Willie Brown, the former speaker of the California House, says the Democrats won’t beat President Trump with anyone in their lineup.
Writing in his column for the San Francisco Chronicle, Brown even dissed his former mistress, Senator Kamala Harris, and knocked former Vice President Joe Biden down a peg as well.
Indeed, not one Democrat impressed Brown, no matter how those Democrats are performing against Trump in the polling averages posted at Real Clear Politics.
One by One
Brown’s evaluation of the field took up just a part of his column, which also discussed the city school board’s vote to cover a mural at San Francisco’s George Washington High School that depicts the first president, even thought it depicts him in an unflattering light.
“The first Democratic debates proved one thing,” Brown wrote. “We still don’t have a candidate who can beat Donald Trump.”
Brown dismantled the field in nine short sentences. He began with Harris, who rose to political power, as one wag wrote, while serving under Brown in several positions.
Brown wrote that Harris sounded like she favored forced busing when she attacked former Vice President Joe Biden for his letters on the subject to “segregationist” Senator James O. Eastland of Mississippi:
California Sen. Kamala Harris got all the attention for playing prosecutor in chief, but her case against former Vice President Joe Biden boiled down in some ways to a ringing call for forced school busing. It won’t be too hard for Trump to knock that one out of the park in 2020.
Then again, Brown wrote, Biden’s answer to Harris didn’t sound all that great either:
Biden did himself zero favors by telling Harris that he opposed only busing that was ordered by the federal government. It was a weird endorsement of states’ rights and local jurisdictions’ right to segregate schools. That’s the best argument he could marshal against busing little kids miles across town?
Senator Elizabeth Warren, the senator from Massachusetts who claimed she is an Indian, faced a “lineup of pygmies,” he wrote.
“New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker got a lot of air time, and while his delivery sparkled, I’m not sure the content of his answers on gun control and the like made much of an impact,” Brown wrote.
Concluded Brown, “Trump must have enjoyed every moment and every answer, because he now knows he’s looking at a bunch of potential rivals who are still not ready for prime time.”
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The Polls
The polls show otherwise. Trump is behind every one of the top five Democratic candidates: Biden, Sanders, Warren, Harris, and Buttigieg.
The Real Clear Politics average from March 17 through June 24 puts Biden 8.9 percent ahead of Trump, 49.4 to 40.5. His biggest lead most recently was 13 points, 53-40, in a poll from Quinnipiac University in early June.
RCP has Sanders ahead of Trump 49.7-43.2, a 6.5-point lead. Sanders’ largest lead was 10 points, 55-45, in a poll from Emerson last week.
Harris leads Trump by 3.2 points, 47-43.8, but has never led by more than eight points.
Warren leads Trump by 3.6 points, 48.3-44.7, and even homosexual South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg beats Trump 45.3-43.2.
The polling data might well show Trump losing to a Democrat, most notably Biden, who had a “landslide” lead a few weeks ago, but Hillary Clinton had that same “landslide” lead in the polls — right up to Election Day, 2016.
Democrat Fight
As the fight for the Democratic nomination goes, Biden still leads by commanding margins, the data show.
The RCP average from June 6 through June 28 puts Biden 14.5 points ahead of his closest competitor, socialist Bernie Sanders, 31.4-16.9.
Warren comes in third with 12.6 points, and Harris is fourth with 7.8. Buttigieg stands in fifth at 6.5
After that, the fortunes for the other candidates drop precipitously: Beto O’Rourke is at three, Booker at 2.3, and Andrew Yang at 1.3. The other six candidates are below one.
Trump vs. Weld
Trump faces just one GOP opponent, William Weld, who ran as a Libertarian in 2016.
Weld’s numbers aren’t just low; they’re embarrassingly low.
RCP polling data from March 1 through June 24 put Trump over the former governor of Massachusetts by 72 points, 81.3 to 9.3.
A USA Today/Suffolk poll in early June put Trump ahead of Weld by 85 points.
Photo: AP Images
