Dark Horse

We’ve been perplexed for some time at the apparent trajectory of the field of Democrat candidates for President. No matter how you slice it, it seems all possible outcomes of the primary contest are leading to only one ending – a crash and burn at the ballot box in November. This isn’t hard to fathom. It’s clear from polling data that while a socialist candidate could win the Democrat primary contest, the socialist ideology does not come close to having enough national support to win the Presidency. Further, even though a non-socialist candidate is presently leading the field in most polls (Joe Biden), his voting base cannot overcome the combined support and enthusiasm of all the socialist candidates.

What is most puzzling about this is that the Democrat National Committee (DNC) and the party leaders in general appear to be just letting this losing scenario play out. We know the Democrats are quite capable of planning and carrying out big risky maneuvers to try and help themselves and hurt Republicans. Capturing the Presidency would be the biggest prize of all, so why the apparent contentment with lackluster candidates and the specter of lifeless primaries? It’s possible all the other news of the day is overshadowing the campaign happenings, but we don’t think so.

We have a theory. There may be a clever plan already underway.

Have you noticed that each time one of the leading candidates seems to get the wind at his/her back and takes the lead, something happens to snap them back before they ever get too far ahead? First it was Kamala Harris. She had a good performance in the initial debate and looked to be on track to be the favorite. Then she faded and Elizabeth Warren moved to the forefront. Then Warren lost her luster and Joe Biden surged. Biden had always been polling at or near the top but hadn’t really captured any momentum until Warren began to wane. Now Biden is weakening, largely because of the very predictable fallout from his own suspect dealings with Ukraine as well as those of his son. In the void, Bernie Sanders is now gaining strength and has captured the momentum. Just as importantly, he also has the fund-raising lead. We have every expectation that this pattern of rising and falling among the leading candidates will continue for some time. This doesn’t seem out of the ordinary right now since it is early in the primary process. But what if this pattern continues all the way into the summer? What would happen if no candidate achieves the minimum number of delegates to win the nomination before the convention? This hasn’t occurred in quite some time and would seem likely to result in chaos. But might the Democrats have reason to try and force this outcome to occur?

Knocking down a front runner every time one emerges keeps alive the hopes of those in the back of the pack. There is more reason for candidates to stay in the race if no clear leader is established. Further, there was a recent rule change by the DNC to voting procedures in the primary’s that discontinues the use of “superdelegates”.¹ If you recall, superdelegates played a significant role in assuring Hillary Clinton’s nomination in 2016. The absence of these “automatic” votes for any candidate increases the probability that the race will be close, and that no candidate will achieve a majority of delegates at the start of the convention. If that happens, the nominee will be chosen in a much different manner than any of us are used to seeing.

In modern times, both the Democrat and Republican conventions have been nothing more than celebrations that rubber stamp a nomination outcome which is already known. This is not how it used to work. In the first 100+ years of the country’s existence, there was no primary voting. Presidential nominees from each party (as well as separate Vice-Presidential nominees) were voted on for the first time at the party conventions. More often than not, no candidate received a majority of the votes on the first ballot and numerous votes had to be taken before a winner finally emerged. During these rapid-fire voting sessions, the front runner could change multiple times. On several occasions, when two or more candidates remained deadlocked with none of them close to receiving a majority, a “dark horse” candidate would emerge. This candidate would not be anyone’s first choice but served as an acceptable compromise to break a hopeless stalemate among the leading contenders. As an example, this is how President James K. Polk became the Democrat nominee in 1844 and how President James Garfield became the Republican nominee in 1880.

Could the DNC be intentionally setting up the circumstances for a dark horse candidate to be chosen at the Democrat convention this coming July? There would be numerous advantages to doing this given their current predicament cited earlier with the existing slate of candidates. Any dark horse nominee would not have spent any money, energy, or time in the rough and tumble and expensive primary process. Also, there would only be three months of candidate exposure before the Presidential election. The ravenous vampires in the media would have only a short time to attack this new candidate who was not subject to the year-long scrutiny all the other candidates endured. This new candidate would be fresh and flush with the kind of special energy that only accompanies an unexpected opportunity. A scenario such as this carries high risk as well and can be fraught with unknown danger. But it is precisely this kind of shock to the system that the Democrats need to improve their odds in the presidential election.

Who might this dark horse be? One of the big risks in nominating a candidate this way is the dilemma of name recognition. This is particularly true when the person the dark horse will be running against has the most recognized name in the world (Trump). A way to mitigate this risk is to nominate a dark horse whose name is also well known, like Clinton (Hillary) or Obama (Michelle). While both these potential candidates bring with them the added novelty of becoming the first female President, Hillary also has the advantage of having already been thoroughly scrutinized by the opposition. Even by the blood-sucking standards of the media, there is little vital fluid left to extract. Despite all the past accusations of misconduct against Hillary, she would still enjoy a “honeymoon” period of excitement and enthusiasm if she suddenly became a dark horse nominee.  The main task for the Democrats would then be to make that honeymoon period last all the way up to the general election.

We fully admit that we’ve been wrong before when assuming the Democrat party had a logical and well thought out plan of attack to achieve a political goal. We could certainly be wrong again in this instance. However, the present course of the nomination process is leading into a political cul-de-sac with no obvious way out. The last time the Democrats found themselves in a similar “no way out” situation was in the Supreme Court nomination hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Just when it seemed a foregone conclusion that Kavanaugh would race through the confirmation process, the Democrats slowed the momentum, changed the focus, and nearly won the battle by injecting Dr. Christine Blasey Ford into the proceedings. Nominating a dark horse candidate for President would be entirely in keeping with the Democrat penchant for hurling an eleventh-hour curve-ball.

¹A superdelegate is an un-elected delegate who is free to support ANY candidate for the presidential nomination at the Democrat Party’s national convention. In 2016, nearly all superdelegates voted for Hillary Clinton putting fellow candidate Bernie Sanders at a big disadvantage.