A2 EZ M2 THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20 , 2019
CORRECTIONl An Oct. 13 Outlook book review
of Julie Hirschfeld Davis and
Michael D. Shear’s “Border Wars:
Inside Trump’s Assault on
Immigration” misstated the
length of the U.S.-Mexico border.
It is nearly 2,000 miles, not 1,
miles, which is the length of the
Te xas segment of the border.Washington Post
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There are
moments in every
presidential
nomination
contest when
many strategists,
donors and
activists can more
easily explain why
each of the
candidates can’t
win the nomination or the
presidency rather than which
ones can. That this feeling has
begun to grip some Democrats at
a time when things are going so
badly for President Trump,
however, is not at all typical.
On paper, the field of
candidates running for the
Democratic nomination is
everything the party’s rank and
file might hope for. It is big,
offering more choices than ever.
It is experienced, with candidates
from every level of government
and beyond. It includes more
women and minorities than ever
at a time when their voices are
redefining the party. It is
generationally and
geographically diverse.
Ye t, to date, there’s been little
that has given Democrats the
confidence that their nomination
process will produce a challenger
strong enough, appealing enough
and politically skilled enough to
withstand what will be a brutal
general election against a
weakened and vulnerable
president. Trump’s campaign is
already running a general
election loaded with cash and
with months of time to try to
shape voters’ perceptions of
Democrats negatively before
their nominee is even selected.
For Democrats, almost
everything about the past week
should be grounds for optimism
about the political landscape.
The litany of things that
happened to or were done by the
president in just a few days is
beyond comprehension, starting
with the case that Trump used
the powers of his office to try to
damage a political opponent that
is at the heart of the House
impeachment inquiry.
That case against the president
appeared to gain strength, with
closed-door testimony on Capitol
Hill, and it was helped when
acting White House chief of staff
Mick Mulvaney said there was a
quid pro quo involving military
aid. Mulvaney later retracted the
statement, but the damage was
done.
That came on the same day
that it was announced that
Trump had awarded next
summer’s Group of Seven
meeting to his Doral resort in
Florida, boldly using the powers
of his office to enhance his own
business fortunes. After intense
criticism, however, he tweeted
Saturday that Trump National
Doral Miami would no longer
host the summit.
Then there is the mess made
by the Trump’s hasty decision to
withdraw U.S. forces in northern
Syria, which allowed Turkey to
begin an assault on Kurdish
forces, once U.S. allies in the fight
against the Islamic State.
In one attempt to undo the
damage, Trump sent a letter to
Turkish President Recep Ta yyipErdogan threatening to inflict
harm to Turkey’s economy if
Erdogan kept going. The
language sounded as if it had
been written by a make-believe
tough guy rather than the
president of the United States.
A fragile cease-fire agreement
later brokered with Erdogan by
Vice President Pence and
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
brought some respite in the
fighting but also gave Turkey
much of what it was seeking.
“Like two kids in a lot, you
have got to let them fight, and
then you pull them apart,” Trump
said at a Texas rally. Earlier he
had dismissed the fighting as of
no particular concern to the
United States. Syria has “got a lot
of sand,” he said. “So there’s a lot
of sand they can play with.”
Among those strengthened in
the Middle East were the regime
of Syrian President Bashar al-
Assad and Russia and its
president, Vladimir Putin. A
meeting in the White House
called with congressional leaders
to discuss Syria turned into a
showdown between an angry
president and a resistant house
speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif ).
He called her a “third-grade
politician.” She bristled and
wondered why, with Trump and
his policies, “all roads lead to
Putin.”
By week’s end, Trump’s Syria
missteps had been denounced in
a critical Washington Post op-ed
written by Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
So almost everything about the
week was grounds for optimism
for Democrats — except for one
event, which was the fourth
Democratic debate, held in
Westerville, Ohio. That debate
quickly faded from view, swept
aside by the tidal forces of a
president on the defensive. For
some Democrats, the three-hour
session simply added to
questions about the party’s
fitness to win a general election.
Much of this is a result of the
continued debate performancesby former vice president Joe
Biden. He has been effective at
times. But the sum of Biden on
the stage against his rivals has
been underwhelming at best,
disappointing to those who see
him as the most capable of
winning a general election.
