10 June 2019 — 0659 mdt
If Steve Bullock is denied the Presidential debate stage,
he must get rowdy, raise a ruckus, and go rogue
Montana Governor Steve Bullock, a Democrat twice elected as the chief executive of a Republican leaning state, is running for President. But thanks to the Democratic National Committee’s delusional rules, he probably won’t be running onto the Democratic debate stage in late June. Starting later than most, he hasn’t raised enough money in enough places, and he hasn’t hit one percent or higher in the polls blessed by the DNC.
But Marianne Williamson, a 66-year-old college dropout (she dabbled in theater) and self-help guru who writes the kind of books that bolster the low self-esteem of Kumbayacrats, and who never has held political office, apparently has qualified to stand beside Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren. By the DNC’s calculus, she’s a better choice for President than a man with Bullock’s experience.
If the debates’ lineup includes Williamson but not Bullock, the DNC will distinguish itself not as a wise gatekeeper that takes seriously its responsibility to encourage candidates of Presidential timber, but as a crass manager of show horses that values popularity and the ability to raise money above all.
That won’t help Bullock or any other Democratic candidate for President.
But it will especially hurt Bullock by denying him the national stage he needs to introduce himself to nation outside of Montana.
Excluding him from the debate is unfair and stupid, but he needs to do more than complain. If he’s not in the debate, he and hordes of his followers, if he has hordes following him, should get rowdy, raise a ruckus, and go rogue. He has nothing to lose by doing so — and he can start by organizing a flamboyant protest outside the debate hall. This is the time for A.O.C. and Black Lives Matter tactics.
Beyond that, he needs to be more than a one trick pony. His campaign website touts “One Big Idea,” campaign finance reform. That’s a good plank for any Democrat’s platform, but one plank does not a platform make. He needs to add — pronto — strong planks on health care, energy, immigration, economic reform, global warming, and restoring respect for American in international relations. And, he needs to avoid embracing dangerous ideas such as racial reparations.
If he doesn’t make the debates, that’s his only path to survival. That path is clear enough, but it requires a swashbuckling personality he may not be able to produce. Brian Schweitzer was a consummate political showman who used a branding iron to veto bad bills. Bullock is a button-down guy who’s more comfortable making a statement with a ballpoint pen than with a smoking hot cattle scorcher, and he may not be able to muster the Wild West Show he needs to survive the DNC’s duplicity and idiocy
.