What Kind of Democrat Can Beat Trump in 2020?
The midterms will answer some questions, but not the biggest one of all.
by Frank Bruni
((It's early, yes, but what's TOO early?))
'Corey Lewandowski managed Donald Trump’s presidential campaign for a year, co-wrote a book about it and keeps in close touch with Trump, as we were reminded last month, when The Times reported on a physical altercation between him and John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, just outside the Oval Office. . .
He told me that Mike Bloomberg worried him, because Bloomberg’s personal wealth would spare him the distraction of fund-raising, and that Joe Biden had the right instinct when he said that if he and Trump had gone to high school together, he would have “beat the hell out of him.”
He noted that Beto O’Rourke, the Senate candidate in Texas, had impressively crossed the threshold of celebrity. Andrew Gillum, the candidate for governor in Florida, had caught lightning, too.
The right Democrat would need a talent for attention and an appetite for aggression, Lewandowski said: He or she must “be willing to go toe-to-toe with someone who I believe to be the greatest counterpuncher that politics has ever seen.”' . .
Trump’s eventual adversary confronts a daunting balancing act: He or she must be tougher than usual without being callous, . . .
But for starters, Trump’s Democratic opponent must emerge. . .
Standing out will require one nonnegotiable quality: the vividness to loosen Trump’s stranglehold on the media. To that end, any serious challenger has to figure out how to tell his or her story in a riveting way.
“High emotion” was how Naomi Burton described what a candidate should reach for. . .
There’s no exaggerating the hell of jostling for space at the media trough where Trump gorges to the point of bursting. He has shamelessness on his side. . .
So there’s pressure on a Democratic challenger not just to communicate memorably but to say memorable things — i.e., new ones.
“Candidacies need to have a level of originality and ambition,” said Pete Buttigieg . . .
As much as possible, Trump’s adversary needs to set the terms of the conversation, not react to his incessant provocations. . .
I don’t see eye-to-eye with the California billionaire Tom Steyer on the timing and timbre of his Need to Impeach effort, but I found myself nodding hard enough for a neck injury when he recently told me his version of the Michelle Maxim: “When they go low, we play our game. When they go high, we play our game. When they bluster, we play our game.” It just better be a damned good game. . .
And it better not sneer at Trump and condescend to his supporters. No baskets, please, and no deplorables. Midwesterners who voted for him won’t be lured back into the Democratic fold if they’re made to feel ashamed about their decision and told that they were duped. . .
Be direct, blunt and consistent. . .
Convey strength. . .
Plant yourself in the Rust Belt. “I’ve given this advice to two or three people who’ve thought about running — don’t think about anything other than what you’re going to say in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan,” Kerrey told me. “Why should people who hunt, fish and go to church trust you? What is your answer to globalism?”
Too many Democrats spend too much time trumpeting Clinton’s popular-vote victory, blaming the Russians or combing the shadows for anything that absolves them of error. They dismiss Trump as an accident, a freak or a fad. It’s consoling, sure. It’s also an invitation to his next inauguration.'
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/02/opinion/midterms-democrats-trump-2020.html?
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