Advocacy Tip: Speak For Yourself!

Since midsummer, I've been deeply engaged in Elizabeth Warren's campaign for President.

I should be clear about this.  I'm a volunteer, not paid staff.  As ever in a long life in politics, I'm what the old-timers called a free lance - a citizen volunteer doing battle for the candidate of my choice in an election of consequence. 

No one pays me. No one instructs me.  I don't work off a script.

And when this is all over, and Elizabeth Warren is - I fervently hope - President of the United States,  I expect I'll disagree with my new President and her policies and priorities from time to time.

Some will find this attitude incomprehensible.  Today's politics - fueled by Americans' obsession with media and sheltered by our shameful ignorance of the past - has steadily become the arena of artificially outsized personalities.  Like a super-hero or super-villain in a blockbuster movie, the  contemporary candidate is portrayed as larger than life, but also - in a personal sense - curiously shallow and two-dimensional. 

In such an environment, if you're for a candidate, you're expected to be "all in" - agreeing with everything he or she says.  This attitude is terrifyingly prevalent among Trump supporters - which should be a sufficient argument for caution - but it was (and is) almost equally true of Obama supporters.  And Bernie supporters.  Going back a bit, it was true of those passionate about Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, and JFK.

It is a significant risk in every candidacy.

Political commentators refer to passionate "all-in" supporters as a politician's base.  As a student of Shakespeare, base isn't a thing I aspire to be.   Moreover, as a lifetime student of history, I find such fervent, unquestioning loyalty incomprehensible - and dangerous.

No human being, in all of history, has been infallible.  In my lifetime, I can't think of a single political figure who has risen to the level of historic greatness. Winston Churchill was still alive in my childhood, but he had long since had his "finest hour".  I was born six years too late to live under FDR, the last great American president.  In my time, Bobby Kennedy might have grown into greatness, but he never got the chance.  Nobody else - in electoral politics - has come close.

There was a time in our history when Congressional figures could rise to that level.  Henry Clay, for example, never won the presidency, but was certainly greater than all but a handful of those who have.  But in eight decades of World War, Cold War, terrorism, and the rise of the techo-security state, the executive branch has come into the ascendant - dangerously so.  No one in Congress has had the opportunity to show towering greatness since at least the early '60s.

Curiously, in my lifetime - with the White House occupied by an alternating series of mediocrities and sociopaths - the greatest governmental figure was probably Chief Justice Earl Warren.  But the present court, divided into partisan factions, offers no opportunity for a Warren or a John Marshall.

But I digress. My point is that, in modern American politics, greatness is a vanishingly rare commodity.  Most presidential candidates attempt to pull off the trick of the Wizard of Oz - projecting an artificially commanding, but two-dimensional, on-screen presence, while concealing the all-too-ordinary individual behind the curtain. 

Given this reality, it's remarkable that so many Americans, whatever their politics, continue falling into the trap of the cult of personality.

Why must we feel that our candidate of choice is infallible - when a more realistic view offers so many advantages when we are out campaigning? 

May I explain?


In recent days, I've received several emails from fellow Warren activists asking how I would defend particular aspects of the Senator's famous plans - in particular, her insistence that Medicare for All should replace all private policies, immediately, even for Americans who would prefer to retain their current employee health insurance.

This issue seems to be arising more and more often.  Without question, this single concern is an obstacle to many citizens embracing Senator Warren.  It has the potential to become her Achilles' heel. 

But climbing down from that too-advanced position is a matter for the candidate and her strategic inner circle.  My challenge is to speak with real Oregon voters - and occasionally, to offer advice and counsel to friends who are doing the same work.

Here is what I do, and what I suggest, about Medicare for All, Right Now.  I speak - not for Senator Warren - but for myself, as a citizen who wants Warren to be elected President, but has not surrendered the right to think for himself.  I answer, truthfully...

"Honestly, I agree with you. Forcing Americans to give up health care policies they have worked hard to earn seems neither wise nor fair.  On this issue, I think Elizabeth wants to move too fast.

"But that doesn't alter my support for her.  When I decide to support someone for President, it's not because of their plans, but because I trust them.  Because they have, in their careers, demonstrated certain essential qualities which have, historically, characterized our great and near-great Presidents:  good character; intelligence; vision; the ability to select and lead an effective team; the ability to communicate with fellow citizens; a high level of energy; persistence; common sense; and most of all, the ability to learn. 

