Can You Feel the Joementum?

The Democratic frontrunner for the 2020 presidential nomination reportedly will make his candidacy official tomorrow, either on video or in person, either someplace or in cyberspace. His heart is really in it — you can tell by how eager he’s been to declare himself a candidate. The public is treating it with all the enthusiasm they’d muster for the boss’s aged, crotch-nuzzling dog at the company picnic.

Progressive articles listing Biden’s not-progressive record are easy to come by, but Charles Pierce nails Biden’s real problem in an Esquire piece about CNN’s Town Hall-a-Palooza:

What was clear about the evening, especially when one considers the candidates who weren't there, is that there just isn't any room for Joe Biden this time around. A huge chunk of the party has moved on from him. There are plenty of people to run as pragmatic moderates; Klobuchar and Buttgieg did so on the stage Monday night. The left is locked up between Sanders and Warren. What does Biden bring besides name recognition, some old-line union support, and boatloads of money from sources that half his party is going to be running against?

I saw Mayor Pete’s Town Hall segment with a friend who’s a fan. Knowing I’m in favor of Warren and Sanders, he expected me to object to a couple of things Buttigieg said, particularly his statement that Sanders’ voters, like Trump’s, were reacting to a system that isn’t working for them. He seemed surprised that I agreed with Buttigieg’s assessment.

Then again, everything Buttigieg said was designed to draw as little disagreement as possible. Pierce zeroes in on Mr. Mayor’s answer to the charge that his policy proposals are short on specifics: “I think it’s important that we not drown people in minutia before we’ve vindicated the values that animate our policies.”

I realize that everybody’s mileage may vary on this but, to me, this is doublespeak edging toward weaselspeak. How does one vindicate one’s values in a political context without enacting policies, and how does one enact policies in a democratic republic without explaining them to the people who elect the people who will vote for those policies? Nevertheless, you’d have to be stupid to think that there isn’t a substantial audience for this kind of thing, and it’s clear that Buttigieg has found the cause for which he’ll ride to Jerusalem.

Can Biden wrest “the audience for that kind of thing” from a smart young guy’s hands? Not likely. Joe’s fairly quick on his feet, but he’s slowed down a bit, and this kid’s quicker. In terms of small donors, an important measuring stick for grassroots enthusiasm, it’s no contest. It’s youth vs. experience, vitality vs. decrepitude, Adlai Stevenson against JFK in 1960. Plus, nominating the first openly gay president would whip the Christianist right into frothy peaks of rage that would expose them in all their mean-spirited, judgmental glory.

There is a silver lining to Biden’s candidacy: For as long as it lasts, it will steal the constituency for big-mouth billionaires like Michael Bloomberg and Howard Schultz. There’s value in that.