To: EAW (Memo 1)

Re:  Thinning the Herd.

Senator Warren,

Congratulations on a thoroughly impressive performance at the June 26th debate.  You did everything you had to do to maintain and enhance your standing in the polls.  You were fortunate, I think, in your draw.  The June 27th debate was far less suited to your style.  As the only front-runner on the stage Wednesday night, you dominated the field without having to raise your voice.  An excellent start!

After the debate, and tonight's campaign contribution reporting deadline, some of your competitors will begin to find themselves wondering how much longer they can go on.  A consistent 0% to 1% in the polls can be discouraging, especially as the DNC's criteria for participation in future debates tighten.

Given these considerations, as I see it, your best move would be to start finding ways to "thin the herd".  It might be that you could, yourself, persuade one or more of your rivals to drop out of the race and endorse your candidacy.

Obviously, this would have to be done with great tact.  Egos are involved.  Ambitious hopes must be surrendered.  And of course, you certainly don't want to appear presumptuous.  Still, as and where you have the personal contacts, it might be worthwhile to find opportunities to seek the support of some of your rivals over the next month or so.

I chose that word, rivals, for a very specific reason.  I assume you have read Doris Kearns Goodwin's celebrated Team of Rivals, about Lincoln's decision to invite most of his Republican rivals into his Cabinet.  I think it might be useful to begin working references to that book into your stump speech.

You might say that you have been very impressed with the caliber of the Democratic field - both those who debated and some who (like Senator Bullock and Congressman Moulton) were excluded.  And that you think - regardless of who ends up as the nominee - the next Democratic President would do well to follow Lincoln's example.  There are a number of candidates whose understanding of specific issues, and passion for those issues, would make them invaluable in the next Cabinet.

A case in point would be Governor Jay Inslee of Washington.  He is justly passionate about climate change.  He's quite articulate on the subject.  He has been repeatedly rebuffed by the DNC in his pursuit of a debate specifically dedicated to that issue.  By now, the Governor probably knows that he is not going to be the nominee, but he won't want to drop out until he's assured that this issue is placed front-and-center in this campaign - right through November, 2020 - and that the next President places it at the top of her agenda.

Perhaps someone on your team has contacts with someone on the Governor's staff.  Perhaps you could find a way to talk with him, one-on-one, to assure him that you would value his input, if he decides to get out of the race.  Perhaps there are gestures you could make in that direction - such as advocating that the EPA be made a Cabinet department.  His support would be helpful in Washington, a Super Tuesday state.  It might also create momentum for other candidates to consider dropping out to join your team.

And, of course, your team could learn something from him about specific environmental policies that could become part of your growing program.

To be sure, this strategy - finding ways to encourage the 0% and 1% candidates to endorse you - is not a general prescription.  You are better off with some candidates remaining in the field, for a number of reasons.

You should be happy, for example, for Joe Biden to stay around for as long as he cares to.  Despite his lead in the polls, he isn't going to be the nominee.  As you and other viable candidates become better known, his support will bleed away.  But the longer he stays in, the longer he keeps the old-school "third way" Democrats from consolidating behind some perceived "moderate" who is more viable.

Why do I assert so boldly that Joe won't be the nominee?  Because he's tired.  He lacks passion and vision.  He reminds me of Dick Gephardt in 2004.  I was in New Hampshire during the last week of 2003 - volunteering for Howard Dean - and I saw Gephardt work a bagel shop in Corcord, NH.  It was clear he was doing a victory lap - enjoying a "last hurrah".  He was the past, not the future.  Same with old Joe.

You should also be extremely happy for Bernie to stick around, even though his supporters would probably migrate to you if he dropped out..  My guess is that Bernie will long retain the support of his true believers, but that he will have a hard time winning significant new support.  He has no new ideas.  No new rhetoric, for that matter.  He's like a classic rock band on tour - still a great show, but basically all you're going to hear is his greatest hits.

