My Early May RANKINGS -- subject to change

1) Elizabeth Warren / Kamala Harris / (Stacey Abrams - not yet running)
2) Amy Klobuchar / Michael Bennet / Julián Castro / Eric Swallwell
3) Jay Inslee / Kirsten Gillibrand /
.......

4) Cory Booker
.....
5) Joe Biden / Beto O'Rourke / Bernie Sanders

.....
6) Seth Moulton

.......................

7) etc

.....

-10) DUHnocchio 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html .
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/2020-democrat-candidates-771735/ .

You might say it’s unfair or even sexist to question a male Democrat’s commitment to feminism. But even if you overlook this candidate’s handsiness or that one’s casual male entitlement, the idea that men are poor allies is supported by evidence: Surveys show that men significantly underestimate the frequency of sexual harassment of women. Research also shows that electing women to office improves what governments do: Women tend to get more work done for their constituents than men, and in particular, they tend to deliver on policy goals that directly benefit women and families in society.

And common sense tells us that electing a woman as president would deal a smashing symbolic blow to the patriarchy. How can even the most enlightened male candidate rebut that plain fact? In 100 years, what will stand as the more appropriate response to the upheaval of the Trump Pervert-in-Chief years and of #MeToo — electing the first woman or electing a very woke man?

Sorry, boys. The answer here is obvious.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/opinion/woman-president.html .

Where Democratic Front-Runners Stand On 2020's Biggest Issues > .

The Trouble With Joe and Bernie: Neither man seems ready for harsh political reality.

The trouble with both Biden and Sanders is that each, in his own way, seems to believe that he has unique powers of persuasion that will let him defy the harsh reality of today’s tribal politics. And this lack of realism could set either of them up for failure.

Start with Biden, a convivial guy who has maintained good personal relations with Republicans. All indications are that he believes that these good personal relations will translate into an ability to make bipartisan deals on policy.

But we’ve already seen this movie, and it was a tragedy. Barack Obama took office with a message of unity and bipartisan outreach, and a sincere belief that he could get many Republicans to back his efforts to revive the economy, reform health care, and more. What he faced instead was total scorched-earth opposition.

And Obama’s belief that he could transcend partisanship nearly sank his presidency. ...  Obama’s signature achievement happened only because Nancy Pelosi’s heroic efforts dragged the Affordable Care Act across the finish line. He was willing to make a “grand bargain” with Republicans that would have undermined Medicare and Social Security, deeply damaging the Democratic brand; he was saved only by the G.O.P.’s total intransigence, its unwillingness to contribute a single penny’s worth of tax increases.

The big concern about a Biden presidency is that he would repeat all of Obama’s early mistakes, squandering any momentum from electoral victory in pursuit of a bipartisan dream that should have died long ago.

Sanders, by contrast, doesn’t do bipartisanship. He doesn’t even do unipartisanship, refusing to call himself a Democrat even as he seeks the party’s nomination. But what Sanders appears to believe is that he can convince voters not just to support progressive policies, but to support sweeping policy changes that would try to fix things most people don’t consider broken.

That, after all, is what his Medicare for All push, which would eliminate private insurance, amounts to. He is saying to the 180 million Americans who currently have private insurance, many of whom are satisfied with their coverage: “I’m going to take away the insurance you have and replace it with a government program. Also, you’re going to pay a lot more in taxes. But trust me, the program will be better than what you have now, and the new taxes will be less than you currently pay in premiums.”

Could those claims be true? Yes. Will voters believe them? Probably not. Polling shows that support for Medicare for All falls off drastically when people are informed that it would eliminate private insurance and require higher taxes.

You might try to rationalize the Sanders position by saying that Medicare for All is an aspirational plan, and that in practice he would be willing to accept a more gradualist approach. But that’s not what his behavior suggests. On the contrary, Sanders has conspicuously refused to support measures that would enhance Obamacare, even as a temporary expedient.

For Sanders, then, it seems to be single-payer or bust. And what that would mean, with very high likelihood, is … bust.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/opinion/sanders-biden-2020.html .

Joe Biden and the Party of Davos: As a pillar of the ancien régime, Biden is ill-placed to overturn Trump’s revolution.

I don’t think [DUHnocchio] is an aberration. On the contrary, he’s the [smug, petulant, belligerent] face, however duplicitous, of a [resentful] revolution against the Party of Davos, the network of elites whose economic and cultural prescriptions came to be seen by myriad voters across the United States and Europe as camouflage for a self-serving heist. Biden has been a regular attendee at Davos.

.....

There’s been a movement in people’s minds, a radical change in the way people live, perceive and conduct their politics. The old paradigm won’t work. Biden, whom I admire for his impassioned defense of the American idea that Trump has sullied, represents the old paradigm. That’s a big problem, whatever Biden’s early lead in polls. He’s ill-placed, as a pillar of the ancien régime, to overturn the revolution. This is not personal. It’s societal.
......
My impression is that, among Democratic contenders, Elizabeth Warren is listening most closely. Her proposed tax on the super wealthy reflects that — while billionaires, like China, get a pass from Biden. DUHnocchio is not an aberration. [Since DUHnocchio's dim/duped/desperate/deplorable base will cling obdurately to his empty, never-meant promises] Only the innovative will beat him.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/03/opinion/joe-biden.html .