Are the Democrats Completely Screwing This Up?
In journalism, there are times when you write a headline for a story and within hours of that story’s publication the headline is outdated, stale, old news. What can you do? The news cycle moves fast.
Rarer are the times when you come up with a headline that feels more timely and on-point as time goes by.
Such was the case with my latest story on the 2020 presidential race and the muddle of a fight for the Democratic nomination. I wrote the headline — “Are the Democrats Completely Screwing This Up?” — on the day before the Iowa caucus. Now, two weeks later, with Iowa and New Hampshire in the rear-view, that headline — and the story itself — have only gotten more timely.
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Are the Democrats Completely Screwing This Up?
Even before the Iowa caucus, the 2020 campaign felt like it had gone on forever. Is this primary going to help — or hurt — the eventual nominee’s ability to defeat Trump?
Rolling Stone | February 2, 2020
Take your mind back there. Miami. June 2019. Two nights, 20 candidates. A portrait of the Democratic Party in miniature assembled onstage, mics on, ready to debate.
They are U.S. senators and House members, governors and a mayor, a refreshingly human economic futurist and a self-help guru best known as Oprah’s spiritual adviser. They are young and old, black and white and Asian and brown, wealthy and in debt, gay and straight, war veterans, hailing from all parts of the country. They are, as Democratic chairman Tom Perez proudly points out, “the most diverse field in our nation’s history.”
Feels like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?
There was a sense of possibility and optimism on that stage. Fast forward six months. The leading Democratic candidates are all white. Three are men, and three are older than 70. Meanwhile two old white billionaires are buying their way into contention by spending hundreds of millions of their personal fortunes. At this point four years ago, the top candidates for the Republican nomination were more diverse than the Democratic frontrunners today. Many politicians hailed as the Future of The Party — Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Julián Castro, Kirsten Gillibrand, Beto O’Rourke — are gone, exiting the race before a single vote was cast.
“They wanted a big, fluid, multicultural field — they didn’t get it,” says Jeff Roe, a Republican political consultant who ran Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign. “They wanted a new generation of leadership — they didn’t get it. They didn’t get any of the things they wanted.”
Instead of writing the 5,000th story trying to predict the outcome in Iowa or New Hampshire, Rolling Stone asked dozens of people — campaign staffers, volunteers, activists, pollsters, party officials, voters — to reflect on the campaign so far. We wanted to know: What happened? Why did the Democratic primary get so white? Why have known brands and familiar faces led the pack? Why are so many Democratic voters undecided after a year of campaigning? Did the Democratic National Committee screw this up? Or is this what the voters wanted?