Still, as long as Bernie stays in, he does two things for you.  First, makes you appear more moderate.  (As you are, of course, but you know what they say about appearances and reality in politics.)  Second - if you'll pardon my candor here, ma'am - he makes you look younger.  In future debates, you'll probably end up standing next to Mayor Pete at some point.  Well, he makes us all look ancient.  Can't help that.  But for now, Bernie is great for you.

Anyway, neither Biden nor Bernie is your real challenge.  Barring the unexpected, your ultimate competition will likely be Kamala Harris and Mayor Pete.  Joe will fade, slowly, but inexorably.  Bernie won't gain new support.  Cory Booker might pick up some adherents, as might Julian Castro.  We'll see.  Still, I think you wind up in a three-horse race coming out of Iowa and New Hampshire.

So - if you'll excuse the presumption - your game plan for now is to continue doing what you're doing.  Talk up your well-researched, well-defined plans.  (Not too many more of these, for now, okay?  Let's be sure people understand what you've already proposed.) 

Add in references to the "team of rivals" idea.  Let that idea work quietly on the 0% and 1% candidates and their supporters.

To the extent possible, be alert for opportunities to chat with those lagging candidates.  As a rule, any marginal candidate you can persuade to drop out and endorse you is a bonus.

Finally, study Kamala and Mayor Pete.  They are your real rivals, down the road.  If all goes well, and you pull ahead in the  delegate count, Kamala would be an excellent running mate for you.   So would Mayor Pete - but I rather like the idea of a two-woman ticket.  It's never been done, and women will be the key to this election. 

Why not?

The Debates: Mostly Good News.

I'm probably not alone in feeling that watching two two-hour, ten-candidate "debates" on consecutive nights was a bit much, but we all seem to have gotten through it. 

The DNC decided to stay with the dreadful mass-debate format, which means, really, that we don't get debates so much as something like an extremely nerdy class in high school where every student is trying to get the teacher's attention in order to score brownie points.

Since the ultimate winner of the Democratic debates, primaries, caucuses and conventions is going to have to take on the Current Occupant in one-on-one debates, wouldn't it have made more sense to start this process with something like a World Cup format?  By grouping the candidates in fours for round-robin, one-on-one debates - pre-recorded and released all at once - the DNC might have given us some idea how the contenders perform in the format that will actually matter in Fall, 2020.

But the DNC will do what it does.  As my old Dad would have said, "Those folks could f**k up a two-car funeral."  As long as the Republicans are the only alternative, we all have to live with that.

Aside from the format - and the masterful job done by NBC in trying to manage ten candidates with five moderators - the result of the two nights was surprisingly good.

First of all, people watched.  All sorts of numbers are flying around - and with so many means of live and delayed viewing available, it's hard to be sure - but clearly, many millions of Americans took time out on two midsummer nights to hear twenty candidates talking about an election which takes place in sixteen months.  That, in itself, argues a high level of interest and civic commitment.

And, despite the awkward format and the muddled moderation, what they got was two reasonably informative, largely civil, and surprisingly interesting evenings.

The civility owes much to the on-stage presence of two formidable women.  On Night One, Elizabeth Warren - the only top-tier candidate present - exercised a quiet command over the tendency of other candidates to engage in attention-seeking.  (Okay, with the occasional exception of de Blasio and Delaney, trying desperately from the opposite wings to generate some interest.)

On Night Two, Kamala Harris emerged as the Teacher, firmly calling the rest to order when things threatened to get out-of-hand.

It's easy to talk about leadership.  It's interesting when it shows up in the moment.  On their respective nights, Senators Warren and Harris showed the country something.

One great thing about the first-round debates was that they seem likely to have eliminated about two-thirds of the contenders.  I don't want to speak too soon.  This was one, two-part event, and we have a long way to go.  But I sense that the American people - those not still under the spell of the Orange One - want to narrow this field down quickly and unite behind a champion.

