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Veterans of the Obama administration say that the candidates have a lot of work to do to convince voters even those who reject Mr. Trumps worldview to focus on their approaches to building alliances, using force and competing with an aggressive Russia and a rising China.

Every presidential campaign Ive ever been a part of, theres a commander in chief ad, Wendy Sherman, who conducted the day-to-day negotiations with Iran for the 2015 nuclear agreement, told an audience at the University of New Hampshire last week. Everybody says at least once, you know, You can rely on me at 3 in the morning. But the issues are rarely central except when were in crisis.

She noted that only a month ago, with the targeted killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the Iranian military leader, we were on the brink of war.

And the Democrats, it turns out, even disagree on whether that killing was legal, or wise.

Perhaps the most striking takeaway from the survey was that the candidates have sharply different views on what circumstances justify the use of military force, aside from responding to an attack on the United States or a treaty ally.

Their disagreements were particularly clear on whether they would consider using force to pre-empt an Iranian or North Korean nuclear or missile test in other words, to prevent a launch that was meant to prove a countrys capability, but not to attack American territory, troops or interests. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama each faced that decision and decided not to strike.

Most of the candidates campaigning as moderates said they would consider it: Mr. Biden, Mr. Bloomberg, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado and former Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts. Interestingly, one of the most liberal candidates, Mr. Sanders, said the same.

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Democratic Candidates Reject Trumps Foreign Policy, but Dont Agree on Theirs - The New York Times

Although Im a pessimist by nature, deep down I think I always believed that the Republic would survive Donald Trump.

The majority of Americans have never accepted him, and his ascendancy fueled a nationwide civic awakening, starting with the Womens March and proceeding through airport protests, health care town halls and finally the midterms. Its been devastating to see how quickly so many American institutions have been corrupted the Department of Justice turned into an engine of Trumps paranoid vendettas, the State Department purged of nonpartisan professionals, evidence of Trumps Ukraine extortion scheme buried by his Senate lackeys. Its outrageous that the countrys being forced to endure four full years of lawless kakistocracy, but surely, I thought, the majority would put an end to it in the next election.

But now that election is approaching, and the debacle of the Iowa caucuses only highlights how the Democratic Party is threatening to fracture. In its aftermath, were left with a national race led by two very old and extraordinarily risky general election candidates whose weaknesses were underscored by Iowas results, muddled as they were.

Bernie Sanderss supporters have argued that he can expand the electorate to make up for the suburban moderates hes likely to lose, moderates who were, incidentally, responsible for many of the gains Democrats made in 2018. But while Sanders claimed a popular vote victory in Iowa, there was no surge in voter turnout since the last election, and an NBC News entrance poll showed that the number of first-time caucusers actually went down.

Sanders still has the advantage of energy and ardor; young people are overwhelmingly on his side, and his campaign will be carried along by the same sort of ebullient cultural ferment as Barack Obamas. (When the pop megastar Ariana Grande met Sanders in November, she wrote on Twitter, I will never smile this hard again.) I try to talk myself into believing that his passionate base, combined with a polarized electorate, will be enough. Still, with the survival of American democracy at stake, it seems like a wild gamble for Democrats to turn the fight against Trump into a referendum on Democratic socialism at a time when Americans personal economic satisfaction is at a record high.

Heres the place for disclosure: My husband is consulting for Elizabeth Warren, the candidate I believe in more than any other. But I recognize that Warren has electability challenges of her own, and the truth is Id be fine with any nominee who could generate enthusiasm without scaring suburbanites, if I could only see who that was.

Im not the only one feeling panicked. The recent rush of mayoral endorsements for Michael Bloomberg is partly just a function of the money hes poured into cities through his philanthropic work, but it also indicates a worrying lack of confidence in the existing field.

Michael Tubbs, the innovative mayor of Stockton, Calif., who pioneered a universal basic income experiment in his struggling city, became a national co-chair of Bloombergs campaign in December. Every candidate at this stage of the primary has real serious questions about how theyll bring the party together after they become the nominee, he told me.

How did it come to this? Mostly, I blame Joe Biden and those in the Democratic establishment who pushed his campaign. Its been obvious for some time now that Biden is not nearly as vigorous as he once was. While hes always been gaffe-prone, his speech has grown tentative and meandering in a way that engenders sympathy but also profound anxiety. In Iowa, where voters had a chance to see him up close, the most recent results show him with a distant fourth-place finish. Even if he somehow limps to the nomination, the general election will be a grim slog, like racing on a wounded horse.