"I don't worry much about plans.  Plans change.  When Abe Lincoln ran for President in 1860, the Republican Party's campaign slogan was 'Vote Yourself a Farm!'  Yep.  Lincoln ran on the Homestead Act - and the transcontinental railroad, and other related economic policies.  He didn't run as a war leader or an emancipator.  He  didn't expect the Civil War, and he had no idea that fighting it would provide the occasion to end slavery. 

"Or take FDR.  He knew, of course, that he'd have to deal with the Great Depression, but during his campaign, he promised repeatedly to do so by cutting taxes and balancing the Federal budget.  When he got into office, saw how the problem looked from behind the Big Desk, and talked to his economic advisors, he did exactly the opposite.  He borrowed and spent to stimulate the economy - and over time, he put America back to work.

"Now, throughout her life, Elizabeth Warren has proved willing and able to learn new things and leave old ideas behind.  Did you know she was raised in Norman, Oklahoma - and that she was a conservative Republican when they hired her to teach at Harvard Law?  What changed her mind was a research project focusing on the Bankruptcy Act of 1994.  She went in thinking bankruptcy was too easy on foolish people - that it let them off the hook for irresponsible decisions they had freely made.  What she discovered was the "predatory lending" industry - and that changed her whole view of how the American economy operates.

"Which is why I don't worry too much about her health care plan - or really, any of her plans.  I'm not interested so much in the details of her plans, as in how her mind works.  And what I've learned is that she is bold and visionary - ready to make what she calls "big, structural change".  At this point in our history, I think we need that.  Senator Warren thinks big, but she is practical enough to figure out how her new ideas will be paid for, and to make provision for that.

"Like FDR, I expect President Warren will change her mind about a lot of things when she gets to the White House.  Not her goals, but the details. I think her goals are pretty clear.   She has an appealing vision of the kind of America she wants us to build together.  But the ways and means will change considerably.  Senator Warren has proved in the past that she's smart enough to admit when she's wrong - and if it turns out she's wrong about moving to Medicare For All so quickly, I'm confident she'll adopt a more gradual course.

"And really, won't she have to?  I really hope the Democrats take back the Senate next year - and put Mitch McConnell out to pasture.  I think Elizabeth is the Democrats' best chance to do that, because people will come out to vote for her.  She'll have coattails.  But even if the Democrats win the Senate and hold the House, there are going to be enough moderate Democrats in both chambers to slow things down a bit.  President Warren will have to compromise with Congress, as all Presidents do.

"But at least she's starting from a posture of thinking big and acting boldly.  That's the only way to deal with Congress.  If you start off timid, you won't accomplish a thing.

"Anyway, that's my answer.  I'm for a more gradual shift to single-payer health care.  I'd like to say I agree with my candidate on everything, but I don't have to.  What's important to me is that I think she's the right person for the job - and that she's smart enough to adjust when her plans don't quite match reality.  That's why I'm working for her."

Not the sort of answer you would get from a paid staffer - or from someone who had drunk the Kool-Aid.  But that's not my style.  And really, it shouldn't be anyone's style - aside from people who are paid to echo the party line.

We're citizens of a Republic.  We're engaged in the business of choosing someone to run our government for us.  Nothing about that suggests that we have to accept every single word that comes out of a candidate's mouth. 

We're not electing an oracle, a monarch, or a man on a horse.  We're electing a chief executive.

The point is to pick the best person available to do the job.  If greatness happens - that's a pure bonus.

A Word With an Old Friend

I don't need to tell you most of this.  You have your own news sources.  Probably we share a lot of them.  CNN.  PBS.  MSNBC.  The New York Times.  Some of the more intelligent online publications.  (I always check 538, even though I question some of the polls they rely on.  I mean, who trusts HarrisX?)

If you're like me, you probably even have a few non-American sources.  The Guardian app is my go-to for anything, even news of the US.  If you haven't found it yet, you'd like it.

And of course, we each hear from our respective campaigns.  I get daily blasts from Charlestown, what the folks at Warren HQ want us to hear.  I'm sure you get the same thing from Bernie's staff.  We're citizens, of course, but we are also, in the end, pawns in a very big game.

Anyway, we both know something about where this campaign seems to be going.  And if I like it better than you - and of course, I do - I still feel a reflexive twinge every time I see Bernie's numbers bump down another half-point in the aggregates. 

I love that man.  Honor him.  He's an American hero.  If he's not the next President, whoever is should give him the Medal of Freedom.

No, Bernie should have been the nominee in '16.  I don't know if he was actually robbed, but for sure, he was mugged.  If the DNC had left it to us - if they'd remembered what the "D" stands for - he might have been the nominee, for real.