Pretty clearly, that has started to happen.  On Night Two, the campaign's two front-runners - both elderly white men - stumbled badly.  For Joe Biden, a combination of characteristic vagueness and a shrewd take-down by Senator Harris might well have marked the beginning of the end.

Biden has never been the right candidate for 2020.  Like George H. W. Bush in 1992, he seems to be running out of a sense of entitlement, but without any real passion or sense of mission.  His viability as a front-runner has been based on his high poll numbers among African-American voters - a crucial bloc within the Democratic coalition.  Kamala Harris just gave black voters a younger, more exciting, and much more relatable option.

Bernie Sanders did better than Old Joe, but it probably wasn't enough.  The thing we love about Bernie is that he never changes - which is a great thing in a tribune of the people, but not so great in a President.  No one since George Washington - for whom the job description in Article II was written - has entered the Presidency ready from Day One.  Presidents have to grow on-the-job.

Bernie, like King Lear's Kent, seems "too old to learn".  His faithful supporters will stick with him, but their numbers seem unlikely to grow much, either.  Bernie has done something wonderful for this country.  He has brought his ideas front-and-center and made it possible for serious progressives to aspire to a chance to govern.  But there are younger - or at least, younger-seeming - candidates ready to shape those ideas into laws, policies, and executive orders.  Bernie's time has probably come and gone.

At least half of the field will probably never have a time.  Most viewers came away wondering why some of them ever thought they might actually have a shot.  Indeed, some were so bad that they served as comic relief.  De Blasio, doing his best version of the loud New Yorker trying get his order taken at the deli without waiting for his number to be called.  Hickenlooper trying, without success, to string together a complete sentence.  Delaney channeling Les Nessman.  Marianne Moonbeam channeling Yoko Ono.

You have to wonder why some of these characters were in the debates, while two more legitimate contenders - named Seth and Bullock, for you Deadwood fans - were sidelined.

Whatever.  The sooner we all stop sending in dollars to the no-hopers - and unsubscribe from their email lists - the sooner they will get the message and drop out, leaving us with a smaller field.

And this is said with all due respect for those who - while they have no path to the White House in  2020 - might have better prospects in future.

There is other, useful work to be done in this cycle.  Removing the Current Occupant from the White House is vital - but equally so is removing Mitch McConnell, or at least reducing him to Minority Leader.

There are people in this race who should be running against incumbent Republican Senators - starting with Beto O'Rourke.  Others might, with a well-timed, full-throated endorsement of a more viable contender, earn themselves a seat in the next President's Cabinet.  Jay Inslee, for example, might do well at EPA - but not if he holds on too long.

Who knows, the next President might even create a new Cabinet office - to run, say, the Department of Oneness.  And offer it to... but let's be kind.

One final bit of good news:  For almost the past week, Americans - and millions around the world - have not been talking about the Current Occupant.  And that's vital.  His whole power comes from his ability to make himself the center of attention.  That's all he's got.

He's not that bright.  He's not that focused.  He knows almost nothing.  He has remarkably little energy or commitment to a job that demands an enormous amount of both.  All he has is the awareness that his name is constantly on everyone's lips.

When that stops happening, he starts to lose his power.  And probably, his mind.

The more we focus on the legitimate Democratic challengers, the better.

The Niagara Strategy

Today's topic is the one-way verticality of modern campaigning.  With the invention of the internet, we were supposed to be entering a new era of democracy - a flattening out of hierarchies in favor of more open and direct communication, where everyone could have a voice.

That didn't happen, of course - or at least, it didn't happen where it matters.  We ordinary mortals can communicate with each other about what we had for lunch, or how cute this kitty is.  But try getting in touch - personal touch - with a presidential candidate.  Unless you're willing to move to Iowa or New Hampshire, or applying for a job, good luck with that.  Campaigns no longer have mailing addresses or telephone numbers, and if you try to communicate by email or Twitter, you're basically just giving your fingers and thumbs a workout.

