass jaw being tagged.  She's going to need to stand out in the second debate to not fall off the list of serious candidates.

II.  Six Candidates Who Helped Themselves But It Does Not Matter.

On the first night, John Delaney an Bill de Blasio both did a reasonable job of getting their points across. They needed to be heard and they were. But they will not be president of the United States anytime soon. Eric Swalwell took a similar tack on the second debate to a similar result.

Michael Bennet did well on the second night but it's really hard to imagine how he gets any traction in this crowded field.  He probably would have been a solid VP choice if he didn't run and maybe he's hoping the solid debate perofrmances will elevate his profile as a senator down the road.

The Two Governors in the field-Jay Inslee and John Hickenlooper also had competent but uninspiring nights. They deserve to remain in their current jobs, which is a sort of compliment, I guess.

III.  Three Candidates Who Hurt Their Chances of Being President.

1. Joe Biden.  Mike Tyson once said of a vanguished opponent "Everybody's got a plan until the get hit."  Biden's plan was to ride the popularity of his former boss to the nomination and the unpopularity of his opponent to the Oval Office. Things will not be that simple.  He now has to come up with a narrtive that explains why he was opposed to busing for some reason other than being a bigot.  There are many thoughtful critques of busing, and he might be able to cobble together an explanation. The problem is that he talked about this issue a lot over the years and it will not be hard for his opponents to make him look bad.  That goes for the general election too. Donald Trump is so stupid he seemed to think the question of busing related to what type of transportation kids take to and from school. But his noise machine will not be afraid to run Facebook ads claiming that Biden is a bigot, just as they did against Hillary Clinton.  This is a real problem.

I also think that his age showed poorly that night.  Is this someone you want to be President nine and a half years from now?  It's a fair question.

2. Bernie Sanders.  Allowing 20 candidates to debate is a joke. The Democrats have committed to do so at least twice.  That struck me as crazy but I think there may be some method to the madness-Bernie got a lot of mileage from being the only opponent on the stage against Hillary Clinton. But in a crowded stage, Bernie repeating his simplisitc solution to everything-"Stand up to Wall Street!" sounded really fucking stupid.  He didn't direct that attack at any candidate, probably because he's not sure who is rivals are yet. (He mighat have tried to go after Warren if they were on the same night.) The result was that his words just felt like a vaccuous drone.

The Democrats do have a Bernie problem, though. He is not running to win. He is running to continue the process of shifting the paty leftward and creating a genuinely Leftist lane in American presidential politics. That means he will not drop out, even if the nomination has been sewn up by a more serious person.  One year from now, he might just be a huge pain in everyone's ass.

3. Beto O'Rourke.  Biden was unprepared for one specific thing. Beto was both unprepared and underwhelming. He does not seem to have figured out how to ramp-up his senate campaign into a national one.

4. Corey Booker.  I mean, he wasn't terrible. People inclined to like him, thought he did fine. But it's hard to see his support growing off of that performance. He has a better chance than Klobuchar or O'Rourke of surviving past the early states but I think he is also a long shot.

IV. Six Candidates Who Performed Poorly But It Doesn't Really Matter.

Tulsi Gabbard did a decent job of sounding like the candidate of peace but she never seems fully engaged with her surrounding and frankly gives off the vague vibe of someone who was raised in a cult and/or is overly sympathetic to Russia and the Taliban. Tim Ryan managed to get the worst of an exchange with her whee he was taking the anti-Taliban position. That does not auger well for his chances in this race but he also seemed to be running for some nebulous "voice of the Rust Belt" job that doesn't actually exist.

Eric Swalwell was smarmy and gruff. I don't expect anyone to rally around that cause now.  Andrew Yang straight-up choked. He didn't bother to wear a tie and he had nothing interesting to say. He did not belong on that stage.