And if he had been, I think he wins.  And the Trump nightmare would have been just that, a bad dream.

I expect you ended up voting for Hillary.  I couldn't get there.  I lived in Virginia then, and with Tim Kaine on the ticket, Hillary was going to get our electoral votes.  I ended up voting for that young guy from Utah - McMillan?, McMullen?, whatever...

Yeah.  Bernie got screwed in '16.  We all did.

But this year, you're with The Bern, and I'm with Liz Warren.  And so far, they've made a great team - advocating a similar vision for America, watching each other's backs in the "debates".  It's been nice to see.

I hope that doesn't change now, when things are starting to shake out.  Like I say, you get the same news - read same polls - as I do.  This has turned into a three-person race, but it's starting to look, more and more, like it's becoming more a two-person race:  Warren vs. Biden.

I know.  I said it.  Looks like it's going to be Liz or Joe. 

I expect you're starting to see that, too - and you don't want to believe it.  I get it.  I've been there, more times than I can count.  But for Bernie, there's a special pain.  It just isn't fair.  Such a great man.  Remarkable.  Courageous. 

Fun.  Remember how much fun it was in '16, when it actually started to look like he would take the Party away from the Clintons, the Wall Street Democrats, the DLC-types - and turn it into a party of the people again? 

Bernie did that.  Nobody else could have done it.  Where we are now - we wouldn't be there without The Bern.

Like I say, it just ain't fair.

But I ask you honestly, as a friend - if you're ready to hear the question - can you see a way forward?Is there a scenario where Bernie wins this time?  I mean, I'm all-in for Liz, but if Bernie somehow pulls this thing out, I'm grinning from ear to ear.

I just don't see how he does it.

So I'm asking - friend to friend.  Can you draw me a map, paint me a picture, tell me a story that ends up with Bernie as the nominee, and then the President?  Can you envision how he snatches victory from the jaws of - well - the present situation?

And it's okay if you can't do that right now.  Take as long as you want.

Just this.  If you get to a place where you can't see a way forward - please - it can't be Biden.  It just can't.  I don't think Biden wins against Trump.  I'm damn sure he doesn't have the coattails to take back the Senate.  But even if he pulls it off, President Joe means four years of nothing much - half-assed gestures with the world on fire. 

Literally, on fire.

And then, Joe's what, 80? - and he probably loses to somebody worse than Trump.  (And there could be somebody worse.  Imagine a guy with Trump's ideology, but twenty years younger, with a better  understanding of how government works, no hint of senility, more focused, skilled at building teams, with a thicker skin, etc.)

Really, it just can't be Joe.

So anyway - that's what I have to say.  No pressure.  We both love Bernie.  You keep giving him the support he deserves.

But when the time comes - if it comes - try talking the old gang into helping Liz.  After all, we're still fighting the same damn people - the Wall Street Democrats - and they're already trying to rig this thing for Joe - or anyone who won't upset the big-money donors too much.

You know that, as well as I do.  Maybe better.

I guess that's it.  Good seeing you.  Keep in touch.

And keep fightin' the good fight.

Can Oregon Matter?

Hundreds of Oregonians have already enlisted in the fight to make Elizabeth Warren the next President of the United States.  Many hundreds.  We could be into the thousands by now.

There's enormous activity in Portland and its near-in suburbs, where PDX for Warren has generated the sort of passion I associate with Bobby Kennedy's campaign in '68, or Bernie Sanders' first run four years ago. 

But there's also activity elsewhere, including parts of the state where you might not expect to find cheerful demonstrations of loyalty to a Democratic candidate.  More on that below.

Occasionally, however - for all this incredible stir and bustle - someone will ask the question:  Does this really matter? 

Will all this activity - the rallies, the volunteer training, the canvassing, the phone-banking, the burgeoning cottage industry devoted to button-making - actually make any difference?

Will Oregon matter?

It's a good question.  Oregon is, after all, one of the last states to hold a primary - on May 19.  Oregon won't send a huge delegation to the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukie, Wisconsin.  Indeed, if the 2020 primary season goes true to form, there will almost certainly be a nominee - or at least, a prohibitive favorite - before Oregon votes.

Moving on to November - unless there's a political revolution of catastrophic proportions - Oregon will award its seven electoral votes to whomever the Democratic Party nominates.  Which means that, during the general election campaign, neither member of the Democratic ticket will waste time visiting Oregon.  A Democratic ticket that doesn't carry Oregon would be doomed to humiliating defeat.