Yet with his unmatched biography and name recognition, he deprived younger center-left candidates like Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Michael Bennet of oxygen even as he failed to consolidate centrists himself. Thats left the erstwhile novelty candidate Pete Buttigieg as Bidens strongest competitor for moderate votes, but while hes shooting up the polls in New Hampshire, he has virtually no support among voters of color.

According to the polling experts at FiveThirtyEight, Sanders now has a 1 in 2 chance of winning the majority of delegates in the Democratic race. The next most likely scenario, with 1 in 4 odds, is that no one does, which would spell a contested convention.

Should that happen, there will be forces in the Democratic Party that try to block Sanders. (A few members of the Democratic National Committee have already discussed rule changes meant to thwart him, though so far its just been marginal chatter.) But if Sanders emerges from the primaries with a plurality of votes, denying him the nomination would be not just unfair but potentially suicidal. I worry about Sanderss chances against Trump, but a candidate foisted on the party over the furious remonstrances of a disempowered base would almost certainly fare worse, while permanently alienating the young people who should be the Democratic Partys future.

The way things are going, the fate of American democracy could soon be Bernie or bust. I envy those who find that exhilarating rather than terrifying.

Excerpt from:
The Harrowing Chaos of the Democratic Primary - The New York Times

Ocasio-Cortez and Pressley, who have been targets of Trump over the last year, both announced Tuesday that they will not be in the House chamber for the address.

Both attended Trump's State of the Union last year about a month after they first took office.

"After much deliberation, I have decided that I will not use my presence at a state ceremony to normalize Trumps lawless conduct & subversion of the Constitution," Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a series of tweets. "None of this is normal, and I will not legitimize it."

After much deliberation, I have decided that I will not use my presence at a state ceremony to normalize Trumps lawless conduct & subversion of the Constitution.

None of this is normal, and I will not legitimize it.

Consequently, I will not be attending the State of the Union.

On the eve of Senate Republicans covering up transgressions and spreading misinformation, I cannot in good conscience attend a sham State of the Union when I have seen firsthand the damage Donald J. Trumps rhetoric and policies have inflicted on those I love and those I represent," Pressley said in a statement.

Green, one of the first and most ardent backers of impeaching Trump, said Tuesday that he willagain decline to attend.

Waters, another early proponent of impeachment who has skipped previous addresses by Trump, also said she would not attend on Tuesday.

Impeachment factored into many Democrats decisions not to attend this year.

It would be painfully hypocritical of me to endure 90 minutes of unrelenting lies and all types of distortions and untruths, while at the same time watching his Republican apologists cheer, he said.

Trump went after Wilson, another CBC member, in 2017 after she criticized his handling over a call to the widow of a fallen solider, tweeting that she was "wacky" and "killing the Democrat Party."

Cohen, who previously co-introduced articles of impeachment against Trump in 2017, said in a statement on Monday that he "will not be a witness to puffery and prevarication flowing while our Constitution and our laws are disrespectfully and dangerously flouted."

Blumenauer also said that he will continue his streak since 2018 of skipping Trump's address.

I have chosen not to dignify Trumps parade of lies about health care, his persistent exaggeration, and his personal attacks with my attendance at this years State of the Union Address. His appalling performances each day continue to justify that decision, and I have no doubt tomorrow night will be more of the same even possibly worse," Blumenauer said in a statement on Monday.

This story was updated at 9:06 p.m.

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10 Democrats to boycott Trump State of the Union address | TheHill - The Hill

While McGowan has received praise for founding and serving as CEO of the digital-first Democratic outfit ACRONYM, a nonprofit organization that aims to spend a massive $75 million on digital ads combating President Donald Trump during the 2020 election, shes also received blowback.

In particular, her groups sprawling and opaque structure has frustrated fellow Democrats, with some arguing that ACRONYMs company-within-a-company collection of progressive news sites, consulting services and experimental merchandise vendors lacks transparency regarding its payments to consultants and staff, obscuring potential conflicts of interest or governance issues.

They point to the mix of for-profit entities under the nonprofit parent company as especially problematic.

People are really frustrated and skeptical about the structure that Tara has created, said one Democratic operative, who did not want to be quoted for risk of alienation. Theres a nonprofit and then there are for-profits below it, like a nesting doll. Its moving money around in a way thats unclear to people.

Other critics acknowledge that McGowan is a talented messenger but argue she revved up her donors on the idea that her fellow Democrats were not doing enough while getting clobbered by Trump online in order to launch ACRONYMs $75 million anti-Trump digital program, and then has been slow to spend the money she pledged to bring to the fight.

