Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Say what you will about the over-crowded and rambunctious Republican presidential debate stage, but one thing is certain- the GOP primary is being driven by outsider candidates and fresh faces. In fact, the only “dynasty” candidate, Jeb Bush, is polling nationally in the single digits.
Can the same be said for the Democrats? No way.
Political consultant Ed Rogers wrote a commentary for the Washington Post that discusses the short and long-term implications of the Democrat’s “fresh face problem.”
There is something wrong with the Democratic Party. The candidate who is providing the only real sizzle in the Democratic presidential race right now is Bernie Sanders, a 74-year-old socialist senator from Vermont who is something of a oddball. Hillary Clinton, their front-runner, a soon-to-be 68-year-old party stalwart, is stale, bogged down in scandal and can’t draw a crowd. So, who is it that many in the Democratic Party are looking to as the party’s “savior” in the face of the unremarkable Democratic field so far?
Answer: Joe Biden, a 72-year-old, former six-term senator from Delaware and the current vice president. And this isn’t the only evidence that the Democrats have a problem. There is fundamentally something wrong with their candidate pool. In the 2014 midterm elections, the Democrats’ top two senatorial candidates, Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky and Michelle Nunn in Georgia, were generational retreads trying to capitalize on famous fathers from a generation ago. And the Democrats’ trophy gubernatorial candidate, Charlie Crist, was a former Republican governor of Florida.
So what does this say about the Democratic Party?
Read the rest at the Washington Post here.
