ResCon1

Buttigieg’s Inability to Win Black Support Probably Spells His Doom in 2020

Buttigieg’s Inability to Win Black Support Probably Spells His Doom in 2020

By John R Guardiano on February 17, 2020

This is the second in a series of posts about the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential contest and the black vote. As Joe Biden has observed, it is impossible for any Democratic presidential candidate to win that party’s nomination without significant support from black voters.

We examined Biden’s prospects in our last post. Here we consider the prospects of former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

Pete Buttigieg may be a once-in-a-generation political talent; but he has a huge political achilles heel: black voters don’t seem to like him much. As the New York Times’ Trip Gabriel and Richard A. Oppel Jr. report, Buttigieg’s problem with black voters

came to national attention on June 16, when a white sergeant fatally shot a 54-year-old black resident, Eric Logan. The officer’s body camera was not turned on, which was widely seen as a sign of lax standards in the department. Mr. Buttigieg found himself flying home again, regularly, to face the fury of some black citizens and the frustrations of many others.

In addition, there are legitimate concerns about Buttigieg’s record as mayor and the disproportionately adverse impact his policies may have had on African Americans. Again, the New York Times:

Reports of violent crime increased nearly 18 percent during the first seven months of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018. The number of people being shot has also risen markedly this year, after dropping last year. The city’s violent crime rate is double the average for American cities its size.

More recently, adds Michelle R. Smith in the Associated Press:

Buttigieg, who spent eight years as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has tripped up in recent days as he was grilled about his record, including the racial disparity in marijuana arrests in South Bend and decisions that led to him having no African American leaders in his administration during a crucial stretch of his tenure in a city where more than a quarter of residents are black.

Finally, political analysts note that black Democrats are more religious and socially conservative than the Democratic Party as a whole. Thus they may be less inclined to support Buttigieg because he is a gay man who is fully committed to the LGBT political agenda and its corresponding infringement upon religious liberty.

This would explain why, last week, conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh explicitly observed that Buttigieg is gay: Limbaugh seems to sense that, within certain segments of the Democratic Party, Buttigieg’s homosexuality and commitment to the LGBT political agenda may be an electoral vulnerability.

Regardless, the bottom line is this: a Feb. 10, 2020, Quinnipiac University poll shows Buttigieg with just four percent of the black vote nationwide versus 27 percent for Biden; and unless and until that number increases dramatically to at least 20 percent or more, Buttigieg doesn’t have a chance at winning the nomination.

What Buttigieg can do, and to some extent has done already, is listen to his black critics, show empathy and understanding, and forthrightly address their concerns with specific and concrete policy proposals.

His record as mayor, after all, is not all that different from other mayors, black and white, who have had to confront vexing problems surrounding police and public safety, drug use, and economic inequality in predominantly black and minority communities.

What is different for Buttigieg is that he is new and unknown. Most black voters don’t know him. The big question is: does he have enough time to build bridges and inroads with the African American community?

Probably not. The South Carolina Primary (Feb. 29) and Super Tuesday (Mar. 3) are both roughly two weeks away. Mayor Pete may be better suited to win in 2024 than in 2020. We’ll see.

Next up, we’ll consider the prospects of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Feature photo credit: Logan Cyrus/AFP/Getty Images via FiveThirtyEight.

Who Among the Dems Will Win the Black Vote? Who Can Win the Black Vote?

Who Among the Dems Will Win the Black Vote? Who Can Win the Black Vote?

By John R Guardiano on February 16, 2020

African Americans still support Biden; but in lieu of his losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, they’re reconsidering their options.

The American political universe is focused on black voters and whether they will rally to Biden, Sanders, Buttigieg, Bloomberg, or Klobuchar in the Democratic Party’s presidential contest.

Black voters are key because, historically, they have voted overwhelmingly Democratic and will represent an increasing share of the party’s primary electorate in the weeks and months to come.

But there is real doubt and uncertainty about how they will vote and what might sway them. Very few African Americans, after all, have thus far voted, since Iowa and New Hampshire are overwhelmingly caucasian.