To them, Shadows failure in Iowa was not shocking, nor was the way ACRONYM sought to distance itself from the organization in the wake of the caucuses.

In a tweet on Tuesday, McGowan called Shadow an independent company ACRONYM invested in.

We dont have any information beyond the public statements the IDP has put out + like all of you, eagerly await learning what happened and who won the IA caucus, McGowan wrote, referencing the Iowa Democratic Party. In a statement posted on Twitter, ACRONYM said it was not a technology company and had not provided any technology to the Iowa Democratic Party, Presidential campaigns, or the Democratic National Committee.

But ACRONYM trumpeted the group in 2018, and Shadow staffers work in the same offices as ACRONYM, according to a person familiar with the group.

Its the cover-up that f---ing kills you. The idea that [McGowan] was out there saying no one has any idea who was involved with this. Youre telling me she had no idea the firm she launched was being hired to run this project? said one longtime Washington Democratic operative.

Critics of ACRONYM declined to speak on the record because they are concerned about maintaining party unity and retribution from the groups donors. Allies declined to speak on the record to POLITICO, too, saying they didnt want to become a part of the online firestorm surrounding Shadow. McGowan is a talented operative who has rapidly built a powerful organization and helped the party in 2018, they said.

From my perspective, shes been able to raise a lot of funds and help state legislative races, said one Democrat familiar with McGowans work.

Shadows failure in Iowa has fed skepticism of the increasingly popular venture-style approach to Democratic infrastructure that ACRONYM reflects. The organization, which has ties to big Silicon Valley donors including LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, is busting norms in Democratic politics. But while some Democrats see such risk-taking as being absolutely necessary in order for the party to win elections, others argue it has no place playing a role during a high-stakes caucus night.

Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party and a critic of big-money investment in Democratic data infrastructure, said she would never consider using an app with funding from Silicon Valley to help Nebraska select delegates or with other processes.

My bottom line as party chair is we should not be using electronic voting for any elections at the party level or for candidates, Kleeb said. It's just not an accessible form of voting and having your voice heard for older voters or for people with different disabilities, visual disabilities.

McGowan, who is in her mid-30s, directed digital strategy at Priorities USA Action, the main super PAC aiding Hillary Clinton during her 2016 White House campaign. But McGowan clashed with Priorities USA Chairman Guy Cecil over how to approach digital advertising, which had become a major part of the election for the first time in 2016.

Even though both McGowan and Cecil run major anti-Trump Democratic groups, the two have had virtually no relationship since McGowan left Priorities USA after the 2016 election, according to multiple people familiar with the situation.

McGowan launched ACRONYM after Trumps election as a digital-first political organization" with the goal of electing progressive Democrats, mostly in state legislative races. The group quickly attracted attention, especially in Silicon Valley, from newly galvanized major donors including LinkedIns Hoffman, who was wading into politics and looking for projects to disrupt the Democratic status quo. (Hoffman and other donors in his network took a chance on ACRONYM, McGowan told POLITICO in 2019.)

More recently, longtime Democratic donors Steven Spielberg and Hollywood producer Jeffrey Katzenberg cut six-figure checks to the groups affiliated super PAC, PACRONYM.

McGowan created ACRONYM as a 501(c)(4), an increasingly common type of political nonprofit. But then she did something highly unusual: She began buying and forming new, for-profit companies affiliated with ACRONYM but still separate from it.

Those for-profits include Shadow, which ACRONYM launched in January 2019 after spending nearly $1 million to acquire a peer-to-peer texting company called Groundbase that provided the underlying technology, according to information shared with POLITICO at the time. McGowan is also raising $25 million for a liberal local news network, Courier Newsroom, that will generate left-leaning political news content and then pay to have the content placed favorably in individuals Facebook feeds.

McGowans own digital consulting company, Lockwood Strategy, also received $1 million in payments from ACRONYMs PAC during the fall of 2018, disclosures show, for work marked as Digital Ad Buy.

Proponents of McGowans approach say Democrats need to be willing to experiment and move quickly, investing in projects like Shadow and Courier Newsroom, if they want to match Trumps prowess online.

But skeptics in the Democratic Party are unsure why Shadow or Courier Newsroom are being run as separate, for-profit companies, which shields them from even the minimal transparency that ACRONYM is subject to. When ACRONYM files mandatory tax disclosures, it must reveal top employees salaries and payments to its biggest consultants, and provide assurances that the ACRONYM empires different arms arent paying the same people multiple salaries basic assurances to the nonprofits donors.

