The Weekly Twenty Twenty Update

Already blogged some on the topic this week, so I'll just refer you to Bernie's CNN townhall wrap-up last Tuesday and yesterday's Green Party candidates post.

-- Washington Gov. Jay Inslee declared this morning.  Andy Kroll:

So Jay Inslee is running for president. His vision, he tells Rolling Stone, is an administration organized around the climate crisis, an entire federal government working in unison to decarbonize the economy and help save the planet. No candidate has his record on the issue, and none of them have said nearly enough about it, he says. “A lot of these candidates want to check the box,” he tells me. But one sentence in their campaign-launch events doesn’t solve this problem. “This has to be the number-one priority of the United States,” he insists. “Every agency has to be on board, and it has to take priority over everything else we do. You have to build a mandate for this during the campaign, and you have to express a willingness to spend your political capital to get this done. I think too many other candidates are going to say, ‘I’m for the Green New Deal, and now I’m done.’ That just doesn’t cut it.”

David Roberts, "Dr. Vox":

After years on the periphery of American political life, climate change is having a bit of a moment. Activists (along with five Democratic presidential candidates and at least 100 members of Congress) have rallied behind a Green New Deal that proposes a crash program to decarbonize the US economy. Polls on climate change show rising rates of concern across the country and among both political parties. It seems that after decades near the bottom of Democratic priority list, climate has broken into the top two or three.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who will announce his presidential candidacy Friday morning, is hoping to seize that moment. Over the course of his 30-year career in public life — first in the Washington state legislature, then in the House of Representatives, then, since 2012, governor of Washington state — he has always prioritized sustainability, and not always to his political benefit. Now he sees his signature issue and the national zeitgeist aligning at last, and he thinks it can take him to the White House.

In 2007, Inslee released a book (co-written with Bracken Hendricks) called Apollo’s Fire: Igniting America’s Clean Energy Economy. It called for a broad suite of emission-reducing policies, led by massive investments in American clean energy jobs, with a focus on environmental justice. If that sounds familiar, well, they didn’t call it a Green New Deal, but it was pretty green, and pretty New Deal.

Now, to his delight, a youth movement has thrust a similar plan into the center of national debate. He thinks he’s the guy to take it over the finish line.

Some are not impressed.

Jay Inslee was a superdelegate for hillary clinton in the primary when the voters in his state voted for bernie & now he wants to deny the will of the voters again

He doesnt support #m4a #greennewdeal.

Gee thanks washington but no thanks. You can keep him pic.twitter.com/EGN6uVm3Ty

— misscee 🌻 (@missceeeeee) March 1, 2019

-- Let's look at the 'leaners', as reported by 538.  Everybody has seen Beto's latest strip tease, so no need to mention him again until he shits or gets off the pot.

Michael Bennet
During a trip to Iowa last weekend, Bennet told the Des Moines Register that he is “leaning toward” entering the presidential race. The newspaper also reported that he spent much of his four stops in the Hawkeye State speaking about education — Bennet was the superintendent of Denver Public Schools for four years.

“I think we need an education president,” Bennet told the Register. “There’s no public good that’s more important than education.”

Joe Biden
Biden said Tuesday at a University of Delaware event that his family has signed-off on a presidential run, explaining that after a “family meeting,” there was a “consensus.”

“The most important people in my life want me to run,” the former vice president said.

As for the timeline of his own decision, Biden revealed that he is in the “final stages” of the process and told the New York Times that a potential campaign would begin during the year’s second quarter.

“It’s something that I have to make sure that I could run a first-rate effort to do this and make clear where I think the country should go and how to get there,” he said publicly. “That’s the process going on right now. That’s as straightforward as I can be. I have not made the final decision, but don’t be surprised.”

Michael Bloomberg
Bloomberg picked up a preemptive endorsement from fellow billionaire Warren Buffett, who revealed his affinity for the former New York City mayor in an interview with CNBC.

“I think that he knows how to run things, I think that he’s got the right goals for America, he understands people, he understands the market system,” Buffett said.