So it’s not as if we have real-world results by which to gauge or measure whom black voters will support.

Still, no one doubts that black voters will determine the party’s nominee. For numerical reasons alone if nothing else, they are too important a Democratic Party constituency.

Indeed, as Joe Biden put it on the night he badly lost the New Hampshire primary:

The fight to end Donald Trump’s presidency is just beginning… because, up til now, we haven’t heard from the most committed constituency of the Democratic Party: the African-American community…

I want you all to think of a number: 99.9 percent—that’s the percentage of African American voters who have not yet had a chance to vote in America…

You can’t be the Democratic nominee, and you can’t win a general election as a Democrat, unless you have overwhelming support from black and brown voters… It’s just really simple… It’s a natural fact. It’s true. It’s absolutely true…

All those Democrats who won against incumbents, from Jimmy Carter to a guy named Clinton to a guy named Obama, my good friend—guess what? They all had overwhelming African American support. Without it, nobody [in the Democratic Party has] ever won [the presidency]…

In short, to understand what has happened politically since New Hampshire, and what is to come, you have to understand the challenges and opportunities that exist for each of the candidates re: the black vote. Herewith a status update in a race that is still fluid and uncertain.

In this post, we’ll address Biden’s prospects with African American voters; and, in subsequent posts, we’ll do the same for each of the other Democratic presidential candidates.

Biden. As his aforementioned remarks indicate, and as we’ve explained here at ResCon1, Biden needs to win in South Carolina or his campaign is finished.

The good news for Biden, reports FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich, is that his “firewall in Southern states appears weakened but still standing.” A Feb. 13 East Carolina University poll, for instance, shows him with 28 percent of the vote in South Carolina versus 20 parent for Sanders.

Biden, moreover, “still has a strong lead (16 points over Sanders) among [the state’s] African American voters, a crucial voting bloc that has sided with the eventual nominee in every Democratic primary since 1992,” Rakich notes.

In fact, black voters account for roughly 60 percent of the Democratic Party primary electorate in South Carolina.

The bad news for Biden: he is losing ground in the Palmetto State and his rivals are gaining at his expense. “It wouldn’t take much more of a drop to put Sanders in the lead in our polling average ,” Rakich writes. “There are still two weeks until South Carolina votes, remember.”

“Interviews with two dozen South Carolina lawmakers, consultants and voters here suggests there are deep cracks in Joe Biden’s firewall state,” writes Maya King in Politico.

A February 10 Quinnipiac University national poll she notes, “shows Biden’s support among African-Americans at 27 percent—a 22-point slip from before the Iowa caucus.”

With bad back-to-back losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, Biden has lost the air of inevitability that one surrounded his campaign; and black voters, consequently, seem to be reconsidering their support and looking at other candidates.

The bottom line: Biden is still afloat politically, but he’s taking on water at an alarming rate, and his ship may yet capsize. All hands are on deck in South Carolina, which is do-or-die politically for him. He needs a very strong showing of support from black voters.

Right now, Biden has sufficient support from African Americans to prevail in South Carolina Feb. 29; but Sanders remains a formidable political foe, and billionaire Tom Steyer is “doing an incredible job” attracting the interest of Palmetto State black voters, says the dean of the state’s Congressional delegation and House Majority Whip, Rep. Jim Clyburn.

Next up, we’ll consider the prospects of former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

Feature photo credit: Demetrius Freeman/New York Times via Redux and published by ABC News.

Mitt Romney’s Public Rectitude and Foresight About Russia Are an Ongoing Indictment of Trump

Mitt Romney’s Public Rectitude and Foresight About Russia Are an Ongoing Indictment of Trump

By John R Guardiano on February 15, 2020

America made a big mistake when it failed to elect Mitt Romney President in 2012.

That thought occurred to me in light of the Senator’s courageous vote to convict President Trump on one count of impeachment (abuse of power), and in light of Russian’s ongoing and successful efforts to undermine U.S. national security interests worldwide, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa.

Romney, of course, was the only Republican senator who voted to convict Trump, and his logic for doing so is convincing and unassailable.