Which is surprising, really.  When I was a kid, my Dad was a politician - elected six times to the Virginia legislature - and rounding up volunteers was always a major part of the strategy.  As a candidate, you needed a fair number of volunteers to do the routine tasks that made up running for office.

Those were the days of electric typewriters, rolodexes, phone banks, and box after box of index cards, but campaigns found ways of staying in touch with people.  And not just from the top down.  Volunteers had access - on some level.  If you had an idea, a complaint, or an observation, there was someone willing to hear it - at least, until you proved yourself a crank or nutcase.

That's no longer how it works.  Campaign staffs are huge and professional.  That's one of the main reasons candidates need to raise so much money.  You need to pay people.  (If you're a Democrat, you need to provide health insurance and allow them to unionize - which is good, I suppose.)  All these professionals seem to be young.  They all have impressive resumes.  And they all talk to each other - but God help you if you're just a citizen with something to say.

Not, of course, that there's no communication.  Make a contribution or answer an inquiry from a campaign and - once they have your email address - you'll receive a torrent of information and requests for additional contributions.  They'll also invite your input - but only in terms of answers to questions posed by the campaign.  They know what they want to know - and that's all they want to know.

Which isn't surprising, really, given the mindset of the internet generation.  When you grow up doing research on the web - looking something up on Wikipedia, for example - it's not at all like it used to be.  In my youth, doing research - general research, scholarly research, legal research - involved going to a library and looking in books.

I realize that sounds old fashioned, but the great thing about that sort of research is that it sometimes led to happy accidents.  For example, if you aren't familiar with actual encyclopedias, one of the cool things is that - in addition to the exact entry you were looking for - there were other entries right before and after it.  Sometimes, you would end up reading several neighboring entries and learn something more interesting than what you wanted to know.  Sometimes, even more relevant.

As a college student, I got used the phenomenon of going into the "stacks" to find a book, and finding a much more useful book on the same shelf.  As a law student and young lawyer, I was astonished at how often legal research led me from the cases I thought I needed to cases that were far more persuasive - again, sometimes by chance or mere proximity.

But in a modern "data-driven" campaign, the professionals will only ask the questions they think matter - which means they will never encounter the question they never thought of.

And the sad thing is, when one of these people becomes President - we all must hope - they will continue to be surrounded by people who think they know all the questions, and therefore, all the possible answers.  Without the slightest chance of an actual new idea.

And that's what I call the "Niagara Strategy".  A modern campaign is set up to become a one-way flow of information and requests - from the top down.  If you're an ordinary citizen with an ordinary question - or even a brilliant insight - your chances of getting it heard are next to zero.

Candidates will tell you they're listening, but that's not really true.  Presidents have long lived inside a bubble.  Now, you only have to start running to enter that condition.

I don't know how you fix that.  I understand that Elizabeth Warren is calling small contributors - she has no other kind - at random.  That's something.  But odds most folks, getting an out-of-the-blue call from an amazing person like Senator Warren, will be too stunned and excited to remember what they would really want to say.

When he was President, and running a war to preserve the Union, Abraham Lincoln made it a point to open his doors regularly - for several hours - to receive anyone who was willing to stand in line outside the White House for a chance to talk with him.  Not just men, either.  He met a mother who had lost a husband and sons in the war, and wanted her last son home to do the plowing.  He met inventors with crazy, and not-so-crazy, ideas.  He met people who disagreed with him about the conduct of the war.

Lincoln's "public opinion baths" were a vital part of how he governed - and he was doing something a lot more important than anything going on at present.  (Except climate change, of course.  We'll see how many candidates really make that an issue.)  But the last President to do something like that was the fictional Jed Bartlet, with his chief of staff's "Big Block of Cheese Days".  I don't see much chance anyone out there today will renew the practice.

And I'm not unaware that most candidates are holding town meetings.  Good for them.  Town meetings are a great opportunity for people to get the feeling that candidates are hearing their unique concerns.  But that's not really how they work.

