Primary Elections Archives

North America

The Frustration of Being Elizabeth Warren

The significance of a campaign that couldn’t get a look from the voters

March 10, 2020 • by Miranda Yaver

It is a familiar story, and one that frustrates many close followers of Democratic Party politics. The field has narrowed from a diverse array of candidates spanning different races, genders, ages, and sexual orientations, to two familiar white men who seek to unseat the current president. Warren’s departure from the field ...

The Frustration of Being Elizabeth Warren

North America

Democrats Might Have the Stronger Party.

They also have a harder job.

March 5, 2020 • by Julia Azari

Does this mean the system “worked?” First, I agree with Hans Noel that it’s early and there’s lots we don’t know. But it’s also important to think about the demands of the Democratic Party coalition when we assess the effectiveness of the party. And there are several glaring strategic and institutional problems. ...

Democrats Might Have the Stronger Party.

North America

If Sanders Wants to Lead the Democratic Party…

Then he should do more to build bridges and stop attacking “The Democratic Establishment”

March 3, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

At the same time, Bernie Sanders clearly has assumed front-runner status. It is no surprise that this has his supporters jubilant, and has his opponents concerned and even frightened. There surely are some Democratic donors and operatives who absolutely hate the thought of a Sanders nomination -- whether for ideological or tactical reasons -- ...

If Sanders Wants to Lead the Democratic Party…

North America

The Speech that Mike Bloomberg Should Have Given Last Week

How the former Mayor might redefine the importance of an outsider candidacy — by leaving the race, and supporting a candidate who can win

March 2, 2020 • by Jeffrey K. Tulis

But at the moment, he is actually harming both. He is hurting Democrats by blunting the message of all the candidates other than Bernie Sanders. And he is hurting the country by making it less likely that the Democrats will nominate a person who will be able to defeat Donald Trump. Yet he ...

The Speech that Mike Bloomberg Should Have Given Last Week

From the Editors

The 2,000-Year-Old Men

February 26, 2020 • by Claire Potter

We have had this guilty thought long before Mayor Pete articulated it for us in his unique tone, one in which he manages to convey optimism, despair and his own brand of aggression simultaneously. Lately, as Sanders’s actual policies seem to be impressing more and more voters, and an extraordinary ...

North America

Buttigieg’s Nevada Speech Was Terrific if the Goal is to Defeat Sanders Rather Than Trump

Slandering the party’s leading candidate is bad

February 24, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

This does not obviate the real limits of the Sanders campaign and the challenges it must address moving forward, if Sanders is to successfully claim the nomination much less the presidency. On Saturday night Jacobin, the organ of Sanders’s hard-core ideological supporters, declared that “After the Nevada Blowout, It’s Bernie’s Party Now” (indeed, ...

Buttigieg’s Nevada Speech Was Terrific if the Goal is to Defeat Sanders Rather Than Trump

North America

No Candidate Who Cannot Win a Majority of Delegates Deserves the Democratic Presidential Nomination

February 21, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

I know that DSA is not a party (though it surely wishes it could be), but I wonder if the organizational rules would allow its leadership and platform to be decided by a simple plurality of the votes in open primaries throughout the country in which in most places anyone ...

No Candidate Who Cannot Win a Majority of Delegates Deserves the Democratic Presidential Nomination

North America

Why Bloomberg is a Disaster for the Democratic Party

And it will take a healthy Democratic party to defeat Trumpism

February 17, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Enter Mike Bloomberg, billionaire tycoon, former Republican mayor of New York City, master of social media, sincere adherent of some liberal causes (gun control, environmentalism) and sincere partisan of the new Gilded Age capitalism, and -- did I forget to mention it? -- mega-billionaire. Can Bloomberg outspend Trump? Surely. Can he outsmart ...

Why Bloomberg is a Disaster for the Democratic Party

North America

Democrats are Haunted by 1972

Re-examining McGovern’s devastating loss — and the collapse of party unity that changed everything

February 13, 2020 • by Claire Potter

Worse, the pundit class, which should be challenging the electorate with ideas and analysis and instead seems to be taking a cultural studies approach to covering the candidates, is engaged in endless handwringing, triggered by the emergence of a viable left in the Democratic party. Because if this, they predicted a Biden boom that ...

North America

Why Bernie Is the True Feminist Choice

For feminists, this election presents a clear choice — between advancing the interests of 1 percent of women and fighting for the liberation of the rest

February 12, 2020 • by Nancy Fraser and Liza Featherstone

Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and their supporters, including those on the New York Times editorial board, are strongly making the case that the time has come for a woman to be president. Warren and her supporters have been especially persistent in these appeals to gender politics. If Bernie Sanders weren’t in the ...

Politics

How The New York Times Turned Me into a Bernie Supporter

When the liberal media cries wolf, it energizes the grassroots

February 7, 2020 • by Hannah Leffingwell

Among my reasons for resisting his renewed candidacy: the bad taste left in my mouth from the Bernie Bros phenomenon, his age, and honestly? His gender. As the 2020 democratic field came into focus, my choice to support Elizabeth Warren felt easy. Warren boasted an impressive record, but one that wouldn’t allow ...

How The New York Times Turned Me into a Bernie Supporter

North America

America’s Weimar Moment

Bernie Sanders & the Future of Democracy in America

February 6, 2020 • by James Miller

But here we are. While progressive Democrats this cycle have been dreading the instincts of centrist liberals like Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, moderates cringe at the prospect of an avowed socialist leading their party. Some fear Sanders would split Democrats, and doom him to a defeat as sweeping as that George McGovern suffered ...

Primary Elections

The Frustration of Being Elizabeth Warren

The significance of a campaign that couldn’t get a look from the voters

Democrats Might Have the Stronger Party.

They also have a harder job.

If Sanders Wants to Lead the Democratic Party…

Then he should do more to build bridges and stop attacking “The Democratic Establishment”

The Speech that Mike Bloomberg Should Have Given Last Week

How the former Mayor might redefine the importance of an outsider candidacy — by leaving the race, and supporting a candidate who can win

The 2,000-Year-Old Men

Buttigieg’s Nevada Speech Was Terrific if the Goal is to Defeat Sanders Rather Than Trump

Slandering the party’s leading candidate is bad

No Candidate Who Cannot Win a Majority of Delegates Deserves the Democratic Presidential Nomination

Why Bloomberg is a Disaster for the Democratic Party

And it will take a healthy Democratic party to defeat Trumpism

Democrats are Haunted by 1972

Re-examining McGovern’s devastating loss — and the collapse of party unity that changed everything

Why Bernie Is the True Feminist Choice

For feminists, this election presents a clear choice — between advancing the interests of 1 percent of women and fighting for the liberation of the rest

How The New York Times Turned Me into a Bernie Supporter

When the liberal media cries wolf, it energizes the grassroots

America’s Weimar Moment

Bernie Sanders & the Future of Democracy in America

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