Politico reported Thursday that representatives of Bloomberg were beginning to look at office space in New York City and interviewing potential staffers.

Bloomberg stopped in Nevada Tuesday to praise the state’s new gun background check law. During a news conference related to the legislation he noted that he was still undecided on a presidential run.

Sherrod Brown
Brown took his “dignity of work” message to Nevada earlier this week, where he said that if he chooses to run for president, he’ll be “the most pro-union candidate.”

“We will have a government on the side of workers, not a government on the side of big corporations,” the Ohio senator told members of the Culinary Union Saturday in Las Vegas.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, however, Brown said he has yet to reach a final decision on a presidential run, but would do so by the end of March.

Bill de Blasio
The New York City mayor visited Iowa last weekend, where he spoke to a crowd of 40 people at a union hall and met with former Gov. Tom Vilsack.

De Blasio acknowledged that he is “not a candidate at this moment,” but argued that Democrats “have to have a progressive as our nominee.”

“We have to be able to speak to working people across our whole country,” he continued. “We also have to have a nominee who is believable as a leader in such an important position.”

John Hickenlooper
The former Colorado governor continues to take steps towards a presidential run, expected to be announced some time in early March. Last weekend, Hickenlooper held meet-and-greet events in Sioux City and Carroll, Iowa, and spoke at the Story County Democrats’ Annual Soup Dinner.

A spokesperson for Hickenlooper told the Associated Press that he has raised over $1 million for his political action committee.

-- There's potentially another GOP primary challenger to join Bill Weld.

Larry Hogan
As speculation grows that the Maryland governor could launch a challenge to Trump, Hogan asked in a Washington Post interview why the Republican National Committee was taking steps to declare its support for the president and potentially shut down primaries.

“If he has unanimous support and everybody is on board, why shut down the normal process?” Hogan said. “It’s almost like a hostage situation.”

Referring to the governor specifically on Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, RNC chair Ronna McDaniel said that any other potential challengers to Trump “have the right to jump in and lose.”

--And another CNN townhall is on the schedule -- to be held in Austin at SXSW on March 10 -- with some of the lesser publicized candidates to be featured.

JUST IN: CNN will host a town hall at @sxsw in Austin on March 10. It will be moderated by CNN's Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, and will feature three Democratic candidates for president. https://t.co/xDH2JgJn4r pic.twitter.com/Yfz3EOf1wi

— CNN (@CNN) February 28, 2019

Delaney, who is also a former businessman and entrepreneur, was the first to announce his candidacy in July 2017. Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran, announced her White House bid in January while Buttigieg, who is seeking to become the party's first openly gay nominee, launched an exploratory committee last month.

The Houston Chronicle reports that Liz Warren, Amy Klobuchar, and Julián Castro will also speak at SXSW, but I cannot find any indication that CNN will be hosting a town hall for those candidates at post time.

Go over to FiveThirtyEight for more on Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, and Andrew Yang.

You won't have Jill Stein to kick around any more

Somewhat buried inside this New Republic piece by Emily Atkin on the Green New Deal are some interesting reveals about the US Green Party's 2020 presidential aspirations.  I'll break up the excerpts quite a bit, so if you want to read the full piece but get stopped by NR's subscription wall, there's an easy workaround.  If you can't figure it out then ask me how in the comments.

Howie Hawkins, a 66-year-old Green Party member from New York, says he was the first American political candidate to run on the promise of a Green New Deal. During his run for governor in 2010, he proposed a plan to fight climate change “with the same urgency, speed, and commitment of resources that our country demonstrated in converting to war production for the mobilization for World War II.”

[...]

“It’s a little frustrating to not have a dialogue between those of us who have been working on the Green New Deal for quite some time, and people who want to keep it solely in the realm of the Democratic Party,” said Ian Schlakman, a Baltimore-based Green Party member who’s running for president.“There are some Democrats who acknowledge the existence of third parties and independents. Congresswoman Cortez is not one of those people.”

