Re: 2020 Democratic Challengers: Who ISN'T Running At This Point?
Yup, that's the whole point of having the nominating contest! Of the so-called "scandals" that have popped up I'd say O'Rourke (DUI in past) and Harris (banging senior colleague then getting promotion out of it) handled theirs well. Sanders took a few days to clean up a tone deaf comment about sexual harassment in his 2016 campaign but doesn't seem any worse off because of it. Jury's still out on Biden's "invasion of personal space".
On the flip side, Klobuchar still looks bad trying to turn the a sshole boss thing into a positive. Warren not being forthright about how often she claimed Native American ancestry continues to haunt her unfortunately and I don't see where Gillenbrand has any credibility as the chief MeToo warrior when her own office and herself failed to handle a sexual harassment accusation against a top staffer.
In the future, everyone will have a "lethal disqualifying scandal" that will last for 15 minutes and then be either resolved, tabled, or forgotten.
It is healthy to be going through this interregnum of OH NOES OH MY GOD THATS IT I'M DONE WITH YOU scandals publicly as it demonstrates to even the dumbest people in the gen pop and the even sadder sacks in the national media what smart people have understood for years: the automatic rush to pillory is
exactly the same instinct as the automatic rush to whitewash. Or, as somebody brilliant ahem said years ago, alleged victims have a right to be heard, not to be believed.
We are having a national discussion about things like assault, harassment, intimidation, privilege, and everyday swine-bro dou-chebaggery. It's getting discussed whereas it used to fester and be private shame and pain. Two cheers for having people talking about it, even though that invites the trolls and the haters and reinforces the godawful truth that 90% of the population can't think its way out of a paper bag. Eventually, we'll all be better for it. The genuinely evil f-cktards who want to perpetuate hierarchies and oppression use silence and shame to ram their agenda implicitly down everyone's throats. Sunlight is a disinfectant, even if it also reveals how gross your neighbors are.