Kirsten Gillibrand gets points for making an effort to be involved but all of her interjections fell flat because everyone knows that she is a dead-flat scratch in almost every single poll-national or statewide. She recently got zero percent in a poll of Democratic primary voters in Florida. That is impposisble for a senator from New York. (Consider that Hillary won the Florida primary by 17 points in 2008 and by 12 in 2016.)  Equally baffling for a New Yorker, she is having trouble raising funds. It seems very possible that she will not qualify to be on the stage at the end of July.  She is probably only doing permanent damage to her political prospects.

Marriane Willamson taught us all how to love and birthed 1,000 SNL audition tapes.

V. The Spider Stumbled Power Rankings, Take Five:  

These are the candidates ranked purely by my personal preferences. The number in Parenthesis indicates their rank in the Previous Rankings. The field has grown by three candidates since the last time I did these rankings. Not much movement at the top, but Buttigiege moved up by 4 spots and dear old Marrianne Williamson dropped by five.

1. Amy Klobuchar
2. Elizabeth Warren
3. Kamala Harris
4. Julian Castro (5)
5. Beto O'Rourke (4)
6. Kristin Gillibrand
7. Michael Bennett (Unranked)
8. Steve Bullock (Obviously he needs to make the next debate if he wants to stick around, but I hope he does.)
9. Pete Buttigieg (13)
10. Joe Biden (8)
11. John Delaney (13)
12. John Hickenlooper (9)
13. Jay Inslee (10)
14. Corey Booker
15. Tim Ryan (11)
16. Eric Swalwell (15)
17. Seth Moulton (16)
18. Joe Sestak (Unranked)
19. Bernie Sanders (18)
20. Bill de Blasio (Unranked)
21. Wayne Messam
22. Andrew Yang (17)
23. Tulsi Gabbard (22)
24. Mike Gravel (21)
25. Marianne Williamson (20)

                                           VI. The Horse Race, Take Five.

This is where I handicap the field and attempt to put it into an orderly system of tiers. There is a lot more movement here than in my personal preferences.

The Top Tier Candidates (Five, Up From Three Last Time)
1. Joe Biden (2)
2. Elizabeth Warren (6)
3. Kamala Harris (4)
4. Bernie Sanders (1)
5. Pete Buttigieg (3)

The Pack (Four Candidates, Down From Six Last Time)
6. Cory Booker (5)
7. Julian Castro (9)
8. Beto O'Rourke (7)
9. Amy Klobuchar (8)

Flawed and/or Floundering (Six Candidates, Down From Eight Last Time)
10. Michael Bennett (Unranked)
11. Kristen Gillibrand (10)
12. Jay Inslee (13)
13. John Hickenlooper (12)
14. John Delaney
15. Tim Ryan (11)

Long Shots
16. Steve Bullock (19)
17. Bill de Blasio (Unranked)
18. Joe Sestak (Unranked)
19. Tulsi Gabbbard (16)
20. Seth Moulton (17)
21. Eric Swalwell (15)

Train Wrecks
22. Andrew Yang (18)
23. Wayne Messam (20)  I misspelled his name last time, which I'm sure you all noticed and were very upset about.
24. Marrianne Williamson (21)
25. Mike Gravel (22)

2020 Democratic Field, Take 4

The big news this week is of course the Mueller Report. My impression is that the report demonstrates multiple instances where the president obstructed justice.  The spinning of this report by Attorney General Barr was exteremely disingenuous. In a just world, Barr would resign in shame.  But that is not the world we live in.

The next big event will be hearings and the testimony of Robert Mueller (and, to a less extent, Donald McGahn) will probably determine whether or not there will be impeachment hearings. If there are hearings, then the president will probably be impeached.  Then it will be up to the senate.  I think it's very unlikely that Trump would be convicted in a senate trial but the process should go forward.

If I had to bet right now, I would say that the President will be impeached by the House but not convicted by the Senate. In fact, I think the Senate might simply refuse to hold a trial at all.  That means he will most likely still be President a year from now. He will almost certainly run for re-election and if so, he will be the nominee of the Republican Party.  Now, to the Democrats and their enormous field of mostly mediocre candidates.

I. THE SPIDERSTUMBLED BLOG POWER RANKINGS.

This section is just about me. These are my ranked preferences among the likely candidates.  If their standing has changed since the first rankings, I put their number from the previous iteration of this list in parenthesis.  Bold indicates that the candidate has already announced that they are running.

