The Countdown to 2020 Begins

500 days into the Trump Presidency and just five months away from the 2018 midterm elections, much chatter has already begun about the 2020 Presidential Election. 

It may seem too early to start talking about 2020, but it really isn’t.  The first Candidate to announce his run for President in 2016, Senator Ted Cruz, announced his White House bid on March 23, 2015.  Should the first major 2020 Presidential candidate announce his or her White House run on March 23, 2019; that’s just nine months away.

Believe it or not, one candidate has already announced his decision to run for President as a Democrat in 2020.  Rep. John Delaney, who only won his seat because of intense gerrymandering by the Maryland State legislature, has decided to forego re-election in favor of a White House bid.     

Incumbent Presidents usually don’t have to worry about primaries.  Unfortunately, a few of the media’s favorite Republicans have not completely ruled out primary bids against President Trump.  President Trump has found two of his biggest intraparty foes in Ohio Governor John Kasich and Arizona Senator Jeff Flake.  Neither has to run for re-election in 2018; Kasich cannot run because of term limits while Flake has voluntarily chosen not to run.  A few months after announcing his retirement, Flake gave a speech on the Senate floor denouncing the President.  Flake admitted that he would have trouble winning a Republican primary in his home state, why he thinks he could do better on a national level remains a mystery.     

These gentlemen represent the worst aspects of the “old” Republican Party, described by Former House Speaker John Boehner at a recent appearance at the Mackinac Policy Conference in Michigan as “kinda taking a nap somewhere.”  This party focused on giving amnesty to illegal immigrants, propping up China on the world stage, and giving the green light to nearly every one of the left’s big spending projects as the left did everything they could to destroy our culture at home.

Unlike 2016, the Democratic Party does not have a clear frontrunner for the Presidential nomination.  They could potentially have a very large field of candidates, like the Republicans in 2016, who had a total of 17 candidates vying for their party’s nomination.  While many people mention Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders as desirable Presidential contenders in 2020, it seems like these two septuagenarians have already had their day in the sun.  Warren has already said she has no plans to run for President in 2020, although that could change. 

New Jersey Senator Cory Booker will have to forego his re-election bid in 2020 if he decides to run for President.  He voted against criminal justice reform, which the left has long advocated for, because President Trump supported the bill.  In the age of Trump, the left has abandoned some of its more practical positions just so they can say that they opposed the man the most radical elements of their base view as the Antichrist. 

California Senator Kamala Harris will have had roughly the same amount of experience at the Federal Level as President Obama had when he announced his Presidential bid in 2007.  She began her tenure in the Senate in January 2017; she had previously served as California’s Attorney General.  During an appearance on “The Ellen De Generes Show,” the left-wing activist and part-time comedian Ellen De Generes asked her if you had to be stuck in an elevator with either President Trump, Mike Pence, or Jeff Sessions, who would it be?”  Harris responded by asking “Does one of us have to come out alive?”  Her obsession with climate change should easily secure her Tom Steyer’s endorsement.

Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley has not caused as much media buzz in the Trump era, until this week.  Like Booker, Merkeley would also have to forego a re-election bid in 2020 if he wants to run for President.  Merkley, doubling as a superdelegate, became the only Senator to support Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential Election.  Merkley released a video of himself unsuccessfully trying to enter a detention center for illegal immigrants. The media has peddled quite a bit of fake news and/or sloppy reporting when it comes to immigration; showing pictures of illegal immigrant children in cages as they attempted to paint the Trump Administration as heartless.  Unfortunately for them, those pictures were actually taken during the Obama Administration, during the 2014 border surge.     

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who received the endorsement of more than 90 percent of the delegates at his state’s Democratic Party Convention as he sought to ward off a primary challenge from actress Cynthia Nixon, has made an effort to show off his progressive credentials by participating in a gun control walkout and going on a rant against the Trump Administration.  He may find support from Al Sharpton, as his rant took place at the National Action Network Conference, Sharpton’s brainchild.  During his rant, Cuomo chastised the Trump Administration as “anti-immigrant, anti-woman, anti-gun-safety, anti-equality, anti-environment (and) anti-inclusion.”  In an effort to show solidarity with illegal immigrants, Cuomo has also dared President Trump to deport him: “You want to deport immigrants?  Start with me because I’m an immigrant.”   