So - in terms of affecting the choice of a president - can Oregon matter?

This post will argue that it can, but first, a little background.

I'm very new to Oregon.  I moved to the north coast in August, 2018, after a lifetime in Virginia.  Back east, I'd been involved in politics, on and off, all my life - which tends to happen when your dear old dad serves eighteen years in the state legislature.  But I had absolutely no thought of becoming involved in politics in my new state.

Then the presidential campaign started up.  It felt important, so I looked over the field and did my due diligence.  I narrowed my choices down to three, then two, then - finally - one.  A good one.

So in early July, I decided to find out who was organizing for Elizabeth Warren here in Clatsop County.  (If you don't know Oregon, think of it as an envelope.  Clatsop is where you'd affix the address label.)  I checked around, went to a local Democratic Committee meeting, and found out.

Nobody.

Nobody was organizing for Warren, or really, anyone else.  So I located the Portland group and wound up in touch with Kevin, a bright young guy who's one of Liz Warren's potential "West Wing" team.  He asked if I'd head up the campaign here in Clatsop County - which sounded pretty low-key - and I accepted.

Then I did a little research into Oregon politics.  I learned that, traditionally, the Democratic Party of Oregon focuses on getting out the vote in the 7 "blue" counties around Portland, Salem, and Eugene - i.e., the upper I-5 corridor.  Win those seven counties, they know, and you can elect the Governor, the two US Senators, at least three of our five members of the House of Representatives, and a majority of the state legislature.

And that's how it works.  Rural Oregon - even the tourist and retirement towns that dot our truly dramatic coastline - are afterthoughts.  Like our larger neighbor to the north, Washington, Oregon is a "red" state that votes "blue" because of a big metropolis.  Nine-tenths of our territory votes Republican.  Even my county, which is marginally "blue" - while appreciated - plays little role in the Party's calculations.  Some really progressive people out here, but not enough population.

And that's when I got involved in something slightly more ambitious than my nominal job here in Clatsop.  I contacted a few other volunteer local leaders in counties not deemed essential by the Democratic Party of Oregon.  We decided to make a modest effort at connecting with each other and finding local leaders in neighboring counties in the western third of the state..

To my surprise, the leaders of Warren's powerful Portland group sympathized.  So in August, I scored a couple hundred of their hand-made buttons, met with another local leader at the State Central Committee meeting in Newberg, and started recruiting rural-county leaders in earnest. 

One month and many road-trips - including four over-nighters - later, we had leaders in a third of Oregon's 36 counties, and were close to being organized in a half-dozen more.  And our ambitions changed from organizing the counties in the western half of the state to something we call the "36-County Project" - an effort to have Elizabeth Warren organized in every county of the state. 

Since then, a lot more local leaders have joined the effort.  I recruited a "road warrior" from Portland who made the 450-mile round trip to Canyon City one week, and a 500-mile run to La Grande the next.

The energy for our project has become, in effect, self-sustaining.  We're reaching out to every corner of the state, with good hopes of having an active group working in every county before the Iowa caucuses.  We've even won support from the national headquarters in Charlestown, Mass.

And in the process, we've found a purpose. Actually, two purposes.

First, we're asking all Oregonians for their votes.

We represent a brilliant woman who was born and raised in Norman, Oklahoma.  Who was a high school debating champion in Oklahoma.  Who attended college in Houston, Texas.  A red-state gal who was still a Republican when she was hired to teach law at Harvard.  A legal scholar who changed her politics, her party - and her life - after scholarly research into America's bankruptcy laws persuaded her that predatory lending was destroying millions of American families.

A candidate, in short, who speaks "red-state". 

Elizabeth Warren might not make it to Enterprise, or Ontario, or La Grande - or even to Bend or Medford - during this campaign.  But she needs to ask folks in those "red counties" for their votes.  Through us. 

Because, by asking for their votes, she will open a dialogue that will help enormously when she is President - which all of us, of course, believe she will be.

That's the first purpose behind our project.  You can only bring the American people together if you have asked them - all of them - for their support on your way to the White House.  You might not get their votes, but if you've asked, you've started a conversation.

The second purpose is this:  As far as I know - and I've travelled a good deal of the state now - we're the only campaign making this sort of effort.  True, Bernie Sanders has some passionate loyalists everywhere I go - and I get that.  I was for Bernie in 2016 - and I'm still angry about the way he was treated by the DNC during the primary campaign.