Tip of the 40 ounce to Terry McCauliffe, Chris Murphy, Andrew Cuomo, Mitch Landrieu, and Andrew Steyer who decided to sit this race out since I last published my rankings.

Four That I Would be Enthused About:
1. Amy Klobuchar. 
2. Elizabeth Warren  (4)
She continues to impress me with her attention to detail and creative energy. If this race was determined purely on substantive issues, I think she would win the nomination and the election. But her poll numbers continue to disappoint and her fundraising numbers were lackluster for the first quarter. I hope she stays viable and gains some traction. She has earned it.
3. Kamala Harris  (2)
She is running a cautious race so far. I think she knows that she has the money and resume to stay viable and she wants to spend 2019 avoiding any incidents that might jeopardize that.
4. Beto O'Rourke  (3)
Also underwhelming so far. He needs to step up his game to the national stage.

Seven That I Would Be Happy With:
5. Julian Castro (14)
This is a big jump in a tremendous field. I like his temperament and presentation so far. He strikes me as someone that will benefit from the debates, in a way similar to how John Kasich moved up the Republican polls in 2016 after just barely qualifying for the main stage of the first debate. 
6. Kristin Gillibrand 
I am close to writing her off. A lot of Democrats hold her principled position on Al Franken against her, which is a shame. But a senator from New York state should be better able to raise funds and attract press. 
7. Steve Bullock (8)  No sign that he's running but I'll leave him in for now.
8. Joe Biden 
He has baggage and is a older than I think is ideal for a president, but I think his political instincts will serve him will. He has been wise to delay the announcement because he has the name recognition to allow him the luxury of sitting out the silly season. 
9. John Hickenlooper (12)
10. Jay Inslee (13)
11. Tim Ryan

Four That Mean Something Went Wrong But Okay, Sure:
12. Pete Buttigieg (18)
Became a media darling by saying yes to everything. His novelty is just about to wear off, I expect, but he'll hang around for the voting, no matter what.
13. John Delaney (Unranked)
14.  Corey Booker (17)
15. Eric Swalwell (Unranked)

Four That Well, I Won't Vote For Trump, So Fingers Crossed.
16. Seth Moulton (Unranked)
17. Andrew Yang (Unranked)
18.  Bernie Sanders (19)
19.  Wayne Messam (Unranked)

Three WHAT THE FUCK?
20. Marianne Wilamson (Unranked)
21. Mike Gravel (Unranked)
22. Tulsi Gabbard

II.  The 2020 Hourse Race.

Here is what the polling shows so far: Bernie and Biden each have about a quarter of the party ready to support them. Everyone else is stuck in single digits. Buttigieg has out performed expectations and is currently in third place in most polls.  Harris, Warren, O'Rourke, Booker and Klobuchar have yet to gain traction but they are the middle of the pack for now.  Gillibrand, Inslee, Hickenlooper and all of the House members are the bottom tier for now. Below them, there are a handful of celebrity and novelty candidates who are just running for attention.

Because the field is so large, it might be helpful to try to think of which candidates could compete for certain voters. There are countless factors that this could be broken down by but I think the #1 issue for Democrats next year will be simple-Remove Donald Trump for office. So I think it's useful to think of these "lanes" in terms of what their appeal will be in the general election. If you like, you can think of these lanes as Left, Moderate and Centrist. But I think it's more interesting to think of them in terms of what voting blocs they would appeal to in the general election if they were the nominee.

In 2016 Donald Trump exceeded Mitt Romney's 2012 vote total but just over 2 million votes. Hillary Clinton's  vote total was just 65,000 less than Barack Obama in 2012 or about 4 million less than Obama's 2008 total.

The dramatic shifts in voting patterns happened among the other candidates in the field.  The Green Party and Libertarian parties nominated, respectively, Jill Stein and Gary Johnson in 2012 and 2106. The Greens increased their vote total by just under one million votes. The Libertarians increased theirs by over 3.2 million votes. Additionally, Evan McMullin got over 700,000 votes running as right-wing independent. (The 5th place finisher in 2012 got only 120K votes.)