The President asked a foreign government to investigate his political rival.

The President withheld vital military funds from that government to press it to do so.

The President delayed funds for an American ally at war with Russian invaders.

The President’s purpose was personal and political.

Accordingly, the President is guilty of an appalling abuse of the public trust.

What he did was not “perfect.” No, it was a flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security interests, and our fundamental values.

Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one’s oath of office that I can imagine.

Romney also had the foresight and wisdom to realize eight years ago, before most elected officials and foreign policy analysts did, that Russia “is without question our number one geopolitical foe.

“Who is it that always stands up for the world’s worst actors?” he explained. “It is always Russia, typically with China alongside.”

Of course, during their debate, Obama ridiculed Romney to great political effect:

When you were asked, what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said “Russia.” Not Al-Qaeda; you said Russia. And, the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.

“Every debate,” writes David Drucker, “has a defining moment—for instance, Ronald Reagan’s “there you go again” in his 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter. In 2012’s debate on foreign policy, Obama’s barb, and Romney’s failure to recover, was it. Romney’s momentum evaporated in an instant.”

Many prominent Democrats, Drucker notes, have since acknowledged that Romney was right. Most notable among them: Madeleine Albright—a top Democrat on foreign policy, Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State, and an Obama supporter.

“I personally owe an apology to now-Senator Romney, because I think that we underestimated what was going on in Russia,” Albright said during a [Feb. 26, 2019], House Intelligence Committee hearing” as reported by ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett.

Russian Aggression. Of course, ever since Trump was elected, Democrats have talked incessantly about Russia’s attempt to interfere in our presidential election by sowing disinformation, animosity and confusion.

This, obviously, is a legitimate concern; but much more significant, I think, is Russia’s increasingly bold and brazen attempts to displace the United States as an arbiter of international affairs, while expanding its influence at our expense and the expense of our friends and allies.

The New York Times‘ Eric Schmitt reports:

Russia is intensifying a pressure campaign on U.S. military forces in northeastern Syria following the American withdrawal from much of that area ahead of a Turkish cross-border offensive last fall, American military and diplomatic officials say.

Russian military personnel have increasingly had run-ins with U.S. troops on highways in the region, breaking agreements between the two countries to steer clear of each other. Russian helicopters are flying closer to American troops.

And on Wednesday, a U.S.-led convoy returned fire after it came under attack near a checkpoint manned by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who are backed by Russia.

American officials say these actions by Russian personnel and their Syrian allies are devised to present a constant set of challenges, probes and encroachments to slowly create new facts on the ground and make the U.S. military presence there more tenuous.

About 500 American troops remain deployed in Syria with a mission to protect oil fields and help fight remnants of the Islamic State.

To be sure, Russia is a second-rate power with a weak economy and a weak military. However, it does have nuclear weapons and sophisticated niche capabilities in select areas such as electronic warfare and air defense.

And Russia has played its weak hand extraordinarily well. It also has embarked upon an ambitious military modernization to achieve its geo-strategic objectives, which include expelling the United States from the Middle East and separating America from its European allies.

Russia does not want a direct military confrontation with the United States, since that would be suicidal for them.

Instead, Russia aims to conduct an ongoing but low-level campaign of harassment of U.S. military forces: to make our presence in Syria untenable and force our withdrawal.

Unfortunately, the Russians are pushing on an open door. Trump, after all, has made clear many times throughout his presidency that he wants out of Syria, Iraq, and the Middle East more generally.

Trump’s weakness quite literally invites Russian aggression.

Obama-Trump Weakness. In fairness, Russia’s reemergence as a military and diplomatic power in the Middle East began under Obama, when he failed to uphold his red line on the use of chemical weapons by Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and then welcomed the Russians into the country to help settle the Syrian civil war.

But Trump has continued Obama’s policy of appeasement by abandoning U.S.-controlled-territory there, thus giving the Russians greater leverage and control over Syria.

And it’s not just Syria, but Libya as well, where American weakness and indecision have emboldened the Russians, enhanced their influence, and undermined U.S. national security interests.

