In the runup to the 2020 US Presidential election, particularly the Democratic Primaries, I will be tracking the various Democratic candidates.
In this post I will be giving a brief summary of my current feelings about each candidate and their platforms. I'm going in with relatively little information, having tracked them each a little, though I have not dived into them all extensively. I will do my best to only provide accurate information, though that can be a challenge in today's political climate. In the future I will create dedicated posts about each of the major candidates, though I will prioritize candidates that have higher polling in my coverage.
I will begin by listing and quickly summarizing all the candidates in the running officially, and then those who are expected to run, having already created exploratory committees. This list will be gathered from Wikipedia, so the ordering of candidates may be familiar.
Officially Running:
Cory Booker
A fine candidate, definitely on the firey side, which is something that a lot on the left want right now. (Full disclosure: I am on the left) Booker is in the senate in New Jersey, so his vacating that position doesn't create a vacuum likely to tip the balance of the senate further to the right, as anyone else in NJ who runs will likely be a Democrat too. He makes the mark on all the key social issues of our time, but I haven't seen him put forward any signature issues yet.
Julián Castro
I'll admit, I have not yet started to develop opinions about many of these candidates, and Castro is one of the ones I know about the least. Cursory examination of his Wikipedia page. He was mayor of San Antonio, and was in Obama's cabinet as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Most of the issues I and most of my friends care about are represented by him, too. If he emerges in debates or news stories further down the line, I'll make a dedicated post about him.
John Delaney
He was actually the first Democrat to announce for 2020, way back in July 2017. His background was in business, and he moved on to be elected to the House of Representatives from Maryland's 6th district. Nothing about his record stands out hugely to me so far.
Tulsi Gabbard
Gabbard gained national attention when she endorsed Bernie Sanders fairly early in the 2016 primary race, resigning from the DNC in the process. She was the first Hindu congressperson, and comes from the Hawaii House of Representatives in district 42, and serves the US house from Hawaii District 2. I am with her platform-wise, and feel like she has been unduly written-off, but I have concerns at this moment with what I've heard about her ties to Russia and Hindu Nationalism in India. I'll be diving a lot more into this soon, and she is one of the figures I am most excited to learn more about while I work on this.
Kirsten Gillibrand
Another
candidate I know all-too-little about, Gillibrand is a Senator from New York,
and has a reputation as one of the most reliable democratic votes in Congress.
Her campaign is focused on economic and social issues. She has a bit of a mixed
history on gun laws, which I think may get ironed out as the debates come up.
Kamala Harris
Harris is a Senator from California who got her start in public service as deputy attorney general for Alameda County, CA in 1990. She also served as Attorney General of California from 2011 to 2016. She has developed a following recently as a firebrand, using her experience as a prosecutor to grill now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing in 2018, and her rhetoric is seen as more aggressive than some of her competitors by many. I haven't really compared her yet, but will do so in my exploration of the candidates.
John Hickenlooper
A complete unknown for me, Hickenlooper was the governor of Colorado from 2011 to 2019, and previously mayor of Denver from 2003 to 2011. He has a background in geology and beer brewing, operating a company named Wynkoop Brewing Co starting in the late 1980's. He pushed gun control legislation in Colorado, as well as stricter emission standards for oil and gas companies.
Jay Inslee
Governor of Washington from 2012 to now, Inslee previously was in the Washington State House and US House from the late 80s through to 2012. His campaign focus is predominantly on Climate Change and other environmental issues.
Amy Klobuchar
Amy Krobuchar is a US Senator from Minnesota, and has been since 2006. She was previously a lawyer in Hennepin County, MN. Her campaign focus is on middle-America and the issues that face the midwest, such as transportation, as well as focusing on voting and climate change. She seems fairly appropriate as president, though I almost feel like her record might make her more suited to the Supreme Court, which she was once considered for by President Obama.
Elizabeth Warren
Born in my home state of Oklahoma, Elizabeth Warren is a US Senator from Massachusetts. I've been watching her since 2015, when a lot of people were urging her to run. At the time she declined, people mostly assumed she would run in 2024. Well, the sights changed when Clinton failed to win the Oval Office, so now Warren is running. Good thing, too, because while she may not be particularly exciting, she is a keen policy wonk.
Wayne Messam
Mayor of Miramar, Florida, Wayne Messam is focused on issues the youth in America are facing, including debt cancellation for student loans, climate change, and the "gig economy". Not a lot is out about his platform yet, and I can say that unless he starts getting his message out soon, he's gonna fall behind the rest of the pack. I think he should be focusing on a senate run instead, honestly.
Beto O'Rourke
This is a guy I'm interested in for sure. He comes from Texas, and was a Representative in the US House from 2013 to 2019. Prior to that, he was an El Paso City Council member. He ran a high-profile Senate campaign in 2018 against Ted Cruz, and came in with a 2 percent margin, pretty impressive for Texas. I look forward to digging in on his platform and history.
Tim Ryan
One more I've never heard of, Tim Ryan is a long time (16 years) US house Rep from Ohio. He is a manufacturing jobs-focused candidate, and seems to have some experience in budget-related matters, as he was on multiple committees for appropriations and budget.
Bernie Sanders
This is probably the candidate I know best. Bernie ran in 2016 as well, and did quite well, losing against Hilary Clinton in the Democratic primary with a margin that was narrower than one might have guessed closer to the start of the race. While Bernie is on the right side of most issues, I legitimately am concerned about his age, as this is a very tough job, and we want a candidate who won't just be strong in 2020, but also in 2024, when Bernie will be 83 years old. However, Bernie polled significantly stronger against Trump in 2016 than Clinton, especially among republicans and independents, showing that he may have stronger across-the-aisle appeal.
Marianne Williamson
The last of the officially-in-the-running candidates I know nothing about, Williamson is not remotely interesting to me, as she has never held public office, instead being a public speaker and author, and has put forward mainly just run-of-the-mill platform policies. I'll still dive into her in a standalone post, but I don't expect much.
Andrew Yang
Yang also has never held office, which gives me pause, but is set apart by promoting a policy I have long been an advocate of, Universal Basic Income, which he defines as "a form of social security that guarantees a certain amount of money to every citizen within a given governed population, without having to pass a test or fulfill a work requirement." Even though I don't expect I will be voting for him in 2020 (He probably won't last until the end of the primaries), I will be promoting him until then. UBI is finally gaining some mainstream attention, and remarkably has caught on as a sound solution to the threat of runaway labor automation.
Expected to declare soon:
Pete Buttigieg
This guy is to 2020 what Bernie was to 2016. Here's a guy who came outta nowhere to totally excite me. He's a sweet dude, has a lot of sound policies, and seems to have a strong moderate (but not centrist!) message. When everyone else is talking about fighting, he is talking about unity in a way I believe, not by compromising values, but by refusing to discount others as hopeless cases. He is also the Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and is gaining quite a following already. Granted, he has actually created an exploratory committee, which is essentially a soft-launch for an actual campaign.
Mike Gravel
I won't say too much about Mike, because he doesn't seem to be very serious in his run, but I do want to highlight his reasons for running. He says " "The goal will not be to win, but to bring a critique of American imperialism to the Democratic debate stage." That is a very important topic, and if his presence will help that be a topic on the debate state, I'll be happy.
