The Chicago Tribune is usually a fine paper. Founded in 1847, it was once referred to as “The World’s Greatest Newspaper” (until the New York Times took that mantle in the mid 1900’s, and it remains a vigorous daily. It has a weekday circulation of 439,731 — up 6 percent over last year, a loaves-and-fishes miracle in today’s climate. It’s won a dozen Pulitzer Prizes, including in 2008 for Investigative Reporting, “for its exposure of faulty governmental regulation of toys, car seats and cribs, resulting in the extensive recall of hazardous products and congressional action to tighten supervision,” according to the Pulitzer committee.
Which made today’s op-ed piece baffling. Columnist John Kass called for Elizabeth Warren to drop out of the presidential race, arguing that Bernie Sanders has a better chance to stop former vice president Joe Biden. “Sanders has the necessary authenticity,” Kass declared. Warren “turns off working-class families.”
I’m not sure what Kass is citing as evidence, but it clearly isn’t logic. After obtaining a college degree in speech pathology and audiology, but before enrolling in law school, Warren taught children with disabilities in a public school. She is Massachusetts’ first female senator. She shot to national attention at her first Banking Committee hearing in February 2013, when she pressed banking regulators to say when they had last taken a Wall Street bank to trial. “I’m really concerned that ‘too big to fail’ has become ‘too big for trial’,” she famously noted. She’s married to a teacher, is the mother of two and the grandmother of two. What, my dear Mr. Kass screams working-class turnoff to you?
This is not to besmirch Bernie. He and Warren are neck and neck in Democratic polls, each without about 15%, roughly half of Biden’s poll rating. And this is before our first political primary, which often mandates the political currents in an election year. And you want her to fold? Please, John, invite me to your next poker game.
No, the answer is more nuanced and, admittedly, risky. But Donald Trump has incumbency on his side, which could very well clear his path for a second term. Nineteen presidents have sought reelection since 1900: Of those, only five have lost. So brace yourselves for more weaponized ignorance. Dems will have to throw a haymaker punch, and Trump may have shown them how.
If Orange Julius has taught us anything about elected office, it’s this: Voters are as warm to traditional American politics as they are to the metric system. He may be a pederast and ignoramus, but Trump has demonstrated that excising decades-old political norms work. No job experience? No problem. Moral and financial bankruptcy? Where do Republicans sign up? Trump is the living incarnation of H.L. Mencken’s idiom: “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”
So why not give Americans what they clearly want: something new. Instead of having Biden, Bernie and Warren duke it out in a traditional primary skirmish that will invariably leave all battered, why not tag team this bitch? If we’re entertaining ludicrous notions of folding up camp 20 months out, why not entertain the opposite? I’ll exclude Biden from this notion, as he is looking as gray and mumbly as Donnie Dimwit. But imagine if Warren and Sanders announced tomorrow that if one wins the presidential nomination, the other will be his/her vice-presidential pick? It would be a gambit, no doubt. But consider for a moment the potential reward:
- It would make picking a vice president less anti-climactic. Quick, name Hillary Clinton’s choice for VP (it’s Tim Kaine). The choice is always a dull letdown, typically made in the hopes of securing a swing state that ultimately has little effect on the overall election.
- It would keep the base energized. Remember how angry Bernie supporters were when Clinton muscled him out of the race? Those people did not vote, opening the door for Trump and his minions. Obama rode an energized base into office; it’s time for a recharge.
- It would demonstrate unity. This one is tougher to picture, but try: A politician makes a campaign promise — then keeps it! Dems have been deft at rallying against Trump, but not so gifted at working with one another, which is why we have no clear path from the left on gun control, a medical insurance overhaul, or even lobbying reform. It’s one thing to make a pledge, but who thus far has a reputation for keeping one?
- It would make for a moving target. One thing the GOP does well is come up with monikers, insults and excuses to discriminate. Warren could shake Trump’s “Pocahontas” slur with an older white male counterpart, and Bernie could loosen his rep as a “get off my lawn!” geezer.
- It would make the primary a newsworthy event. Combining their poll numbers would immediately put Warren and Sanders into a virtual dead heat with Biden. Biden may still win out, but news coverage of a race that isn’t already decided (as the GOP now has with Trump) would keep viewers tuned in. And given our Celebrity Apprentice commander-in-chief, America has demonstrated how much it likes to tune in — particularly if it tunes them out of reality. Give them something real (and really entertaining) to watch.
This is all blue sky pipe dreaming, I know. In all likelihood, Dems will follow established protocol, and pretend to be the voice of change in a November 2020 election that will favor Trump. But if you’re really going to try to ride into office with a pledge to shake things up, why not prove you’re capable of it before you even get there?
It’s a lot bolder path than folding your cards.