When I was working in John Warner's first campaign for Senate - as a volunteer - I saw him come before some civic association, take out his speech, toss it aside, pull of his suit coat, and ask for questions.  Broad-shouldered John would roll up his sleeves and say. "To heck with this speech. I want to wrestle with your questions."  And every question he got, he had an answer - complete with statistics and facts.  I was very impressed.

So I asked an aide how he dared to open himself up that way.  And the aide told me:  "There's no risk. We've done extensive polling.  There are seventeen questions a person might ask that anyone else in the room is likely to care about.  And John has memorized his answers to those seventeen questions.

"If anyone asks about something else, it's either going to be an obscure question or something nutty.  Either way, no one else in the room will care a hoot in hell about it.  So John will furrow his brow and say, 'I'm sorry.  I haven't done my research on that important question, but I promise - if you'll give your contact information to my aide over there - I'll get you a letter within the week.

"And we would send that letter.  Which satisfies the person asking, and pleases everyone else, who doesn't care about that unfamiliar topic and wants to get to their concerns, which will almost always be one of the seventeen questions John is prepared to answer."

Which is pretty much what will happen at a town meeting.  Indeed, with TV cameras on, most citizens will avoid asking a really unique question, for fear of making fools of themselves.  They'll ask something safe.  Which, of course, keeps the candidates safe, too.

Politics.  Love it or hate it - and any intelligent person must do both - a lot of it has always been a show.  But back before the internet - and the Niagara Strategy - there was a lot more opportunity for a volunteer or a concerned citizen to get a new idea, or a new question, in front of somebody in position to do something.

It seems that's no longer the world.

Starting With "OR"

As the Election of 2020 takes shape, serious problems confront those who wish not only to displace the incumbent President, but to elect a President and a Congress prepared to reverse the destructive policies of his administration, and launch this country on a course of serious and fundamental reform.

The difficulty, as always, is that the only means at hand for ending this presidency is the Democratic Party - a party which has been, for the past half century, a most slender reed upon which to lean.  I don't wish to stray from my topic to dilate upon the bottomless subject of the Democratic Party and its weaknesses.  Suffice to say that the Democratic Party managed, three years ago, to lose the White House to the present incumbent - a feat which most experts considered impossible.  Even today, it is hard to work out how they managed it.

But they did - and we are all suffering the consequences.

At present, the Democratic Party is - nor surprisingly - attempting to "win the last war", rather than prepare for the fight we are all in.  Having disgraced itself by bending over backward to assist Mrs. Clinton to win the nomination from Senator Sanders, the DNC is now doing everything possible to seem fair to over two dozen candidates - many of whom have about as much chance of being nominated as I do. 

In a few weeks, thanks to the DNC, we will all be invited to watch two consecutive nights of televised "debates", each featuring ten candidates. 

What citizens can expect to learn from these joint press conferences - debates they will not be - is difficult to say.  In 2016, when a crowded Republican field engaged in a similar exercise, the only winner was the loudest, crudest, most unrestrained individual on the debate stage.  The one, in short, willing to do anything for attention.

What the DNC should be doing is something that would help interested citizens narrow their choices much more quickly.  A long, drawn-out nominating process - with dozens of candidates - will only drain the eventual nominee's resources of energy, time, and treasure while the President waits, fresh and rested, on a mountain of corporate (and probably also foreign) gold.

But since the DNC is not about to do anything so constructive, it is up to the American people - or at least, the 60% not enthralled by the grotesque (thanks, Mayor Pete) theatrics of the incumbent - to move more quickly to narrow down the field to a few legitimate contenders.

One way of doing so would be to "anoint" one candidate as the presumptive nominee, but that would be unwise.  At present, most polls indicate that the leading candidate is former Vice President Joe Biden - a decent man and career public servant, but an elderly fellow who doesn't seem to have encountered a new idea since the invention of the audio cassette player.

