David Leonhardt: Bernie 2020, pro and con

The strengths and weaknesses of the frequently underrated politician from Vermont. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Wednesday, February 20, 2019 [NYTimes.com/David-Leonhardt »]( [Op-Ed Columnist] Op-Ed Columnist At the start of the Democratic presidential primaries four years ago, I was talking with someone who had spent decades living in Vermont. She asked me what I thought about Bernie Sanders’s chances of winning the nomination. I said, in essence: Zilch. Hillary will win in a rout. She replied: Maybe, but I’ve been watching Bernie for more than 30 years, and people have been doubting him that whole time. He just keeps winning. Sanders didn’t win the 2016 nomination, of course, but he did do much better than I and many others had expected. He won [43 percent]( of the Democratic primary vote. Even more impressive, he helped move Clinton’s agenda — and the Democratic Party’s — closer to his own. Yesterday, Sanders announced his second presidential campaign, and he is clearly [a serious candidate]( this time. I admire his ability to focus attention on soaring inequality and stagnant mass living standards. I also have concerns about his candidacy. Here, then, is a summary of the good and bad about the candidate known simply as Bernie: The case for Sanders - He’s consistently underrated for a reason: His agenda is more popular than many American elites understand. Most Americans [favor]( a higher minimum wage, higher taxes on the rich and corporations and expanded versions of Medicare and Social Security. The Sanders approach — progressive on economic issues, without much focus on social and cultural issues — is in many ways [the sweet spot]( of American politics. - Sanders is a natural politician. Too many Democrats campaign on a laundry list of smart, technocratic proposals that, in the minds of voters, add up to less than the sum of their parts. Sanders understands the importance of clear, bold messages: greedy billionaires, $15 minimum wage, free college, Medicare for all, Green New Deal. If he were elected president along with Democratic majorities in Congress, he would have a mandate for Reagan-like change — in the opposite direction. - Sanders has prepared for this moment. He has stayed in the public eye, built a political organization and, as Vox’s [Matthew Yglesias]( has noted, toned down some of his fights with the Democratic establishment. Plus, the establishment is closer to him now on economic issues than it was a few years ago. - Sanders is ahead of every other declared candidate [in the polls](. He trails only Joe Biden, who, even if he does run, has [a weaker history]( as a presidential candidate than Sanders does. Yes, early primary polls can be misleading. But they can also matter, as Donald Trump showed. The case against Sanders - The Sanders agenda doesn’t look as good up close as it does from afar. In 2016, his proposals didn’t receive much scrutiny, because few people expected him to win. This year will be different. And as Americans look more closely, they will decide they don’t favor [eliminating private health insurance]( or [making college free for affluent families](. Most Americans are not socialists. - Sanders doesn’t have a realistic theory for governing. [When asked]( how he will pass his agenda, he talks in grand terms about a grass-roots movement that will overwhelm Republican opposition. But there is little reason to believe Sanders could actually win over congressional Republicans. If he failed, what would he then do? - Hillary Clinton’s weaknesses exaggerated Sanders’s strengths. Almost every other Democrat skipped the 2016 race because they saw Clinton as unbeatable. But she ended up being a flawed candidate. Democratic voters with reservations about her had only one place to go in 2016: to Sanders. In 2020, the field is huge. - Today’s Democratic voters are probably looking for a candidate with a different profile. He is a 77-year-old who has [apologized]( for the sexism that existed in his 2016 campaign. He [famously struggled]( to win over black voters four years ago. It’s no surprise Sanders keeps winning in Vermont, which has one of the nation’s oldest and whitest populations. But the Democratic primary electorate is not Vermont. The bottom line I don’t think Sanders is the ideal nominee. But I do think he has had a positive influence on the country’s politics. And he certainly adds an element to the 2020 campaign that no one else does. [As I’ve said before]( I’m in favor of a big, diverse Democratic field, from which the strongest candidate can emerge. Elsewhere: CNN’s [Harry Enten]( points out that Sanders will need to do better with liberal Democrats than he did in 2016: “The best he could do was fight Clinton to a tie among self-identified very liberal voters in 2016.” This may seem surprising, I realize, but liberalism and populism are not the same thing. In Jacobin, [Meagan Day]( writes: “There’s a class war raging, and Sanders is the only one running who sees it, and who wants to build working-class forces to fight back.” In The Weekly Standard (late last year, before its demise), [David Byler]( wrote: “Sanders is in a significantly worse position now than he was two years ago … If Sanders [were] in a one-on-one matchup with, well, anyone in the field, I think he’d be polling better than he is now. But he’s getting squeezed from a couple of different directions.” ADVERTISEMENT If you enjoy this newsletter, forward it to friends! They can [sign up for themselves here]( — and they don’t need to be a Times subscriber. 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