Iowa or bust say Dems

It’s all hands on deck for the Iowa primary Monday as Democratic hopefuls look to make in an area that is often seen as a bellwether for the eventual candidate. There is also, with the background of the impeachment trial of President Trump as more than an incumbent and the man to beat.

Beating Trump may not be an easy sell nationwide, but for the Democrats it is a cause celebre to see how they can end what they see as a travesty, on all fronts.

Not far behind is how the party can win --- will it be for a progressive candidate such as Bernie Sanders who is now neck-in-neck with Joe Biden, who along with political neophyte Pete Buttigieg are focusing on the centrist position, that progressives see as a losing strategy to reclaim the White House.

Coming in close is Elizabeth Warren who took a tumble in the polls with her Medicaid For all position, which many pundits are seeing as a second choice for some who might feel disenfranchised with Sanders.

An AP report quoted her as saying: "I'm the one who can pull our party together," Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren told supporters on a telephone call, suggesting her rivals could not. “I’m the one who is going to pull us all in to give us the ideas that we can all run on. The one who says both inspiration and inclusiveness.”

Adding a stronger note is Amy Klobucahar who is becoming iconic with America’s heartland and its rural areas, the nation’s breadbasket.

Demographics are also playing a strong role for the septuagenarian Sanders as he has harnessed the youth vote along with the “Bernie Bros” hanging ten from the 2016 election.

Biden is much stronger with older voters and also the much needed black voter who tends to not only feel that he has the experience, but also his bonding as Barack Obama’s vice-president.

Warren has youthful support but her strong and effective organization is a major plus, and her very detailed website that has garnered her kudos from media pundits as well as supporters, along with a formidable energy level coupled with a strong resume on economic issues, that many working and middle class families face, even in a strong job market, albeit one with low wages, 2.9 percent year-over-year as we saw at the end of 2019.

Mayor Pete has garnered a lot of bucks especially from the LGBT community, but his moribund standing with black voters - only 2 percent nationwide, in the shadow of mishandling police and community relations in South bend, In. do not bode well, since their vote has been essential in presidential elections since the 1960s.

His failure to connect with local black leaders is telling as is his run around answering direct questions, giving more credence to running on a personal narrative of being a gay man, serving in the military, and his youth -- all of which don’t seem to be enough.

A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll has Sanders at 27 percent of democratic primary voters and with Biden at 26 percent, there is a virtual tie.

“The Journal/NBC News poll surveyed 428 registered voters who said they would vote in a Democratic presidential primary or caucus. The poll was conducted Jan. 26-20 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.74 percentage points,” according to the Journal.

Biden is popular with those votes under 50, and older, and the poll revealed that Sanders has not made a “dent with older primary voters,” according to a Republican pollster Bill McInturff, along with Jeff Horwitt, a Democrat, they also noted.

Biden is polling with 52 percent of black voters as their top choice, an increase from 46 percent this past summer.

Besides the numbers there are still the issues - with many focusing on climate change, 33 percent; abortion at 11 percent, and 12 percent gun regulations, according to the poll.

Klobuchar has been on the tail end of the polls as well, as the voters, and she seems determined to get to New Hampshire, but she also seems to not have caught on with voters, despite some earnest appeals, and living down a reputation of being tough on staffers, replete with screaming and temper tantrums.

She is enormously popular in her home state of Minnesota and has garnered support as a moderate who gets things done, but she faces some more recent controversy.

Shadowing Pete with revelations about policing and the black community in Minneapolis, in an interview with FOX TV she claimed she had no knowledge of questionable evidence in the conviction of a black teen shooter, on shaky evidence.

MPR News reported on Monday that “Civil rights activists and legal experts challenged Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s claims that she was unaware of questionable evidence and police tactics used to send a young black teen to prison for life when she was a top Minneapolis prosecutor.

“Even if Klobuchar was not familiar with every detail of the case, “what can she say about tolerating prosecutors who routinely described black and inner city as morally inferior to white and suburban?” asked Michael Friedman, executive director of the Legal Rights Center in Minneapolis,” added the report.

In an interview with “Fox News Sunday,” Klobuchar denied that she had knowledge of any evidence that would call the conviction into question. But much of what The Associated Press found while investigating the case of Myon Burrell, now 33, would have been available to her office at the time.”

There is a polite discussion on of a political realignment among some old-school pols, veterans of the Obama years, yet for many, especially younger voters that is now the past, or even passé as Trump had changed not only the face of the presidency but also the legal positions that offered protection for all Americans, yet ironically came from the centrist position of Obama.

If that seems like a conundrum, then it is: how to build on the past success of those years and make a left turn to protect much of what was achieved.

Health care is still on the front burner and it was what helped, in part topple, Kamala Harris and now Warren, but many saw that as less of a loyalty badge from Sanders and more of a way to siphon voters from his camp should the need arise, but for some she may have overplayed her hand.

Climate Change is an issue mostly for the young, but as we have seen with the fires in Australia, neglecting it can wreak havoc.

Most candidates have steered clear of abortion, yet for many women, especially in the South, or in Northern rural area, with only Catholic hospitals as a choice, for those that need one -- since not every baby can be brought to term, the issue is present, especially with the recent laws from Alabama, created to hit the Supreme Court docket.

Iowa for all it’s much vaunted appeal can be unpredictable and in a time when no one knows who will win, it’s up to 200,000 Iowans to at least show a glimpse of who might win, but according to the Associated Press: “If anybody tells you they know who’s going to win, either they’ve got a whisper from God or they're loony because nobody knows,” said Deidre DeJear, who announced her support for Warren on Monday and was the first black woman to win a statewide primary in Iowa.”