If you’re a long-time reader, you know I offered some friendly advice to each Democratic presidential campaign back in February. Let’s follow up on that. Now it’s time for some grading. Did the campaigns take my advice? Have they done what they need to do in the early stages?
The grades are in.
A Quick Note on Grading
First, let’s get one thing out of the way. Here’s what I’m not doing in this post. I’m not grading Democratic candidates based on where they stand on the issues. I’ve already done that, and I’ll do it again in the future. The short version is that I think Sanders is pretty good, Warren and Castro are decent, and everyone else is some flavor of awful.
In this post, I’m grading the Democratic campaigns based on how well they’re doing the things they set out to do. Unfortunately, we live in a world where people have difficulty distinguishing between these two tasks. Many people think their favorite candidate shits gold bars and their least favorite candidate is on the verge of dropping out. But that ain’t how the world works.
For each candidate, I’ll remind readers of the goal I set out for them in February. And then I’ll grade them based on how well they’ve reached the goal.
Simple enough, right?
Joe Biden
Goal: Shit or get off the pot.
Grade: C+
You’ll see the same goal for Beto O’Rourke below. Back in February, Biden and O’Rourke were doing the Hamlet act and still deciding whether they wanted to enter the race. Biden’s in now, so you’d think this is an easy A for him.
But not really. Sure, Biden’s in the race. Sort of. He doesn’t really, you know, campaign or lay out proposals. But he’s running. And so, he doesn’t totally fail here. That said, he’s running a genuinely lousy campaign for someone who, on paper, ought to be a strong frontrunner. He’s also way behind in fundraising. It’s all noticeable enough that I’ve listed it as one of the biggest surprises of the campaign so far. If Biden wants to win, he’s got to get it together in the next couple of months.
Pete Buttigieg
Goal: Impress the nominee.
Grade: A-
Nobody really expected the Mayor of South Bend to run a competitive campaign, let alone be one of the top 5 candidates in the polls for most of the race. Earlier I floated the possibility that Buttigieg is the worst candidate in field. But that’s due to his awful stances on issues, not to the quality of his campaign.
Here’s the thing about Buttigieg. He probably can’t win statewide office in Indiana, but he wants to get to the White House. How should he go about it? One route is to impress the eventual nominee and become either the vice presidential candidate or take up a cabinet post. He’s working his way there very effectively so far.
Cory Booker
Goal: Come up with a campaign message.
Grade: D
So, here’s the thing about Booker. Back in February, he just seemed like a nice vegan guy who saves people from burning buildings and whatnot. But he didn’t really have a reason for running for president. Has he come up with one in the last 8 months? No, not really. He’s hanging around longer than some of his senate colleagues, so I guess there’s that. That’s why I didn’t give him an F. But, really, Booker has to make a move soon or he’s done.
Julián Castro
Goal: Impress the nominee.
Grade: C
Castro was in roughly the same boat as Buttigieg: young star, statewide election would be difficult, needs to find an alternative route to the White House. How has Castro played it? I’d say he’s played it…OK. Castro’s immigration platform is impressive, and he’s gotten some attention for his (generally very good) advocacy for trans and non-white groups. He probably burned a bridge with Joe Biden during the third debate, but that’s pretty on brand for him right now. I suspect he’ll drop out before Iowa, but he could be in line for a cabinet post. Possibly the vice presidency if someone other than Biden wins the nomination.
Kirsten Gillibrand
Goal: Find a base
Grade: F
At no point during her now failed campaign did Gillibrand consistently poll above 1%. I said much more about her campaign in a different post. But the quick version is that Gillibrand ran an unpopular campaign around an unpopular theme. Gillibrand swung hard, and she missed.
Kamala Harris
Goal: Unite, the black, non-black POC, and progressive sectors of the Democratic Party.
Grade: F
It’s hard to overstate how wrong I was about Harris. At least so far. On paper, she should’ve been an early favorite to win the nomination. Especially before Biden entered. But, really, even afterward she should’ve given Biden a run for his money. And she’s still doing great in endorsements. That’s where things stop looking good for Harris. She’s shown very little skill at campaigning, and she’s gone precisely nowhere in her efforts to reunite the Obama coalition. Elizabeth Warren has stolen pretty much all of her thunder. To win this thing, she must figure out how to campaign.
Amy Klobuchar
Goal: Convince Joe Biden not to run.
Grade: D-
As I’ve already said, I wrote these goals back in February. The Klobuchar campaign looked pretty promising. She had the ‘moderate’ lane just about all to herself, and she had a great opportunity to win some early support in Iowa, a neighboring state. All she really needed was for Joe Biden to sit it out and not steal her thunder. But Biden entered the race…and stole her thunder. Even now, with Joe Biden stalling, Pete Buttigieg recently stepped into her lane and took over the role of main Medicare for All critic. Without something major, like a Biden implosion, Klobuchar’s in trouble.
Beto O’Rourke
Goal: Shit or get off the pot.
Grade: A
The “A” grading for O’Rourke deserves something like the world’s biggest asterisk. He was doing the Hamlet act back in February. Then he entered the race. And, unlike Biden, he’s actually campaigning really hard. Sure, it’s mostly gimmicky. And it’s almost entirely unsuccessful. And I wouldn’t bet on him winning the nomination. But he’s clearly committed to it right now.
Bernie Sanders
Goal: Expand your base.
Grade: C
I think this is the toughest grading to do. In some sense, Bernie gets both an A and an F. The “C” is the average grading. On the positive side of the ledger, the Sanders base is far more diverse than it was in 2016. He can start from this diverse base and ride it to the nomination. At least in theory. He’s also built a massive grassroots fundraising operation, almost entirely from more than a million small donors.
On the negative side of the ledger, he’s also lost a significant number of supporters and he’s stalled in the polls. Warren leads him with white progressives, and Biden leads him with black voters. The net result? The Sanders coalition has a great deal of political potential, but the coalition itself is still relatively small.
Elizabeth Warren
Goal: Defeat Bernie Sanders.
Grade: B-
So, Warren had a problem back in February. She was too liberal for Democrats and too much of a Democrat for independents and leftists. To win the nomination, she needed to cut deeply into the Sanders base and then move on to liberal and center-left Democrats. The end result? A victorious Warren coalition would look like a fusion of young people, independents, progressives, and regular liberals. With enough non-white voters to avoid getting boxed out by anyone else.
Has she done it? In a sense, yes. Her polling numbers are far better than the February numbers. And many people now consider her the frontrunner. But she really hasn’t done much damage to Sanders. He’s still her main rival on the left side of the contest, still more credible than her on issues like single-payer health insurance, and the winner of the Squad endorsement. Her rise in the polls came mostly at the expense of Kamala Harris, not Sanders.
John Delaney/Tulsi Gabbard/Marianne Williamson/Andrew Yang
Goal: Drop out of the race
Grade: F
These clowns needed to drop out in February, and they haven’t done it yet.
