About the 2020 Polls. . .

Right now we have an election season coming up with a President who is historically weak, and highly unpopular. His disapproval ratings amongst Democrats is close to 100%, and unlike in most cases, the disapproval is deep. As in, maybe half of Democrats would bother to piss on Trump to help put him out if he was on fire. Maybe.

In that context, every Democratic official and their grandma wants to run for President just to take a few shots at Trump. Unfortunately, that means that right now there are a ridiculous number of people thinking about running for President right now.

So, as we look at the 2020 polls, one thing to keep in mind is that right now - before any campaigning - is that the polls right now are mostly worthless because the people being polled mostly don't know who these people are. By way of example, I don't think I've ever seen a Kamala Harris speech, and she's my Senator.* As a result, when pollsters ask who people are supporting right now, they're pretty much going with who they know, which is why Joe Biden tops every list. Don't expect that to continue.

With that said, there are certain takeaways from the early polling which are important to consider. Namely, Bernie Sanders is probably not going to be the nominee. Remember, Bernie also has near universal name ID. Even I have seen Bernie give speeches, and I have young children. And Bernie has spent the past 2 years trying to build an apparatus for a 2020 run. If he's not polling high now, I don't think he'll take it.

The other thing to keep in mind is that right now, people aren't necessarily running for President to BE president. Most of these candidates are running for the opportunity to be on THE STAGE. And by THE STAGE, I mean the early Presidential primary debates. Being on THE STAGE at these debates is a huge deal. Each candidate gets time to be noticed on a national level. Doing reasonably well on THE STAGE can fundamentally change the course of a politician's career. Bernie Sanders, for instance, went from a political oddity to a major name through the course of the 2016 election. Ron Paul got his son elected to the Senate. Dennis Kuchinich met his wife. Rick Santorum went from laughing stock to CNN contributor. All were helped by being on THE STAGE.

So, if you are a politician looking to raise your profile from relative obscurity to major player, running for President will help you. In fact, this is probably what Barack Obama had in mind initially when he ran in 2008. That's what Bernie Sanders had in mind in 2016 (until he gained traction, thought he could win, and was backed by Russian troll farms). At the same time, if you fuck it up (as Joe Biden did in 1984 when he was stealing lines from the head of the British Labour Party), you won't be able to run for President again for awhile. (By the way, I think Elizabeth Warren may have already fucked this up with the genetic testing thing, but we'll see).

Another thing to keep in mind, which will certainly be at play here, is that certain politicians towards the end of their political lives will run for president with a certain "fuck it, let's do this" last hurrah kind of flair. Inevitably, the older politician does far better than they hoped (because last hurrah politicians are awesome, as is the book the Last Hurrah by Edwin O'Connor), but doesn't quite make it. When that politician runs again, they think they're a potential frontrunner, run a more careful campaign, and end up never getting traction. I think this will happen to both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.

But that said, this will probably be an entertaining Democratic primary. We've got rising stars (Beto, Booker and Harris), politicians with interesting spouses (Sherrod Brown), firebrands (Kristen Gillibrand), last hurrah guys (Biden and Sanders), established types (Klobuchar), random billionaires (Bloomberg), and a few odd ducks (Mayor Garcetti, etc).

*Of course, I have young kids, so, unless she's on Paw Patrol, or Sophia the First, or Team Umizoomi, I'm not going to see any of that.