Marianne Williamson who ran in the Democratic primary the last time around
has launched her bid to challenge Joe Biden assuming he runs.
And very early on she announced that part of it was some of the moves Joe Biden and
the Democratic Party have made, to try to make it more difficult for
challengers in the future saying, how can you claim to be a champion of democracy
when your own processes so undemocratic?
That is of course a reference to something we've already covered on the show, the DNC
announcing a sweeping overhaul of the Democratic primary process in particular,
which states are gonna be voting first.
And these are not small changes.
Democrats voted to endorse a proposal that starts the 2024 Democratic presidential
primary circuit on February 3 in South Carolina.
New Hampshire and Nevada are scheduled to follow on February 6,
Georgia on February 13, and then Michigan on February 27.
I think that there is a very plausible case to be made that this is better
representative of the Democratic Party, and all of that stuff.
It also seems to be designed to help Joe Biden people like him when presidential
primaries, both of those things can be true at the same time.
This is gonna give a lot more early political power and
representation to black voters inside of the Democratic primary.
It is just also the fact that Joe Biden believes that that will help him
more than some potentially progressive challengers.
We'll see how that plays out in reality, but I like that Marianne Williamson is
again, we've been talking about people not being willing to differentiate themselves.
She's focusing on a big change that maybe could have been handled in a different
way, and saying that she is going to be a credible challenger.
She obviously had difficulty generating a massive base last time around, but
she raised some interesting issues.
We interviewed her here on the show in studio.
David, what do you think about this?
I believe the first announced challenger to Joe Biden.
>> I'm not sure that she has gonna be the strongest candidate, but
she is absolutely right about the DNC having his thumb on the scale to
help Joe Biden and to tamp down any challenges progressive or otherwise.
And he looked back to 2020 and
Bernie Sanders did super well in Iowa New Hampshire and that sort of catapulted him,
he was in the catbird seat and then the Democrats decided to
coalesce around Joe Biden, and he won South Carolina and
that sort of stopped the bleeding and Joe Biden goes on to the nomination.
So by starting with South Carolina again Joe Biden stronghold, and again the first
primaries the first caucus or primary gets huge attention for the media, and
helps whoever wins get huge amounts of donations and more power and momentum.
So this is the Joe Biden reelection for your nomination plan to help him.
I just think though that it becomes even more interesting if Joe Biden has some
sort of health issues in the next couple of months decides that he cannot run.
Maybe this is also part of the DNC saying okay well now
we're gonna make sure that at least a progressive who
might do well in a Democratic Iowa Democratic New Hampshire primary cannot
do the same thing in 2020 Bernie Sanders did.
And this essentially plants the seed for any sort of establishment
Democrat to get off to a great start if it's not Joe Biden.
>> Maybe although I have to imagine when this was announced, Pete Buddha judges
probably like shucks because I don't think he's gonna do real well with this map.
That said I'm kind of in a weird position because I don't like
when something like this is done so clearly to benefit one politician.
But I also think why should those states get to vote first rather than having
to sort of just like rubber stamp what's already been going on.
Why should it be Iowa New Hampshire is still in there, but
at least it's not only new Hampshire and Iowa Nevada by the way is the state that
Bernie Sanders has done very well and he won it the last time around.
And I get that at least for Joe Biden.
He seems to have an advantage in some of these early states but
why shouldn't a progressive be able to do well in Georgia and
why shouldn't you need to win over those sorts of states to be the candidates.
So I'm really torn, I don't like the backroom deals, but
I also think that there's no reason why progressives should needlessly like
conceived that this whole portion of the country isn't a place they can do well in.
I mean, why would that be >> Right, and I would argue that let's,
let's just for argument's sake, let's suppose Joe Biden's not running and
Bernie Sanders says, I'm gonna give this another shot.
I think if Bernie Sanders is starting in a place like south Carolina
where he can make his economic populist appeals as opposed to only having a couple
of days after Iowa new Hampshire and suddenly rushing into south Carolina,
hoping for the momentum.
If he can start with this message for a couple of months in South Carolina,
I actually think the progressive message there would do very well with Democrats
who just haven't been exposed to it that much.
And then if you do well in south Carolina, you go to favorable turf in
Iowa New Hampshire and suddenly maybe you've won the first three and
the nomination is yours, and at that point the establishment cannot stop you.
So there may be some advantages here for progressives because they can take their
message for several weeks now to South Carolina and say this is the first one.
We have to concentrate on South Carolina first.
And I think they can do well.
>> Well, we'll see we're gonna be we're gonna be covering it in depth.
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