Budowsky: Biden and Warren at POTUS Rubicon

The two current front-runners for the Democratic nomination, former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), both stand at the Rubicon of being seen by an electoral majority as being appealing or acceptable presidents.

Count me in the “defeat Trump” wing of the Democratic Party, which is now the majority view of American voters. 

The reelection of President Trump would make it likely that Republicans maintain control of the Senate, have some chance of regaining control of the House, would doom a packed Supreme Court to becoming a bastion of injustice for a generation, and would award a historic victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin and other foreign dictators and leaders whose active support Trump seeks for his reelection.

The polling that matters the most are direct match-up polls measuring Trump versus Biden, Trump versus Warren, and Trump versus other Democratic candidates one on one. Today Biden, Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are all leading the president. Trump could still eke out a narrow victory, but with support for impeachment rising, there is now the possibility of the Democratic nominee winning a historic landslide — as House Democrats did in 2018 — if they play their cards right.

Words cannot express the danger to democracy of a reelected Trump with a Republican majority in Congress marching in lockstep behind his dark vision of anti-democratic impulses, repeated claims that his major opponents are treasonous, and crony capitalist corruptions that must never again be allowed to dominate American politics and poison American democracy.

Biden needs to convince a majority of Democratic delegates that he will fight for causes and values that Democrats deeply believe in, and that while he will seek national unity and bipartisanship when possible, he will fight like hell against the obstructive partisanship of Republicans such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) — who began acting to destroy the presidency of Barack Obama even before Obama was inaugurated.

Warren needs to convince an electoral majority of voters that she will govern in a way that lifts the Democratic base but also reaches out to swing voters, moderates, independents and the small but growing minority of Republican voters who, according to a new Washington Post poll, now support the impeachment inquiry.

Biden and Warren should directly and aggressively confront Attorney General William Barr for parading around the world trying to pressure intelligence services of democratic nations to support partisan GOP slanders of Biden or the Russian-promoted lie that Ukraine and not Russia interfered in the 2016 election. They should say that such partisan behavior is a grotesque abuse of the Justice Department and should constitute a firing offense.

Biden and Warren should directly and aggressively confront Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for using his department to revive partisan attacks against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and should state— in speeches from Berlin to Notre Dame University — that America must forever be a leader of the free world and champion of democracy and human rights and must never be an ally, friend or supporter of dictators, human rights abusers and mass murdering tyrants.

Biden and Warren should state — from the Midwestern plains to the heart of Texas to speeches addressing the New York Stock Exchange — why there are recessions, depressions and market crashes far more often under Republican presidents than Democratic presidents. They should drive home the truth that true capitalism creates fair competition in a just society that lifts workers, farmers and consumers which lifts investors and markets far more effectively than crony capitalism and mammoth tax cuts for the super wealthy.

Biden must convince progressives he will fight hard for their values and visions. Warren must convince hundreds of millions of voters that she will give them vastly improved health care through Medicare without involuntarily stripping them of private insurance if they choose to have it. Both stand at the Rubicon of being widely seen as appealing presidents and commanders in chief.

Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), who was chief deputy majority whip of the House of Representatives. He holds an LLM in international financial law from the London School of Economics.