“Russia first rose to prominence in Libya in September 2019,” notes Foreign Policy magazine’s Anas El Gomati,

after it deployed mercenaries to the front lines of Tripoli to back [Libyan warlord Khalifa] Haftar, sparking concern in the United States and Europe that the Kremlin had finally thrown its hat into Libya’s civil war.

Its presence in Libya was strikingly reminiscent of the decisive role it played in Syria, where it backed the regime of President Bashar al-Assad to brutal effect and essentially saved the regime from collapse.

“Putin is clearly angling for access to oil and military bases on the Mediterranean in a resource-rich country at the gateway to Africa and on NATO’s southern flank,” wrote Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) in a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as reported by Guy Taylor in the Washington Times.

This is something that a President Romney, with far greater strategic vision and public rectitude than either Trump or Obama, never would have allowed.

Indeed, Romney in 2019 would have realized, just as he did in 2012, that Russia’s gain can only come at our expense; and that abandoning key allies in the Middle East and North Africa is both morally wrong and a recipe for strategic disaster.

He also would have realized, as he does now, that the public trust is sacred and must never be shredded for personal political gain. That, after all, is not putting America First; it is putting America to shame.

Feature photo credit: CNN.

No, Rep. Zeldin, LTC Vindman Did Not Lie to Congress about the Whistleblower

No, Rep. Zeldin, LTC Vindman Did Not Lie to Congress about the Whistleblower

By John R Guardiano on February 13, 2020

Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-New York) today repeated an old smear of LTC Anthony Vindman, to wit: that Vindman circumvented his chain of command when raising concerns about Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Plus, Zeldin charged, Vindman told the whistleblower about the call and then lied to Congress when asked whether he knows the whistleblower. These charges are, first and foremost, a complete diversion from the sum and substance of the impeachment hearings.

The impeachment hearings focused on whether President Trump tried to get a foreign government (Ukraine’s) to investigate a domestic political rival, Joe Biden, while using Congressionally-authorized aid as leverage to secure such an investigation.

The impeachment hearings proved conclusively that this was, in fact, the case, and Republican members of Congress know that that’s the case. So, rather than contest these basic facts, or objective reality, they have homed in on completely irrelevant side issues to try and divert attention away from Trump’s obvious culpability and wrongdoing.

Thus Zeldin’s charges against Vindman.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) leveled these same charges while adding a new one, to wit: that Vindman raised concerns about the phone call because he objected to Trump’s foreign policy vis-a-vis Ukraine.

Again, given the importance of U.S. civil-military relations and how poorly understood these relations are, even within the U.S. military, it is important to review these charges and explain why they are completely false.

First, did Vindman circumvent the chain of command? Zeldin and Blackburn note that Tony Morrison was Vindman’s supervisor. Yet, Vindman did not first notify Morrison before contacting National Security Council (NSC) lawyers to express concerns that he (Vindman) had about Trump’s phone call with Zelensky.

Therefore, viola! Vindman circumvented his chain of command and was insubordinate.

Not so fast. While the chain of command is clear, explicit, and unambiguous in a war zone, it is typically more porous and flexible in a politicized and bureaucratic work environment.

A squad of Marines under fire in Fallujah, for instance, need to know—to the man—who, exactly, they are accountable to. Staff officers working on the National Security Council in Washington, D.C., by contrast, typically have many masters and more complex, multifaceted work relationships.

While Tony Morrison may have been Vindman’s immediate supervisor, he no doubt was one of many people Vindman worked directly for and with. Plus: the military sometimes gives U.S. servicemen and women explicit authorization to bypass their chain of command on matters involving sensitive personal or legal matters.

For example, if a member of the U.S. military is sexually assaulted, they are told explicitly that they can reach out to a myriad of people, and not just their immediate supervisor in the chain of command.

Given the sensitive nature of the president’s phone call, and the myriad political, legal, and policy issues that it raised, it is entirely reasonably to think that Vindman believed he had authority to reach out directly to NSC lawyers with his concerns.