But I've seen little serious effort to organize for Bernie as of yet.  Outside the Portland area, no other candidate - other than Yang - is putting in much effort at all.  Which means, in a sense, that Elizabeth Warren has a clear field in Oregon.  If we can direct our energies into organizing - not only in the seven "blue" counties, but across the whole state - we can go a long way toward locking up Oregon for Elizabeth Warren before the primary season starts.

Think of it this way.  If, by the time the Iowa caucuses meet, the national press can report that Elizabeth Warren's volunteers in Oregon have the state so well-organized that the other campaigns have decided not to invest resources here - that they're writing it off - that's kinda like Oregon had promoted itself to an early primary state.

Indeed, if we've got Oregon fully organized - with folks canvassing in every county - by January, we could actually cast the first vote - ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire.  Ahead of everyone.

What we do - if we do it thoroughly - could make a real difference in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina.  It could make a real difference in Washington and California on Super Tuesday. 

It could make Oregon important in a way that our late primary, and our dependably Democratic electoral votes, never could.

And that's why we're doing this.  To make a difference - right here in Oregon.

The Third Democratic Debate

People who witness public events usually see what they expect to see.  Depending upon their personalities, that could mean they see what they hope for - or what they dread. 

Being a mere mortal, I can't claim to be any more objective than the next observer.  My one advantage is that, as a student of history, I tend to take a longer view than most Americans - for what that's worth.

So, with that disclaimer, here's one man's take on last night's "debate":

The evening of September 12 probably didn't change the reality that this has become a three-way race among Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren. 

In truth, none of the top three surprised anyone.  Bernie was Bernie - the feisty Bernie progressives, as well as comic impressionists everywhere, dearly love.

Joe was his likable, grandfatherly self, though worryingly showing his age and lack of contact with the times. 

Liz was steady, thoughtful, and passionate, but she did introduce one new argument which she will doubtless develop over the coming months - that no American is in love with their health insurance company.  This might prove the answer to doubts about Medicare for All.  If a public option can be designed that offers the same or better coverage - and the same or better choice of doctors - no American will weep for their lost relationship with Aetna, Cigna, or Blue Cross.

All in all, it would be surprising if we enter Iowa and New Hampshire with anyone, other than these three, as serious contenders.

Five other candidates had their moments on the stage, doing well enough to justify staying in the race a bit longer.  This was particularly true of Beto O'Rourke, who will probably enjoy a nice, if ephemeral, bump in the polls after his passionate articulation of a gun policy most sane Americans would actually like to see as law.

Two candidates - Amy Klobuchar and Andrew Yang are probably done.  Klobuchar has established herself as an intelligent and thoughtful centrist, and a senator of genuine character.  However, she lacks the ability to transmit her inner fire over the medium of television - at least, in the bizarre format of a ten-person "debate".  In another era, with different technology- or perhaps simply in a different format - she might be among the leaders now.  But this is not her year.

Yang, like the excluded Tulsi Gabbard, has become something of a cult figure in this race.  But in 2020, there will be room for only one cult figure - and he will be running for re-election.  Yang and Gabbard have enough passionate fans to insist that they hang around for awhile.  Yang loses nothing by doing so.  Gabbard will likely forfeit her seat in Congress, which would be a loss for the public discourse.

Besides Gabbard, none of those failing to make this debate has much reason to soldier on.  One - Steve Bullock - will do his party and his country a positive disservice if he fails to go home to challenge Senator Steve Daines.  If the Republicans end up holding the Senate by one seat, and Bullock does not run, he will merit a far grimmer place in history than he aspires to.

In a similar vein, Tom Steyer - yet one more rich guy who seems unaware that no businessman (other than a few plantation owners) has ever succeeded as President - could be spending his millions to help end the reign of Mitch McConnell as Senate Majority Leader.  Instead, Steyer's ego has him pouring good money after bad.  He'll be on the debate stage in October, and then - when he finds out how different debating is from making video spots - quietly disappear.

To me, the most interesting story coming out of this debate was watching two young candidates begin to maneuver for positions in the next Democratic administration.

The always impressive Pete Buttigieg, in a well-reasoned passage about America reclaiming its place as the world's leader, made a strong case for being our next Secretary of State.  It's the job I've always seen him in - the ideal place for a brilliant, nuanced young person (think, Thomas Jefferson) to prepare himself for a future Presidency.

Julian Castro made a different choice - probably aiming to be the running mate of either Sanders or Warren.  His attack on Joe Biden was clearly a pre-planned take-out move, and it was fairly brutal.  Yet, for all the negative instant reaction, I suspect it will prove effective.  Liberals and progressives have a terrible tendency to be too nice by far - a characteristic they don't need when preparing for the open warfare of 2020.  Nominating a flawed candidate, out of fear of seeming "ageist", would be the height of folly.