Everything may be perfectly above board here. Then again, it may not be, said nonprofit attorney Marcus Owens, a partner at Loeb & Loeb. For example, a nonprofit like ACRONYM may want to maintain a for-profit company so it can offer shares in the company to top employees, Owens said. It will be possible to discern some more information about ACRONYMs relationship with the companies when more tax filings for the group are publicly available, Owens said.

Kyle Tharp, spokesman for ACRONYM, did not answer questions POLITICO posed about ACRONYMs structure.

ACRONYM ballooned in 2019, thanks in part to support from David Plouffe, Obamas celebrated 2008 campaign manager and a former senior vice president at Uber. Plouffe joined the groups board in the fall of 2019. In November, ACRONYM announced it would spend $75 million on digital advertising to counter Trumps online spending onslaught.

Three months later, that deluge of spending has barely begun, despite McGowans public urgency: ACRONYM spent only $781,000 on advertising on Facebook and Google since the start of November, according to the tracking firm Advertising Analytics. (It has likely spent some money other places online, but Google and Facebook are major hubs for political advertising.)

ACRONYM had also announced last year it would spend $1 million on digital ads focused on impeaching Trump, but with its total spending at less than $1 million, its not clear whether that spending materialized.

Tharp, the ACRONYM spokesperson, wrote in an email that ACRONYM has spent spent several million dollars since July 2019 across Facebook, Google, Hulu under various campaign and brand names.

On Monday, Shadow was one part of a caucus meltdown that could have ramifications for years to come on Iowas first-in-the-nation status. Precinct captains reported issues logging into Shadow, and the Iowa Democratic Party said a coding issue was to blame for the technical woes.

By Tuesday, Shadow had issued an apology, tweeting, We sincerely regret the delay in the reporting of the results of last nights Iowa caucuses and the uncertainty it has caused to the candidates, their campaigns, and Democratic caucus-goers.

And the Nevada Democratic Party, which has also paid Shadow, preemptively announced that it would not use the app.

NV Dems can confidently say that what happened in the Iowa caucus last night will not happen in Nevada on February 22nd. We will not be employing the same app or vendor used in the Iowa caucus, state party chairman William McCurdy II said in a statement.

Zach Montellaro and Laura Barron-Lopez contributed to this report.

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The divisive Democratic operative behind Shadow, the app that broke Iowa - POLITICO

Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville sounded the alarm bells on Tuesday night over what he described as the Democratic Party turning into an ideological cult, specifically singling out would-be presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

In the wake of Monday nights chaotic Iowa Democratic caucus that featured delayed vote results due to a faulty app, Carville appeared on MSNBC to warn that regardless of the final tallies, the Dems appear to be in big trouble.

The polling averages have not been very good the last 10 days, he sighed. And Ive seen some pretty good polls that show enthusiasm among Democrats is not as high as we would like it. So theres something as people are watching this process that is concerning.

Saying the party needs to wake up and make sure that we talk about things that are relevant to people, the former Clinton adviser grumbled that he is not very impressed with the Democratic field and suggested DNC chair Tom Perez should be canned.

After complaining that the campaigns have to be more relevant, Carvillewho is backing longshot presidential hopeful Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) was asked if he would get behind Sanders if the progressive senator ended up getting the nomination.

Well, Ill get behind him. I have no choice, an unenthused Carville replied. But look at the British Labour Party. Were like talking about people voting from jail cells. Were talking about not having a border. I mean, come on, people.

He continued to rail against Sanders policy positions, describing the independent Vermont lawmaker as being for open borders and stressing that he doesnt want the Democratic Party of the United States to be the Labour Party of the United Kingdom, something he's told The Daily Beast before.

Carville would go on to exclaim that Democrats need to be more concerned about taking power back in Washington, repeatedly stating that only 18 percent of the population controls 52 Senate seats.

It matters who the candidate is, it matters what a party chooses to talk about! Carville shouted. Im 75 years old. Why am I here doing this? Because I am scared to death, thats why! Lets get relevant here, people, for sure.

I just love you, former Democratic senator and current MSNBC contributor Claire McCaskill cooed in response.

Carville, meanwhile, went on to make his case that the party was leaning towards a centrist candidate over a liberal one, wondering out loud: Do we want to be an ideological cult? Or do we want to have a majoritarian instinct to have the majority party?

You and I know that 18 percent of the country elects 52 senators, he continued, addressing McCaskill. The urban core is not gonna get it done. What we need is power! Do you understand? Thats what this is about.

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James Carville Rages Over State of Dem Party: 'I'm Scared to Death!' - The Daily Beast