Morrison, moreover, was a career Capitol Hill politico and Trump political appointee who seemed more concerned about protecting the president than in adhering to the rule of law and preventing presidential wrongdoing.

In fact, during the impeachment hearings, Morrison told Congress that “I feared at the time of the call, on July 25, how its disclosure would play in Washington’s political environment.”

Morrison had been on the NSC for more than a year, but had been Vindman’s supervisor for only six days at the time of the phone call. Vindman no doubt understood that his new boss was a domestic political hack and Trump apologist. He therefore might reasonably have concluded that he needed to reach out to the NSC lawyers directly and without interference from Morrison.

This is not insubordination; it is prudence and wisdom—and that is something the U.S. military expects of its leaders and officers. Indeed, we expect our military men and women to exercise sound and prudential judgement, and not to be automatons who mindlessly follow orders and slavishly follow their immediate supervisors no matter what.

So no: Vindman did not circumvent the chain of command, and he was not insubordinate. He was thoughtful, prudential, and tactical in what he did and how he did it. The U.S. military at least respects that.

Second, did Vindman tell the whistleblower about Trump’s call, and then lie to Congress when asked whether he knows the whistleblower?

Zeldin and other Trump apologists note that Vindman, upon advice of his counsel, refused to identify the intelligence community official with whom he discussed the call. And, when asked to name that person, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) quickly interjected and instructed Vindman not to answer that question if doing so might reveal the identity of the whistleblower.

Therefore, they conclude, Vindman must know the whistleblower; otherwise, why would he not answer the question?

Again, not so fast. Here’s what most likely happened and why it is entirely reasonable to conclude that Vindman truthfully told Congress he does not know the whistleblower:

Vindman discussed the call with the person now known to the House Intelligence Committee as the whistleblower. However, Vindman did not then know, nor was he subsequently told, that that person is the whistleblower. After all, it’s not as if the whistleblower wears a neon sign around his neck identifying himself as “The Whistleblower.”

Instead, the whistleblower sought and received anonymity as the law allows, and did not draw attention to himself.

Thus it is entirely reasonable to believe that when Vindman spoke with the whistleblower, he knew him only as a colleague and not as “The Whistleblower.” And it is entirely reasonable to believe that Vindman never asked that colleague whether he is the whistleblower.

Knowing who the whistleblower is, after all, would not help Vindman; it would hurt him, as the charges leveled by Zeldin and Blackburn show—though if he had to hazard a guess as to who the whistleblower is, Vindman probably would guess right.

Still, the reality is: Vindman does not know the whistleblower, because the whistleblower no doubt never identified himself as such to Vindman. So no, Vindman did not lie to Congress. He answered honestly and forthrightly, as the law demands.

Third, did Vindman raise concerns about Trump’s call because, as Blackburn alleges, he had a policy dispute with the president? No, of course not. We debunked this canard in a separate article about the smearing of Vindman:

Obviously the president (and Congress) decide U.S. foreign policy. No one—including Vindman—disputes that. That’s never been at issue.

Indeed, Vindman did not raise concerns about Trump’s phone call because he disagreed with Trump’s policy, or the policy of the U.S. government vis-a-vis Ukraine. To the contrary: he was an enthusiastic supporter and executor of that policy.

Instead, he raised concerns because it appeared to him that Trump was demanding that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen and political opponent (Joe Biden), and because he believed that such a demand would undermine stated and long-standing U.S. foreign policy.

Unfortunately, it takes some time and effort to explain all this and to defend the honor and integrity of LTC Vindman. Yet, it takes almost no time at all for Trump, Zeldin, Blackburn and other agents of disinformation to smear the man. But at least because of the impeachment hearings, all of us can know the truth.

Feature photo credit: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via the Washington Post.

Bernie Wins New Hampshire and it’s Now His Nomination to Lose

Bernie Wins New Hampshire and it’s Now His Nomination to Lose

By John R Guardiano on February 12, 2020

Now that New Hampshire Democrats have voted, it looks like it’s gonna be Bernie, Biden or Bust—with the Bust being a contested political convention in which no candidate has a clear majority of the delegates and all bets are off.