What Castro did was to point out that the Emperor is rather scantily clad.  Nobody wanted to say it, but it's what many of us have been thinking - that the Joe Biden of 2019 reminds us of the Ronald Reagan of 1984. 

With that thought comes the fear that he he cannot be counted on to perform well in the WWE grudge-match of a one-on-one debate against the President next fall.  Also, doubts that his policies and elder-statesman persona will attract the youth vote needed to flip the Senate, and hold the House.

In taking on Biden, Castro might have sacrificed himself.  But, assuming no politician sets out to be a hero without some thought for his future, he might also be hoping that the opprobrium of the moment will fade - and that he has positioned himself to be the attack-dog running-mate either Sanders or Warren would choose to take on Mike Pence.

To EAW (Memo 3: Electability.)

Senator Warren,

As you approach the second round of debates, I believe you are well-positioned to win the Democratic nomination.  In writing this, while I note Aaron Blake's recent ranking of the top fifteen Democratic candidates (Washington Post, July 26, 2019), my conclusion rests on my personal assessment of the nomination contest.  I have no inside information, just a lifetime study of history and politics, my own gut feelings about you, as a person, and my sense of the times we are passing through.

As I see it, only one major obstacle stands between you and nomination - the question of "electability".

This question is not entirely new.  There are those who will insist that it is - that it is merely another manifestation of sexism in our culture.  Perhaps that is partly the case.  But to a certain extent, as long as their have been elections, the question has arisen whether a given candidate possessed the necessary qualities to appeal to the citizens of his (usually "his") time.

What is new, I suspect, is the fact that perfectly good liberals and progressives are willing to ask - out loud - whether you are electable, because you are a woman.  In public, where I represent you as a volunteer coordinator for my small Oregon county, I am asked the question point-blank.

Is Elizabeth Warren electable?

Fortunately, in my own person, I have little difficulty answering this question.  I'm a mature man - about your years.  Having, in the course of my life odyssey, practiced law, taught history, and acted professionally, I have a certain amount of presence.  I've been involved in politics most of my life.  So I can say, with a degree of confidence and command, something like this:

It amazes me how many people - not just pundits and political scientists, but ordinary citizens - think there's a way to tell who is "electable".  I've been around politics since I was nine years old, and the question always reminds me of what William Goldman - who wrote the screenplays for "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Princess Bride" - said in his book about Hollywood:  "Nobody knows anything."

What Goldman meant was that nobody knows what movie will be a hit or a flop.  Millions - sometimes hundreds of millions - are risked to make a movie.  Risked by men and women who have spent their careers in Hollywood.  And, remarkably often, they get it wrong.

The same is certainly true of politics.

Four years ago, how many people thought this country would ever elect Donald Trump President?  Twelve years ago, how many people doubted that America was ready to elect its first black President?  I'm sure you can think of many, equally good, examples.

So the answer to your question about Elizabeth's electability is what Bill Goldman said about the movie business:  "Nobody knows anything."

The only person who is absolutely, definitely electable is the person who was elected yesterday.

So - if nobody knows who is electable - why don't we forget speculating about that, and focus instead on another question:  Who would make the best President?

Senator, I don't know how to translate my answer into a form that could be used by someone new to politics - a first-time canvasser or a young citizen in an Iowa caucus room.  As noted, I have certain acquired skills which command a hearing.  But I believe this is the true answer to the question.  Your staff will be able to find versions of my answer that suit different volunteers, but that's the message.

There is, however, another aspect to the question of electability which deserves attention - and a good deal of caution.  Your own advisors - your staff - need thoroughly to purge themselves of any concerns they may harbor about your electability.  Those concerns must be exorcised.  Your staff must put all doubts about electability entirely out of their heads.

And so must you.

Because, until that happens, there will always be a danger - a propensity to want to package you in some way intended to make you more appealing to the public.  In other words, when your staff, your advisors, your pollsters - even you yourself - question your electability, there will always be the temptation to remake yourself into someone more electable. 

And this can lead to embarrassing - or even fatal - mistakes.

The most tragic recent example of this was the transformation of Al Gore into a wooden, almost robotic parody of himself during the campaign of 2000.  I've seen Al speak to a large crowd at his Climate Reality training in Denver two years ago.  He was warm, enthusiastic, and energetic.  If that version of Al Gore had run for President in 2000, there would have been no George W. Bush presidency - and much of recent history would have gone very differently.