Also from New York, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has attempted to make herself a heroine of the #MeToo movement by arguing that Former President Bill Clinton, a man who effectively helped launch her career, should have resigned because of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Gillibrand has also apparently decided that Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez has the right approach to winning over disaffected Democrats.  During a speech at the Personal Democracy Forum at NYU last year, the junior Senator from New York dropped two F bombs when ranting about President Trump.  Gillibrand’s choice of words appears to have amassed quite a bit of popularity in the Democratic Party, as her comments came not long after Perez claimed that Republicans don’t “give a sh**” about people.    

House members don’t usually end up making serious bids for President, but some of the members of the #Resistance make so many appearances on cable TV that one can’t help but wonder if they’ve decided to start auditioning for 2020. These candidates include Woody from Toy Story, excuse me, Adam Schiff.  Maxine Waters, who will turn eighty later this year, could become the oldest person to ever run for President.  It looks like she will have a little bit of trouble capturing the youth vote in any potential Presidential bid, as only 11 people showed up to a “tweet-a-thon” hosted by Waters over the weekend designed to get millennials “energized and ready to get out the vote.”  Does Maxine Waters really need to hold campaign events?  After all, Hillary won her district by more than 50 points in the 2016 Presidential Election. 

As the Democrats have a very thin bench when it comes to governors’ races at this time, they may have to start recruiting big city mayors.  When most people think of big city mayors with Presidential ambitions, they probably think of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, or Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, who warned the illegal immigrants in her city of an upcoming ICE raid.  Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney made headlines when he referred to President Trump as a “fragile egomaniac” and a “tyrant” who “is trying to turn this country into a dictatorship.”  Kenney’s comments came in response to the President’s decision to cancel a White House event with the Philadelphia Eagles, winners of the 2018 Super Bowl, because so few team members wanted to show up.  While no one on the Eagles took part in the “kneel during the anthem” movement, many of them apparently still harbor an animus towards President Trump because he insists that players stand during the National Anthem. 

Based on her frequent public appearances, it looks like Michelle Obama might have aspirations for higher office.  She has made some patronizing remarks about women who didn’t vote for Hillary, saying “Any woman who voted against Hillary Clinton voted against their own voice, in a way.”  While Michelle might want to run for the White House in 2020, she may also choose to pull a Hillary Clinton and run for Dicky Durbin’s Senate seat in Illinois should he decide to retire.     

Maybe the Democrats will seek to take a page out of President Trump’s playbook and nominate a non-politician to go up against the ultimate outsider.  Then again, nominating a billionaire might alienate the far left plank of the Democratic Party, which resents the rich and wants to raise the top marginal tax rate to north of 90 percent.  Potential 2020 non-politician contenders include Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmentalist who has poured millions of dollars into the impeachment effort, former Talk Show Host and Obama Ally Oprah Winfrey, and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.  If CNN’s publicity hungry White House Correspondent Jim Acosta had his way, singer John Legend would throw his hat into the ring.  Perhaps in an effort to placate their billionaire-hating base, maybe the Democrats will choose to nominate Michael Avenatti, whom Tucker Carlson refers to as “creepy porn lawyer.”  Avenatti’s law firm has had some financial troubles, which might explain his nonstop appearances on cable news.

The identity of the Democratic Presidential nominee in 2020 might ultimately depend on which of their pet issues they decide to focus on.  If they want to obsess about abortion, they could nominate Cecile Richards.  If they want to focus on gun control, they could run Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy or Mark Kelly.  The gun control fanatics would probably prefer to run David Hogg but unfortunately for them, the Constitution requires that all Presidential candidates be at least 35 years old.  If the Democrats want to focus on immigration, they could nominate retiring Congressman Luis Gutierrez. 

For the sake of America, let’s hope that the historical incumbency advantage will work in President Trump’s favor as he works to keep a radical leftist out of office and “Keep America Great.”