Plum Line: Hickenlooper's entry reveals how moderates fatally misunderstand today's GOP

[BeyondGeography]

The race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination got another entrant today, which makes 12 major candidates, with more to come. John Hickenlooper, the former governor of Colorado, announced today that he’ll be running, and while in a different year he might have been a strong contender — reasonably successful and well-liked governor, middle-aged white guy — he has a bit of a timing problem.

It isn’t just that Hickenlooper isn’t nationally known and may be more moderate than what Democratic primary voters are looking for right now. It goes to what sort of president he says he’d be. To hear him talk, it’s as though he parachuted in from a few decades ago and has no idea how politics works in 2019 or what sorts of impediments the next Democratic president is going to face. Let’s look at the way he summed up his candidacy in an interview with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos this morning:

“I’m running for president because I believe that not only can I beat Donald Trump but that I am the person that can bring people together on the other side and actually get stuff done.”

Hickenlooper talked about the importance of going out and listening to people, about how when he was mayor of Denver and ran for governor he connected with voters all over the state whose concerns weren’t partisan. Which is surely true, but unfortunately it shows that while being out in the “real” America (i.e. not Washington) can help you understand how policy decisions affect people’s lives, it can also obscure the real challenges of federal policymaking the next president will face.

...Here’s the problem for a Democratic president: Today’s Republican Party isn’t just committed to a particular set of policy preferences, it’s also committed to a style of politics in which 1) any compromise with Democrats on a controversial issue is an unconscionable betrayal, and 2) literally any tactics, no matter how morally reprehensible, are justified in the pursuit of their goals.

More at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/03/04/john-hickenloopers-entry-reveals-how-moderates-fatally-misunderstand-todays-gop/?utm_term=.6b39623de3c3

[TwilightZone]

1. That's not a problem that Hickenlooper alone would face.

Any of our candidates would be in the same boat as president. A moderate would theoretically have a slightly better chance of getting cooperation from the few remaining moderate members of the GOP, but in reality, there's little reason to believe the GOP is going to be more cooperative, regardless of who becomes president as a D. This argument could be made for any Democratic candidate who runs on "getting stuff done".

[Sherman A1]

2. I don't see Moderates as being acceptable this time around

however it is very early in the process and things will undoubtedly sort themselves out. I believe that the country is leaning more progressive and the progressive ideals simply have been pushed aside in an effort to make the candidates and party more acceptable to those who were believed to be more right leaning.

I believe that strategy was wrongheaded but time will tell.

[Garrett78]

3. Yep. Let's not pretend we're dealing with decent people across the aisle. We aren't.