Another strategy would be for those who have not yet chosen one candidate to band together to cooperate on behalf of several candidates - candidates who are doing well in the polls, but who have not yet shaken off the twenty or so also-rans who are, almost certainly, not going to be President this time around.

Strategic cooperation makes good sense for candidates who are consistently earning between 5% and 14% in the national polls.  Under Democratic Party rules, a candidate must gain at least 15% support in a given state's primary, caucus or convention in order to qualify for any delegates from that state. 

The rules are complicated, and the process for earning 15% varies from state to state - but the price of non-cooperation can be extremely high.  In simple terms, it works like this:  Suppose State A holds a primary, and one candidate gets 15% of the vote, while four others come in with 14% each.  Under the rules, the candidate getting 15% would probably end up with all of that state's delegates. 

And with two dozen or so candidates on some primary ballots, dividing the votes, such outcomes are entirely predictable.

Now, I confess, the above scenario is extremely simplistic.  Each state has its own procedure for determining the point at which the 15% rule comes into effect.  But clearly, candidates who are doing well - but not consistently hitting 15% in a crowded field - must consider cooperation.  Otherwise, there's a good chance old Joe Biden will end up the winner by default - prevailing mainly on the strength of name-recognition.

And we could do much better.

There is a second advantage to strategic cooperation for strong candidates who are not yet polling at 15%.  By helping each other to become "viable" - that is, able to qualify for delegates in multiple states - those cooperating could also encourage candidates polling at 3%, 2%, 1% or even less to consider other options.

And this could be vital.  No matter who is elected President in 2020, unless she or he also has a Democratic Senate, Mitch McConnell will be lying in wait, ready to kill every progressive bill - and block every strong judicial appointment - the new President proposes.

At present, there are at least a half-dozen remarkable political talents in the Presidential race, or considering getting in, who are not going to be President this time around, but who could succeed in winning Senate seats now held by Republicans. 

The sooner is reality comes home to some of these candidates, the sooner they can turn their thoughts to knocking off Republican Senators in their home states - and making the Senate their base for another presidential bid in, say, 2028.

At any rate, this is what I've been thinking.  What's needed is something practical, logical, and helpful  - a citizen movement to begin forging an alliance among candidates with a realistic chance of emerging as the eventual nominee.

It seems to me logical that there are three candidates who fit this definition:  Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris.

Over recent months, these three candidates have shown consistent, gradually rising support in the polls.  They've done extremely well in town meetings.  They've raised a lot of money.  They've gotten past - one hopes - the early jitters and silly mistakes of a new campaign.

And no one else fits this group.  Bernie Sanders could, but it's my perception that his supporters are intense loyalists, angry about the injustices of 2016, and not presently prepared to cooperate strategically with other candidates.  I understand their feelings.  I was for Bernie in 2016, and I still have his old, fading bumper sticker on my car.  But that was then.  This, I believe, is the year for someone fresh.

Does any other candidate fit?  Not really.  Cory Booker just doesn't seem to be catching fire.  Beto O'Rourke looked really hot for a month, but is now tanking in most polls.  (And Beto is the perfect case of a candidate who should be setting his sights on the Senate.  He'd beat John Cornyn, and he has plenty of time to run for President.)

Really, the key three are Harris, Warren, and Buttigieg.  A lot of us are looking at these three - perhaps leaning to one, but happy at the idea of any of them as our next President.

With that in mind, I've created a new Facebook group called OR 2020 - OR being the conjunction, not an abbreviation for my home state.  It's an early effort to start collecting people willing to get involved in a cooperative campaign to make one of these exceptional individuals our next President - and to encourage a lot of other candidates who aren't doing so well to consider helping out by running for the Senate.

I invite you to join.  I trust this group will quickly evolve into something larger and more formal - and that I can turn it over to those more adept at the use of social media than I will ever be.

But one must start somewhere, and this is a start.

I invite you to join.