First, Bernie. After finishing in a virtual tie in the Iowa Caucuses, Bernie won the New Hampshire primary.

Critics carp that he won a bare plurality of the vote—far less than the 60 percent he won in 2016 when facing off against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. But it is obviously more difficult to run up vote tallies in fractured field than it is in a two-person race.

What matters is that Sanders won and is the clear frontrunner now, with all of the momentum and sense of destiny that accompany a political winner. He’s also cemented his hold on the party’s progressive, left-wing base; no other candidate comes close.

Sanders, moreover, has raised a boatload of money and has strong political organizations in key states nationwide. If, as the polls suggest, he wins the Nevada Caucuses Feb. 22, he likely will go into Super Tuesday, Mar. 3, as the prohibitive favorite.

Biden didn’t just lose New Hampshire; he lost badly, finishing fifth, with a measly 8.4 percent of the vote.

Of course, he didn’t do much better in Iowa, finishing fourth there, behind Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, and Elizabeth Warren. Many prominent political analysts say he’s finished. You can’t lose this badly, they say, and remain politically viable.

That’s probably true; but Biden is banking on winning in South Carolina, Feb. 29, to catapult him back into the race. More than 60 percent of Democrats there are African Americans, and polls have shown that they strongly prefer Biden.

But will black voters in South Carolina and elsewhere continue to support Biden even as he decisively loses these early contests? Or will they conclude that he’s a political loser and cast their lot elsewhere?

That really is the critical question for Biden: because if he cannot win in South Carolina, then his presidential campaign is over.

Bust. Unlike the Republicans, who have winner-take-all rules for most of their primaries and caucuses, the Democrats award delegates largely on a proportional basis in accordance with a candidate’s share of the overall vote tally.

In 2016, this meant that Donald Trump could win, and often did win, all of a state’s delegates simply by winning a plurality of the vote in that state.

This is not true for the Democrats. Because they award delegates proportionately, it is much more likely that, at their convention this summer, no candidate will have a clear majority of the delegates, and they’ll have to fight it out to determine who their nominee is.

There hasn’t been a contested major party convention since 1976 if you count the Republican Party battle between Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. Prior to that, you have to go back to 1952 for the last truly contested convention.

“The chance of there being no pledged delegate majority—which could potentially lead to a contested convention—is high and increasing, reports Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight. “New Hampshire,” he writes, “is

good news if you’re hoping for chaos. Our forecast has the chances that no one wins a majority of pledged delegates up to 33 percent, its highest figure yet, and roughly double what it was before Iowa.

Other Candidates. There are other candidates, of course, and, theoretically, they could win the nomination; but, practically speaking, I don’t see how.

Elizabeth Warren, the Senator from Massachusetts, will soon drop out. She finished fourth in New Hampshire after finishing third in Iowa.

If Warren could not win in either Iowa or New Hampshire, then it is difficult to see where she can win—especially given that she doesn’t poll well with blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities.

This is a real problem for her campaign: because starting with Nevada and South Carolina, minorities will become an increasingly prominent part of the Democratic Party primary electorate.

Klobuchar, Buttigieg, and Bloomberg have a similarly fatal political problem: a lack of support from blacks and other minorities.

Again, it’s possible that could change, but I don’t see how. As mayors of their respective cities, New York and South Bend, Bloomberg and Buttigieg alienated key black Democrats and sometimes had chilly and testy political relations with influential African American progressives.

Klobuchar does not appear to have incited opposition among blacks and other minorities, but she hasn’t exactly inspired their loyalty and commitment either. And her political problems extend well beyond this key voting demographic.

Does she, for instance, have the requisite political organization to compete head-to-head with Sanders nationwide and especially in the big and expensive states such as California, New York, Texas, and Florida? I rather doubt it, but we’ll see.

The bottom line: the media will do their best to make a race of it. Look for Klobuchar especially to be the beneficiary of glowing press coverage, and even Biden will get a second look. But right now, this is Sanders’ nomination to lose, and it is difficult to see how that changes.

Feature photo credit: the New York Times.