Democrats need to accomplish something — anything — if they hope to win the White House in 2020 | Opinion

Coming off a decisive victory in the 2018 midterm elections and with President Trump’s approval numbers consistently languishing in the mid-40s, you would think Democrats would be deliriously optimistic about the 2020 presidential campaign. Oddly, among the political donor and chattering class in Miami, I find the opposite is true. I can think of several reasons for this.

First, the fact that there are more than 20 Democratic candidates is enough to dull the senses. The latest financial reports offer empirical evidence that no candidate is catching fire in Florida. Last month, Bernie Sanders led fundraising in Florida with only $250,000, which is chump change for our state. Further, current polls show two white men over 70 years old, Biden and Sanders, are leading the pack. Although polling is meaningless this early, it may be chilling the energy that women and young voters brought to the 2018 election.

With so many candidates, the media are stoking what President Obama warned can be a circular firing squad. Every time we see a candidate light a spark, opposition efforts — sometimes stoked by the media — snuff it out. For example, Sen. Kamala Harris had a successful launch to her candidacy and then was vigorously assaulted for her record as a prosecutor; Beto O’Rourke surged in the Iowa polls and then was ridiculed for having belonged to a punk-rock band; Bernie Sanders has been charged with the high crime of becoming a millionaire; and even admired former Vice President, Joe Biden was excoriated for inappropriate proximity to women.

Which leads to another issue perplexing and infuriating many political elites (and many voters, as we should have learned from Trump) — that is, the political correctness coursing through the Democratic Party. Whether it is white privilege, what constitutes free speech or inauthentic apologies for inappropriate behavior, it is a confusing and fractious time. Trump is the master of exploiting the divisions this creates, and a lot of Democrats worry that he will do so successfully in 2020.

Just as the election of tea party Republicans disrupted their party in 2010, the increased number of left-of-center progressives elected in 2018 are having a similar effect on the Democrats. Although it was the large number of moderates from red states who helped the Democrats take control of the House, it appears to the public that younger progressives dominate the party’s agenda and will impose a rigid litmus test on presidential candidates. Older, more conservative donors fret about this, and I have heard more than one say they would vote for Donald Trump over Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.

Another potential storm I hear from some local Democrats is the consternation over the increasing pro-BDS and anti-Israel rhetoric coming from some quarters of the Democratic Party. In an area where much of the party’s donor base is Jewish, this could become locally significant. While minimal in actual numbers, it is highly amplified on social media and it didn’t help that all the candidates currently serving in the U.S. Senate (with the exception of Amy Klobuchar) did not vote for, or were absent for, the anti-BDS resolution. This chasm could metastasize and have a corrosive effect on fund-raising, which would be devastating to the Democratic Party.

Finally, many Democratic activists are fatigued by a dysfunctional Congress and media obsessively focused immigration and the Mueller investigation. These two issues are clearly not enough to win. It is critical that the party change the narrative. If the Democratic House passed some meaningful initiatives, then the eventual Democratic presidential nominee could deflect criticism from the right by pointing to the work of the House as a reflection of the party. For example, an infrastructure program, a green plan or enhancements to Obamacare would set a positive and electable tone.

This is merely a snapshot of how some leading Democrats are feeling today. Once a nominee is in place and there is the stark choice of getting on board or facing four more years of Trump, it will surely change. In the meantime, a little attitude adjustment would help.

Mike Abrams is former chairman of the Dade Democratic Party, a former state legislator and currently a policy adviser to Ballard Partners.

This story was originally published May 7, 2019 at 8:03 PM.