Senator, you are all you need to be to win the Presidency, and to be a great President.  Not just good.  Great.  Top Five great.

You, and the people around you, need to know that.  Do not let them package you.  The next time you go to the fridge to get yourself a beer, let it be because you're thirsty after a long day of campaigning - not because someone decided it made you seem "folksy".

You are who you are.  We haven't met, but I sense that you probably feel at your best as a classroom teacher - or as a Senator who is functioning as an educator.  I often say that you remind me of that wonderful high school teacher - everyone had one - who opened complex ideas to her students, and made them feel smart about understanding those ideas.  The teacher who didn't talk down to her students, but lifted them up. 

Whenever I say that, people nod their heads.  They see it, too.

If that good teacher is the real you, that's a wonderful persona for a President.  Lincoln used that same skill-set - which he acquired by educating small-town juries about complex legal and factual issues - to lead the Republic through the dark days of the Civil War.

But whether I'm right or wrong about that, you know who you are.  Trust that.  Trust yourself.  Tell your staff they must do the same thing.

Most of all, forget electability.  We'll all know if you were electable on November 4, 2020.

In the meanwhile, be yourself - and devote your energies to learning more about who we are.

Thanks for your consideration.

Getting to Yes...

It's been a long time since I did sales work.  In my acting days - my mid-to-late 40s - there were summers when I didn't have a gig.  For several of those summers, I worked as a telemarketer for the Richmond (Virginia) Symphony.

Telemarketing is hard work, but you learn a lot.  Mainly, you learn how to close - which is an essential skill in our sales-oriented society.  No matter what your vocation or avocation, sooner or later, life is going to require that you find strategies for getting people overcome their reluctance to say "Yes".

For citizens volunteering in political campaigns, such strategies and skills are absolutely essential.

Yet, surprisingly, most citizens who don't practice politics for a living find it difficult to go from a polite, cautious political chat to actually pressing a fellow citizen to commit - even though commitment is the name of the game.  Sending a small donation, putting a bumper sticker on your car, signing up to do something - anything - to help out.  These small, first steps are how undecided voters become active citizens, fully invested in a campaign.

And invested citizens are the ones who will do the hard work of GOTV ("get-out-the-vote") at election time - the hard work that spells the difference between victory and defeat.

This afternoon, I struck up a conversation with a nice lady who was visiting Cannon Beach with her husband. Somehow, we got around to 2020, and I told the lady I had become a volunteer for Elizabeth Warren, with the initial duty of being the campaign's organizer in Clatsop County, Oregon.  (Again, for those who don't know our state, Clatsop County is where the address label would go, if Oregon was an envelope.)

The lady replied that she really liked and admired Elizabeth - then stopped, the unspoken word "but" hovering in the air.

And I surprised myself.  I don't usually turn a friendly chat into a political moment, but this lady was clearly smart, thoughtful, and professional.  She was the sort of person you want on your team - no matter what the task.  So I said...

"And what's the but?"

The but, for her, was electability.  Specifically, the concern that America might not be ready to elect a woman to the presidency.  So I smiled and said:

"You know, I've been in politics - on and off - my whole life.  And I'm always amazed that people think they can predict who will win or lose an election.  Because for me, what William Goldman* said about the movie business is equally true of politics:  'Nobody knows anything.'

"In 2008, did you think this country was ready to elect a black man President?  I didn't."

She smiled, then replied, "And I never thought we'd elect Donald Trump.  I couldn't believe that happened."

And I repeated, "That's because nobody knows anything.  We can't predict.  So to me, it makes more sense to just do what I think is right."

Then I looked at her, a quietly impressive, charming woman you would trust - in five minutes - with anything.  "If you think America isn't ready to elect a woman president, how do you make it ready?  The only way I can see is by doing it.  If we don't nominate women, it continues to be impossible.  Once we elect one, it's suddenly been possible all along."

The conversation went on from there, but my new friend left with a Warren bumper sticker and a smile.  I'm not 100% sure, but I'm guessing that sticker is on her bumper very soon.  Because she seemed to have given herself permission to do what she wanted to do anyway - support the candidate she believes would be the best president.

She just had to get past the "electability" issue - which, really, is no issue at all when you admit that you don't know anything.  Because nobody knows anything.

Whoever you're backing, I hope this will help.  If nothing else, it will save you hundreds of hours listening to, watching, or reading the predictions of "experts" who have no more chance of being right than they have of predicting a coin toss.