The 2008 Obama Coaltion was an electoral marvel. It sucked up every electoral college vote that was in play. It damn near won Missouri. It held together enough to win in 2012 but it did not hold for 2016. For the rest of the 2020 cycle my analysis will discuss these three segments of the Obama Diaspora: 1. Trump or Stayed Homes 2. Soft Libertarians 3. Protest Greens.

1. SOFT LIBERTARIANS: (3.9 Million voters)

Voters who went Libertarian (or McMullin) in 2012 but not in 2012.

These are mostly people who are right of center that could not bring themselves to vote for either Trump or Hillary. I expect that Trump has won over a fair amount of them. The Democrats would win a lot of them if they nominate a centrist like Biden, but I don't think they will turn out for Bernie or anyone they perceive as either corrupt or inexperienced.

2. TRUMP OR STAYED HOME (3.7 million voters)

Obama 2008 voters who didn't vote for Hillary in 2016.

There are two sub-demographics in this group.

A. People who were upset with George W. Bush in 2008 and gave Obama a chance. He didn't keep many of them in the fold in 2012 or 2016. Some of them will probably come back in 2020 because they don't like Donald Trump personally, although that assumes that the Dems will nominate someone that they do like. 

B. People who didn't turn out for Hillary in 2016. As discussed above Hillary nearly matched Obama's national vote total from 2012, but that was because of higher turnout in non-competitive states. For example, her combined vote totals in CA and TX exceeded Obama's 2012 haul by 1.468 million. But her combined totals in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin was 698,000 less than Obama in 2012.  Some of those people switched over to Trump but more of them simply stayed home.  Whoever the Democratic nominees is, they will know that they must turn out marginal voters in those three states.

3. PROTEST GREENS (1 million voters)

Voters who voted Green in 2016 but not in 2012.

Jill Stein tripled her vote count between 2012 and 2016, from half a million votes to 1.5 million votes. Those million votes are most likely to come home to the Democratic party but it has to be acknowledged that a centrist like Biden will pick up fewer of them than Sanders or Warren will.

These are imprecise groups. There is some double counting, especially between the first two groups. But I think it's a useful matrix for categorizing the "lanes" of the 2020 Democratic Primary.  I give you our first attempt to rank the chance of each serious candidate to be the nominee, relative to others and divided by who they would most appeal to in the general election.

Tier	Protest Greens	Trump/Stayed Home	Soft Libertarian
First	Sanders	Buttiegieg	Biden
Second	Warren	Harris	Booker
Third		O'Rourke	Klobuchar
Fourth	Ryan	Castro	Gillibrand
Fifth		Inslee
Sixth		Hickenloper

Note: The Red Box is intentionally blank, because I think Ryan is less likely to be the nominee than O'Rourke or Klobuchar. For that matter, I think he's less likely than Castro or Gillibrand also. 

Here is the whole field, even the weirdos nobodies and proxy by grandchildren candidates, ranked from 1 to 22.

The Top Tier Candidates.

1. Bernie Sanders  

2. Joe Biden  

3. Pete Butigieg 

The Pack. (Someone from this group will break out of IA and NH to be a contender.)

4. Kamala Harris 

5. Corey Booker 

6. Elizabeth Warren 

7. Beto O'Rourke  

8. Amy Klobuchar 

9. Juan Castro 

Third Tier: Plausible But Flawed And/or Floundering.

10. Kristin Gillibrand 

11. Tim Ryan 

12. John Hickenlooper 

13.  Jay Inslee 

14. John Delaney.

15. Eric Swalwell 

16. Tulsi Gabbard

17. Seth Moulton

Fourth Tier: Long Shots.

18. Andrew Yang

19. Steve Bullock

20. Wayne Masson

21. Marianne Wiliamson

22. Mike Gravel

I debated leavin him off, because he's not really running. But he's indulging his grandchildren in letting them run a social media campaign in his name. What a country.