Is This Gonna Be A Thing?

I guess we have to talk about Oprah 2020 for some reason.

Democrats work under a double burden.  First, they must understand how government works and set out to make it work best.  That's the burden of being the party that believes that government should function well.

Secondly, because of their "elitist" reputation (which is itself a crock) they need someone with real charisma.  The obvious merits of Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton were on their ability to make government work better.  They were technocrats.  And they were boring.

Republicans - because they not only don't care if government works well, but actively hope it doesn't - are fine nominating celebrities (Reagan, Schwarzenegger, Trump).  They can take a half wit like Dubya and sell him as a Man of the People, despite his Andover, Yale and Harvard Business School background, because that is what they do.

Democrats win when they combine charisma and competence.  Clinton and Obama had tons of both policy chops and charisma.  Of course, Democrats have never tried to nominate someone who was purely a celebrity, so maybe that would work.  I'm doubtful.  I'm also doubtful of those who argue that Democrats don't have a deep bench.  I think Gillibrand, Booker and Murphy in the Senate alone constitute a very intriguing set of candidates.  I would say it's too early for Kamala Harris, but that's what they said about Obama. 

I also remember something my wife said after Trump won.  She wasn't sure she wanted to risk running a woman against Trump in 2020.  She didn't want to activate the sexism that existed against Hillary again.  It wasn't worth the risk.  How many white voters would you need to flip?  Probably not many at this point, but would it make more sense to nominate a Sherrod Brown or Chris Murphy to make damned sure that you aren't activating latent sexism and racism? 

Oprah is the Democratic answer to Trump: a media celebrity that speaks the language of the party's base.  I have little doubt that she could educate herself about the bullet points of policy in ways that Trump is cognitively unable to. 

We should worry, however, about assuming that Trump really did re-write the rulebook.  That celebrity is how we should select leaders. 

We should remember that if you want to be the party that makes government work, we have to have a candidate that knows how government works.