Hawkins -- who told me he’s launching a presidential exploratory committee in the coming weeks -- also thinks the Green New Deal is being unfairly co-opted. But he’s happy that it’s become mainstream, because now the Green Party can expose the Democrats for the corporatists they truly are. “It’s our opportunity to explain how the Democratic establishment ... chopped away the pieces,” he said.

Pause for news update/explainer: AOC's GND proposal, co-sponsored by Sen. Ed Markey, is just a resolution, not a bill, and Mitch McConnell's power play to put petroleum-soaked Democrats on the spot about it is producing some breathless pearl-clutching from Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.  Protests outside McConnell's office earlier this week had no effect.  Schumer has already countered McConnell with a milquetoast Senate resolution.

Back to the central point of this post.

Stein has suggested she won’t seek the party’s nomination in 2020, so there’s potential for a new Green voice. But it’s not yet clear who that will be. Aside from Hawkins and Schlakman, only 12 people have officially declared their candidacy for the Green Party nomination. It’s hard to tell which are serious. Kanye Deez Nutz West most likely is not. But Dario Hunter is, and he’s about as diverse as candidates come: black, gay, Iranian, and Jewish. He’s also an ordained rabbi, a former environmental attorney, and a school board member in Youngstown, Ohio. These qualities all make him an ideal new voice for the party, he said. “If we want to cut through the lack of attention given [to Greens], we need someone who has a loud and clear voice and a tough skin,” he said. “It takes a tough skin to be an openly gay black son-of-an immigrant Jewish rabbi.”

Why should there be attention given to Greens, though, now that Democrats have embraced the Green New Deal? Simple, said Hunter: “This Democratic version of the Green New Deal is watered down. It pales in comparison to ours.”

I'm leaving out some good parts, but the following is the best of the entire article, IMO.

This is why some Greens say the 2020 presidential race is not a challenge so much as an opportunity to expose Democrats. “There is this growing cafeteria socialism where Democrats pick and choose elements here and there and put them on a platter because they sound conducive to running a progressive-sounding campaign,” Hunter said. “If you are espousing Medicare for All and free college for everyone, but ultimately still allowing for capitalist interests to run amok … then you are not a socialist. You’re just running on a platform that draws people in falsely.”

Calling Ocasio-Cortez a fake progressive is a risky game, given that she’s one of the most popular Democrats in America. But it does seem like the natural place for the Green Party to go in 2020. Third parties, after all, are historically for people who not only dislike the two major parties, but don’t believe the major parties will ever change. “I think if you work within the Democratic system, you have to be incredibly honest about who the Democrats are, which is that they are pro-capitalism, very moderate, and don’t want to move very far left to tackle the challenges we see worldwide,” Schlakman said. “Sure there’s an avenue for socialists to upend the Democratic Party from the inside, but they’d really have to be at war with their own party. And I don’t see that in Congresswoman Cortez.”

The chances of a socialist revolution within the Democratic Party is unlikely. Only one of its presidential candidates even uses that term to refer to himself, with the modifier “democratic” -- and Bernie Sanders isn’t even a member of the party. So the Green Party surely still appeals to those who want the American economy to become fully eco-socialist; an inconsequential niche of voters, electorally speaking. But that’s not to say the party is without political influence. The Greens’ history as a spoiler threat might keep the Democrats honest, ensuring they don’t nominate a moderate who won’t at least entertain Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.

Then again, leftist voters may be so motivated to remove Trump from office that they’d hold their noses and vote for, say, Amy Klobuchar or Joe Biden.

So while I read a few mischaracterizations and "mal-assumptions" in there, nevertheless some kernels of thought were germinated about how Dems see Greens, Greens view Dems, and each see -- and fail to see -- themselves.

I would wish that Ajamu Baraka, the 2016 vice-presidential nominee, would be willing to stand for Green Party president in 2020, but Kevin Zeese at Independent Political Report -- who has some extended thoughts on this topic as well -- says he has 'decided not to run'.  And that Texans most likely will not have a GP candidate to vote for on their ballot next year anyway makes this conversation from a Lone Star perspective unfortunately moot.

That's why I'm #BernieorBust.  Again.