A Return To Normalcy Election

"America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality."^[3]--Warren G. Harding's Return To Normalcy Slogan 1920's election

While Democratic candidates crowd the debate stages like clowns stuffed into a circus-car viewers agitate over whether or not the party will get yanked left, slowly drift left, or, perhaps, take giant pole-vaulting leap into the political left.

It might happen.

On the other hand, the persistence of Harris and (especially) Biden near the top of the polling (and Bernie Sanders stuck in 4th place) suggests, to The Omnivore, something different. Let's keep in mind two things:

1. The Easy Win Brings The Clowns
One of the reasons that Obama's second election was so crowded with clowns was that people just didn't think he could win--that's, erm, Republican people. Part of this was a kool aid scenario where an electorate, all the way up to the top, steeped in right-wing media, got high on their own supply and believed that Obama was going down in flames so, hey, anyone could win. That's certainly what, say, Herman Cain assumed (we can only think).

In this case, too, people assuming that Trump is over and done will throw their hat in the ring because it's the best publicity money (and it is a lot of money) can buy and, hey, someone has to win this thing. Plus: there's no punishment for running and dropping so, eh. Why not?

This has got to be what, say Marianne Williamson is thinking.

2. The 2012 Primary and the 2016 Primary Were Different
In 2012 the Republican Primary electorate wanted anyone but Romney--literally every candidate had a 1st place moment in aggregate poling. This included non-starters like Bachmann and Cain. Romney was a consolation prize.

We saw something different in 2016. The field was considered "one of the best ever fielded" with luminaries like a Bush brother and Wisconsin Republican super hero Scott Walker (not to mention, like, Ted Cruz--who, whatever you think of him, is a pretty heavy hitter). In this case, though, what the electorate wanted wasn't the "cream of the crop"--no, they wanted Trump and he managed to win by a very, very narrow margin of total votes which happened to occur in exactly the right places.

That isn't a good strategy for repeated victory--but it certainly can happen.

What do these things tell us about the Democratic process?

The Democrat's Clown Car
To be sure the Democrat's have their clowns. Marianne Williamson and Tulsi Gabbard, for example are not what The Omnivore would call realistic candidates. For the most part, however, the field looks more like the Republican's 2016 field in that most of the candidates are for-real politicians who have won at least one state-wide election somewhere.

It's also more like the 2016 field in that the polling has, thus far, been stable. To be sure, all the pundits are assuming the "Biden collapse" is coming. Maybe it is. Maybe it's not.

The assumptive "Bernie-Warren Exclusion" event will presumptively consolidate the overwhelming progressive voting base around whichever of the two progressive icons remains when one drops out.

There are people hoping that some kind of Rubio-Robot moment could remove some front-runners in a live debate clearing the field for the second-tier. Who knows? The Omnivore wouldn't have bet on Chris Christie scalping lil' Marco like he did. Anything *can* happen.

That doesn't mean anything will.

The Omnivore thinks that the swath of Democrat voters want, first and foremost, Trump out of office. Literally any Democrat being elected will accomplish that. Secondly, while various proposals (free stuff--like farm-subsidies--but for some black people) may turn off the white voting bloc, the truth, The Omnivore thinks, is that most people who carefully acknowledge these claims will decide that:

• They'll never get through the House and Senate anyway
• If they did, they probably wouldn't be the same economic catastrophe that the Tax Cuts were, anyway. --and--
• So long as we stop kissing dictator ass, fighting with our allies, and stop the tariffs we're probably coming out ahead anyway

In other words, what the polling is telling The Omnivore is that most people asked see Biden as having the highest chance to win (he is the easiest sell to the white suburbs and the least offensive to presumably persuadable voters in the middle . . . and everyone on the left better "vote blue--no matter who.").

As someone who thinks Trump is a racist disaster, this analysis seems pretty sound to The Omnivore . . . except for one thing: what if Biden's not up to it?

The Return to Normalcy Platform

If history repeats itself then what will happen is that while everyone runs left in the primary, whoever wins gets to run back to the middle in the general. The Omnivore is not sure this will work--but history suggests that as upset as the GOP base was with the GOP Establishment, they still came out to vote for them.

This may hold in 2020: one of Hillary's biggest weaknesses was Democrats assuming she would win. In 2020, Democrats will not assume a challenger will win. That's off the table. If the candidate can be seen as simply a return to normalcy then The Omnivore thinks that probably any of the top four right now could swing a pretty good voting bloc based on the 2018 election model: both sides turned out, Democrats had more votes in the end.

It's also worth noting that the Left-Turn scenarios have a shelf-life. If, for example, Biden wins New Hampshire and Iowa, then Bernie is probably toast (especially if Warren hangs around at all). If Kamala Harris doesn't successfully whack Biden's black support early, she probably doesn't take the lead, and so on. 

This doesn't by any means indicate that "Biden has it." It simply seems to suggest that Biden is seen as the shortest distance to getting Trump out of office and so primary voters are supporting him. He's literally the "Return to Normalcy" candidate.