The Granite State is famous for lifting people from the back of the pack, sometimes very late in the campaign, elevating dark horse candidates from obscurity to national prominence. Who might it be this time?
We know who the big four are. Front runner Joe Biden, with populist curmudgeon Bernie Sanders nipping at his heels, have maintained their status for several years now. Elizabeth Warren has been almost as prominent. For much of last year she was seen as having supplanted Bernie as the Left leader, dropping back in recent weeks, but still very much in it. The emergence of Pete Buttigieg as a top tier candidate has been the surprise of the long preseason year just ended. A 38 year old gay ex mayor of a small city in Indiana has hardly been the stuff of viable presidential candidacies in the past. Beto O’Rourke was the leading non traditional prospect as 2019 dawned. Yet Mayor Pete, largely on the strength of his own intellect and personality, has a reasonable prospect of winning both early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. Many pundits insist that any of these four leading candidates could finish in any order, in the top four in Iowa and New Hampshire.
What happens when the circus leaves town, after Iowa, after our primary in New Hampshire will shape the race. The group of candidates has already been trimmed from thirty to twelve. What future surprises await?
There is growing buzz about Amy Klobuchar. The senator from Minnesota, and former Twin Cities area DA, is emerging as a centrist alternative to the Biden baggage, a female alternative to Warren, and her supporters say, a more reassuring alternative to Trump than Sanders and his “revolution.” Klobuchar has hung on all year, without the star power and money of more glamorous senators from California and New York, who she outlasted. She has overtaken Mayor Pete and Senator Warren in Iowa, and won endorsements from the New York Times (shared with Warren) and the Manchester Union Leader. Were she to break through, that could reshape the race. Watch this one.
“Mayor Mike” Bloomberg was a successful centrist mayor of New York City. The sometime Democrat is deploying his vast fortune in states that follow the early contests. He first chose not to run, but changed his mind last November. Polls suggest he is making headway. If Biden collapses, and Bennet and Klobuchar do not catch on, this could result in an epic clash between Bloomy and Bernie, or perhaps Warren.
Another candidate relying on his personal fortune, and a late strategy, is Tom Steyer. Heavy advertising has moved poll and donation numbers enough to lift him into the debates, in compliance with DNC requirements. Like Bloomberg, Steyer announced last winter that he would not run, but changed his mind last summer. The ability to self finance makes it easier to do this. Educated at Yale and Stanford, later a Stanford trustee, and a long time Democratic donor, Steyer made his money in hedge funds. In 2010 he took the “giving pledge” to give away half his fortune, and has been a leading advocate of climate change awareness and action. He was also crusading for impeachment of President Trump as early as 2017. He makes the now familiar populist-outsider-businessman pitches. He talks a lot about congressional term limits. His spending has lifted him into third place in polls in South Carolina and Nevada.
Two young candidates are drawing considerable attention. While neither is likely to be nominated, both offer an interesting glimpse into the political style of the next generation.
Entrepreneur Andrew Yang just qualified for the debate scheduled for between the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. When he entered the race in November 2017 almost nobody noticed, he was such an obscure and unlikely prospect. Today his imaginative, energetic, and good humored campaign has attracted a small but durable following, particularly among the young, which has assured that his ideas and his person will remain before the public. He is one of several non-traditional candidates, people without office or military credentials, who have outlasted more traditional political types. This reflects the Trump example, profound public unhappiness with traditional politics, and a more wide open media environment. “If you want the opposite of Donald Trump, pick an Asian guy who likes math,” Yang quips. His “Yang Gang” supporters sport baseball caps emblazoned with the word MATH (Make America Think Harder). Yang’s parents emigrated from Taiwan. His father worked for IBM, and Yang was educated at Phillips Exeter, Brown, and Columbia Law. Bored and unfulfilled with the practice of law, Yang embarked on a career as an author, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. A mainstay of his program is UBI, Universal Basic Income. A government check to every US citizen, a stimulus to smooth the transition as automation eliminates jobs. Easily caricatured as a liberal giveaway, the UBI has long been a public policy mainstay, supported at one point by the Nixon administration.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, 38, is the first female combat veteran to serve in congress. The congressperson from Hawaii is of Asian and Polynesian extraction. As a teenager she excelled in martial arts, and embraced the Hindu religion. At age 21 she was elected the youngest state legislator in the nation, her military service prevented her from defending her legislative seat, and fuels her strong opposition to what she views as endless and poorly thought out post 911 wars in which she has served. In 2010 she was elected to the Honolulu city council. She was elected to congress in an upset in 2012. Early in her political career she supported her father’s crusade against marriage rights for Gays. She has since renounced that position. Early on, the Democratic establishment was eager, to promote Gabbard as a rising star, making her a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. Gabbard supported Bernie Sanders in 2016, and resigned her party post to protest what she viewed as DNC unfairness to Sanders. Her debate take down of Kamala Harris was notable, as well as the incoming she took from Hillary Clinton, who has suggested Gabbard was a Russian agent, and planned to run a spoiler independent presidential campaign to assist Trump.
Sen. Michael Bennet has the endorsement of a predecessor as senator from Colorado, Gary Hart. Hart’s late jelling victory in the Granite State primary of 1984 almost carried him to the nomination. Bennet has also been endorsed by the legendary Cajun Consultant, James Carville, who guided Bill Clinton through a stormy primary here in 1992. Bennet’s credentials look impressive on paper. His grandparents survived the Warsaw Ghetto. His father had been president of Wesleyan University, and an assistant to Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Bennet’s brother is the director of the editorial page at the New York Times. Bennet was a page on Capitol Hill. He was educated at St. Albans and Wesleyan. At Yale Law School he edited the Law Journal. Bennet was a Justice Department lawyer in the Clinton years, and was later superintendent of schools in Denver, before being appointed to a vacant senate seat from Colorado in 2010, to which he was twice elected. He also seeks to occupy the center lane, and also seems to be generating little excitement.
John Delaney, the congressman from the Maryland suburbs of Washington, was the first candidate in the race, announcing on July 28, 2017. Despite an energetic effort, centrist positioning, and impressive business credentials he appears to have not caught on, and offers no plausible path to nomination. Look for this bid to end soon. The same is likely true of former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, the last person to enter the race, which he first chose to skip. Patrick is a familiar figure in New England, a charming campaigner, but he confessed his long shot status entering the race in November. He counts counts heavily on black voters to abandon Biden for him in later contests. In order for that to happen, he needs to do reasonably well here in NH. There is no evidence that is afoot.