His poll numbers are holding
up, but he has failed to
consolidate the advantages he
brought into the race. He has
been unable to quiet questions
about his readiness.
Into this vacuum has stepped
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
That she was the target for much
of Tuesday’s debate was all
anyone needed to know about
how her standing is perceived by
her rivals. For others working to
win the nomination, she is the
person to stop but also someone
they see as having vulnerabilities
to exploit.
Warren is a skilled and
disciplined candidate, which is
why she has risen while Biden
has been static at best. She knows
what she thinks and has a theory
of how to get to the White House.
Her agenda — which includes
big, structural change — the cost
and complexity of her proposed
policies, and her unwillingness to
say how it all adds up give many
Democrats pause about her
ability to win in November 2020.
There are other choices,
obviously. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-
Vt.), unabashed in his democratic
socialist agenda, has the support
of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-
Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-
Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-
Mich.), three of the most liberal
new members of Congress. Some
polls show him beating Trump in
key states, though many
Democrats are skeptical.
South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete
Buttigieg is young and heartland-
based, a candidate who speaks
eloquently in debates, interviews
and in question periods with
voters. He enjoys support from
those in the party who are white
and well-educated, but not yet
with other voters that pastnominees have needed to win the
nomination, particularly African
Americans.
Biden, Warren, Sanders and
Buttigieg are four of the 18
candidates still in the race. Could
someone farther down in the
pack, someone who isn’t e ven
qualifying for the debates,
capture the nomination? It’s not
out of the question and surprises
are always a part of the pre-Iowa,
pre-New Hampshire campaign
season. The hope for all those
who are being ignored is to build
quietly in Iowa and New
Hampshire and get hot when the
weather is at its coldest.
One small measure of the
restlessness among at least some
Democrats was a Sept. 28 tweet
by Oprah Winfrey, which
includes a short video clip of her
talking with Bob Iger, chief
executive of Walt Disney Co.
“This is the man I wish was
running for President of the
USA,” she tweeted. In the video,
she tells Iger that, if he were
running, “I would be canvassing
in Iowa right now. I would be
going door-to-door ... I wish ...
more than ever, every day, that
you had done it.”
Put aside the question of
whether Iger could win a
Democratic nomination, let
alone the presidency, or
Winfrey’s skills as a political
handicapper. Her enthusiasm for
someone not even in the biggest
field of candidates ever
assembled speaks to the degree
to which the declared candidates
have yet to capture imaginations,
despite high levels of intensity
among voters.
Because these kinds of
concerns have happened before,
and with some regularity, there is
no reason to overstate the
problem. Once voters check in
and contests are held and
someone begins to win primaries
and caucuses decisively or
consistently, perceptions of their
strengths will change.
But the campaign to date has
produced questions that will
demand answers. Can Biden step
up and show something more
than he has? Can Warren
demonstrate that her proposals
and campaign machine are
enough to overcome reservations
about her general election
viability? Can a slipping Sanders
rebound? Can Buttigieg or
someone else who is less liberal
than Warren or Sanders displace
Biden?
Trump might look like a
weakened candidate, but he will
be a tenacious campaigner,
willing to do anything he can to
demonize and defeat his
challenger. Democrats have
many choices but are anxiously
wondering which one of them
will get the party to the White
House in 2021.
[email protected]Disparate struggles for Tr ump, Democratic contenders
EVAN VUCCI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney announced last week that the next Group of Seven
summit would be held at a Trump resort. The president canceled that plan late Saturday.Dan Balz
THE SUNDAY
TAKETALK SHOWSGuests to be interviewed Sunday on major television talk shows9 a.m. FOX NEWS SUNDAY (WTTG)
South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg; acting White
House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
9 a.m. STATE OF THE UNION (CNN)
Buttigieg; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.); Rep. Joe Neguse
(D-Colo.).
9 a.m. THIS WEEK (ABC, WJLA)
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Sen. Robert Menendez
(D-N.J.).
10 a.m. NEWSMAKERS (C-SPAN)
Sarah Longwell, director of Republicans for the Rule of
Law.
10 :30 a.m. MEET THE PRESS (NBC, WRC)
Buttigieg; Rep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.).
10 :30 a.m. FACE THE NATION (CBS, WUSA)
Reps. Will Hurd (R-Tex.) and Jim Himes (D-Conn.).
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