Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
What segment of voters will decide the next presidential election?
The same people who always do – the mainstream.
Two decisions in the last two weeks may underline this.
Joe Biden's announcement to change his longtime support for the Hyde amendment was a step out of the mainstream, if you will, while Donald Trump's calling off a planned military strike against Iran was a foot kept firmly in it.
These two moves, plus recent history of Republicans may portend the future.
Why would Biden drop his support for what makes it so no federal tax dollars pay for abortion? Why now?
Biden explained that his reason was based on accessibility, as affected by the new, stricter abortion laws being passed by some states (pending court challenges). Is his reasoning honest, or does he feel a pull to join “the new Democratic party”?
This moment, despite all of the talk of the leftward new “socialist” Democrats, is much like the post-Obama first election years for the Republicans. At this point of the 2012 campaign, Republicans were taking Michele Bachmann seriously. It was the height of the Tea Party, which gave us people like Ted Cruz.
But when it came time to get serious and nominate a presidential candidate, they went with a standard-issue Republican, Mitt Romney.
The party, even though losing in 2012, kept a claim to the mainstream.
Then they won the next time, something they never would have done if they allowed the post-Obama Tea Party realm to take over.
Now the Democrats are in a similar spot.
What’s at stake is who decided Trump’s election. Because, as much as we hear about his crazed “base,” Trump won by mainstream voters. Those few million in those three states who voted for Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016. These people weren't idealogues or die-hards, they were just voters.
Trump picked up another feather in his cap for this kind of support last week when he called off the military strike against Iran. We were going to kill an estimated 150 people, and injure and maim how many more, all over a shot-down unmanned drone and mine attacks on oil tankers?
Trump ultimately said, as if talking to George W. Bush-era Republican leadership, “Are you serious?”
Unlike back then, the mainstream is with Trump on this. By contrast, the George W. era foreign policy lost the mainstream, and thus control of Congress, then the presidency.
Now it’s Biden’s turn to watch his step.
Trump seems to want to always keep one foot in the mainstream – either because that's where his sentiments often lie, or that he just wants good ratings.
Biden needs to remember that Democrats may play in these side tributaries for another five or six months, but that's it. Then it's the real thing, and the mainstream voter wants a real choice in 2020.
Biden needs to make sure to keep his claim to it.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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