Politics is fascinating stuff.  And one reason is because - in William Goldman's words - Nobody knows anything.

Think about it.

_____

*  William Goldman is the screenwriter responsible for, among others, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Princess Bride.  The quote is the basis of his best-selling book, Adventures in the Screen Trade.

A View from Exile

As we enter the active phase of a presidential election fight - a campaign about which I will be writing often (d.v.) - new readers of this gazette deserve to be brought up-to-date on one important fact about the author.

I am a man without a party.

Growing up in a political family of Virginia Democrats, I waited until finishing law school before steering my own political course.  Though I'd gone into practice with my father - a lawyer-legislator whom I greatly revered - I knew I was a progressive Republican at heart.  Drawing my inspiration from a tradition which reached its apogee in the vital times of Teddy Roosevelt, I hoped that modern conditions would make possible a revival of TR's assertive, confident brand of progressive nationalism.  All my personal ambitions focused on such a revival.

So, in 1978, I joined the GOP.  While holding appointive office under Republican Governor John Dalton, I dared to campaign actively for John Warner for the US Senate - against Dick Obenshain, the darling of Virginia's right-wing, Reaganite Republicans.  Obenshain won that nomination fight, dying shortly afterward in a small-plane crash while campaigning.  Warner replaced him on the ballot and went on to serve with distinction for thirty years.

Two years later - when Reagan forces took decisive control of the national and state GOP - I resigned from the party.  A year later, I was driven from office, and turned myself into a high school history teacher.

But, despite several efforts to re-invent myself as a Democrat, I have never really made the transition.  I'm simply not a Democrat - and probably never will be - for three reasons.

• My strategic ideas render me uncomfortable with a party which is, and has always been, more of a coalition of competing identity groups than a cause.  The Democrats' various groups perpetually struggles for influence, short-term gain, and the realization of personal ambition.  The Democrats have no unifying body of principles - no allegiance to anything like the Founders' notion of the commonwealth.  And that is essential to me.

• My relatively fortunate life experiences have ill-fitted me to be at ease in a coalition of groups which work from competing narratives of exclusion and/or victimization - and my education in history makes me suspect that any government run by the tribunes of society's least-favored elements will prove short-lived, ineffectual, and costly.

• My understanding of our Constitution doesn't square with the Democratic Party's historic obsession with presidential leadership - and consequent neglect of the potential of the legislative branch.

But of course, since the Reaganite takeover of the GOP, I couldn't possibly remain a Republican.

While I've made fitful efforts to refashion myself as a Democrat, I've never even tried to rejoin the GOP.  The Republican Party has become the party of bigotry, superstition, ignorance, and greed.  If Donald Trump personifies the worst aspects of the GOP - at least, so far - he is only the last instance of a decline which runs back through George W. Bush (and his puppet-master, Dick Cheney), Newt Gingrich, and Ronald Reagan - and eventually to Dick Nixon.

And there's no reason to think the rot will not continue.  If there are worse men - or women - than Donald Trump, today's GOP will find them, nominate them, and try to elect them.

Observers such as Tim Alberta (American Carnage) argue that this process of Republican decay runs back a decade.  As a Virginian with a sense of history, I could see the process taking place in 1978 - and triumphing in the summer of 1980.  I didn't need to stick around to participate in what followed.  The triumph of the Reaganites marked the death of the Party of Lincoln.

Ronald Reagan might have been a nice enough fellow - if somewhat dim - but his Virginia supporters included a phalanx of segregationist die-hards from the Byrd wing of the state's Democratic Party.    The massive influx of Dixiecrat Southern segregationists - and the simultaneous influx of Bryanite Midwestern and Southern evangelicals - transformed the Republican Party into a second, darker version of the Democratic Party.

For progressive and centrist Republicans, the only options were to stay "loyal" and be slowly, inexorably corrupted and degraded - or to leave and make the best of it.

So, in 1980, I left - becoming an independent who longs for a party which does not exist.  That is where I remain today.  As a patriot, I do what I can - when I have the heart - to help the better sort of Democrat win an election against the more execrable sort of Republican.

I am doing that right now, as an active volunteer coordinator for Elizabeth Warren in Oregon, my new home state. Elizabeth Warren, after all, is a commonwealth-minded progressive - and a former Republican - just as I am.

But if Senator Warren has found a way to be a Democrat, I have lived - and will almost certainly die - a man without a party.

Everything I'll be writing here comes from that grim - but I hope, not bitter - perspective.